Intoxicated with the feeling of hope
That comes with a sense of a newfound purpose
I now dress in my finest suit ahead of my meeting with destiny
I face the broken shell of a man staring from the mirror for one final farewell
His gaze begs for sympathy but his pleading falls on deaf ears
Because I have left but the only choice
To walk hand in hand with the ever-present harbinger of sorrow
Into the unknown yet obvious

With a genuine smile on my face
The first one in so many years
I cast the impure parts of myself
Into the salivating jaws of hell
To be purified and cleansed
To be finally beautified through a lifetime spent
Drowning in the most agonizing of pains

Tonight
Tonight, I'll ascend
To illuminate the night
With my blazing
Remains…

I’ve been a security guard at Somatic Self Storage for a few years now. I’d lost my previous job due to the first round of Covid lockdowns, and at the time, getting hired here seemed like a godsend. It pays more than double the average rate for a security guard around here, despite it otherwise being a pretty standard job. The only catch was that I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement regarding exactly what it was we were keeping in storage.

Maybe I was naïve to think that nothing nefarious was going on, or maybe I’m just a selfish prick who was persuaded to turn a blind eye for a few extra dollars, but up until recently, I honestly had no solid proof that any of our clients weren’t here willingly.

Somatic Self Storage is located in our town’s old industrial district. It’s mostly abandoned, other than a few small manufacturing plants owned by a local tech company, and self-storage is just about the only legitimate business that can survive out there now. There are three or four other self-storage facilities nearby, and from the outside, ours doesn’t look like anything special. The entire lot’s bricked off so that no one can see inside, with several modern storage garages built around an old factory that was converted into our primary building.

The units that are accessible from the outside are perfectly normal, and rented out to the general public to keep anyone from getting too suspicious. But the indoor units are a different story. Some of our clients keep some personal items in them, sure, but the main thing we keep in the indoor units are people.

Our clients aren’t living in their storage units. I know that’s a thing that happens, but it’s not what’s going on at Somatic Self Storage. We aren’t keeping dead bodies there either. I wouldn’t have stayed there this long if that’s what was going on.

The first time the owner – a self-assured fop by the name of Seneca Chamberlain – showed me the inside of one of the storage units, I thought I was looking at some kind of wax statue. The body didn’t show any signs of life, but it didn’t show any signs of decay either. It wasn’t alive, it wasn’t dead, it just… was.

“There’s more than one way to live forever, some of them more enjoyable than others,” Chamberlain mused as he blithely lifted up the lid of the glass coffin that contained the body.

“I don’t understand, sir. Is this some kind of cryonics facility?” I asked.

“Of course not! Cryogenic temperatures turn living cells into mush!” Chamberlain replied aghast. “There’s also not a single cryonics facility in the world that currently offers reanimation services, which rather defeats the point, wouldn’t you say? Our clients expect their bodies to be kept in mint condition and reclaimable at a moment’s notice, and that’s precisely what we deliver! I like to call what we offer ‘holistic metabolic respite’. It appeals more to the chemophobic 'whole foods' types. For all practical intents and purposes, these bodies are alchemically frozen in time. There’s no damage and no side effects; just a single instant stretched out for as long as we wish. Go ahead and touch the body. You’ll notice there’s no heartbeat, no breath, but that it’s still warm.”

Hesitantly, I slowly reached out and pressed the back of my index and middle fingers up against the body’s neck. There was no response or pulse, but it was still warm and felt very much alive.

“How is this possible?” I gasped, pulling away in confusion. “Is the casket keeping them like that?”

“Heavens no! This Sleeping Beauty set-up is merely for show,” Chamberlain explained with a slight chuckle. “Well, that’s not entirely true. If they ever start to wake up prematurely, you’ll notice the glass above their face begin to fog. Keep an eye out for that or any other disturbances you may notice during your rounds and note it in your log.”

“But what do I do if they wake up?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t lose any sleep over that, my dear boy,” Seneca reassured me. “You see, my business partner is very adept at refining the humours of living creatures, amplifying desirable traits and removing unwanted ones. In this case, he’s altered their thermodynamic properties to eliminate entropy without needing to cool them down to absolute zero. Or, if you prefer to think of it this way, he raised absolute zero to body temperature. Either way, their bodies are completely still on a fundamental level. A carefully prepared philtre must be specially applied to catalyze the reanimation process, ensuring that they remain pristinely inert until we desire otherwise.”

“Then… why the glass caskets?” I asked.

“Err… yes. Obviously, no process is a hundred percent effective, and occasionally the humours may not have been refined to the required purity,” Seneca admitted. “In these cases, it’s possible that certain impurities left in the body can catalyze reanimation on their own. But this is always a rather ghastly and drawn-out affair, giving us plenty of time to intervene. If you see any signs that a client is waking up, like fog on the glass, simply report it and we’ll handle the rest.”

“But, if someone does wake up, like, completely wakes up, what do I –” I started to ask.  

“I said not to lose any sleep over it,” Chamberlain cut me off abruptly, his tone making it clear I was to let the matter drop. “Any more questions?”

“I… I still don’t understand why these people are here,” I admitted. “You called them clients. They’re here willingly? They paid for this?”

“They paid good money. Enough for us to throw in the glass caskets free of charge,” he nodded, gently knocking on the casket beside him with his knuckles.  

“But, why? Are they sick? What do they gain by doing this?” I asked.

“It’s self-storage,” Chamberlain shrugged. “It’s where you keep things you don’t need at the moment but can’t bring yourself to part with. For some people, that includes their bodies. As a consummate professional, I never pry into the private lives of our clientele. I suggest you make that your guiding maxim, as well.”

I never got anything more than that out of Mr. Chamberlain, not that I ever saw him very much. Somatic Self Storage was just a turnkey operation for him. For the past few years, I’ve just shown up, made my rounds, helped the regular customers and service people, investigated anything out of the ordinary and dealt with trespassers. Other than the clients in storage, it was a pretty normal security gig.

There’s only been a few times that I’ve noticed any fog on the glass caskets, and each time I did exactly what Chamberlain told me to. I made a note of it in my report, and the next day everything would be fine. If that was the weirdest thing that had ever happened, I’d probably still be doing that job right now.

But yesterday, for the first time, I heard the sound of glass shattering.

The noise instantly jolted me out of my seat. My first and worst thought was that one of my clients was not only awake but ambulatory, but there was plenty of other glass in the building besides those caskets, I told myself. I checked all the camera feeds on my security desk, along with all the input from the door and window sensors, and quickly ruled out the possibility of a break-in. The place was as impregnable as an Egyptian tomb. Nothing could get in. Or out.

Grabbing hold of my baton and checking to make sure that my taser was fully charged, I set off to locate the source of the disturbance.

“Is anyone in here?” I shouted authoritatively as I marched down the hallways. “You are trespassing on private property! Identify yourself!”

My commands were initially met with utter silence, and for a moment it seemed plausible that some precariously placed fragile thing had finally fallen from its ill-chosen resting spot.

But then I turned a corner, and found a trail of bloodied glass shards littering the floor. The trail had of course started in one of the storage cells, where the glass casket lay in ruins, becoming sparser and sparser as it meandered down the hall before dissipating entirely.

“Hello! Are you hurt?” I shouted as I burst out into a sprint.

Receiving no reply, I headed in the same direction as the glass trail and checked every cell or possible hiding space along the way until I hit a dead end.

It didn’t make any sense. There was nowhere a human being could hide that I hadn’t looked. The vents were small enough that a fat raccoon had once gotten stuck in one, so there was no way anyone could be crawling around inside of them.

Deciding that the best thing to do would be to review the surveillance footage, I promptly made my way back to my desk.

I came to a dead stop when I saw someone sitting in my chair.

There was no question that he was the client that had broken out of the casket. I knew the faces of all the clients entrusted to my care well. He was an older man, balding with deeply sunken eyes and bony cheeks. I could see that shards of glass were still embedded into his fists, leaving no doubt that he had punched his way out. Though he sat expectantly with his hands clasped, I could tell by the look on his face that he wasn’t oblivious to the pain.

“Did you call it in yet?” he asked flatly.

“Sir, please, you’re bleeding,” I said as I let my baton clatter to the ground, slowly raising my hands over my head so as not to provoke him. “I know you must be disoriented, but –”

“Do disoriented patients leave false trails and then double back?” he asked rhetorically. “I know exactly where I am and what’s going on. More than you do, I’d wager. Now answer my question; did you call it in yet?”

“No. Chamberlain doesn’t know about this yet,” I replied.

“Good. Throw your taser on the ground,” he ordered.

“…Or?” I asked, as it hardly seemed that he was in a position to threaten me.

“Your desk phone here has Chamberlain on speed dial. All I have to do is press it, and if he hears even one word from me he’ll know what’s happened,” he explained. “He’ll be afraid of what I might have told you, and that wouldn’t end up very well for you.”

I considered the validity of his threat against any physical risk he might pose to me, and quickly decided to relinquish my taser.

“Trusting your life to a stranger rather than Seneca Chamberlain? You know him well, then,” the old man smirked. “Kick the taser over to me.”

I complied without a fuss, but he had made no mention of my baton, which I made sure to stay within easy reaching distance of.

He bent down and scooped up the taser, wasting no time in pointing it directly at me.

“Now tell me the codes to disable the security system,” he ordered.

“Or what? You’ll taser me? That won’t get you out of here,” I replied. “You talking to me is one thing, but if I actively help you escape, I’m definitely screwed. On the other hand, if I take a taser hit rather than let you loose, that might actually earn me some favour with the boss. So go ahead, fire away.”

The old man groaned in frustration, and it relieved me greatly to know we were at an impasse.

“Kid, do you even know why he’s keeping us here?” he asked.

“He told me it was some kind of alchemical suspended animation,” I replied. “He’s always been vague about exactly why you were in suspension, but he told me that you were here willingly. Said you even paid good money for it.”

“Oh, we paid for it, son. Believe me,” he said with a grim shake of his head. “Did he mention his partner Raubritter at all?”

“Yeah. He said he was the one who did this to you,” I replied.

“There’s an old abandoned factory not far from here. The Fawn & Raubritter Foundry, it was called,” the man replied. “Over a hundred years ago, there was a worker uprising and fire that killed Fawn. Officially it’s been abandoned ever since, but anyone who’s managed to get inside knows that’s not true. When there’s a lot of death in one place, especially death that’s sudden, violent, and tragic, it scars the very fabric of reality around it, weakens it, and Raubritter capitalized on that before the burnt and bloodied ground even had a chance to heal. He claimed the deaths of his partner and indentured workers as a sacrifice to… well, I suppose you could call them a ‘Titan’ of industry. The burnt-out interior of his foundry was hallowed and translocated to some strange and ungodly netherworld, one where acid rains fall from jaundiced clouds upon a landscape of ever-churning mud writhing with the monstrous larva of god-eating insects. I’ve been inside that foundry, and I’ve looked out those windows into a world where the ruins of both nature and industry rot and rust side by side, everything eating each other until there was nothing left, and still the god who calls it his Eden hungers for more! Using that Foundry as his sanctuary, Raubritter refined his alchemy until he could transmogrify any body, living or dead, into anything he wanted, and what he wanted was a workforce of mindlessly devoted slaves. Workers who could never even slack off, let alone rebel. I’ve seen them, the abominations inside the Foundry, and if I don’t get out of here, that’s what I’ll become!”

“Sir, please, you’re talking nonsense. You’re delirious from the after-effects of whatever was keeping you in suspended animation,” I tried to assuage him. “There’s no magical, extra-dimensional factory with zombie workers. And how would you even know if there was?”

“Because; I had a job interview there,” he said with a bitter smirk. “Everything I just told you, Raubritter told me himself. He’s quite proud of all he’s accomplished, you see. I wanted to know what the hell was going on in there and he was all too happy to explain it. All of his workers are technically there by choice, though it was usually the only choice they had.  I was… well, that doesn’t matter now, I guess, but if I didn’t sign up with Raubritter I knew I was a dead man. But it seems that Raubritter is facing a bit of a labour surplus at the moment, and since his labour costs are already as low as he could get them, he needed another way to turn this to his benefit. That’s what Somatic Self Storage is for, kid. Me, and everyone else here, are surplus population. For less than the cost of an overpriced cup of coffee a day, he keeps us tucked away for when the labour market becomes less favourable to him. He’ll never have to worry about being short on manpower so long as he has us to fall back on, and apparently letting us age like wine before rolling us out into the factory floor is great for productivity. But if we wake up, that means we’re more resistant to his alchemical concoctions than he’d like, and we’re no good to him as workers. All we’re good for is parts. I’m a dead man now whether I stay or go, so I may as well try to stay alive as long as I can. Tell me the codes, son, and let me out of here.”   

“Sir, I don’t think just letting you walk out of here is the best option for either of us,” I tried to persuade him. “Maybe we should call Chamberlain and see if we can convince him to –”

He fired the prongs of the taser at me before I could finish. Fortunately, I was quick on my feet, and his aim wasn’t the greatest, so they just barely missed.

“Fucking hell!” he cursed as he jumped up from his chair.

He tried to make a run for it, but I grabbed my baton off the ground and struck him with it across the back of the head. I heard him cry out as he collapsed to the floor, and I raised my baton again, ready to strike him down should he try to get back up.

But there was no need. He just laid there on the floor, clasping the back of his head, softly whimpering in defeat.

With a guilty sigh, I walked over to my desk and phoned it in.

It was a matter of minutes before Chamberlain’s private security detail barged in. They swarmed the helpless old man and dragged him off out of my sight, while two remained behind to ensure that I didn’t go anywhere before Chamberlain himself came and decided what to do with me. They didn’t say much to me, and I didn’t say much to them either, but I caught the muffled shouts of the others as they interrogated the old man, whose soft and pitiful pleas were just loud enough to hear.

Though it felt like hours, it wasn’t much longer before I saw Chamberlain strutting towards me, clad as always in a three-piece burgundy suit and top hat. I mentioned that I started working for him during the Pandemic, and when I first met him, he had been wearing this snarling Oni half-mask made of gold laid over top of his black medical mask. It had made quite the impression on me, and it’s an image of him I’ve never been able to shake.

He was flanked by a bodyguard to each side, and behind him, I recognized the similarly dressed if much less approachable figure of Raubritter, who I saw was carrying an old-fashioned leather medical bag with him.

“Right this way, Herr Raubritter,” one of my guards said as he escorted him to where the old man was being held.

“I’m terribly sorry about all of this,” Chamberlain said without an ounce of sincerity. “It’s so rare for one of our clients to regain full consciousness this quickly, especially when they’ve been suspended for so long. Don’t you worry now, you’re not in any trouble for having to use your trusty nightstick on him. He obviously wasn’t in his right mind.”

“Obviously. Yes sir,” I nodded emphatically. “Everything he said was incoherent nonsense. I don’t think I understood a word of it.”

“Hmmm. Good,” he smirked.

He rambled on for a few more minutes about nothing of any particular relevance, either to my account or in general, before coming to an abrupt stop and looking over my shoulder. I immediately turned around to see the bald, bony, and ashen visage of Raubritter standing in the hallway.

“Well?” Chamberlain asked him.

“I’ve given him an extra dose. It should do for now, but I’ve taken a blood sample as well,” Raubritter replied as he adjusted his opaque, hexagonal spectacles. “I will be analyzing it to see what went wrong, and if necessary, I shall return to administer a modified version of the serum.”

He took a few steps towards the desk, then turned his head towards me in one slow, methodical sweeping motion.

“I think I owe you an apology, Guter Herr. It is rather embarrassing that such shotty workmanship has slipped through my fingers. I do hope my client did not give you too much of a fright?” he said.

“I’m security. It’s part of the job,” I said nonchalantly, trying my best not to look at him without coming across as offensive.        

“Still, an uncomfortable situation for anyone to be in, and yet you did quite well, I think,” he said as he handed me an aged business card with an ornate, old-fashioned font printed on it. “If Seneca here ever lets you go, or you simply decide that you aren’t reaching your full potential here, I encourage you to give me a call. Not only can I offer you a more stimulating work environment, but my… health plan, I think is the right translation, is unlike anything anyone else could offer.

“I think you’ll find that I really know how to bring out the best in my employees.”

After years of listening and looking to the stars for signs of intelligent life, most believed that we were alone in the universe. You can imagine the astonishment and dismay when thousands of massive alien ships who had tracked our radio broadcasts suddenly appeared in the sky.

The visitors were called Necromancers and had been surveying the galaxy for an abundant source of food. They were carnivores and warm human flesh quickly became their favorite. Powerful mind control was used to numb their victims as they were eaten alive.

After generations of gluttony, earth's adult population had reached extinction. The youth were all that remained. Necromancer leadership established large breeding mills to replenish the numbers. Each facility selected their most well-endowed teen keep the herd impregnated.  All other adolescent males continued to be auctioned off at local markets to feed the Necros.

My name is Kendra and this has become the way of things. Most girls like me work as servants until we mature enough to breed at the mills. I have faithfully served at a Necromancer compound for many seasons. Lord Clarr and his mate Giselle have always treated me with kindness. My duties include cleaning and meal preparation.  Lord Clarr makes a daily trip to the market to select a healthy candidate for the evening feast.

Today I was organizing things in the kitchen when he returned with another boy for me to prepare. As usual, the cutie was under his mental influence and had no idea what was happening. His naked body was breathtaking and I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. Although I shouldn't let myself get too aroused, because he was here to be eaten just like all the others.

My job is to craft a taste temping masterpiece. His mental state gives me the freedom to do anything I want. I always start by shaving the entire body from the neck down. After the skin is silky smooth, he receives a proper washing. Finally it's time to lay down on the serving tray which he does at my request. I like to add sliced fruit as a garnishment. Those little extras make an attractive presentation, and for an irresistible glow he receives a spiced oil rub-down. Giselle's customary appetizer is a plump juicy erection, so my oil soaked hand moves briskly until he grows long and hard.

   "Yes you like that, don't you." I whispered.

I leaned over and kissed his lips pretending that he was my one true love while continuing to maintain his erection.

Dinner time had arrived so I quickly covered my clueless friend with a large red linen. The cart was pushed through the kitchen doors and moved into position. After receiving a nod from Lord Clarr, I dramatically unveiled the main course. Giselle's eyes lit up when she saw the her favorite treat glistening with oil and still fully engorged. After respectfully bowing, I stepped back to watch.

Insted of starting the meal, she began to fondle him and make sensual noises. Lord Clarr shook his head in frustration. He couldn't wait to sink his teeth into that tender flesh but he let his mate have her fun.

She was vigorously stroking when he began to breathe rapidly and grip the edges of the serving tray.  I was standing on my tip toes trying to see everything.  I knew he was almost there when he started to point his toes and arch his back. My twinkie was dripping with excitement. Suddenly there were stressful shouts of panic as pulsing streams of white liquid gushed all over his tummy.

Giselle smiled like she was proud of her acomplishment. After licking up the pool of warm gravy her mouth descended over the entire length. This part is disturbing to watch even though he feels no pain. I winced as her head jerked to the side tearing it off.  She glared at Lord Clarr while she chewed and swallowed like she was threatening him. He chuckled at her theatrics.

They both began to attack and devour the rest of my friend, viciously pealing away his flesh. The boy's euphoria continued until his body fell limp. After they had gorged themselves, the only remaining sound was the occasional burp while they relaxed in their chairs. I didn't even know his name.

I refilled the drink containers and was complemented on the meal. This time their gratitude made me sad. Both retired for the evening and it was time to clean up the remains.

I sleep with Giselle to help satisfy her personal needs. We also enjoy talking and she has become like a mother to me. Recently I confessed that I had started to bleed. She said we needed to keep this development our little secret or I could be taken away to a breeding mill.  I was looking forward to the promise of sex and leisure for the rest of my life but also felt flatteted that she didn't want to loose me.  Unfortunately my rapidly developing chest was becoming more and more dificult to hide.

One evening Lord Clarr requested my presence in his chamber. I was met at his door and instructed to disrobe. This had never happened before and I wasn't sure what to expect. It was also the first time I had seen him without clothing. He lifted me onto the bed and was told to relax as he began to run his hands all over my body. His mental influence made me desire him more than anything and I became soaked with anticipation.

The sight of his growing erection was thrilling because I knew that he was pleased with me. He spread my legs wide and supported his weight over top of me so I wouldn't be crushed. It was like a feeling of glory and fulfillment as he slowly eased the tip of his shaft inside of me. My breasts were being squeezed firmly as he pushed in deeper. I had to grip the sheets to brace myself when he started thrusting. I could not contain my crys of joy and was hoping Giselle would not hear.

There was an intense sensation building inside me. Suddenly something wonderful immersed my body in thrilling waves of pleasure!  I pressed my face into his chest trying to muffle my scream. Moments later I heard a series of stressful groans and was flooded with his warm juice. He withdrew and rolled onto his back with a sigh of relief.

I just laid there smiling, realizing how much fun it was to breed.

The next day was my own. I strolled through the flower gardens enjoying the aromas that filled the air. I felt privileged to dwell in such a beautiful place. That afternoon as I was on my way to the kitchen for a snack, I overheard Lord Clarr speaking to a colleague.

I kept out of sight and listened. He was going on about some underground remnant of humans that had become resistant to the mind control. He was concerned that this could threaten the Necromancer way. There was an urgent tone to his voice. I became very upset that these evil humans would seek to destroy my wonderful life.

I win double at cosplays, I'm a celebrity at cosplays, unless the judge Jared Mickson sees himself standing next to him in a mirror dressed as minnie mouse, chastising him on not being on the judge stand on time, which is just a bunch of plastic chairs carelessly placed behind a rusty metal table in the local highschool's sports field on a hot dry Sunday, which was just one of such similar Sundays before the Jared situation, after which he quit and evicted to a city nearby to start a business in selling undergarments.

You may be confused as to what horrid horrorscape I'm writing, but here it is. I have got a condition which started only last year, after which I swore I wouldn't tell anyone until I figured it out myself, and in this predicament I am a different person every fortnight, all of whom I have known to be of the town I live in, some people I have only seen on zebra-crossings, alleyways, or on the subway floors, never any which I haven't seen before or seen afterwards. The shedding starts after two weeks of having a skin, disgusting flaky layers coming off as a lizard's would, an entire day spent most uncomfortably itching with red sores where I relieved it, nails piled up with debris, all of this taking around 18 hours of the day, be it I didn't develop an infection, and after those gruelling hours I see a different person's skin stretched across my muscles and skeleton, like a puzzle pieced together yet the image was stretched and certainly odd to the eye.

So what would a man who witnesses such an unorthodox phenomenon do with this experience? nothing...that's what I do, except, continue my hobby of cosplaying, which faced away from it's typical characters from novels or comics and books, to the people living in this town, which have amusingly deviated attention from others and onto myself, for recognition of my skills of dress-up. And I do say so myself, of my expertise on it, from a young age I did enjoy it, for now I brush blush and lipstick on a stranger's skin, dress them up into characters I think they look like, and perhaps, underneath all this, I enjoy my obscure condition, for I bless others with touches of glamour I think would suit them best and it is perfectly fanciful of the candour of horror they sport on their faces when they see it.

But today, as I finished showering after almost 18 hours of itching, I saw a familiar face in the mirror, so familiar that I had not spotted them on any streets or alleyways but in the boxes of my attic engraved in the pictures of my family, it was the face of my grandfather, a known, convicted, serial killer cultist. I only knew of him through my father, a paranoid, little strict but kind man who allowed myself to flourish, had told me of his own father on his deathbed and directed me in his will to all his family posessions including the family pictures. He told me the night my mother was murdered in cold blood and how he had called the police before having his own father charge at him with a hacksaw, ready to decapitate him slowly and joyfully, but didn't succeed as the cops shot him in the arm before he could, but my father always wore a gnarly scar on his neck, which he hid as much as he could from the public as we had gotten our names changed and sent to this town across the country. Now I lived in a two-bedroom craftsman house in the midst of the town, alone. My grandfather died in prison, his liver failing after years of abusing alcohol, and the cult he had formed was disassembled soon after.

For the next 30 years I grew from a mere babe to...this, as if the freak sod had cursed me himself, which I wouldn't put past him with all the writings and notes found in his posession. Now how will I dress this well known face up so it doesn't get recognized?

It was the beginning of a day I would never forget. I could hear the sound of waves lapping against the shore and felt a cool breeze against my skin. My eyes flashed open as I jerked my head off the ground. Holy shit I'm outside and, NAKED?!! There was a young man jogging down the shoreline right towards me! I jumped to my feet and tried to cover myself with my hands the best I could.

"Miss, are you ok?" the man inquired as he caught his breath.

"No, I'm NOT ok! Please believe me, I have no idea why I am here or how this happened."

He looked away as he cleared his throat.

"Those are some nasty scratches on your back. You probably feel a little disoriented, but that's to be expected. This must be your first time."

"First time? What the hell are you talking about!"

"Don’t move, I’ll be right back.”

And off he went as quickly as he came. I squatted down as low as I could, hoping no one else could see me. There was nothing around to hide behind. Do I just say ‘screw it’ and make a mad dash for cover? In a moment the man returned holding a flowered sheet. Stopping a few feet from me, he held it out, looking away as I reached to take it. I quickly wrapped myself and thanked him. There was a large scar down the side of his face but he had very attractive eyes. Tight faded blue jeans were low on his waist and his hair moved with the breeze.

"Hopefully those people won't miss their sheet. I think you need it more than they do" he chuckled. "My name is Rex, Rex Bennet."

I forced myself to smile. "I'm Carie."

"Carie... That's a cute name. I know this is a strange way to meet, but I knew something must be wrong."

"Wait a minute, now I remember!"

“What do you remember?" he said as he scratched the back of his head.

"This is a camping trip! I came here to go camping with my friend Brenda. We were sitting by the fire when suddenly something big crashed through the bushes and pounced on us. I heard a painful scream as it sunk it's teeth into Brenda. I remember running so fast that I thought my heart was going to explode. Then I woke up like this!"

"I can't imagine how terrified you must have been. I feel just awful about your friend, but please, you can't tell anyone about this."

"Why?"

"You were probably infected by those scratches on your back. Carie, have you ever heard of a, werewolf?"

"You're crazy! That's just in stupid movies!”

"Listen, I know, because it happened to me too.”

"What are you saying? You think I changed into one of those dreadful creatures?!!"

"Do you have another explanation for waking up naked?"

"Oh SHIT!"

"You should stay away from your camp site. You don't need to see that. Let's go over to the cabin I rented, and I'll try to explain."

We were walking close to each other, and even though we had just met, I could feel a strange attraction. My mind was racing, but I had no clue what to say to him. We walked without speaking until we arrived at group of rustic cabins. He turned and brushed his hand across my forehead, tucking my hair behind my ear and without warning he leaned in to kiss me. Like a fool, I instinctively put my arms around him. That was a big mistake, because the sheet fell to the ground. He paused just short of the kiss.

"Sweetheart we better get you inside." he said as he quickly snatched up the sheet and threw it across my shoulders. The door was held open for me as we entered the cabin.

"Here, please sit on the couch, I'll get you something to drink."

He came back with a Pepsi and an oversized shirt that I quickly put on. He sat sat down beside me. Why was I trembling? I looked into his eyes and could feel myself getting aroused as he spoke to me. I wanted him so desperately.

I could no longer restrain myself and pushed him to the floor. We wrestled for dominance, scratching, biting and kissing as we tore each other's clothes off. It felt like I was on fire when dark hair started appearing all over me, then everything faded to black. I woke up naked again and found myself on the floor beside him. Quietly getting up, I slipped the big shirt back on and tiptoed outside. Moments later the door opened and he peered out.

"Please let me explain." he pleaded.

"Get the fuck away from me! What the hell happened in there?!!"

"Now calm down, normally it's the full moon that causes the transformation, but strong emotions can trigger it too."

I felt like ripping his damn throat out, but part of me found him irresistible. I was so confused.

"Let's go for a walk back down by the lake." he said in a calm voice. He quickly got dressed and we started towards the water.

"Listen Carie, I know this is a lot to take in. When it's time for a full moon, I usually try to get away from the city. That's why I'm here at this campground, because when you transform, the animal instincts take over. You don't have any memory of your time as a wolf."

Just then I heard police sirens. Had someone discovered the campsite? Shit! I was so caught up in this insane mess that I forgot all about it. Rex grabbed my hand.

"We need to get back to the cabin!" he said sternly.

Both of us started running. Damn I could go like the wind! As soon as Rex shut the cabin door he said we needed to leave. I helped him throw a few things in his Mercedes and we were gone. I felt like a criminal on the run, what kind of a life will this be. I sat there quietly watching the telephone poles go by.

"Rex, if they search the camp site they will find my things, my drivers license, home address, shit, everything!"

"Please will you just relax, they won't find you. They will never find you. For all they know, you died with your friend. It will probably be on the news, two teens tragically killed by a bear while camping at Green Lake."

"But where will I go, what will I do?" Rex reached over and took my hand.

"Listen, I have a friend that can get you a new identity, and it would be safer if you would remain with me for a while."

"It looks like I have no choice." I mumbled.

"Have you ever been to Paris?"

"What?!"

"I own a small jet that can get us there in a few hours. Carie, your life is not over, it's just beginning." 

"The Uptown Diner"

As I got my eyes to focus I could see that I was in a dimly lit cement block room. There was just a flickering fluorescent bulb overhead. My head throbbed as I tried to piece together how I had ended up here, totally naked and strapped to a cold metal table. My wrists and ankles were bound tightly with restraints that were biting into my flesh.

"Hello there Bradley," a voice purred from the shadows. A tall woman stepped into my view. "My name is Sarah, and I'm sure you're wondering what's going on."

I could feel my heart pounding. "What is this place and why am I here?!!"

"Don't worry sweetheart, you'll find out soon enough. But first let's get something out of the way."

The woman produced a syringe filled with a clear liquid. "This won't hurt, much" she whispered. There was a mischievous grin as she approached with the needle.

"No, please!" I struggled against the restraints, but it was no use. With stinging pain she injected the liquid right into my ball sack! In just moments I felt a warm sensation rush through my loins. Then there was a strange surging feeling as I noticed my cock suddenly becoming long and firm.

"It works like magic!" she boasted as she stood there fondling my fresh erection. Just then the door to the room opened, and two more women entered pushing a cart laden with various instruments and what looked like a serving dish. One of them spoke up enthusiastically, "Damn Sarah you really hit the jackpot this time."

"Yes, I was pleasantly surprised myself." Sara said as she waved my boner from side to side like she was proud of herself. Then she let go and I watched her pick up a glistening metal blade from the cart. "You see Bradley, your manhood is quite valuable. Our restaurant has a very exclusive clientele. They pay top dollar for the finest exotic dishes, and tonight they will be dining on a fresh human penis."

I was devastated by the horrifying reality! I desperately needed to escape from these psychopaths, but how? The restraints were holding me firmly in place. I watched helplessly as the other two began washing my cumbersome shaft.

My stomach churned at the thought. "Please, don't do this. There must be another way."

"I'm afraid not. This is the price you pay for letting a beautiful stranger buy you a drink and not notice what she added to it. Now let's get this over with."

As the knife inched closer, I thrashed against the restraints, but it was futile. How could this be happening! I felt the sharp instrument slice into my skin and begin sawing. I cried out in excruciating pain!

With a surge of determination, I focused every ounce of my energy on freeing myself. I pulled against the restraints, feeling them give ever so slightly. The women were too engrossed in their work to notice. I gathered all my strength and pulled again with everything I had. The bindings snapped and I fell to the floor wincing in pain. The women turned in shock, but I didn't waste any time. I grabbed the blade from the floor and lunged at the nearest bitch, thrusting the knife into her side.

She screamed and fell backward. I stumbled to my feet, bloodied and disoriented but determined to escape. I dashed towards the door, hearing the others yelling behind me.

"After him!" one shouted.

I burst into the hallway with my heart pounding. I had to find a way out. I ran blindly, turning corners and dodging obstacles with the sounds of pursuit growing louder.

"There he is!" a voice screeched.

I rounded another corner and skidded to a halt. Before me was a set of stairs leading upwards. Without hesitating I sprinted up ignoring searing pain shooting through my groin and praying this path would lead to freedom.

As I reached the top, I found himself in a large kitchen bustling with activity. Chefs and servers glanced up in surprise, but I didn't stop. I pushed past them hearing dishes crashing to the floor with the exit in sight.

"Stop him!" someone yelled, but I was already through the door, bursting into the night. I ran as fast as I could with the cold air biting at my exposed skin. I was loosing momentum due to the trauma and blood loss. Behind me, I could hear the distant shouts of my pursuers, but I didn't look back. I was running on pure adrenaline and focused on one thing: survival.

I recognized my surroundings and noted the location of that ungodly temple of sin. I vowed to return and burn it to the ground.  

Follow the cold blistering flame
Beyond the limits of reason
And into the subconscious void

Demise in a human disguise
A child of cursed blood
Submit to the evil urge
And let the carnage prevail

Every time I rise only to fall
Into the welcoming hands of despair

Crawling back from a premature grave
Only to dig one deeper than ever before

Stepping inside the fires of hell
Because I like the sound of cracking oracle bones

Countless wounds blistering exposed skin
Each a different path toward a bleak future

An eerie silence lurks forever in the dark
Waiting to swallow the maddening bliss
To blanket my sorrows with the shadow of calm
With a promise for a better tomorrow
That may never come

Destined to suffer - I wander
Through the endless wasteland of claustrophobic angst

On the verge of collapse
I reimagine every worst nightmare
Clinging to the ache

How I lament the sense of false hope
Feeding the devil I possess
For a soul

An ancient, unidentified group of ‘pirates’ generically referred to as ‘The Sea People’ were possibly the first to inhabit the ‘Fertile Crescent’; more than six thousand years ago. If so, they predated the Assyrian, Akkadian, and Babylonian empires by several millennia. Even the unique and mighty Sumerian civilization; who are often associated with being the first to settle the Mesopotamian lands, were possibly descendants of these mysterious, sea-dwelling warriors.

Where they originated from, or their ethnic genealogy, historians could not agree. One running theory was that they were a mixed confederation of Philistine and other hunter-gatherer nomad peoples without a geographic location to call their own. Whatever the truth is, ‘the Sea People’ were greatly feared by Egyptian pharaohs, the Etruscans, the island nation of Crete, Minos, and numerous Mediterranean civilizations. It’s not hyperbole to say these fierce mariners and their devastating inland raids were largely responsible for the ‘Bronze Age collapse’.

During their 1177 BCE invasion of Egypt, they looted and pillaged the thriving kingdom of Ramses III, and then returned back to their unknown watery territory, unscathed. The Pharaoh’s fortress temple ‘Medinet Hadu’ lay in ruins. Plato also wrote about their superior warships and unusual battle armor. When the horde attacked the prosperous port city of Ugarit soon afterward, their ruler attempted to send a distress letter to the reigning king of Cypress, advising him of the ongoing invasion and pleading for help. Sadly, the urgent message was never sent. It’s clay tablet was found burned in the ruins. Ugarit was completely destroyed and razed to the ground.

For several centuries, the powerful union of nationless pirates targeted and destroyed vulnerable neighbors all along the Mediterranean coast, without reservation or mercy. Then after decimating each target, they simply returned back to their marine homeland, and entered an inactive phase of quiet anonymity. Eventually, these unrelenting terror campaigns and devastating raids led to the irreparable collapse of many once-prosperous empires and civilizations.

————

For interesting documented events which transpired more than two and a half millennia ago, you might assume this lesson in ancient history is purely academic, or a matter of bygone record. That’s where you would be wrong. You see, those same deadly vessels of yore returned less than a month ago to the Eastern seaboard and beaches of North America.

Baffled witnesses along the sandy coastline wondered if the thousands of ancient wooden warships were part of an epic movie being filmed, or a historic seafaring enthusiasts club. The bloody truth soon emerged. It wasn’t a dramatic re-enactment of times long past. It was the sudden reemergence of a deadly foe.

Battle drums on board the massive flotilla sounded. It was their rallying cry to motivate the violent warriors for their imminent attack. Four thousand years earlier on the other side of the world, the same tympanic rhythms struck mortal terror into the hearts and minds of the victims-to-be. That was because they knew devastation and death was about to befall them.

Unfortunately, the first new victims of these highly-orchestrated assaults, were wholly unprepared to react appropriately or defend themselves. They stood paralyzed and confused while witnessing the dazzling spectacle. The colorful warships landed on the undefended beaches with strategic precision, and without resistance or civil protest.

Soon the rising curiosity turned to disbelief and abject horror. Murderous slings and arrows pierced the flesh of innocent spectators. Cold realization crept over their previously bemused faces. The chaos unfolding before them wasn’t dramatic re-enactments of an ancient past, or an active movie set. It was a merciless, real invasion and homeland attack!

Before it was collectively understood they were under assault by a tribe of seafaring people of unknown origin, thousands lay dead or dying. The hardened mariners raided beach homes and coastal shops for food and items of value to pillage. The element of complete surprise allowed them to avoid many initial casualties, but that edge over modern technology and advanced weapons wouldn’t last.

Thankfully, word of the coordinated massacre reached the coast guard and civil defense authorities rapidly. Troops were assembled in record time to neutralize the unexpected threat. Navy warships and bombers were summoned from bases all over the country, in case there were greater, nationwide security implications.

National Guard forces locked down the attack points and quickly took back dozens of affected towns along the Eastern seaboard. Military jets flew over the wooden boats and sunk them without challenge or return fire. Then Coast Guard crews captured hundreds of the stranded marauders and transported them to a centralized military command center for holding at a special Naval base in Richmond. The international news media covered the unbelievable situation in graphic detail for weeks.

The combined armed forces had dozens of interpreters among their ranks but none of them could speak the cryptic tongue. At the time, they didn’t realize it hadn’t been spoken for more than two millennia. In order to determine which nationality the savage attackers were, and to assess the potential threat of more invasions being planned, it was necessary to interrogate them and record their statements. Top linguists were called in to facilitate this daunting task.

At first, zero progress was made. The rogue prisoners were brutish, feral, and fiercely unyielding. They lacked completely in even the most basic of manners or social graces. It appeared they were either unable, or unwilling to cooperate with their government captors. The staff and frustrated language experts struggled to bridge the significant communication gap. They realized they were dealing with something extraordinary, but they couldn’t quite put their fingers on exactly what it was.

The stocky, pale individuals were strident; and obviously unaware of modern life, technology, or society. Top historians were consulted to disprove an uncomfortable thought ruminating among them. The bizarre theory was that the warring mariners of ancient times somehow returned to haunt the coastline of the U.S., but that idea wouldn’t sit well with the officials or outraged public frothing for expedient executions. As much as it didn’t make sense to the scientists either, it absolutely seemed to be true. The hundreds of enemy combatants in the detainment center belonged to the lost Mediterranean seafaring horde. Convincing the ranking brass and patriotic soldiers of that wouldn’t be nearly as easy.

————

“I don’t know how, nor can I explain the details as of yet, but I believe our attackers are direct descendants of a group of ‘Semitic sea people’ from the Adriatic. You see, they act like ‘Stone Age savages’ because they really are directly from the Stone Age. This same group of nomads was credited with causing ‘the late Bronze Age collapse’ of civilization! They were last known to exist in the transitional time period between the writing of the old and New Testament books. It’s as if they have been frozen in time.”

“Frozen in …time?”; The base commander snorted dismissively. “Are you fuckin’ high? They are textbook middle-eastern terrorists! Just look at them!”

“Listen to me. Whomever these people are, they haven’t evolved at the same rate as the rest of the world. Surely you can see that! Even remote desert nomads are aware of modern technology. If this theory is correct, we need to find out where they’ve resided all this time, and how they managed to separate themselves from the rest of the planet. If we can figure out how to communicate with them, we can solve that enigma, and also explain why they attacked us.”

“What are you, some kind of moron, Preston? How much are they paying you to waste taxpayer’s money on silly sci-fi fantasies like this? I’m going to ask that you be removed from the intelligence team! We need to break down these goat-humping marauders immediately so we can find out which hostile enemy of ours they represent; and if more fanatic, evil acts are forthcoming against the American people!”

“I fully understand your abrasive skepticism, Commander. I wouldn’t believe what I’d just told you either, had I not examined the personal effects we seized from them. None of them were carrying cell phones or electronics. Their minimal clothing was handmade with natural source materials, and manually woven by prehistoric loom methods. Their teeth are severely worn out and decayed. I witnessed evidence of prior injuries on their bodies which have healed poorly, without modern surgery, medicine or antibiotics. They even defecate in the corner of their cells and drink from the toilet, despite having clean running water, for heaven’s sake! They are clearly an inbred culture. Even the most uneducated, remote clan of desert people have a septic system, indoor plumbing, and sacred laws against intermarriage these days.”

“And your point is?”; The supervisor quipped. “They killed over a thousand of our people in a vicious coordinated rampage! Several of them have bitten my guards through the bars like rabid dogs at the pound! It’s all I can do to hold myself back from marching them outside against a wall and shooting them. They deserve it, believe me. We’re only holding them here until they can officially stand trial and be brought to full justice. If you’d just do your damn job and find out which enemy they committed this atrocity for, we can ‘return the favor’.”

“The captured souls confined to this detainment block have been bottled up somewhere in a ‘time-shielded ignorance vacuum’. They know absolutely nothing of modern life or our international enemies. Anyone you hire to replace me will come to the same conclusion. They are Bronze Age aquatic nomads traveling the oceans with their wives and children in tow. Not some nefarious ‘Middle Eastern terrorist network with an acronym’, plotting against us. Can you name one terrorist organization today that would bring their wives and kids along for the attack?”

That last question definitely stumped his highly-outspoken critic. Perhaps it was the turning point in swaying his mind about an improbable sounding suggestion being a real possibility. That is the first step in changing opposing viewpoints. Reed offered one final series of thoughts before walking out of the room.

“Just because I can’t prove a theory yet doesn’t make it wrong, or false. I intend to get to the truth, whatever it is. If a person seeks the truth in good faith, they will find it. You just have to open your eyes to the possibility, and not limit yourself before giving it an open mind. I promise you, this wasn’t traditional terrorism. These seafaring nomads would have been equally as enthusiastic attacking the coastline of Mexico or Canada. We were merely a convenient geographical target at the time.”

“And where exactly is this ‘caveman time capsule’ which held them back? They’re no less primitive than the other backwards fanatics in parts of the world. Did they get sucked into an ocean maelstrom or a big black hole? Perhaps they were abducted by space aliens for intensive anal probing, and just recently returned back to Earth, by a huge flying saucer that could hold them and their wooden ships. Come on Reed! Spare us the unhelpful horseshit. We need to get this criminal investigation moving.”

The sarcasm was so thick it could be cut with a knife. In fairness however, he had no explanations with more believable answers. The actual truth of the matter, as was revealed later; made Ramhurst’s smarmy ‘suggestions’ appear reasonable in comparison. Until a breakthrough could be made in surmounting the considerable language and cultural barrier, ‘alien abductions’ and ‘falling into a black hole’ was just as credible.

—————-

“I’ve been working with one of the more amenable captives. We started with hand gestures first. Slowly he progressed to a handful of words and phrases. It’s enough of a connection that we can achieve a basic level of understanding. His name is ‘Uned’; and he even taught others in the compound some of the things he learned from us.”

“That’s excellent news, Reed. The White House will be happy to hear it. Any progress in determining where they came from? The Pentagon is quite anxious for answers.”

It was a significant improvement in the level of respect he received, compared to his previous encounter with Ramhurst. It was as if some of the puzzling details outlined before eventually made an impact. He almost hated to risk eroding their newfound understanding by circling back to the more controversial aspects of the earlier debate, but it couldn’t be avoided any longer.

“Yes, Commander. I have received an explanation from Uned. Of course our level of communication is still quite shallow and rudimentary, but I do have some basic answers from him.”

He hesitated to elaborate further but it was obvious he’d have to spell out what the prisoner said.

“Go on Preston. Tell me. Where have these mystery ‘Sea People’ luxuriating in our custody been hiding during the modern historical era?”

“Uned tells me his people lived within an extensive Mediterranean cave system for untold generations when they were not on pillaging raids. Over two thousand years ago his ancestors became trapped within this cavern after a massive landslide sealed the main entrance. After the catastrophe, they were forced to live off available resources within the many passages. Fortunately for them, there were fresh water springs, small, insurmountable openings to the sky above them for ambient light, and also reservoirs of aquatic sea life to harvest.”

Reed fully expected to witness the Commander roll his eyes in disbelief during the initial testimony. To his credit however, he appeared to be keeping an open mind. Since some time had elapsed since their earlier heated discussion, it definitely aided in helping the unusual possibility to sink in. In addition, the lack of modern weapons seized from them, and their primitive clothing and headdresses helped him accept that they were not part of a modern terror network.

“Do you remember hearing about a powerful earthquake which occurred around six months ago in that region of the world? Uned explained that it opened the mouth of the cave enough for them to finally escape after two millennia of imprisonment. They are known amongst themselves as the ‘Sherdan horde’. They were initially comprised of the Danuna, the Tjeker, the Peleset, and Shardana tribes. I think they possibly migrated from the Western Anatolia region of modern Sardinia more than five thousand years ago. Later on, groups like the Luka, Shekalesh, Equesh, Weshesh, Uashesh, and Teresh tribes joined their expanding ranks.”

The commander struggled to take it all in. It was a lot to swallow, even with the overwhelming, yet circumstantial evidence to support the fantastical idea. Who would’ve suspected they were recently-escaped Bronze Age marauders? James Ramhurst silently motioned for him to continue with the highly-controversial debriefing.

“They frequently attacked Egypt in those days, as it was considered the richest country, and most obvious ‘target’. Meanwhile the Nubians, the Hittites, and the Libyans hired them as bodyguards and mercenaries for their armies. The consensus was: ‘If you couldn’t beat them, hire them’. Those countries considered Egypt to be their mortal enemy, and since the ‘Sea People’ or Sherdan horde’ were fierce warriors who could not be defeated, it made sense to use them against Egypt, Assyria, or anyone else they didn’t like. It also meant that the Sherdinians were less likely to attack them, since they were employers and allies.”

“Wow. They are living archeological relics and a social anachronism.”; The Commander marveled. “This whole thing is nearly unbelievable and ironic. In a very real way, I was partially right about them being terrorists. They are just ‘the original terror squad’. It’s not enough we have to defend ourselves against modern threats. Now we have to also deal with ancient hordes of angry Bronze Age marauders who just escaped from a cave ‘time capsule’? Sheesh! I suppose our country is the equivalent of ancient Egypt, in terms of relative prosperity for the time but what in the hell do we do now? On one hand, I feel infinitely safer knowing their attack wasn’t an orchestrated threat from an avowed modern enemy; and that we had no trouble neutralizing them. On the other hand, how can we prepare for something so incredibly rare and genuinely bizarre? I’m at a loss of what we should do with them.”

“I’ll tell you this commander. No court in the land will convict them since they have been isolated and socially stunted for over two thousand years. This is a totally unique situation in the history of modern jurisprudence. One thing is for certain. Do NOT send them to Guantanamo bay! If they infiltrate and join in with the current extremist detainees there, we’ll have a serious mess on our hands for the future.”

   The following literary work contains themes of child abuse, as well as the murder of a child. Do not ignore these warnings if you are sensitive to the mentioned topics discussed in this story. This is an adult story that deals with mature themes.

This is also my first genuine attempt at writing horror. Please, go easy on me. Parts of this story (though slightly exaggerated) are inspired by my own childhood trauma and it was used as an outlet. Thank you very much.

Chapters 1, 2, & 3 Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTales/s/eWrJbjNgB7

Chapters 4, 5, & 6 Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTales/s/j5rWfD5LPk

Chapters 7, 8, & 9 Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTales/s/r3jD5CS4sp

Chapters 10, & 11 Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTales/s/dCGzKPcyQL

Chapter 12 - The Overpass

   "Wanda, I'll be home soon. I'm sorry I'm running late today. My buddies and I got hungover last night. Took me till noon to get out of bed. We got a little carried away, okay? Please pick up. I love you baby. I'll be home shortly."

   The phone beeped and was set down onto the cubby hole just underneath the dashboard of his Impala. A message was left for his loving wife, who hadn't been picking up the phone for one reason or another. Him talking on the phone was a clear distraction to his driving, but at that moment, he had no ounce of energy left in his body to care. His adrenaline from the conversation this morning swallowed him whole.

   Brandon cruised along the highway back to his Redsbouro flat where the woman and her two children, Preston and Hannah, were waiting patiently for him. He'd never been this late before in months, and throughout his time with Cindy in the short time that he wished he didn't remember at all, he didn't pick up his phone throughout the night. He was too captivated by the commotion that plagued them both in the old, dirty apartment building then.

   The urge was impeccable. He yearned so badly in that moment to swerve his car straight into the traffic alongside him and smash himself into the barricade of the highway. The call of the void in his mind was just as potent as it had ever been. His itch to making a sudden turn and watching as his soul was ripped from his body in a flash wouldn't leave him alone. He wanted his heart to give out. He wanted his pain to end, the guilt to seize, the fear to subside.

   Brandon drove past the Quiet Rosemary Saloon once again, and his stomach grew sickened by the thought of Cynthia. He couldn't force the image out of his head. It invaded his mind like a hive of hornets.

   'What if she's dead?' he questioned himself. 'What if she's on this same highway somewhere? What if she's on her way to the hospital?', his concentration on the road was beginning to strain him. His brain was multitasking.

   'Only 5 more miles, and I'm home. I can make it,' he motivated himself. He just needed to concentrate on the wheel and to the road in front of him. Nothing more, nothing less.

   In his mind though, he couldn't help but question if this was something he deserved. He was an unfaithful man, unhappy in the intimacy of his relationship, and felt so desperate for this lust that he would hook up with a dirty, mysterious woman who just so happened to have a death wish. As his luck would have it.

   His arrogance forced the thought in the back of his mind to dissipate. Now was not the time to be yelling at himself. He couldn't handle any more of the turmoil and the stress of everything happening around him. The possibility of knowing that the same woman he had just met two hours ago was most likely now dead would eat him alive if he continued thinking of it.

   The highway road ended, and he could see Redsbouro was the busiest he'd seen in quite a long time. Cars were piling on the road, almost unmoving, as a matter of fact.

   "God dammit, like I need more time to waste sitting in this damn car," he growled, honking his horn towards the driver in front of him, who couldn't do much of anything to remedy Brandon's frustration. His fingers shaking, he honked again. "Fuck I gotta get home man, My wife's pissed at me. Come on!"

   He breathed in deeply as he began to compose himself. The driver in front of him now looked irritated, appearing to shout in her own front mirror. He could see the woman bitching and complaining, probably about something trivial. She was probably crying about how she cut her hair a little too short now and that now it looked like complete shit. Or, she was crying about her boyfriend buying her a cherry flavored Ring-Pop instead of a golden carrot like her needy, entitled ass wanted.

Finally, the line began to move, though ever so slightly.

   'The fuck is going on,' he groaned as he continued to sit patiently in the asshole train that extended for as long as he could see. His persistent paranoia and fear wasn't registering it so well, either.

   While he sat in traffic, he checked the texts on his phone another time. This had been the third time in the past 20 minutes since the drive started. There was nothing from Wanda, nor his children. He felt defeated in even trying.

   If these cars didn't hurry up and move, the stress and the burden of last night would begin pestering him again.

'A woman is dead, and I could've done something, but I didn't.'

   Ten minutes passed on since the traffic jam was at its prime, and finally, vehicles were beginning to move again, his nerves sickened him to discover what could've been the cause of the pile up. His nerves were on high alert since Brandon left the apartment that morning. His legs were beginning to numb. 'Please, god...', he begged.

   As he continued his painstakingly slow drive through the sea of cars, he stared up at the construction worker that eventually waved for him to pass, and he entered onto Main Street. He sighed with relief as he saw the construction vehicles repairing a portion of the bridge he had just crossed, and the grip on his steering wheel loosened.

Chapter 13 - In Your Honor

   Brandon stepped through the front door of their first floor apartment. It was clean and well kept, despite the children’s mess of toys that littered their rooms along with some of the hallways. Brandon looked around and inspected the silence of the house. He was wary and cautious of everything that was going on around him. He had the urge to crash on his bed then and there, next to his wife, who'd spent the night alone, away from him.

As he was out fucking a complete stranger.

   "Wanda, honey?" He shouted calmly through the main hall of his apartment. He wandered into the bedroom in search of her, but there was no one in sight. No response, either. His stomach, now tightening at every passing second, entered the kitchen. No one.

   "Wanda, where in-" he glanced at his phone again, hoping and praying that his wife was just running errands in the afternoon hours, picking up groceries for the family. He was already sure of his children's whereabouts, as it was a Tuesday night and the two were just on the bus now and on their way home from school. Or so, that was what to be expected of them.

The intrusive thoughts returned to him.

   'What if she found out about what I did? What if she picked up the kids and took them to Grandma's? What if she's hiding from me? What if Cindy reported me to the authorities already? I can't think! I can't think, I can't think -!"

   He held his head with the palms of his hands and curled each of his fingers together with each other. The mental strain on his head was beginning to form a headache.

   'Come on,' he said in his mind, 'I didn't rat on her. I didn't. I didn't do anything. I love my wife. I'm just a fuck up- Wanda I'm so sorry-"

   He crashed into the thick love seat that rested in his living room as he questioned his morality, the large flat television staring back at him, revealing his reflection.

Brandon didn't want to look at himself.

   Quickly, Brandon grabbed onto the TV remote and pressed onto the red button. The light immediately opened with a blinding whiteness that then transitioned to his menu screen. A television show was playing, one of the soap operas his wife often listened to for background noise while she cooked dinners in the afternoon, and soon enough, the curiosity soon overcame him.

   With a deep swallow, he embraced the worst of what information he could discover in switching to the local news channel. Watching the bars of text quickly glide from left to right, and the news anchors discussing weekly events of parades, social events, and holidays preparations, eased him.

   'Maybe she didn't go through with it,' he thought. 'Maybe she pussied out and went to the hospital, or the cops, or-"

The TV anchor switched topics, into another news segment. The large text on the screen transitioned to something else.

‘FATAL ACCIDENT NEAR PLAZA IN REDSBOURO’

His body froze in his seat. 

   "And here we have news coming live from the newsroom here at 2. A fatal car accident took place near the Goodman's Supermarket in Redsbouro just after 11 AM this morning. Officials say that at least five lives were taken in the fatal accident. Witnesses report that a vehicle was being driven at three times the speed limit down the opposite lane of the mercy highway when it collided with another vehicle that was just leaving the shopping mall."

   Brandon watched on in horror, immediately recognizing the decimated vehicle on screen. It was Cynthia's car. The entire front view of the vehicle was assimilated into near nothing. The face of the car was unrecognizable, and the windows exploded in shards of glass that littered the road, but Cynthia herself was nowhere to be found in the footage. Ambulances and police surrounded the vehicles in the accident.

"Oh my god," his voice stuttered.

   His eyes began to concentrate as he got a closer look at the car just beside Cynthia's, the one that identified as the victim. It was just as mauled as her own appeared. You couldn't even guess the paint job of the vehicle. There was absolutely nothing left of it.

   Brandon couldn't believe his eyes. The fact that she'd actually gone through with it and won her battle with her intrusive thoughts. Did she actually win it though, or did she become a byproduct of her own destruction? Were there truly any winners here? 

The news anchor continued on as Brandon’s eyes narrowed, trying to focus entirely on the paint of the other car. 

   "The victims so far have been identified as Cynthia Bennicans of Redsbouro, a 35 Year old woman who police have been searching for within the past month relating to an ongoing investigation in Maine involving arson and the suspected murder of an elderly man, 72 year old Todd Bennicans.” They elaborated, and then continued on with the list of names. 

   “Among the deaths were Wanda, 42, Hannah, and Preston Cahnaway of Redsbouro. The youngest two being just 14, and 15 years old.”

At that very moment, the entire world was turned to black. 

   His body was overtaken by a numbness that he'd never experienced before in his life. His fingers were shaking, his pulse was collapsing in on itself. With his mind failing to process the terror and grief of everything towering in on him at once, he couldn't help but scream.

   "No, no no no NO! Fuck!" He screamed in horror as he violently kicked into the coffee table, one of the legs breaking right off like a twig as it was pushed to its side and into the entertainment stand. The glass of the table smashed in the impact. 

   "Fuck! Please God!" He screamed and cried in a frenzy as he forcefully carried himself into the kitchen, tears drowning his eyes and forcing the entire world around him in a blur. He slammed his wrists against the kitchen table over, and over, and over again as his phone rang out simultaneously, though he couldn't hear the sound through his horrible distress.

   Brandon's entire life was now gone. Everything he ever worked for was now gone. His wife, his children, his entire life, had all left him to rot on this rock alone. All due to his own reckless mistake. Despite her not saying a word to anyone at all and keeping her promise, he was going to pay the price, regardless of it all. 

   "Fuck! Son of a bitch!" He shouted again in a frantic cry, slamming his body into the bathroom and stumbling his way to the toilet. He began to throw up violently into the bowl, and emptied out all of the bar food he consumed the following night at the Rosemary, translating into an unrecognizable slop. His vomit wouldn't stop pouring from his teeth and staining his tongue from the stomach acid that coated his mouth until all that could release from him now were the last of harsh, hot bile. His entire body was burning from the inside, and his entire world was now upside down.

   After finally purging the last of whatever survived in the man's stomach, Brandon collapsed onto the bathroom floor with his hands covering his face as he loudly screamed and sobbed in his own tears. His body curled into the fetal position on the white tiles of the floor, and his sobbing loudly accompanied the neverending ringing that dinged from his cell phone.

He had 27 missed calls.

   The following literary work contains themes of child abuse, as well as the murder of a child. Do not ignore these warnings if you are sensitive to the mentioned topics discussed in this story. This is an adult story that deals with mature themes.

This is also my first genuine attempt at writing horror. Please, go easy on me. Parts of this story (though slightly exaggerated) are inspired by my own childhood trauma and it was used as an outlet. Thank you very much.

Chapters 1, 2, & 3 Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTales/s/eWrJbjNgB7

Chapters 4, 5, & 6 Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTales/s/j5rWfD5LPk

Chapters 7, 8, & 9 Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTales/s/r3jD5CS4sp

Chapters 12, & 13 Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTales/s/I2wWMqKwy2

Chapter 10 - Secrecy

   It was the first time since Cynthia's childhood that she ever got to enjoy the comfort of a soft, comfortable mattress. The cushioning was so pleasant that it'd already forced her unconscious by the time she was done with Brandon. She was out by the time the night ended and the sun began to rise.

   The two of them crashed on the bed that night. Brandon didn't originally plan to stay overnight, but his energy levels were fully depleted. His will to drive that night, leading him to his decision, maybe would've saved him later on.

   Brandon's eyes slowly fluttered open as he stared up onto the ceiling, his choices circulating through his mind just as they did the night before. He glanced over at Cynthia, and something felt a little different now. He felt a sense of pity, a sense of remorse, and a sense of guilt. She deserved better in life, and the world was very cruel to her. He'd come to realize just how lucky he was in his childhood. His concerns of strict parents and painful discipline never came across his mind in the level that Cindy experienced. He could never understand the pain that she endured, and he was lucky to live with that fact.

10:32 am, the clock read.

   He stared at the ceiling above them both, counting each of the dark stains. There were 12 of them in varying sizes. His first thought upon opening his eyes wondered where those stains came from.

   He didn't want to get out of this bed with her, but he knew that it was time to go home. He'd been out all night. It would've been only a matter of time before...

   "Good morning," Cindy turned herself over to him as he slipped the rim of his jeans upwards, buttoning them.

   "Already leaving?" She questioned with a short smile. It bewildered him to see her so brightened. It was like she was a changed woman now all overnight, despite all of the awful stories and the sadness she brought to him.

   Brandon was on the search for his T-shirt that hid on top of the dresser. For a man in his 40's, he didn't possess much chest hair. He looked rather good and polished for his age.

"I have to hurry home, Cindy. I have the dogs,"

The dogs.

Guilt was beginning to overcome him, and then soon enough, so did terror.

   He'd come to the harsh realization that he never wore protection last night. He was caught up in the emotions and the grief of Cynthia's tears that he felt the sex would've appeased her in some way as it did him. It wasn't just a way of doing as he was promised of her, but also to calm the tension and give her something to remember. Despite this, he was irresponsible. 

   His heart sank to his knees. He looked over at  Cindy upon his realization. "Cynthia, oh my god, I-I didn't wear protection last night," the fear took over him, as his cords shook. You could hear the terror within him. He couldn't have a child. This couldn't be happening.

   Cindy's face however didn't react to the information. She was stone-faced at him, her body seemingly regular. She still lay on the bed, with no real reason to move.

"It's okay," she responded to the man. "Don't worry about it,"

"What do you mean, 'Don't worry about it?' Are your tubes tied? Please tell me-"

"No," she responded.

   His fingers began to shake. He wasn't going to explain this to anyone. He was going to have to leave this house immediately, as quickly as he could. He scurried to search for his black socks that hid somewhere in the bedroom. They had to be. If anything, he would leave without them if it came down to it.

"Brandon," she began again, watching him curiously. "I promise you it's fine."

No, it wasn't.

   "Cindy, I -" his voice was shaking. How was he going to be able to explain it all to her? He was scared of what he'd done. In one night, he managed to ruin his entire life. It was all over for him now.

   He was going to have to live with the guilt, and the shame of being an absent father, and even worse.

   It took him a few seconds to muster up the words that he'd kept from her since they first met at the Rosemary Saloon.

   He sat down on the mattress again, his fingers shaking as they gripped onto the bottom of the bed frame. "Do you remember yesterday when I told you about my dogs?" He questioned her, hoping he never would've had to elaborate.

Cindy nodded her head at him.

   He looked down at his feet, still bare from the socks he couldn't find. "I don't own dogs, Cindy."

"You don't?"

   He continued, his voice shaking. "I'm a married man, Cindy, and if-" he was stumbling on his own words. "I have two children, I've been mingling at the saloon for a while now. If-If... She finds out about this," he breathed deeply with fear in his heart. "I'm good to my kids, Cindy. I love them. I fucked up."

   Cindy didn't react to his worries. She appeared almost disinterested in his fear. She'd seen her father do the same thing once before, many years ago. It was hypocritical of him, she knew that. To shame her for what he'd done at one point, threatening to beat her if she'd spoken about what she heard on the phone, it was all desensitized to her now. 

   "Tell me you have a Plan B. Tell me you'll take something. I can't do this," he muttered. "I fucked up. I'm gonna lose my kids. I'm an unfaithful fuckin’ bastard, Cindy. That woman is good to me and I fucked everything up."

   Cindy finally woke up once his tangent came to a stop. "Brandon, I promise you, you have nothing to worry about. After today, you will never hear from me or see me in your life ever again. You will not hear of any child. No one will. No one will know."

   "How do you know that?" He continued to sob, timidly. "You'll get a baby bump, and everyone will find out. They'll ask who the father was. God, I feel like shit, Cindy. Please don't tell anyone of anything, I swear I'll-"

Cindy interrupted him. "Stop."

His words stopped, but his breathing was still heavy enough to be audible.

"How are you so calm about this? I could've just destroyed your life too."

Cindy continued to listen, her face unmoved of any tension. She shrugged.

"My life was destroyed when I was 16, Brandon."

   "Don't give me that shit!" He shouted at her angrily, the veins now beginning to bulge from his neck. She never heard his yell before, and it did startle her now. "I know your dad fucked you up, okay? But you're here, you're alive, you're living, your dad's dead. This is about now Cindy, not when you were 16, not when you were 12, or 6, or in the fuckin' womb." He crashed against the drywall as fear overtook his mind. "At least tell me you'll take plan B, or abort the fuckin’ thing! Come on Cindy! Don't do this to me!"

   Cindy had something to say. Something she had planned to say for a while now, since they first met. She had many things to reveal to him that night, but now was time for the last story.

"I need to tell you something, Brandon."

Chapter 11 - Trauma

   She didn't move from her side of the bed. Little Walnut came up into the room, his chunky little paws kneading on the woman's lap. It soothed her as she spoke, though she was the most calm she could ever be right now. She felt blissful.

"A month ago, I saw my father."

   Brandon looked at her, not sure where she was going with this. It was another story. The last one she had in mind for him to hear. "What do you mean? You said he was dead, right?"

   Cindy went on, ignoring him. "My mother recently passed away from an infection, and it left him alone in that house. She was too busy caring for my father to care for herself. My mother was long gone already. There was no hope for her. She had babysat that adult toddler since I was kicked out of the home on my graduation day."

   "Nobody wanted to care for my dad because he was a cranky, miserable piece a' shit. That, and he hated the thought of being in a nursing home. He refused it, but he knew he couldn't take care of himself anymore. One day, he called me apologizing for what happened to me when I was little. He said he was sorry for everything, and begged for me to help him because there were no other options. He couldn't help himself. He was stuck in a recliner, rotting away like the fat bastard he was."

"You didn't accept it, did you?" He questioned.

   "Actually, yes I did. I accepted his apology,” she grinned. “I came into his home every day to make sure that he wasn't shitting himself, making sure he took his baths, and I cooked him food. It only lasted two months, and my visits became less and less. I knew he wasn't sorry. It was funny he would've ever thought I'd'a believed that for a single second. He was scared of being alone for the first time in his life. It was kinda amusing seeing him get all pissed off that I stopped visiting every day.”

   "When I did visit, he was quiet, snappy, barked orders like he could just boss me around despite me being an adult. This was how he treated mom, and she just took it until the very end. One day, while I was cleaning the old shitter's house, he started talking to me about the past and how crappy he felt. He told me that he was worried for me and that was why he did it, and that I'd be like my mom and get AIDs or some shit, hang out with the wrong crowd, he said. That's why he made me step on glass, made me piss in buckets, made me sit in a closet in fear for my life. Shot my boyfriend in the head. Forced me to witness the man I love lay down dead in a casket while the sad son of a bitch sat in a jail cell for a lenient charge."

   "That day, I accepted his apology. I nodded on because it was all I knew how to do when it came to him. I despised him. I hated that he ever got out of prison for what he did. He should've died in that shithole."

Brandon's stomach tilted to its side again as he listened on.

   "That day I served him dinner. Mashed potatoes and dumplings, just what he wanted," She grabbed onto her container of cigarettes, and flicked her lighter until it sparked a tiny flame. She sucked the air in, deeply. The taste of her Malbouro was satisfactory.

   "He fell asleep on the recliner that afternoon while I cooked. I saw him peacefully sleeping his cares away, and I decided it was time to deal with him. I had it planned for a few years now, and I still don't regret it."

Brandon went from a state of fear into shock. His eyes looked her up and down, fearing the absolute worst.

   "As he slept, I grabbed onto the soaked dish towel I used to clean his dishes an hour before. I soaked it up like a whip and twisted it. Afterwards, I emptied the boiling water from the pot on the stove that was to prepare for the dumplings that he asked for," she smirked. 

   "I told the old bastard, 'Dinner is Ready'. I figured it'd give him the prompt to wake up, but it didn't. He was sleeping too deeply. Despite that, it wouldn't have made a difference anyway. I guess I was waking him up the hard way. What a pity.”

Brandon's face was cold. "Don't tell me-"

   She ignored him as she went on. He could tell she was beginning to bask in this story, enjoying every second of sharing it with Brandon. She didn't appear to care if these awful, serious admittances were exposed to him at all. 

   "From beside him, I dumped that pot of hot water all over his body. The screams were ear-piercing. I'd never heard anything like it before in my life. I'd be lying if I told you it wasn't exciting. Not even in Adam's last moments did he have the time to scream like that. His skin was already boiling up from the burns. He looked as red as a cherry. I could see the thick blisters already trying to form along his wrinkly, old-man skin."

   “He wouldn't stop screaming in pain, but I could have cared less, despite how much it hurt my ears. He kept asking why I was doing this, but I didn't respond to him. The facade quickly faded after that. He was right back to the same old shit, 'You ruined my life, you insignificant bitch,' or my favorite one, 'Your mother was a whore and so are you.'" she smirked. "I know my mom was a whore, but at least she got any action at all. I realized that was why he was so mad. He was awful in bed." She giggled.

   It was unbelievable to think she was giggling, seemingly amused by all of this. 

   "Eventually," she went on, "I gave him my goodbyes, and I tied the dish towel around his neck. He could hardly defend himself, his limbs barely had any energy left to stand. The burning must've really kicked his ass too. I tied it around his neck as tightly as I possibly could. I kept pulling and pulling that bitch until you could see all the tiny wrinkles. He tried getting the dish towel off of him, but he was already tired out and helpless. His big scary words did nothing to anyone now."

   "I remember seeing his eyes open before he died. They were stuck that way. I think for a little while I saw his soul leave his body. Nobody knew the fucker. His family cut contact with him years ago, and he had no friends outside of his dead wife. After I couldn't find a pulse, I returned to the kitchen and refilled the pot that I dumped. I set it right back on top of the stove. I set the dumplings into the pot and boiled them up until they were nice and soft. I blended the mashed potatoes to a perfect fluffy texture afterwards, adding extra milk and salt, added some garlic and parsley for some of that artistry, and I sat at the table to dig in. I ate his food right up. It was the best dinner I ever had.”

   “After my belly was full, I finished it all off by lighting a match that I kept discreetly in his closet, saved specifically for the time that the day would come. I took out some of the gasoline in his garage, poured it all over the house before tossing the match in, and headed out on my merry way. That house was engulfed by the time I was out of the driveway.”

   Brandon didn't know how to feel about any of it, if he could feel anything at all. His voice, his fingers, his body were shaking now. His heart was pounding out of his chest. He was in the same room as a murderer. 

Cindy wasn't done, yet.

   "The next phase was going to happen now. The police were going to investigate the arson, and nobody knew who was taking care of him. Despite that, I was eventually going to be questioned for everything. I was the only survivor left. I escaped from town and drove myself to Connecticut. I never got to mention that part. I was born and raised in Maine, and after the whole ordeal I was out of there. I drove to Connecticut to escape with what time I had. ‘Can imagine the police still got their heads stuck out on the search for me. I have no idea if they are, but I really don't care.”

   "I had this plan since I was a kid. After Adam died, I wanted to hurt my dad. I wanted to hurt him for everything he ever did to me. I wanted to grab that gun from his dresser and blow his goddamn brains out that night. I swore that one day it would come to that time, and that's when I created a plan for myself. I was stuck on that plan from Day 1, and I promised myself I would never change directions. This was my fate now.”

   "I had no life after that. After everything that happened to me, my life was already long over. I accepted that, and I didn't want to grow old like my father did. I didn't want to sit in a recliner rotting away in my own shitty diapers, asking random strangers to clean my dishes and cook food for me. I knew that eventually there would be a day where I would stop breathing, and I didn't want to wait several decades to endure it. I wanted to end on my own terms, and I plan to do that."

   Brandon got up off of the mattress, the bombshell of information he'd been given overtook his senses. His thoughts were all over the place. "What do you mean? You planning to kill yourself?" His voice cracked. "Cindy..."

   "Precisely." She responded. "I decided that on the day of my 35th birthday, it would be my last. You see, I never had sex because I was scared of men. I was scared of my father, and everything he said to me. I hid in this apartment for the majority of my life, shelled out from the world. I vowed my world to Adam, and I kept that promise to him. I did, too. I said it to his face on one of our nights together that I'd wait happily for him until we were both ready. I wanted to be with him forever. After he passed, I promised him that I'd make it up to him, and I did.”

   "I decided that on my 35th birthday I would lose my virginity. I wanted to know what it felt like. It felt amazing, Brandon. I wish I could feel that feeling over and over again. To think I missed out on it for this long was a pity."

Brandon spoke to her, reasonably shaken. "Cindy, I won't let you do this. You can't."

   Cindy's face formed a disappointed frown, knowing in her heart that the contract she'd sealed in her fate was final.

   "Oh, I forgot to mention. This is a small tidbit, but yesterday wasn't my birthday," said Cindy. "Today is my birthday. I knew we were going to spend the night, and I wasn't going to slip up and finish the job on the wrong day. That would've been unfortunate."

   "I'm not letting you do this, you can't. Cindy, I-" he stood up against the doorway of the bedroom, seemingly to barricade her from moving anywhere. She picked herself up from the mattress, exposing the black padded bra and blue underwear that she'd worn overnight.

   "You will," she responded. "I'm sorry Brandon, we had a great night last night, and I appreciate everything you've done for me. The sex was good too, and I thank you for giving me the opportunity," she said. "But you and I both know what is going to happen if you stop me. Your wife, whoever she is, is going to see that you've been gone all night. You probably told her that you've been hanging out, drinking with the guys, but I know your name. I know who you are, and I know that I am going to have your baby, with your DNA."

   Brandon's back rested against the doorframe, staring down on the floor and his shoes as he wondered what else he could do. She was terrifying him now, not as if she was already scaring him out of his socks when she openly admitted to murdering her father and committing arson.

Brandon responded, "Come on, please don't do this, I'm begging."

   "If you attempt to stop me, I will go to the police and fabricate a story against you for assaulting me. Your wife will find out about it. I'm sure it'll come straight back onto her at some point. Your name will be all over the news.”

   "I'm sorry Brandon, I truly am, but I will not let you stop me. I enjoyed last night, it was one of the best experiences I've had in years. I finally got to tell someone everything that I never admitted to anyone else in my life. I hope you understand how amazing that felt."

   As she'd gotten herself dressed in a black shirt and the same jeans she'd worn the day prior, she stepped up towards him as he stood in front of the doorway, blocking her path. "Let me out of the room, please."

   He was scared of what else he could have done. He felt absolutely powerless across from the woman that barked her demands. If he spoke a word about her situation, or contacted any kind of law enforcement, she was going to tell them everything. She was going to lie to them, and deliberately ruin his life. His wife was going to discover what he'd done. His children would get taken away from him. His wife would never want to see him again. The DNA test would come out positive. The baby was his.

He fucked up. He fucked up so, so badly.

   After a minute of heavy thoughts circulating through his mind, he stepped away from the door. He didn't want to see her leave.

Just as Cynthia did at one point in time, he felt like a helpless, sitting duck.

   Brandon softly questioned her as she slid her old, dirty sneakers onto each foot, tying them sloppily, as if it mattered, "What are you planning on doing?"

   Cindy looked at him again, her face unmoving. Her eyes looked cold as if he'd just been talking to an entirely different person at the saloon the day before.

"I'm going to jump in my car, and I'm going to keep driving until I don't."

   Brandon was positive that she didn't even own a car. He swore that if she were to have one at all, she would've driven home on her own that night, or at the very least it would've sat in the parking lot of the saloon waiting to be towed away. Instead, she accepted the ride home from a complete stranger who she never met once prior to yesterday. One she admitted multiple times that she hoped would kill her, and dump her body in a ditch overnight.

Brandon almost wondered if that was entirely deliberate.

   Her plan was already caught on in thought before he built up the courage to ask. Instead, he continued to plead.

   "What about Walnut? The cat? He loves you," he pleaded. Walnut was oblivious to everything that had been going on. He was sitting on the kitchen table sleeping as he usually did. "You gonna leave him?" He questioned.

   "I left the backdoor open. He can leave anytime he wants," Cindy responded. "There's no hyenas around here, and he's not declawed. He can take care of himself."

   Brandon felt as if he was in between a rock and a hard place, and the fear nauseated him. He was going to witness the death of someone who he, at one point, truly did care about.

But it was wrong. It was all wrong, and he knew that it was wrong.

   "Wait," Brandon shouted as Cindy grabbed onto the set of car keys that dangled beside the doorway. She wasn't bringing her purse. She wasn't bringing anything of value. Her life was entirely behind her now.

"What?" She answered him, smoking another cigarette to ease the pressure of what she was about to do.

"I...", he couldn't correctly think of the words. He was frazzled, his body nearly attempting to disassociate from the room they were both in.

   "Can you at least promise me that this will never get back to me?" He asked. "I feel like I'm going to live with this forever, Cindy. You think I'm just going to be able to forget about this?" He slammed both of his hands against the kitchen counter, facing her directly.

   "Your wife will know nothing." She mumbled. "After today, I will leave. You can go home, and this will never have to come to mind again. Pretend this didn't happen."

   The door to the front of the apartment creaked open as she stepped out onto the same sidewalk he'd seen coming in, now dried from the overnight downpour. "Pretend there was no such thing as a Cindy. Again, thank you for what you've done for me, Brandon. Thank you, I truly mean it."

   The door slammed shut, startling Walnut from his slumber, but his apathy put him straight back to sleep. Unbeknownst to him, he would never be seeing his mother again. The little guy was on his own now. 

Brandon could do nothing but hide his face against the counter, and sob his morning away.

   The following literary work contains themes of child abuse, as well as the murder of a child. Do not ignore these warnings if you are sensitive to the mentioned topics discussed in this story. This is an adult story that deals with mature themes.

This is also my first genuine attempt at writing horror. Please, go easy on me. Parts of this story (though slightly exaggerated) are inspired by my own childhood trauma and it was used as an outlet. Thank you very much.

Chapter 9 Contains Sexual Content.

Chapters 1, 2, & 3 Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTales/s/eWrJbjNgB7

Chapters 4, 5, & 6 Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTales/s/j5rWfD5LPk

Chapters 10, & 11 Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTales/s/dCGzKPcyQL

Chapters 12, & 13 Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTales/s/DVYoMCRr9s

Chapter 7 - The Bad Creature

   The downpour was finally beginning to settle down, 
and the time of night was nearing midnight now. The two of them were still bright eyed and energized from the time they'd spent together in the past few hours that they'd first met, and the discussions the two had that forced their thoughts into a neverending loop. Cynthia had only known the complete stranger for an afternoon, but his company in those small, limited hours could've made up for the many years of nothing that she'd felt with anyone else before in her life.

Still, her emotions were as cold as they were when they'd first locked eyes. Unbeknownst to the man on the sofa, the night was only just beginning.

"So," he asked her as politely as he could, understanding the tension she'd been feeling for the past hour. "I guess, this is it, huh?" He glanced his eyes around the living room again, gandering at all of the empty walls. The emptiness. It reflected within her, too.

"This is what?" She responded to him, her head perked as she stared up into the wall, blank in the face.

Despite the harshness of her situation and the guilt that he'd felt for the woman, he was quite eager in spite of it. He came here for a reason, they both knew that. Cindy's feet curled together on the dirty wooden floor below them, and she was ready regardless.

"Do you have more to tell me, or are we popping your cherry?"

"My what?", she paused. In genuine confusion, she never heard the term used before. He rolled his eyes, but in a playful way.

"Sex?" He added.

Cindy's eyes searched back down on the ground, counting the used cigarette butts that she'd forgotten to clean up prior to the thought of any visitor who would've ended up walking through her front door. She didn't know what to say. She wasn't done yet with her story.

"I can show you the room,"

With that being said, she'd done just that, a promise was a promise. She lead him to the only bedroom of the home, a room that he hadn't gotten to see yet, a room that he was naturally curious of since the beginning, all things considered.

The room was rather small, with a lonesome double sized bed at the corner of the room that lay seemingly untouched. In fact, the bed itself had no sheet on the mattress, and it looked as though only one old blanket coated the frame, its pattern almost entirely washed off. A stack of three fluffy pillows complimented the setup overall. The blanket was unwrinkled, perfect, almost as if it had never been touched. Despite the lack of a bed sheet, the bed itself looked rather comfortable.

The rest of the room was littered in what appeared to be clothes and old books. Some of them were horror novels, horror dramas, true crime, and others romance. Stacks of books were towering on top of the old dresser that sat beside the bed, its legs covered in scratches that looked to be from Walnut. She didn't seem to care if the cat damaged anything. The little man was living a cat's dream. No rules, no boundaries, just meow.

He giggled to himself at the thought.

On the other side of the room though caught the curious man's eye. He'd seen plenty of interesting setups for a bedroom before on public television, but this was something he'd never once seen before in his life.

A mountain of pillows stacked inside of the closet of the bedroom which had all been set across from the large double sized bed. The closet door was decorated with necklaces and trinkets that she'd most likely never worn a day in her life, and sparkling armbands rested along the closet's doorknob. A large, thick blanket was positioned against the pillows and spread out within the small room's wall. A cluster of plushies stacked high on the corner of the closet, cushioning every inch within it, and underneath it all, he noticed something else.

The sight of children's clothes, all hung above in metal racks. The closet's walls were covered in what appeared to be stuffed animals, large ones that nearly filled the closet on their own. It looked more occupied than any other place in the house. He'd seen chests and boxes that were locked on the sides of the wall as well, and he couldn't have even fathomed what memories lay in them, considering the memories of this woman were already so little.

Cindy saw him stare at the closet, and knew that he would have questions. Luckily for Cindy, it was another story of hers, one that she'd been ready to tell him since they both arrived there.

"Well this is certainly a way to decorate a bedroom. I see you got a lot of, uh", he glanced at the rack of countless children's clothes again. He wasn't sure wether to be concerned, or confused about the discovery.

"The closet is where I sleep," she stated, almost in a mumble. It was obvious she was shy to elaborate on it. Embarrassed, more so.

Brandon took a closer look at the mess inside of the doors before glancing back at her large stack of books. "I... But, wouldn't that hurt your back?"

"Not really," replied Cindy. "when you have enough blankets underneath, it cushions the floor. It keeps you comfy. Rolling on the side can hurt a little, sometimes, though. I try not to lay on my sides too much."

Now Brandon had more questions to ask. He was a bit surprised at the discovery, but knowing the stories that she'd already shared with him before, he found nothing could've gotten worse than the story of the glass. He'd also seen plenty of different characters in his lifetime, and he could've already counted on one hand the weird sleeping positions he'd seen other people tolerate before.

Walnut suddenly got himself into frame, as he sat his chunky, fluffy body down in front of the closet. It was clear he was on guard duty. 'Cats being cats', he thought.

Cindy sat down on the large, double sized mattress, and stared at the most valuable place in the entire house that she had kept since she'd first moved in.

'I guess it's time to talk about the closet'.

°°°°

"When I was 9 years old, my mom and dad moved into a trailer. The whole place sucked." She began her tale, her arms wrapping around each of her shoulders gently to coat herself in warmth, as if her gray, oversized hoodie hadn't already done the job for her.

"My dad worked as a police officer when I was little. By the time I turned 7, he was fired from his job. Mom never told me why, but for a while after he was dropped, they went to counseling together. When they got home, my dad changed," she said. "That man hated me more than anything in the world."

She finally slid the boots off of her feet, revealing the black socks underneath, as she continued on. She was making herself comfortable. She needed to.

"When we moved into the trailer, my mom started doing the working. My father was already fired from doing something 'really bad', so nobody ever wanted to hire him again. My mom became a waitress, and we ended up in that trailer."

"A lot of my childhood left me alone with that man. I lived with him while mom worked. He hated her job a lot because the guys were always looking at her, but the money was the only thing keeping us there, so he took it out on me, a lot."

Brandon continued to listen in, just as he'd promised.

"When I was little, he told me that if I lay on the bed at night, 'The Bad Creature' would come to my bed and kill me. He said that it took the heads from bad girls. He was so scary when he said it, too. He was good at that. He made something so stupid sound so real."

She continued on. "One time, I came home from school and found one of my plushies with his head cut off of its body. I loved that plushie. I named him Charlie. He was a cat. I used to bring him to school. When I saw him like that, he sat on the bed with a note next to its paw. It said, 'The Bad Creature is real, and he doesn't like liars'. I remember the note. I," she paused, trying to push out the many words that flooded in her mind. There were so, so many.

"I started sleeping in the closet. I'd leave to use the bathroom, and when I did, my dad was always there waiting for me. My mom was never there to hear it. She was at work all the time. She had to support us when my dad didn't. I missed when he went to work all day. I wish he would've walked out of that door and never came back home. I hoped for it every single day."

"Your father was an evil man. I'm so sorry," he brought up, but couldn't continue on more. It wasn't his turn yet.

"One day, I went to use the bathroom again. He was at the door and he asked me where I was going. I told him that I needed to use the bathroom. He told me that he bought a shock collar. He said it was coming in the mail. H-He said that,"

She was trying to push the words out of her already clogged throat.

"He said that the shock collar was for me, and that if I ever left the bedroom, it would go off. He told me he wanted to see me piss myself from it, because the only reason I ever left that room was because I had to pee."

Brandon was frozen, his heart felt like it'd sunken into his stomach. Dumbfounded by the woman's story, he wanted to give Cynthia a hug, but he kept his hands to himself.

"He never ordered that shock collar, by the way," her voice picked up again. "He lied about it. He lied about a lot of things."

"Cindy," Brandon finally found some words to say in the tense moment between them. "Have you told anyone about this? At all?"

"No," she firmly reassured. "You are the only one who's ever known about my life in any way."

Unbeknownst to him, the story wasn't over.

"When I went to the bathroom, I had an idea. I wanted to make sure mom would know about what was happening. I wrote out a note with a school pencil and some notebook paper, folded it, and stuffed it underneath the sink, hoping that my mom would eventually find it somehow. Maybe fishing for her cleaning supplies or her laundry detergent or something."

'Dear god, it could only get worse from here,' in his mind he said, dreading what else could have possibly made these stories any less appealing to hear. At this point, he wasn't even eager of the sex anymore. He was eager to make it all stop. The stories pained him.

"My mom found the paper, but she didn't come to me when she found it." Her breathing patterns studdered as she went on. "She showed it to my father."

"Did he do something bad to you?" His voice was sudden, and unwilling to hear anymore. "Cindy,"

"Yes." Her voice responded, softly.

"Cindy, can I ask you something?"

Chapter 8 - Adam

   The clock chimed at the short finger to the number 1. The clock looked almost ancient, as if you'd see the same kind of clock at your grandmother's house. They'd heard the repeating ticks of it rotating for the majority of their time that they'd spent there. By now, the rain had long simmered down. The outdoors were now calm, and quiet. The crickets began to rise from their hiding places, and it replaced the sound of what was once deafening rainfall.

It was much later than they both expected to be out by.

   Brandon, feeling comfortable enough on the soft bed that'd felt like it hadn't been used in a decade, lay himself down and stared up at the ceiling fan above him as Cynthia watched from the window. She glanced at him, curiously.

"Your question?" She asked him.

   Brandon didn't bother to glance at the woman, but he responded nonetheless. He'd almost forgotten about it.

   "Honestly, I don't know how to put it into words," he said. "I guess the best way to start is, what's the point of all this? Dwelling on the past all the time? Doesn't it hurt you?"

   Cindy took a few moments to respond. She didn't really think of it that way, not in a very long time, as she'd never truly opened up to anyone to tell them everything.

   "No," her voice broke. "Because the memories will never die until I do, and I am okay with living that way. If I'm being honest, I have kept all of this to myself since I was a little girl. I haven't even told you about Adam, yet."

Brandon cocked his head upwards. "Who?"

°°°°

   "It was a long time, I must've just turned 15 when I met Adam during an economics class. For the first time in my life, I think I felt something for someone, and I never knew how to deal with it at all. To say that I had a crush was an understatement. I felt pain. I felt that weird fuzzy feeling every time I saw him before and after school classes. The twist in my gut that just wouldn't leave."

   "To see him in the hallway, I felt happy for the first time in my life. We talked about many things. About the movies we liked, and the music. He loved Pearl Jam, too." You could see the smile begin to crack just a little on her face, as she sat down on the mattress nearby Brandon. He let her talk her heart away.

   "I would be lying if I told you that I wasn't terrified of this new feeling I had. It was so new and strange to me. We got picked on for talking to each other pretty often in classes so we started doing it more so in secret, back when we still somewhat cared about how we were perceived by highschool idiots. The other students already laughed at me for being skinny, among other things. Adam was the only person in that school who acknowledged my existence. He liked to be around me. I never experienced that before.”

   "There was a point in time where we both knew my father was strict, and going out to enjoy a night would've been impossible to do. At that point, I'd already grown a brain and learned that instead of being fearful of the piece a' shit, I became a skilled liar. My dad taught me how to lie. He taught me how to survive on my own. I'd already mastered that. One thing that I never told Adam though was the extent of what my father did. I became so good at lying that I was able to cover up every single cut, bruise, injury, everything, all of it when I went to school. When Adam asked me about it, I knew how to make up something right on the spot, and he never, ever doubted me. It burned me to lie to him, but I felt like I was doing him a favor."

   "Adam and I started sneaking out at night, long after my parents went to sleep. We didn't stray far from my home, I'd say. We would meet up at a gas station just a block from my house almost every night, around this hour of night, as a matter of fact. The broken window got replaced long after the incident with my old friend, and it was the same window I started using to sneak out of the house. We did it often."

   "I remember the first time he ever said he loved me. He was too shy to say it to my face, and waited weeks to finally throw it at me. It brought him painful anxiety because he was just as lost in the world as I was. He was the perfect person. He was perfection. My heart was ready to die for him."

   "One night, we met up again at the gas station, and I almost told him everything. About my father and the things he was doing to me. I truly did, but I didn't. I was too scared of the consequences. I feared that he'd become too afraid to stay with me. I was being selfish," her tone shifted at the last sentence.

   Finally, through the entire night, Brandon saw the tears rolling down her cheeks, though despite the shaking voice, she continued on with her story.

   "One night, I was in trouble again. My father was pissed at me, for an entirely unrelated issue. I can hardly remember what angered him, but he watched me and my room for the entire night. He sat at my bedroom door again, just as he did many nights prior to interrogate me, and I sat in that closet doing everything in my power to pretend he didn't exist."

   "It was when I heard a knock on my window that the entire world caved in on itself. I had nothing to explain to my dad this time. After months of hiding my first boyfriend, the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, I saw it all flash before my eyes."

   "My father's entire demeanor changed when he saw Adam. Nothing could hide the terror in my eyes as I mouthed for him to leave, I cried when I saw him. When my father walked outside and asked to speak to him personally, he acted as if he just wanted a respectful conversation with Adam. He was nice, for a few moments. He wanted to know why Adam was visiting the house, and I could hear the shaking in his voice as he tried to explain himself to my dad. His terror was as bright as mine."

   "Adam wanted so badly to run away from him. I didn't know what  the best option for him was,  either. I was forced to watch from that goddamn bedroom window that I couldn't leave. I felt like a helpless, sitting duck,"

   Her fingers began to shake on the blinds that she held down, to look out at the night sky. "As Adam was walking out from the parking lot to get away from the trailer, to get away from all of this,"

It took her a few seconds to recollect herself. Her tone deepened.

   "My father took out a Glock from his closet. He kept it from his job years back. He shot him, right in the f-fucking head".

    Brandon’s stomach felt the strong urge to vomit. If she continued elaborating, he might've needed a bathroom immediately.

   "Adam was 17," Cynthia was quivering. "My entire future was destroyed. Everything I'd ever known was destroyed, right in front of my eyes."

   She sobbed quietly as she collapsed back onto the fluffy mattress. "My ability to love died that day. My hope for a better future for myself died that day. I wanted children. I wanted a career in medicine. I wanted to get married and travel to Florida with him.”

   "When it was all said and done, my father came up to me and told me that all men were pigs. They only wanted to fuck me. Adam was no better than I was. I was already becoming my mother, he said."

   Her words were replaced with loud, harsh sobs that couldn't stop. It had been the first time she'd ever spoken about this entire situation to anyone before in her life. She'd been holding it in for so, so many years, and this was it. Worse than the glass. Worse than the 'bad creature ', worse than mom's forgotten note. This was it.

   Brandon sat up from the bedding, his stomach wrapped in a tight, painful knot. This was the moment that he could say nothing. No words, no mumbles, no 'I'm Sorry's'. It was almost like he knew she didn't want to hear the spiel anymore either.

   "My father was questioned for the murder of Adam. The asshole tried to lie that he'd done it for self defense, and that Adam was 'banging on the front door and trying to break in'. He was as good of a manipulator as I was, I learned it best from him, so he was given a light sentence. He was placed for twelve years in prison for manslaughter. Less than what he deserved."

   Brandon growled, his stomach rumbling as it rolled in a violent circle. His own eyes began to water. "I'm Glad your father is long dead. The man is in Hell, right where he belongs."

She was gasping for air, feeling the relief and the escape of her grief leave her tight, tired lungs. "I'm sorry,"

"For what?" Brandon responded. "You didn't do anything."

   "I brought you here, and now we're both mentally exhausted. I'm sorry, I just needed to let it out." She continued to sob.

   Brandon was unsure of the decision to give her a sympathetic embrace, but he did it anyway. His arms wrapped around the clearly damaged, psychologically tortured woman, tightening his grip as the tears continued to fall.

   Never in his life had he ever felt the connection for anyone else of this strength than the woman he encountered tonight at the Rosemary Saloon.

Chapter 9 - Platonic

   1 in the morning, the clock read. 

   The inside of the old, bare apartment was just as quiet and cold as the outdoors had been. The only sound that rang were the many crickets that sang the early morning away.

   The end of an eventful night was ticking on as another day made its way in. Brandon was reminded of Andy after Cindy’s story. The story recreated the grief of his old friend. The pain that death placed on the both of them was clear enough, and it brought Brandon back to a million thoughts that he would've rather not have revisited. He didn't know whether to hate the woman for it, or love her.

He wasn't sure what to make of anything anymore.

   Brandon continued to embrace the sobbing woman as her eyes were closed, tears gushing like a fountain of grief. This wasn't the first time in the past 24 hours that she'd cried away her feelings. She cried more often than she wanted to admit.

   There was nothing but silence, and sobs. Those sobs had turned into whimpers, and the whimpers had finally turned into words.

   "You underestimate your own strength," Brandon spoke. "I could have never imagined building these kinds of feelings up for as long as you have."

   After curling her wrists into the mattress, thinking hard about the night and what she'd just told the man next to him, she lay her back down against the bed frame, taking deep breaths to soothe the aching that caught within her throat.

   "Are you alright?" Brandon questioned her, feeling her extreme emotions infect the room. He felt the sorrow along with her.

"I'm as alright as I'll ever be, Brandon. You don't have to worry about me."

   After another minute of silence, Cynthia stared up at the ceiling, lost in her own thoughts. She just kept thinking, and thinking.

   "You know," she softly admitted. "I was kind of hoping you were a psychopath or a serial killer when I first met you," she said with a weak, pathetic smile.

"Wait, what?" Brandon's response was snappy.

   Cindy glanced at the lamp beside her on the dirty end table covered in spilled facial tissues and pens, and clicked the light off, leaving only the large bedroom window to beam the city light into the bedroom. It was quiet, and peaceful.

   "I was honestly hoping you'd take me to an alleyway, rape me and kill me." She said to him. "I kind of hoped you would. I jumped into the car and didn't care what happened."

Brandon was dumbfounded by her statement, reconsidering if she was truly 'okay' or not.

   "What do you mean?" He lay down beside her, also staring up at the ceiling. It had dark, brown stains that littered the surface, as well as some of the drywall. He hadn't noticed the stains before.

   Cindy curled onto her side while laying down, something she hadn't done, nevertheless on a functioning bed, in a very long time. Despite the aches and the pains of the night being as present as they'd ever been, she grabbed onto Brandon's arm, sniffling softly, and resting her face against his skin. The warmth was calming to her senses.

Brandon gave her a look of concerned. She was defeated. Nothing could've been worse than the story of Adam.

"Cindy, there's -"

   Before another word could be spoken from his mouth, Cindy reached out from where she lay, on her side of the mattress, quickly grabbing onto the man's left cheek by one hand. Her lips collided with his own, and it was the first time since the existence of Adam that her lips ever touched the surface of anyone else's.

   Brandon's eyes widened, until they no longer were. With his eyes now closed, and his heart on fire, the kissing continued, the darkness of the room swallowing them whole. The both of them couldn't see anything. They could only feel, and think.

   Cynthia's tongue traveled into the gate of Brandon's lips until it met with his teeth. She dragged it slowly across his tongue.

   "Cindy," the eagerness grew within him. He only muttered her name once, and it was all that he needed to say.

   Cynthia slid herself downwards, feeling the side of his chest and stomach with her finger, causing the butterflies in his stomach to rupture like a tornado. She slowly grabbed onto the rim of his jeans, and unbuttoned them down.

   In those moments, Cindy's mind was in a different place at a different time. Her entire body was numbed by the world around her now as Brandon's hands explored through her thighs, into her vulva. Every single movement he made caused her to flinch, her body feeling waves of coldness, anticipation, anxiety.

   She felt nothing, but also everything, all at the same time. The clock was ticking itself away with each tick making the entire experience more maddening for the two of them. The brightness of the moon slowly made its way to the thick blanket, brightening Cynthia's eyes, and she looked up at him. She suddenly felt a puncture within her body. She felt him slowly entering her.

   She felt pain. For the first time in her life, she found pleasure in the pain as it drove in waves.

   It was like she was at the gas station all over again. The memories swallowed her whole, it tore her apart from the inside, synchronizing with the pain of her vagina stretching itself to welcome what would be her first time. Her teeth gritted harshly as she weeped under her breath. The resistance to moan or cry from the pain was incredible.

   She saw Adam in this man, now. His eyes reflected the same, saturated green color that Adam once had. When he wasn't underneath a grave stone. When he was here, alive, making her happy. When she was in love.

Adam no longer existed.

   Cynthia was fucking a complete stranger, a man who she'd only met a few hours prior. She was fucking a stranger inside of a dirty apartment on an unfinished, unused bed that hadn't been washed in years.

   She felt sex for the first time in her life, and she couldn't come to terms with the reality of it all; this was not her dream. This was not what she wanted her life to be, but it was what it was, and there was no going back now. It had all come down to this. She'd waited for a decade for this day to arrive.

   Every thrust brought her to wince in pain again, her wrists tightly clawing against the sides of the mattress. She was entranced by the same feeling that she felt many years ago, seeing her first boyfriend. Sitting with him in class. Locking her eyes onto his. Thinking about him, and feeling funny down there, and not understanding why. Brandon was trying to ease his movement on her, knowing how new that it all was to Cindy, but it still stung, nevertheless.

The clock ticked, and it ticked, until it finally stopped.

   Cynthia felt a sudden burst erupt from inside of her, as her legs attempted to curl around Brandon. She'd lost control of them. Her skin was soaked in the sweat that they both shared together. Her breaths were heavy and relieved, her body tingling and surging with the most pleasant, enjoyable feeling she'd had in years.  Tears began to form again.

°°°°

   Brandon came at almost the same time that she did. His fingers were still shaking from the adrenaline as he collapsed beside her on the bed, though he was long used to the procedure, so he was able to gather himself more quickly than she had. He'd already done this many times before. This was not new to him.

   After a few seconds, he saw the tears, and at first assumed it was from the pain that she felt for her first time.

   "You okay?", he whispered beside her on the mattress as he noticed her body was curled in that same fetal position again. It slightly worried him. It was never a good sign to see Cindy curled up like this, he'd begun to understand her patterns.

   Her fingers were wrapped around each other as she looked up at him. He wiped a tear from her face. "It's okay. Think about now."

"I am," her breaths were shaky. Her voice was changed. He couldn't tell if she enjoyed it, or regretted it.

"Cindy, you don't look okay," he answered. "Was this a mistake?" His voice trembled.

"N-No," she responded. "I'm sorry I just-" her breaths were loud. She looked overwhelmed.

"I didn't do bad, did I?" He exhaled, giving a bit of a smirk.

"No," she sounded, seemingly like her sentence was unfinished. "I never felt anything like it before in my life."

Brandon adjusted himself on the naked mattress, giving her a satisfied look. "So I took it, I did good, then?"

She nodded her head.

   There were many things on her mind that still raced through her head. The thoughts persisted of Adam staring down at her there at the gas station and penetrating her. She'd seen it through her eyes, despite it being Brandon in this dirty old apartment. She saw Adam in him when he had his way with her.

It was precisely what she'd anticipated for this entire night.

   After the two recovered from their exchange, Brandon picked himself up to air out the sweat. He was tired out from the long night, and dreaded returning back home after all of this. He didn't want to take the late night drive back home. Not after tonight. 

Maybe he didn't have to leave yet. 

Into the nowhere from which I was born
The nadir where I'll forever belong

Never again
To rebuild these bridges
Never again
Escape the endless solitude

For what good is in calm
If it can never mask the bitter
Stench of disappointment
For what good is in compassion
If it can never soothe the torturous
Ache of betrayal

Sworn to never again stifle the flames of my wrath
I spend my every waking moment in prayer
For every living color to be replaced with an everlasting monolith gray

And a sudden disappearance of joy
Leading every man, woman, and child
To their untimely yet beautiful end

   The following literary work contains themes of child abuse, as well as the murder of a child. Do not ignore these warnings if you are sensitive to the mentioned topics discussed in this story. This is an adult story that deals with mature themes.

This is also my first genuine attempt at writing horror. Please, go easy on me. Parts of this story (though slightly exaggerated) are inspired by my own childhood trauma and it was used as an outlet. Thank you very much.

Chapters 1, 2, & 3 Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTales/s/eWrJbjNgB7

Chapters 7, 8, & 9 Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTales/s/r3jD5CS4sp

Chapters 10, & 11 Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTales/s/dCGzKPcyQL

Chapters 12, & 13 Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTales/s/DVYoMCRr9s

Chapter 4 - Honest Grievances

   Pouring rain pelted violently against Brandon's black umbrella as the two of them both sat outside for a smoke. There wasn't much cover from the rain besides the front doorway of the bar, but with the countless attendees waltzing in and out of the large black doors that complimented the decorations of the Rosemary Saloon, there wasn't much of a choice anyway.

   Brandon didn't mind it. He had plenty of time to kill, and so did Cindy. Cindy herself, tonight at that very moment, felt that she had all the time in the world to wonder away with her fears, thoughts, memories. She had nothing to worry about here. Cindy didn't think she would've caught onto a man so quickly in all of her years of trying to find anyone in her life willing to listen, even one out there that'd dare lay their eyes on her mundane, scrawny, unhealthy figure. She wasn't the ideal body for any man, and long before her trip to the saloon as she'd thought about for days and days passed, she believed her luck would've played the same as it always had been. Despite her assumptions, for whatever reason, Brandon still kept talking.

   He passed over his lighter to the woman. She thanked him, noticing the absence of her own that she'd left in the car, and in the pouring rain she figured she would save herself from being further drenched. The rain was loud.

It was beautiful out tonight.

   There was a pause between the two of them for a while. Cindy didn't even know how to begin with what she had to say, it had all been living rent free in her mind and her mind only since she was a little girl, though each puff of her freshly lit cigarette gave her just a little more courage each time that she inhaled.

   "I'm an open book, if it helps." Brandon spoke up in between the dead air. "I'm just here for a good time. You kind of need it when you're in Redsbouro. Not much shit here can offer you other than the poor, the sad, and rain. Lots and lots of it, apparently." He wanted to keep talking. She didn't understand him, or why he would've even bothered, but she was okay with that.

"I'm not here for a relationship," her eyes traveled to her boots.

   Brandon paused for a moment, taken back by the sudden assertion. He was more so confused by her body language and her voice to take real note of what she'd just said, though he did hear her clearly. "What makes you say that?" He asked.

She gulped down deeply. "I'm here for sex. That is all."

   Brandon was surprised by the statement, and gave her a look of confusion that made him even more curious as to who this woman really was.

   It wasn't something he hadn't necessarily seen before at the Rosemary. Some people were more blunt than others, some played too hard to get.

"Sex? Are you a sex worker?" He questioned her. "You a prostitute?"

"No", she added, giving herself more room in her mind to think, to explain herself. "But I'm willing to pay you."

Brandon froze up. 'What was this?' he thought in his mind.

"How much do you want? $300? $500? Just for a night. I got the money. I honestly don't care."

   "Hold on, hold on," Brandon chimed up again, further analyzing the situation. "You leave me more questions than answers, Cindy. I only just met you a half hour ago."

Cindy trailed off, her mind now seeming on autopilot. Her mouth spoke before her brain could think.

"I know, and that's okay. I don't have any diseases. I'm clean. In fact, I've never had sex."

   Brandon took back the lighter from her hand. He did believe her, with her frame and seeming inability to get out of the curled up, anxiety riddled position she sat herself in against the concrete wall since they first sat outside, he honestly wouldn't have been surprised that she'd never done anything with another man. She didn't even seem like the type that would've ever put herself out there.

Brandon sighed before taking another puff. "Unfortunate."

   A few minutes passed and the rain continued on, leaving a dim silence between them both along with the long drizzles of rain and cars zooming past the bar on a nearby freeway overpass. Cynthia, having finished her cigarette, tossed it onto the wet parking lot in front of them. The water swallowed it up in an instant, and dragged the empty cigarette butt into the sewer underneath them. It didn't appear that the rain wanted to stop. It wasn't going to for another few more hours.

   Brandon had to think hard of what to make of the exchange. His mind was scrambled. He came to the Rosemary seeking sex also, a way out of his own life's affairs, a way out of his own misery, but was it something he would have enjoyed? With this random woman who didn't seem the slightest bit interested in anything having to do with him?

"You seem like you've been thinking about this long and hard," he brought up to her.

'How in the world was he so good at catching on?', she thought. She wasn't liking it very much.

   "Why don't we both go somewhere and talk about it. I know I just met you, but if I'm being honest, I don't have much to lose either. Maybe we can just," he paused. "I don't know. Talk."

"Why?" She questioned him firmly. "I have nothing to talk about."

"I don't know. I think you do." He added further.

'God fucking dammit.'

°°°°

   There was an extent of Cindy's mind hoping that this man was a malicious psychopath, ready and ambitious to use whatever awful tools he could've had sitting in the back of the trunk of his 2005 Chevy Impala, but she didn't think too much of it then. Quite frankly, she had nothing else to lose, so she tread her thoughts elsewhere, to more and more memories that circled in her mind. There was nothing to care about now but to get the night over.

   At the front driver's seat sat Brandon, the man she'd only known for two hours now, cruising the black jalopy into the freeway and making his way into another lane, one that would be turning left. She didn't know where she was going, and frankly, she didn't care.

"You sure you don't need to stop anywhere?" He questioned as he pulled into the main road. "There's a gas station on the way. It'll be on me, okay?"

   He was oddly kind about it. As much of his kindness radiated from him, as comforting as it all felt, she didn't believe in it. Either that, or she didn't believe she deserved any of it if it was genuine. She kind of wished he was a little angrier.

   "No, thank you." She spoke up in her seat, still curled up in the same position she'd been in at the parking lot of the saloon, her knees practically kissing her face. Brandon couldn't help but feel a sense of concern for the entire situation he'd roped himself into. He didn't look happy to see her in the condition she was in, but he accepted it for what it was.

Life just fucking sucks like that.

   "Aren't you a little concerned for your own safety, Cindy?" He asked, almost as if he was trying to humor her. "Running off with some guy you only met two hours ago?"

   "Not really," she responded to him in a mumble again. There wasn't much that she would add to the conversation unless he'd interjected something of his own.

   Brandon continued on. "Don't you have any siblings? Your parents? Where are they at now? Or -..." He paused, remembering the mentioning of that man she'd brought up earlier. Brian. He didn't think it would've been a good idea to elaborate further.

   She gazed out of the car window, almost urging to open it, to soak herself in the rain. It would've felt good on her.

"I was an only child. My mom and my dad are both dead."

Brandon took in the information, and nodded.

"I'm sorry to hear that,"

   "It was for the best." She mumbled again, holding her wrist against her face as she leaned in towards the window, staring into the dark abyss of the black sky. Only the imagination could have guessed what was out there.

   Brandon chimed in. "My mom's been long gone for a while now, but my dad's doing semi-alright. He's retired. He worked as a contractor for 40 some years. You'd probably get along with him."

   "He sounds like a nice man," Cynthia added, sounding seemingly disinterested. She was listening to every word he'd spoken, but her thoughts were in an entirely different place at the moment.

   There were a few short moments in between the two of them again as not much conversing happened, but Brandon looked at the woman for a moment, and started again.

   "If it's truly what you want, I'll do it." His voice trailed off at the end. "But, if we're doing anything, it can't be at my house. To tell you the truth, I have a few dogs at home. They're not nice to visitors. I hope you understand that."

    Cynthia glanced at the digital clock that brightened the buttons on the radio. Bright, but with the numbers slightly off. He'd already mentioned before that the clock in his dash was an hour early. The clock read, '9:13 pm'.

   Her eyes didn't pay much attention to him, but she added in rather quickly, as if what was being discussed was more of a transaction than an unspoken one-night-stand.

"So, how much you want?" She questioned him, still refusing to look at him.

"Oh, I don't want anything," he answered to the woman in the front passenger seat. "I think what you're doing is already enough payment. I had a rough day, anyway."

   After the 20 minute drive from the Rosemary Saloon, Brandon finally pulled the car into an empty parking lot. A cluster of street lights beamed and littered every corner of the road into the community lot with light, despite the pouring rain still as strong as it'd been three hours prior.

   In front of the car stood what looked to be a park, with a playground and a lake. There was a giant tree that stood tall before them that could be seen from a mile away. It was gigantic. It was beautiful.

   "It looks better when it's not pitch black outside but," he reminded her, noticing that she'd been gazing at the massive tree for a solid ten seconds now. She could tell he was excited to tell her all about this place.

   "Why did you take me here?" Cindy asked Brandon, curiously. It was indeed a park, a small one, with a lake beside the large tree. It looked old and uncared for, but the occasional child or family probably still visited it once in a while, maybe for nostalgia sake, or for special holidays. The picnic tables looked unusable, as the grass stood taller than the table. It covered a majority of the table itself, seeping into the wooden crevices, leaving no leg room for any human being now. There was a grill that stood beside the same picnic table, and although black and grimey, soaked from the drenching waters, it looked like it probably still would've worked. Those outdoor grills were like tanks.

   "It's a nice place to be," he remarked, "Sometimes I like to sit here to watch the birds, the families enjoying themselves, the dogs running around and playing. I play music as I kind of... Zone out. It helps me relax".

   He cranked the radio station to the left on his dash, bringing his sports radio into a classic rock channel. After some brief mumbling from the radio hosts, Stone Temple Pilots began to play away.

Chapter 5 - Trash

   They gazed at the scenery for a little while, reminding themselves of what they were seeing, and what they had right now. 

   There wasn't a lot of that here, not in Redsbouro. They just sat, Brandon's feet resting on the paddles under the seat, and Cindy's knees only a few inches from her face, as usual. They both watched the rain pour into the river nearby, creating millions of small, calming ripples. The shine of the traffic lights made it appear quite pleasant. Quite peaceful.

   "I figured you'd like it," Brandon continued his gaze. He didn't know what he was doing anymore. It was almost as if he'd felt somehow similar to Cynthia right then. Lost, unsure, unknown.

   "It is nice," she replied to him in another one of her signature mumbles. "Is this why you brought me here? To look at a tree?"

   "No, not really," he added on. "I honestly kind of needed this myself. I don't know, maybe you would've liked it."

   Cindy lost track of the time again. It was approaching 10 pm, though his car lagged on the clock by an hour. She remembered that.

   "You know, we can do it at my house," she said, continuing to glance at the window, watching the cars as they passed by.

No eye contact.

   "You seem eager. Don't even wanna know my last name? Any questions for me?" He questioned with a short laugh, gazing out of the same window as her, noticing the passing traffic as well.

"How big are you?" She asked.

   "What?" Brandon's body shifted a bit at the personal question, unsure of how he could even respond. He wanted to make sure he heard her right the first time.

"How big are you? I'd like to know, at least."

   "Uh," his voice croaked a bit, glancing back at the front window of his car, as Nirvana began to softly play from the speaker now. It was a softer song, 'Polly'. It eased some of the odd tension, but only by a little.

"Five inches. Does that matter?"

She looked up at the black clouds in the sky. Pitch black. She saw nothing.

"Not really, no."

   Once again, silence krept up between the two for a while. The music chimed and kept the night awake for them. It helped to ease any of the tension Cindy had caused.

That silence, though, was soon broken by Cindy herself.

   "You know, it's been a really long time since I got to enjoy a night like this before. I guess sometimes it really does relieve the stress," she thought for a moment. "Brandon?"

"Yeah?"

   "Can I tell you a story?" Her brain was on autopilot again. You could tell by the eyes; she had rehearsed what she was going to say next already, but for how long, he didn't know.

His head nodded to her. He was willing to listen.

   "When I was a little girl, I used to have a best friend who brought me to a park like this one. We were little, probably about 8 or 9, I think," she began. "She was great. We used to play around with sticks and pretended they were swords a lot. We used to go to the swings and act like we were on a rollercoaster. We named it, 'The Scary Beast,'" she smiled again, with a laugh that was almost barely audible. "We weren't very original. That's just what we called it."

"Sounds like you had an eventful childhood," he listened to the story with great intrigue as he lowered the volume of the radio.

   "You could say that," she continued on. "When we got older, she started hanging out with the wrong crowd of people. As you would, growing up here I guess. She started drinking alcohol at the age of 13. There were these punks she'd started hanging out with and they let her join them."

"No more playground shenanigans, I guess?"

   "No," she said. "Those punks didn't like me very much. It was primarily because of my dad. He was an asshole to them, just as he was to anyone. They took it out on me, a lot."

   Her wrist curled up into a ball as it was clear her stress levels were rising. Bringing up the story brought her a degree of pain. He could tell.

   "The one time, they smashed my bedroom window with a rock, and my dad found it like that, all while I was at the playground. He thought I did it," her voice shook a little, but she didn't reveal any noticeable tears.

   "By how you'd spoken about your dad at the bar, I'm just going to safely assume he didn't take it well." Said Brandon.

   "No, he didn't." She was just beginning to pour out the words. Brandon wondered how long it'd taken her to hold onto these memories in the day before finally breaking.

"My dad was a very awful man." She went on. "You couldn't sneak anything past that man."

   "If you're having a hard time sharing it, you don't have to." He stated, resting his hands on the wheel again, the lights of the vehicle brightening into the downpour. The engine was firing up again, the car had woken up.

"Tell me where we're going. You can tell me all about it when we get there."

°°°°

   It would've been an understatement to explain the severity of neglect that the apartment complex in front of them displayed. By the sight of the old building stood numerous bags of garbage that piled along nearby doors, litter had scattered all across the now sunken, soaked greenery and into the parking areas. The entire area looked dead, with street lights in the parking lot flickering continuously throughout the night. Some of them didn't bother to work at all. It was clear her apartment was low-end, but he couldn't judge too harshly about it. He himself was in the same boat once.

   The door to her home was the only semi-presentable section that sat within the apartment complex. It looked fairly neat, so at least she had that going for her.

   He parked his black Impala across the old apartment building, and ignoring the scent of wet trash that littered the apartments, Brandon looked at the woman he'd brought, and back at the building. At this point, he did trust her. Despite the poor living condition of whatever this decrepit complex was, it wasn't unlivable, and he only hoped in his heart that this wasn't a setup by anyone.

She'd already gotten this far, anyway.

   Stepping into the doorway of her home, it was fairly presentable. Regardless of piled trash in numerous bins and a few flies that buzzed around the overflowing trash bins, the couch looked fairly new, albeit with some obvious cat scratches on each arm rest present. A television sat across the coffee table on a wooden entertainment stand. The television itself was an old, fat block, so thick that one of Cynthia's cats had been sleeping peacefully on top, one of its little paws dangling in front of the large screen.

"He's adorable." He mentioned to her.

   "His name is Walnut. When he's sleepy, he pays mind to nothing. Any other time, he'd be all over you." She spoke, continuing on her way into the kitchen that was cut directly from the living room by a large wooden archway.

   There weren't any pictures, or anything of significant value that appeared in the home. There were a few lamps, a flower basket or two, but no picture frames, no trinkets, knickknacks, decorations. The entire apartment by the inside looked fairly naked for what would be considered a 'home'.

   Walnut's eyes opened slowly as he glanced up at the random stranger that had wandered his way in. His breed was white with large brown splotches along his fur, and a long brown tip on the tail. His eyes were a golden brown, and his cheeks were obnoxiously puffy. Immediately upon seeing the man, he forced out a big yawn, got up off of his four little patterned paws, and stretched on top of the television.

   "Hey buddy," Brandon slowly approached him, which didn't take Walnut long to find an interest in his welcoming posture. After approaching Walnut to give him some already deserved pettings, the chunky feline was already all over him. Just as she'd said he would. He rubbed his fluffy head into the man's arm, twirling around him like an oblivious little cheerleader, nearly falling off of the television a few times in the process.

   "You can sit on the couch if you want. I don't have any bedbugs," she spoke from the kitchen, returning back to him shortly after with a can of soda. They were both cans of Sprite.

   "Well," he stated, "This is a nice place. How long have you been living here?" He set himself down on the mattress. He could suddenly feel one of the internal springs bulge and poke at his left thigh as he moved around in his seat. He was beginning to reevaluate what made the couch look so 'new', after all.

   Cindy sat down on the love seat beside him, sipping on the can of Sprite, and unzipping the hoodie that she had been wearing for the majority of the night. It was still soaked from the rain water. Despite the discomfort, she didn't take it off.

"I've been here since, hell," she froze. "I couldn't tell you. I was 23 when I moved here, I think."

"Been a long time, huh?" he began. "And you don't bring visitors over, normally?"

   "No," she said to him. "Nobody has visited this house, except for the landlord. I haven't had visitors since I was a little kid, and even then, they were very brief."

   "You know," he chugged into his can of soda, almost emptying it within the first two minutes of it being handed to him. He was a sucker for soda, that was clear enough. "You talk a lot about when you were little,”

   She looked at him for the first time in the entire night that they'd associated with each other. Her eyes had locked onto his for a moment. He could see the color of her irises clearly now. They were of a green hazel. In the shine of the headlights protruding from the front window into her face, those eyes reminded him of that of a dragon’s.

   "I do," she responded, rather defensively to him. "I don't know why I do. I guess it's the only memories I really have."

Chapter 6 - Broken Glass

   Walnut lay comfortably across Brandon's lap, purring his little heart away as the house guest continued to sip on his soda. He'd scarfed down quite a few of those Sprite's already, and it was clear that the rest of the whiskey from earlier was long washed out of his system.

   Knowing he had to drive that night, he only had a glass at the Rosemary. If he really wanted to, he could've willingly destroyed himself, but being caught up on all of this made him decide to reconsider.

   "He sure loves people, doesn't he?" Brandon lay his eyes on the cat as it continued rubbing its fluffy kitty scent all over him. The purring eased him.

"Yeah," she answered, shyly. "He's a cuddler."

   After a few more sips of her soda, Cynthia rested her back against the love seat. "Is it bad that I can't remember anything from the last ten years?" She kicked one of her legs up onto the dirty wooden coffee table, though seeming unphased while asking.

   At first, he truly thought she was joking about her memory, or at the very least over exaggerating what she was saying to him. He was wrong. He was wrong rather often, he noticed.

"What do you mean?" He asked her, hoping that he could understand her just a little better.

   "I have nothing to remember, really, except the bad things." Her body began to curl again, just as it had done all night. At this point, what she was doing was a trauma response. That was clear.

Brandon lay down his empty can onto the coffee table, next to her resting foot.

"Cynthia," he began. "Were you abused?"

   He found it hard to choke up the words with the fear of upsetting her, but she didn't react negatively. She did, however, pause for a moment, conjuring what to say to his question. How she could word it.

"I could have been," answered the frail woman. "Honestly, I don't know."

   "You don't have to answer any of my questions, Cindy," Brandon responded, "but just know that what you went through wasn't deserved."

   "You don't know that," she snapped, though calmly, and firmly. "I could've been a rotten bitch, or a whore. I could've done drugs. I could've killed somebody. I didn't even tell you my story yet, and you're already making conclusions."

She looked at the spinning fan above their heads. No eye contact.

   Brandon sighed in a bit of defeat. "Well, you can only be capable of so much as a kid. You don't understand a majority of what's actually going on in your life when you're that little. What makes you think anything you'd ever done was malicious? You were a kid, weren't you?"

   Another sip of her soda was gulped down. She didn't know how to respond, and so she had just outright ignored the question altogether. Grabbing the TV remote, she switched onto the TV channel that played a Cops marathon, and looked at the man up and down again that sat across from her.

   "You know, I never got to clarify what happened that day, when my dad found out about the broken glass in my window".

Beginning to understand what she was implying, Brandon was afraid to know. 

   "When I got home that night, he grabbed me by the hair and dragged me to the bedroom to make me look at the mess. There were shards of glass everywhere on the floor. I didn't know what happened, or how it happened. I found out it was my old friend, the bitch. She was the one who knew where I lived. She smashed the glass in, and tried pretending it was someone else."

Her body noticeably curled more and more as her story went on.

   "He told me to take off my socks and my shoes. He said that if I didn't clean up the shards of glass in time before he counted down to 20 seconds, I would have to stand in the bucket of glass I cleaned up."

"Cindy..."

   "Do you know what happened? I didn't pick up all the pieces in time," her voice lowered. "I had tiny shards of glass stuck in my feet for weeks. The pain was unbearable."

   Brandon wasn't sure how to respond, but he mustered what words he could think of, to ease the soreness they were both feeling.

"Your father was an evil man," He added. "Nobody deserves that. Not you. Not anybody."

   Her can of soda was emptied. She'd chugged the can by the time her story was over, and left it on the coffee table, without a care in a world left to give.

   She was compelled to keep talking. Once it had already poured from her mouth, it wouldn't stop pouring. She wanted to tell him everything.

   "I found out that my friend threw the rock when one of her asshole friends told me. They ratted her out. She did it because she wanted to look cool. It was nothing against me," she said.

   "I still never forgave her for it. I'd like to see her chew on the glass that was stuck in my feet, but we can't have everything we want." Her anger was genuine now. Her frustrations were valid, and they were very real.

   Brandon wasn't sure where to begin. He just let her vent about what had been harassing her throughout the night. He was okay with that, even if it did hurt them both.

   "I don't blame you for the frustration," Brandon lifted his voice. "I've dealt with a few shitty people in my life too. Nothing to that extent, but I did." He shared.

   With the rock of grief slowly dissipating from her stomach, she was more than happy to listen to the man across from him, if he had anything to tell. Walnut, satisfied from his short nap, hopped off of the house guest's lap and scurried off into the kitchen. You could hear the soft chomping noises that followed as the big guy shoveled the standing bowl of Farm Favorites into his mouth.

   "When I was, shit, I think 16 years old, I had one of my guy friends come to my house and we hung out for a while. Parents weren't home so we caused all sorts of trouble, but we knew how to clean up after ourselves. Late in the night this guy, his name was Billy, wanted to peek through our next door neighbor's window because there was a girl he liked in there. He didn't wanna do it by himself, and I was a dumbass kid, you know? I went on with him."

"Peeping Tom type shit?" She questioned him.

   He nodded. "There was a girl and a guy up there, we figured they were gonna have sex, but I don't think they did. We didn't see much, a few things, but we did get busted.”

"Really?" She added on. "What happened then?"

   "Billy told them it was all my idea to the cops. He said I was the one that made him go. Said I brought the camera too and everything. We both got in pretty big trouble. I was pissed at the time, but I look at it now and think it was funny, really. Stupid kids doing stupid things."

   Cindy's smile grew just a bit, despite the hard conversation they were having. "Want another Sprite?" She asked him, picking herself up off of the loveseat, and slowly making her way to the kitchen.

"Yeah, sure." He answered.

   He looked at the woman's figure as she'd wandered off, switching the light in the kitchen to a bright gold. She truly did look frail. 'There wasn't much to her at all', he thought. It wasn't as if she wasn't attractive; if she wasn't, he probably would've never taken up the courage to approach her at the Rosemary to begin with, or maybe he was just that desperate.

He couldn't bother to think about it enough to make the conclusion.

   She returned back to the loveseat with three more cans. An extra to keep her from having to get up again. "My soda is almost gone, you know," she laughed under her breath, setting down every can she held onto the creaky, wooden coffee table. One of the legs of the table was being held up by some thick books that were fairly neglected, aged; you couldn't read the front cover.

   "You didn't have to give me any more if you were running low. I can live being parched for a little while," he responded with an amused grin.

"Well, I still have some stories to tell, if you don't mind," she explained.

   The following literary work contains themes of child abuse, as well as the murder of a child. Do not ignore these warnings if you are sensitive to the mentioned topics discussed in this story. This is an adult story that deals with mature themes.

This is also my first genuine attempt at writing horror. Please, go easy on me. Parts of this story (though slightly exaggerated) are inspired by my own childhood trauma and it was used as an outlet. Thank you very much.

Chapters 4, 5, & 6 Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTales/s/j5rWfD5LPk

Chapters 7, 8, & 9 Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTales/s/r3jD5CS4sp

Chapters 10, & 11 Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTales/s/dCGzKPcyQL

Chapters 12, & 13 Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DarkTales/s/DVYoMCRr9s

Chapter 1 - The Closet

   'Four more years', she thought in her head.

'For more years, and I'll be out of here.'

   She'd been sitting on the wooden surface of the floor in her bedroom closet for four hours now, her tears had dried up and irritated the skin around her eye sockets. She refused to open the door to preserve her privacy, or lack thereof, for what felt like forever. It could've been argued that Cynthia hid on her own accord, to make life harder for herself; she could have left that bedroom anytime she wanted, but she didn't want to.

   Not with him standing out there, waiting for her.

   "You know, I talked to your doctor today," he scoffed, resting his body against the side of the wall nearby her locked bedroom door, as if the interrogation throughout the day on the drive to her therapist wasn't enough. "She told me about you having autism or some fuckin' thing."

   Cynthia's legs curled up against her chest, as the only thing resting between her were her untouched rack of old clothes she hadn't worn since the 4th grade. She never used her closet for anything of value anymore. She only used it now to hide. If anything, now the comfort of her youth staring back at her was, in a way, comforting to see. Back when she was blissfully unaware of what was going on.

   It was more peace than whatever her father had to say to her next. She didn't know how else she could drown out the words that melted through the thin wooden door of that crammed old bedroom.

   "I bet you told her I beat you too, huh?" his voice lifted, awkwardly, as if to hide the fear of the truth being spoken out to anyone else, as well as his own ego convincing him that the story, despite it being based on reality, was all a silly and fictitious lie, conjured in the mind of a young, troublesome, shit-faced child who didn't get what she wanted.

   "Cut the bullshit, Cindy." His voice lowered again. "I know that you lied to that therapist. I know you wanted every ounce of sympathy like the fuckin' attention seeking bitch that you are. What do you get out of the attention, anyway? What's it going to solve for you? Congratulations. You have autism, now you get to hang out with the retarded kids at school. Was it worth it?"

She swallowed deeply, and said nothing.

"Open the damn door, Cindy."

   Her fingers could barely keep a grip against the wood she held desperately onto, as if to keep secure on a long, painful rollercoaster that would never end. In that moment, the immense fear of her father began to worsen by every word he spoke. She couldn't open the door to him. Her bedroom, in that closet, was the only safe place she had ever owned in her life. Her father despised her very existence, and wanted nothing more than for the girl, the girl that ruined his future, to suffer.

   It was unfair to him, in his eyes, that he was deprived of the son he had always wanted; the memories they one day could've shared, fishing and playing football in the front yard, making a man out of his little boy.

But she wasn't a boy. She was a girl. She was a little whore.

   Cindy didn't get up from the safety of her closet, keeping a majority of the natural sun out and giving her the darkness that comforted her in those lengthy, exhausting minutes. Her father continued to slam on the bedroom door, making a few pauses in between, fluctuating the volume of each loud BANG!, as if to maliciously tease her. 'He could break that door down, she thought in her mind, 'but he won't do it.'

   The man, the same man who had once vowed to protect the child apon one day being conceived, now wanted to cherish the fear he'd bestowed onto the very bitch that lay in the fetal position within a tiny, pathetic closet. He knew that he could break down her door anytime he wanted, the man stood at 6'2 and weighed 350lbs; he was a wall of a man, but the entertainment of hearing the gasps and the whimpers of Cindy sneak past through her gritted teeth gave him an abnormal satisfaction that he could never admit to himself, or to his clueless wife.

   The dread had built up within Cynthia's body when she soon felt something she didn't want to feel. It had been hours since she'd gotten up from her seat in the closet, blanketed by pillows she'd used to sleep in throughout the nights that she wanted the complete darkness to comfort her. At a slight movement she'd made with her legs, she'd felt the sudden need to pee.

   'No,' she whimpered to herself. Her legs curled up as her thoughts raced of what was next to do in her situation. She'd tried everything to keep herself from drinking any kind of fluid on the last day, just to keep the urge to use any kind of bathroom entirely absent. She could suddenly begin to recall the pouch of Capri-Sun she'd drunk up after a small party that her school held that day. The entire process, the predicament of this event, didn't come across her once in her mind when she was having fun.

'I don't wanna go out there.' Her eyes began to tear up again, as if the young girl's tears hadn't already run dry by now.

She was going to have to make the choice. Pee in something in the room, or bare what she had to do.

   She'd glanced around every corner of the room, taking mental notes of what could possibly hold her over just until she could dump it out overnight, when the family was long asleep. She'd found boxes of colored pencils she'd once used to help with her science projects for school at one point in time. She could remember the project in specific, just at the sight of them. She had to make a large billboard comparing different climates around the world. She'd worked tirelessly on that project, and all for what? The approval of who? Teachers? Students? Potential friends? Bullies that she wanted to appease?

   She'd slowly gotten up from her bedroom's tiny closet in the search for something small, something compact. Anything that could hold fluid. A bucket of crayons? A barbie doll box? A leftover cup she'd accidentally left underneath the bed?

   She'd looked everywhere in every which way for the slightest glimmer of hope to reveal itself, a way to keep herself as far from her father as possible, even if it meant using a sock, or one of her old shirts as toilet paper. The last shred of hope that she figured she could search for this one time, once again, failed her.

It was time to face it. She had no other options.

   The door to her bedroom began to rattle from the inside as the small, exhausted little girl stood across from the overweight behemoth that stood her father. He'd looked down at her with a look of amusement that always rested on his face whenever he'd seen her in this condition.

"I need to use the bathroom", she mumbled under her breath. It was shaky, and cold.

   Her father looked her up and down for a moment, before beginning another lecture, as if she needed more from this hollow shell of a human being. "You'd be doing yourself the favor just pissing your pants, Cindy. Bet you thought about it, too."

She said nothing to him.

   "Tell me this, then. What are you going to do once I let you use the bathroom? You're gonna go write little paper notes underneath the sink about how miserable you are with the hopes of your mom finding them?" The cold, stiffness in his overbearing voice made it clear that he didn't give a shit if Cindy pissed herself or if she didn't. The reaction was the only thing he wanted right now, and it only gave him that satisfaction to keep going.

   "No," she further murmured, coldly, defensively.

   Her father, immediately dismissing her response, added on. "I read what you wrote the first time. Mom handed it over to me. You wanna know what I said?"

She had nothing to say.

   "I told her that you hated me because I caught you trying to sip on my whiskey in the parlor. You got mad because you couldn't have any. You want to be an adult, so, so badly, that you wanted to pull the cork out and drink for yourself. Well, just a shame you don't know what a cork even is, you dumb bitch." He finished his sentence with a scoff.

    None of that ever happened. Cindy didn't even like the strong sting of alcohol on the tongue. She'd tried it once before, and it made her stomach tilt in a way she didn't like.

   By how her father was acting to the information he'd just mentioned, though, it seemed he truly did believe that that was what happened. He was so confident about what he was saying that you couldn't persuade him otherwise. He was clearly drowning in his own lies, and he was dragging Cindy into the same deep water, too.

   As if a little girl like her would've been believed if she tried to tell a different story, regardless, and he knew that.

   "Can I use the bathroom?" Her voice shook and her eyes fluttered, coated in forming tears that could not stop rolling from her pale cheeks. Her head was beginning to hurt from the crying, and the deep voice of her father that had been booming against her wooden door for the past hour.

   It took him a few moments to respond, and a decision was made. He stepped out of her way in the hallway to her bedroom, leaving enough room for her to scurry past the large man into one of the old, cruddy bathrooms of their apartment. They had two of them currently in the home; one of them didn't have a working toilet.

   Cindy hurriedly jumped into one of the bathroom doors, pushing the door into its frame as far as she possibly could. The wood surface of the door grinded harshly against the ground, and screeched throughout the house. You couldn't shut the door fully as her father had already long smashed it.. He'd claimed to his wife that it was because the lock was stuck, so he manually tore it out himself, and was still currently waiting for a replacement to arrive in the mail. Cindy didn't believe that.

   The bathroom walls looked like shit. The wallpaper that coated the small room had been peeling clean off since the family first moved in, and the floors squeaked loudly with every step that you took. The mirror was broken, and covered in smudges that made it hardly useful. It wasn't like anybody here had a face they wanted to see, anyway. In Cindy's eyes, she was blessed with the inability to see the caked layers of tears dried into her red, swollen skin.

   Seeing anyone in the house clean up the mess that was of the apartment would've been a miracle in and of itself. Cindy was used to the dirt, and at that point, she knew she had worse things to worry about. She could live with the mice and the fruit flies if it meant better company than her father, who hovered around her at every step of every day that she lived there.

   It was a real shame that through it all, her mother truly believed he was so consumed in her daughter's life because he cared.

   By the time Cindy was finished using the toilet, she slowly opened the old, wooden door on the way out, dreading seeing her father's face. He was standing in the kitchen, like an overprotective babysitter watching over a waddling toddler who'd just taken his first shit. Not watching for a single moment could've met irresponsibility on his part, after all.

"Cindy," her father suddenly spoke. Her limbs froze up, like a terrified deer in headlights.

She hated him so much. She wanted him to go away and die.

   "If I hear you leaving that room tonight, I will drag you right back onto that bed and I will slap the shit out of you myself. Do you understand?"

Cindy's voice was hardly eligible. "Yes."

   "You know why I'm doing this, right?" He added further. Cindy, realistically, had absolutely no idea why she was the target of what she'd been enduring for as long as she could remember. For weeks, into months, into years.

   "I'm doing this because one day, you're going to go out into this world as an adult, and you're going to do some very awful things, and meet some very awful people. The world is a very awful place, and you will be prepared for it. You will not like it, but you will be prepared for it."

   Everything that he spoke to her, right to her face, went through one ear and out the other. The only thought in her mind that raced was that room. That closet. The comfort of her pillows, her stuffie, her closet.

Her closet.

   "You're going to meet boys who are going to do very bad things to you, and you will continue doing those bad things with different boys. Don't act like I'm stupid, either. I've seen you eyeing boys before. I've seen you eyeing the actors on TV. Looking down there." He gestured to the area in which her crotch was.

   "I know a lot of girls out there do things like that. Your mother did that, too." He growled at her. "Must be genetics."

   Her heart was exhausted, it couldn't beat any faster now. Her adrenaline, the fear in her heart, kept her from saying a word. She listened, and left.

   Right back into her room, the door shut behind her as she made her way back to the tiny closet that kept all of her pillows, her blankets, her cushions, clothes, stuffies. It was her only world of comfort that she'd ever known, and she never wanted to leave it again.

Chapter 2 - Birthday Wishes

   The bus was only just barely late for the hour. Normally it arrived on the dot, but just as everyone else, nothing was ever perfect, and the people here in this rancid, bleak town normally accepted that having any disputes with the drivers were relatively pointless on its own. If you were smart about it, you'd either leave by bus or drive your own car, and in this town of Redsbouro, Connecticut, money wasn't exactly the easiest to get your hands on nowadays. A lot of the poor hung out here. A lot of them didn't make the effort to argue, because in the end they knew it was better to just submit, just as they did to the rich.

   The rain was especially harsh in the afternoon hours of this particular day, making the vision of many drivers more difficult to maneuver. The rain blinded many and those many turned their high beams on, blinding other drivers. Accidents were probably going to happen tonight. Regardless, the commute was no different than any other. The people were always the same. Nobody came to Redsbouro to enjoy themselves. Nobody came in for fun business trips. Nobody came to vacation with their families. You lived here and you most likely died here, or if you moved, you were to move so far off from the state that you'd live to tell the tale of what almost got you killed that one time when you were in your early 20's.

   The bus schedule was always the same anyway, and Cynthia Bennicans had nothing else to do with herself despite the change of time. It passed too slowly, but she only had herself to blame for that. She couldn't stop checking her watch: 6:53 pm, it read. Late, but not late enough. It was as if time couldn't pass any faster, as if time itself tormented her for the fun of it.

   The weather was chilly, and rainy that day. She didn't exactly come prepared for the venture other than with an old hoodie she'd owned that was already two times the size of her, leaving plenty of room to let her body heat freely escape and elude the purpose of a jacket at all. By the time the bus had passed one of the bigger gas stations, a sign was lit up in a harsh, yellow light; thick blocky numbers that read off the temperature in the night. 46°.

'Almost to summer, but not quite there yet', she thought to herself in her head.

   Many lights beamed and lit up each corner of the street, as rain continued to drench each and every inch of the roads. The car lights reflected and nearly blinded her, as Cindy was just waking up from a long, seemingly miserable nap on the ol' Redsbouro HorsePower public bus. An oldie but a goodie, and when you didn't have a car, it was the only thing keeping you around. You were lucky to find Ubers in the area that wouldn't rape you of your money at the very last dime.

   Today was a special day to Cynthia though. It was so important that she'd had in her thoughts for quite a while now. Today was her 35th birthday, and it took her a long time to get this far. She'd admit that she was surprised it was even possible, but she wanted to celebrate tonight with something wonderful.

   It wasn't as if Cindy could celebrate her birthday with anyone she knew. She was out of options in her family, so she was stuck with the first thing that came to her brilliant, sad little brain, and quite frankly, she didn't mind the option. In fact, she'd planned it for a very long time. She'd saved herself for this night, and she was excited to enjoy the night to its fullest. Her birthday was going to be special.

   The Horse Power bus pinged, though anyone riding was lucky to hear the sound of it from the obnoxious sound of the downpour. Considering it was a massive bathtub on wheels, you figured it could've handled the water better.

   "Stop requested. For your personal safety, please do not cross in front of the bus", the voice chimed out from the loud speaker. Cindy could hardly tell if the voice was AI generated, or spoken by some woman in the 70's that was recorded one time and then forgotten about long ago. If that were the case, it brought her to think of where that old lady would've been at now; probably living her best life with a husband she loved, and children she birthed and raised. And those children had children, and those children were about to hit their 20's too. It's crazy how much time can slow down the happiest moments, but the world itself just keeps on spinning. Oftentimes you forget you're already halfway into the grave.

   Passing the bus and halting at its latest stop was exactly where Cindy's next destination was. It was a calm little place known to bring out some pretty colorful characters. This had been the fourth time she'd come here, as a matter of fact. It was a vibrant, comfortable little bar called the Quiet Rosemary Saloon. 

   A lot of men and women came in and out throughout the night, every night, booking off in their pretty little cars with their pretty little new relationships. It was common knowledge that this was the place to be if you wanted to get hitched in town, not like it'd given Cynthia any luck of her own. She didn't make much of an effort to look "pretty", but to her credit, she wasn't exactly sure what was truly pretty in the eyes of a man. Men had plenty of preferences, there was really no such thing as a standard. You could've been one of the ugliest old hags to walk the Earth, but someone, somewhere out there in the world was jacking off to you.

Some could think of it repulsive, others found it flattering.

   Cindy took her last step off of the public bus as she scurried herself to the front door of the Rosemary. Her hoodie wasn't of much help, already becoming drenched in the water that assaulted her short travel. 'It was a brutal night tonight', she thought.

°°°°

   Cindy rested on the tattered leathery stool of the Rosemary Saloon, resting each arm on the bar table and staring at the myriad of bottles scattered across the wall. There were so many options she could've chosen from, but nothing immediately stuck out to her. Her thoughts were elsewhere, in her own little world.  The walls were littered with praise for the bar's positive reputation, with each certificate on the wall coming from events or organizations she couldn't recognize.

   Cindy's eyes continued to rotate through the bar. On her birthday, it was supposedly what she'd wanted. A night alone, in a musty old bar with a bunch of drunk men and women, and at the very least she would have already planned out on what to order from the bartender. It was a bar, after all.

"Miss?" The Bartender spoke up to a restless Cynthia as her head rested on the bar's countertop.

   "Uh..." Her voice had frozen at the sudden approach, her eyes locking onto the bartender's gaze. She quickly skimmed the counter full of beer, whiskey, liquor, and the like, hoping to pick out something quickly and to keep all of the attention away from her. "Some red cat wine, please". She stuttered.

   "The wine? Gotcha," he responded to her in a satisfied, 'I'm getting paid to do this' grin on his face. The man wasn't very attractive in her eyes. She'd seen better. The nose was a little crooked and the cheek bones had a bit of a puffiness to it that resembled a child's. He was a bit of a chunky guy. Yet, he probably got fucked by some skinny bitch at home with curly brown hair and a goth wardrobe. Or for all she knew, he was gay. 

   By the time her wine was poured down into a fancy glass and presented to her by the baby faced gentleman, she mustered up a 'Thank You', and began to sip down the sting of the alcohol as tenderly as her stomach could handle. Alcohol wasn't necessarily a fan favorite of hers, but it was a night like this that she wouldn't have minded getting plastered enough to forget that tonight happened at all.

No, she needed to remember. Tonight was special.

Chapter 3 - A Stranger

   The LED lights flickered a calm green and purple, glimmering off of Cindy's full glass of red wine that she hadn't yet touched. She'd been sitting there for a solid hour, wondering, thinking to herself. She didn't want to leave this place, in fact she wanted to stay forever, because it meant quite a lot to her to be here. Unbeknownst to a majority of those who attended the Rosemary Saloon, this had been the loneliest the woman had felt in years, though it was moreso a melancholy remedy that brought her. She felt good that despite the sadness, she could have the last say in where to go and what to do. Her own decisions were dictated by no one, and it felt good. 

She'd barely sipped on her beverage and stared at it for a good while until a voice suddenly pinged in her right ear.

   "I've seen you here before," one of the men near her seat gave her a gander and a smile. She could catch the man looking her up and down as he waited for a response, but she didn't care. She naturally hesitated to respond, the anxiety filling up into a ball that rested comfortably in her gut, until her voice finally spoke to him.

"Sometimes, yeah. Been here a few times."

The man looked at the glass in her hand and noticed it was hardly empty at all. She'd barely touched her drink.

   "Not much of a drinker, huh?" He mentioned to her. Trying to string up a conversation with this woman was going to be a chore in and of itself, he thought. She already looked disinterested.

Cindy laid eyes on her drink, completely forgetting at that moment that she even had a drink in front of her at all. "Not really," she muttered. "I don't drink much."

'Was this man dangerous?' was the first idea that krept up within the woman's mind. It was the only thing in her mind that lived there.

"Well, that's certainly interesting," he chuckled. "Girl hangs out at a bar but doesn't drink."

Her response took a few seconds to cook, as she sipped on her glass again. "Well, I have my reasons."

   The man wasn't bad looking, she'd rolled around the thought in her mind. He was a relatively average looking man, appearing almost as tall as her. She didn't mind that. She could've cared less about the height of a man for that matter. He had a barely noticeable beard developing that looked like it had just been shaved maybe a week prior, and was getting ready to grow itself back in again. He looked relatively clean, his brown curly hair was shining thoroughly despite the harsh colors of the LED Lights reflecting in the strands. You couldn't miss the pronounced brown color, or the color of the eyes. They were a solid green. She'd taken note of that.

   There was a song that began to play from the loud speaker. A Pearl Jam number kicked in, and was almost immediately recognizable to her. 'Better Man' began to bleed through the bar. It made the experience just a tad more comfortable to her. This was a favorite song of hers. She'd listened to it many years back during the years that she was ill.

When she was ill.

"My name is Brandon," the man began again. "You like Pearl Jam?"

A small smile grew on her face. It was the first time she'd smiled tonight. "Yeah, I do."

   The chubby bartender returned to the table, noticing the emptiness of Brandon's hands, almost as if he'd been reading the stranger's mind that entire time.

"Whiskey sounds good." Brandon said.

Whiskey.

   Her body grew tense. Suddenly, she'd felt a little more uncomfortable now, but in all due honesty, it was something she liked. Something she wanted. She gritted her teeth, and barred the thought of that harsh stench of fresh whiskey that would've violated her nostrils. God, she despised that smell.

   "You never told me your name," the man mentioned to Cindy, who had been staring off into the puddle of red that was stationed in her glass. She'd been nonchalantly humming to the song that'd been playing. It was almost over.

She snapped out of her trance, but didn't look at him. "Cindy."

He smirked. "I like it."

   "My father didn't like my name very much." She replied. She didn't know what had compelled her to bring it up to him, but she did. For the first time in a long time, she'd felt the urge to open up. She didn't know how to feel about it.

"Well," Brandon continued in response to her. "Your father probably had a goofy name himself. Insecurity, I assume. What, was it Eugene? Skeeter?"

"Todd". She froze when she said the word. She promised herself she'd never acknowledge him, or his name again, but she was compelled to. She hated that name, so, so much.

   "I see," Brandon said to her, "Still not nearly as nice as Cindy. I think ‘Todd’ needs a brain check." He mocked to ease the tension he could see on her face when her father's name was mentioned.

"Yeah," she responded to him, unsure of how to continue a conversation like this. Her gut was beginning to tighten again. She couldn't fathom taking another sip of the red wine in front of her.

   "You know, years back I had a best friend. His name was Andy. You kind of remind me of him. He was quiet, he didn't talk much, and as far as I knew him, he had a lot in his mind that he didn't tell anyone."

She looked into his eyes, bewildered. "What happened to him?"

His breaths deepened as he heard her ask. He was unsure if he wanted to answer, but he did.

   "He's long gone. He went to join his wife. She died in an accident long before, and it ate him up from the inside. He went out the same way, for her. I was pretty heartbroken to hear it. I still think about him sometimes, but life just keeps going on, man."

Cynthia didn't know how to respond. What did keep her intrigued was how much he was able to know so easily of her. It was almost like he'd read her entire story through her eyes alone.

"I'm sorry to hear, I hope you've found peace with that. That's awful." She responded.

"For the most part," he said. "I mean, everyone dies someday. He wanted to go to see his wife again, and I can't blame him. This world kind of sucks."

   The melancholy conversation was interrupted by the bartender, who'd finally brought the man his whiskey. Cindy could smell the obnoxious stench from here. It lit up her nostrils like a firecracker.

"So, you never exactly told me why you were here," he remarked. "Just to enjoy the scenery? Watch all the couples dancing while you sat by yourself? What's going on?"

   She urged to open up, but kept her guard up. She didn't know what to say to this nosey stranger she'd only met twenty minutes ago. He sipped on his whiskey as if he enjoyed it. Cindy could never.

   "I guess I don't really know how to answer that," she muttered under her breath. "Today is my birthday". Her mind defaulted to the first thought in mind.

"Oh, damn. Birthday huh? All by yourself?"

"You could say that, yes." She added.

   "Why's that? You know I told you about something that's been aching me. It's your turn," he chuckled, innocently at her. He continued on. "You don't gotta worry about me. I'm in my 40's. I lived a pretty good life. I have nothing to hide from anyone."

   "Do you really want to know why I'm here?" She asked, gazing up at the man again, but still refusing direct eye contact. It made her uncomfortable.

"Well, sure. If you want to tell me."

   After a few moments, she looked down at her glass and back at Brandon, who continued sipping on the hard whiskey he'd ordered. It looked disgusting. It smelled disgusting.

"I don't want to say it here, if that's okay with you."

Most ski the beaten path, but I’ve found the true excitement lies in the treacherous and the unexplored. A fresh coat of powder, God knows how many feet of snow beneath me, and the thin pieces of plastic that propelled me downhill, weaving past outcrops and around trees. I had bundled nicely but the frost still formed on my beard, and the faster I went, the more unsure I became. If I got lost out here, it is unlikely my body would be found, and I was a few hundred yards from the resort. I was no stranger to the slopes, though it seemed I had gotten ahead of myself. Skis hovering about the snow, I lost control when veering left, sinking deeper into the powder along the trees. I’d tried pulling out but I sank even further, it was smothering, and it felt as if I was in quicksand. I thought for sure I was dead, and soon my air was to run thin, suspended in snow I lay a future corpse. But a strange twist of fate had formed a whirlpool beneath me, sucking me downward until I dropped, my feet cracking against the sleek ground. This was no normal hole beneath a tree where the snow had failed to gather properly, it was a cavern below, a hollowed-out portion of the Earth. And to my bewilderment, it branched off with narrow tunnels, just small enough to crawl through, eerie in their nature, asking to be questioned. 

I had no clue what I was seeing, the only thing I knew for certain was that there was no way out. I had crawled for hours it seemed, losing track of the time. Thankfully, my backpack still hung over my shoulders, and enough water for a day or two. Water that would surely freeze had I not found a way to warm it. I carried flint and steel in case of emergency, but I didn’t take into account falling into a cavern below the snow. One that was either naturally formed or carved out by man, which I couldn’t tell. All I could think about was my family as I squeezed through the tunnels leading into more rooms, hollowed and rounded at the top. It was a never-ending series of turns and bends leading into hemispheres of nothingness, sunlight was nowhere to be found, and the air was stripped of oxygen. I wondered what time it was as I crawled through another pointless tunnel. 

On the other side, I could see an amber light, one that I knew had to be cast by flame, and the heat cut through to meet me as I pressed on, my elbows against the ice. I didn’t question why, or how someone else would be here, stoking a fire. I was freezing, and the questions I should’ve asked didn’t enter my mind, only warmth. Reaching the other end, I could see a pair of boots and the pant legs of the man who wore them. The fire popped and crackled loudly as I stood up to get a better view of him and the chamber. He wasn’t bundled as well as I was, and his clothes looked like hand-me-downs, his hair gray and balding, he turned his head to greet me. I understood that no man should be down there and that it was improbable. But I rubbed my palms together and trudged my way to the strange old man who looked oddly unaffected by the frigid nature of the caves. Stalagmites of ice surrounded us, I sat at his campfire that crackled with welcoming pops. 

“Hey, there, come sit, why don’t ya,” he said, patting the wooden log he used as a bench.

“Sure,” so I sat, enjoying the beans he had cooked above the fire for the both of us and for a few moments, I’d disregarded the predicament entirely. The cold had thawed, and the ice around the campfire glistened, sheening with our reflections. The smoke billowed into the air, dissipating into nowhere, seemingly vanishing when it met the ceiling.

“Say, how long have you been down here,” I asked the man, his features gaunt.

“Who knows, how ‘bout you?” The man asked, gleefully curious.

“A day, I think.”

“They seem to blend. Glad you stopped by, haven’t had a friend in a while.”

“Seems I don’t have a choice,” the man cackled at my response, and he sounded like a wild animal, laughing at something I didn’t think was very funny.

“You get used to it, how do the beans taste?” He said joyfully, scooping a spoonful into his mouth and slurping the rest.

“Chunky, but rather sweet, thank you, something decent before death,” I said, staring at the dark soup I’d been ingesting. The food was heavy in my stomach, a flavor I’d never tasted despite having had haricot beans too many times to count. It was the meat that my taste buds seemed to relish, had I not been famished, it may have tasted differently. Chewy and stringy, I tore through it like a carnivore until there was nothing left in my bowl. There were bits of bone and other pieces of unidentified slop. It was delicious, but I felt the immediate urge to puke when what looked to be an ear floated to the surface, wading in the fluid I’d been stuffing my stomach with. Its curves were human, pan-fried, and surprisingly savory. One might assume they would immediately jump in the air in fear or start screaming maniacally. But I just sat there, my mind a haze, appreciating the warm meal that had been given to me. I didn’t question its source, and the man didn’t either, we enjoyed the company. But the meat would run low.

I had woken in a blur of frost, the campfire hissing wet smoke and the cackling man was gone. Our food and the remnants of feasting were nowhere to be found, and only my equipment was near. I’d tried to wake the fire too, but its smoke billowed into a whimpering plume. One that had coughed me straight, the cold was biting, and the mist of my breath was in sync with my heart. My stomach was empty, but I remembered his words and the ways he comforted me that night. There was no need to be afraid, and if I sat long enough, the food would come.

Soon after, a fissure had begun to form in the ice above, and the sight of fresh powder poured through. Just barely, I could hear faint screams of terror, which subsided into an acceptance of defeat. Until his feet poked through, puncturing the thin sheet of ice, gravity pulling him down into my cavern, a friend to keep my company. He didn’t notice me at first, but once he brushed the snow off his boots, he looked over towards me. I didn’t want to frighten him, but I’m afraid my smile just might have. 

The broken voice of despair
Violently escapes from behind my lips
A gleeful smirk stretched upon the moon
While the pain threatens to swallow
What yet remains of sanity along
With every single nerve

Bloodied fingertips claw hopelessly at the dirt
While a stream of warm tears soils the earth
My hands are forced to carve heartbreak into stone
Once more lost in the fog of eternal life
Slowly led into a state of permanent awakening
Where all the dreams are dead and gone

Loss will always return
Until there is nothing left

It is never enough
No, it is never enough
Until there is nothing to mourn

I’m so happy my apartment suite is right beside the trash chute. Owning my own home was a dream come true, but this trash chute keeps the nightmares away.

In 2002 I bought the house on the corner lot next to the Dallaback County Cemetery. The house was nice. The cemetery was the neatest, quietest neighbor I’ve ever had. I sold the house the same year and to this day I can’t shake off what happened.

Ten months after I moved in, a school bus towing a compact car parked beside my house at 10 p.m. on the night of Tuesday the 19th. When I say beside, I mean the side without the door was almost touching the side of my house. It was November, a warm one with no snow, and we hadn’t had rain in a couple of days. That meant there were no tire tracks showing how the bus got that close to my place. It didn’t tear down my fencing, nothing. It was just there. I only went to investigate what happened because I heard a loud door slam.

The bus driver was disconnecting the car when I got out there. He stared at me for a second before yelling “Don’t let ‘em out.” He got into the car and drove away, again somehow managing to not destroy my fencing. If I hadn’t been so distracted by the thumps coming from the bus, I would have watched him leave. Maybe some things are better left unknown.

But the thumping. The windows were tinted, it was dark and given the size of that bus, there could have been 60 maybe 70 kids in it. Yes, it was night, but teenagers could have been at a dance or something. What kind of driver leaves them stranded, next to a stranger’s house? And says “Don’t let ‘em out” like there’s a bunch of demonic passengers?

Driver instructions be damned, I opened the door and waited a couple of seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dark interior. While I waited, the lack of noise disturbed me. No rustling, no whispers, no thumping.

Unease slowed my movements. I paused on each step as I entered the bus, hoping I wasn’t about to be ambushed.

A glowing yellow button by the driver’s seat labeled “INT LTS” drew my attention. I pressed it and sure enough, interior lights came on. Not bright by any stretch of the imagination, but brighter than no lights at all. Much later I questioned if I’d ever been in a school bus with interior lights.

There was no passenger in any seat. I didn’t see any feet or legs or any other body part sticking out even slightly into the aisle so I assumed no one was hiding from me. Who and where were the “them” the driver warned me about?

As much as I wanted to make sure the bus was empty, my speeding heart rate convinced me to stay put beside the empty driver’s seat. I looked down the aisle again.

It was no longer clear. The back door exit was blocked by the slightly dusty statue of a Christian-type angel facing me, holding an open book. Head to the ceiling, wings the same height, wearing a robe, all in a material so brightly white it almost hurt to look at it.

I couldn’t breathe. I glanced left and right and back at the statue. It had to be a trick of the light. It couldn’t have appeared out of nowhere.

As I looked at it, it thumped three times and moved up three rows.

My mind shut off and my body went into flight mode. I backed down the steps and managed to hit the button to close the doors before landing on my ass.

Once I caught my breath I took a few steps back. This was clearly beyond my areas of expertise. Time for the police. Now it was a long time ago. I don’t remember what the officer said word for word. It went something like this: “You are wrong, there are no school buses roaming through Dallaback County at this time of night. If there were, we would already know about it. Don’t call again.”

That’s when the singing started. Not a church goer, don’t watch televangelists, but the singing sounded like hymns. Hymns being sung by many people in the school bus, interspersed with thumping. I don’t know which hymns and maybe it was the same hymn being sung over and over on repeat.

As stupid as this sounds, I opened the bus door. The singing stopped before I got my head in the bus. I ran up the stairs and was greeted by the angel statue, in the middle of the bus. Once again it thumped three times and moved too close for my comfort. I made the mistake of looking into its eyes. It closed the book it was holding with a snap and stared back.

My knees turned to jelly. I twisted to grab the railing and once again fell ass over teakettle, scrambling to close the door before I could take a full breath.

My luck ran out. I’d landed awkwardly on my left hand and broke it. The singing started again. I couldn’t bear it any longer and burst into tears while crawling back to my house where I collapsed on the front steps. That’s where I called Gage, the cemetery caretaker.

“You stay put, young lady. Do not get near the bus. I’ll be there in five.”

He wasn’t kidding. Before I could stop crying, Gage was there gently checking my hand.

“For sure, I’ll take you to Nurse Reela when we’re done. But first, the bus.”

He sat down one step below me and peered around the corner to where the bus was before continuing.

“It is and isn’t here. I’ve seen it every year since I took over as caretaker 18 years ago. Police won’t acknowledge it, neither will tow trucks. For all I know, maybe they really can’t see or hear it. It will be gone in the morning as long as you don’t interfere with it any more.”

“Are you sure?” I felt bad the second the question left my mouth but I was exhausted and terrorized beyond what I’d ever felt.

“Yeah.” He paused, glanced at me from under the brim of his hat. “It’ll still be here when we get back from the nurse. You’ll go inside and put on headphones to drown out the songs and the thumping. Do not go to the bus. Do not go to a window to look at it. Do not go to a door to look at it. Ignore it and it will move on.”

“How do you know?”

“It worked for the previous caretaker. It works for me. It will work for you. Did the driver say anything to you?”

“Yes, he said ‘don’t let them out.’”

“Him,” Gage corrected me. “Don’t let him out. The angel. Damn thing has no business being in this dimension. Want the best advice I’ve ever given?”

I nodded, feeling foolish and afraid and helpless.

“Sell this place. Don’t be here when the bus returns. Before you ask, I don’t know when it will return. You have 30 days before it can return. Be living elsewhere when it does. And never own anything shaped like or decorated with angels. Ever.”

Nurse Reela didn’t ask any questions. She put a cast on my hand. Her cousin Siggy in Vurston County was hiring. I took the card she offered with all of her cousin’s contact info.

Within a week I was gainfully employed and living in Vurston City. When that company was bought out and expanded, I continued moving up the ranks and living in different cities.

But on the third Tuesday of each month since leaving Dallaback County, a tiny angel knick knack appears at my doorstep. I make sure to break it and throw it out immediately. None enter my apartment and I make sure not to pass the problem on to anyone else. Anyone, that is, except the new owner of the house on the corner lot next to the Dallaback County Cemetery.

Descending into the gaping hole that is negativity
Like vultures masking their vile intentions
The human mass of want crawls toward tragedy
Under the pitiful façade of pure-hearted compassion

There is nothing more beautiful than the obsessive lust
In the eyes of the living as they feast upon the dead
There is nothing more satisfying than a cry of hopelessness
In the face of shameful disappointment

The children will be sacrificed for vengeance
When all of your beloved idols are torn apart
Everything and all to feed the hateful flame
Burning inside the gaping hole that is your heart

Your servitude shall remain eternal
To the depraved vices of King Denial

Our song and dance around the mutual desire to fuck each other silly was reaching its climax
when Darcie decided to show me a "magic trick" by swallowing a glass dildo whole. I had to resist the urge to turn her around and bend her over right then and there.

The longing in her eyes drove me ever closer to the edge as I watched her slowly push the glass toy further down her throat.

Resistance was futile when blood flow to the brain became restricted in the face of my self-gratifying imagination going into overdrive.

The things she'd let me do to her…

The moment the glass toy disappeared behind those beautiful lips; the earth shook beneath us.

Shaking hard enough to sweep Darcie from under her feet and into my arms.

Spitting the toy out, she fell right on top of me, sending us both onto the couch behind.

I was laughing my ass off until I noticed Darcie wasn't laughing. She stared wide-eyed at the spit-covered toy.

I followed her gaze -

The tip was missing…

Darcie coughed blood into my mouth once I turned back to face her and the taste of copper just flipped a switch.

We've been fucking almost nonstop since…

She was irresistible before, but thanks to the blueish tinge of her skin, now I can't get my hands off of her.

The Agency – Part 4

Day 4

Our Agency operates in a world where the impossible bleeds into the possible, we operates in the shadows, our world is one of secrecy and shadows, one where the line between reality and fantasy blurs, we operate on the fringes of reality, where the impossible bleeds into the mundane, where myths and legends come to life, we are the line between your world and the abyss, the gaurdians of the unknown, the protectors of the unseen, and I am one of the best there is, trained to perfection, honed by experience, driven by a relentless persued of the truth.

I have seen things, done things, things you wouldn't believe, things that haunt my dreams, that lingers in the corner of my mind.

But we will still have a lot of time for me to tell you all of my stories, stories about all of my missions, but for now, this is about Sin, Sin is a threat that must be neutralized, Sin, the name that sends shivers down the spines of even the most seasoned agends, a threat not just to humanity, but from what we have experienced , he might even be a threat to Earth, and some at the agency believes that he could maybe even be a threat to reality itself, I personally think they over think things, there is no way he could have that kind of power or influence.

Sin on the other hand likes to play games, and he has been playing mind games with the agency as well as my team now, this made him become a priority threat, but still the agency would not authorise the use of deadly force, they say that he knows to much, and if we take him out all of the knowledge would be lost, that is if it was even possible to take him out, since we started tracking him it seems like he looks younger then when we first found out about his existence, we found evidence in his medical history that the guy has died before, multiple times, but he came back each time, it was as if either he had a unique gift, or whatever is helping him has advancements that can bring the dead back to life even without them having direct contact. Sin was no longer clasified a human threat, he was clasified an anomaly, and once the agency clasified you as an anomaly I wouldn't want to be you, honestly I wouldn't wish that clasification on even the worst of threats in the world.

If Sin just knew what was waiting for him when we catch him he would leave this planet very quickly, or go under ground and never draw attention to himself again. I cannot even begin to think of the things they do to anomalies in those labs, I just heard that even the scientists who works there eventually need psychiatric treatment, that is why the agency now has pshychiatrists on every site where each scientist goes for a debrieving after their shift ends, they are in a way lucky as they never work for more then 6 hours at a time, then they go for debrieving and rest.

Now Sin seems to like talking to us, it seems like he is not scared of us, he is beoming braver, more taunting, more reckless, he was talking to me, but he wasn't sure if I was awake, he just guessed that I should be as the thazers effects shouldn't last as long as the effects from the darts, but then he made the mistake, he admitted that I am the only one in my team whos mind he cannot read, that he can't get to me unless my entire team was with me, and he was confused about it, he couldn't understand why I was practically invisible to him. He even admitted that he can't even see my face, even when my team members looked exactly at me, he only knew what colour my hair was and my eyes, but other then that I was completely immune to his powers.

I could here in his voice tone that he was very confused, almost scared, he had a weakness, a gap in his shields, an opening in his defences, and he just made the mistake to tell me, he only knew from his visions that I was the one who would eventually take him down and capture him, but even in his visions he could never see my face, it seemed like I was protected against him, against his powers, and this was freaking him out, he had no idea what to make of this, then he made the final confession that made me realise that even when he penetrated my dreams or took control of my body last night that it was only because of my team, he literally used the fear and the hysteria he caused in our group and had to enter my mind through one of theirs, but he could not do anything to me directly.

We finally had a chance again, a way to get to him, and it was through me, he knew I had short blonde hair, and deep blue eyes, but there is this thing called hair dye, and this amazing invention called contact lenses, so I could get close to him, I could change my hair colour, or just wear one of my many wigs, and I had a lot as I have done a lot of infiltration missions before, he could not see me, he could not read my mind, and he could not even sense me, I was invisible to him, a ghost to the ghost, I was the trump card in this game of cat and mouse.

The other part of our plan was going well, we hired a few private detectives to follow him around, to watch him, to take photographs and videos of him, we knew that he would spot them in the crowds, but we also knew that this would throw him off balance, make him paranoid and desperate, and it started to work, he was starting to constantly look over his shoulder, he would get distracted watching people who even looked like they were pointing a phone or camera in his direction, he would eventually get into their heads and realise they were decoys, but it kept him busy, on edge, drained him, it made him tired, we could see that he was worried as he couldn't find out why they were after him, we made sure to cover our tracks, they were hired anonymously and paid through untraceble means, We knew that we were getting close, he was heading towards a breakdown, he was ready to crack.

My team eventually woke up and they finally finished showering and bathing and joined me for breakfast, I told them about the message from Sin and they all looked shocked at my immunity towards him and his powers, but they knew this wasn't the first time I have shown immunity towards the paranormal and supernatural, it happened before when we met with another hybrid who used an advanced alien weapon on us, but more on that on another day.

I knew their heads were reeling, the sedatives we use in our darts are very strong, they knock you out immediately, and believe me I have felt the effects, we got hit with them a few times during our training the first few years with the agency, we even got hit with peperspray, thazers, truth serums, they made us experience everything, we had to know the effect of the none lethal weapons as well, and we all got to experience it first hand.

Now the hang-over from the darts can last an entire day, and sometimes even longer, it is bad, it is hell, your head feels like it wants to explode, your eyes are burning and any light makes it worse, your ears are ringing and you can't even handle the sound of whispers, your body feels heavy and weak and you struggle to even get water down, but the only way to beat the effects is to eat and to hydrate.

Luckily we had treatments for it, the agency always foresaw that an enemy could get his or her hands on our weapons and use them on us, so they gave us stuff to take which helps ease the effects faster.

One thing I know is that Sin will regret everything, when I finally move in to catch him I am going to hit him with more then one dart, I want to empty the entire line on him, and no, it wont kill him, the sedative is designed to sedate you, but it is impossible to overdose on it or to kill with it.

But I want to make sure I put enough sedative in him so he must suffer the after effects for days afterwards. When I am done with him we won't even need to use the IV sedative to keep him sedated during our flight back to the blacksite when we leave.

We were all frustrated though, he kept taunting us, he kept posting agency secrets, information on past missions and even operation updates on various social media platforms, we knew that it was now just a matter of time until he decided to release the real name of the agency, since we are registered as an international NPO, we knew that it would damage us if that kind of information came out, he already hinted at descriptions of our logo, a logo that is only desplayed at our HQ, the sword and the (redacted)

He knew who our benefactors were, he knew everything, and we knew that it was not a matter of if, but when he would release their names online, he had nothing left to lose, he knew we were closing in, all of his attacks on us showed that he was getting desperate to stop us, or well atleast deter us, to imtimidate us, but he should know better, he admitted himself that he have seen it, he saw the visions, multiple outcomes, but in each one I eventually take him down, in each one he woke up in our blacksite prison, he knew it was coming, he knew you could not change the future, no matter how much you tried, and yet he was pushing our buttons.

It turned out that we underestimated Sin, we just received new intel, he knew where our HQ was, he knew where all of our blacksite prisons were, he knew the names of every person who had any affiliation or knowledge of our existence, he even knew who all of our agents and operatives were, he knew our aliases, our real names, he even knew our social media personas we were using.

Sin has become the most dangerous enemy the agency has faced thus far as he could expoe everything, yes he might not be able to prove anything, but all he needed to do was get others interested, he just needed to get conspiracy theorists attention, get them looking and talking, he just needed to get hacker groups interested in looking further into our existence and missions, and he wouldn't even have to contact anyone, he just had to release criptic clues online, not enough to draw legal attention to himself, or to alert AI and the algorithms, but enough for the keen human eye to spot and to dig further, he was smart, dangerous, he planned everything out to the letter, not missing a dot, he had everything in place, and he was slowly taking the game to another level, he wasn't scared, he wasn't backing down, he knew he had nothing to lose, and we were running out of time to stop him.

That is when we got the news, one of the higher ups at HQ went insane, he started to have crazy dreams, dreams that made him want to leave the agency, this was not possible as he gave his life to the agency, he loved the agency and we were all like his children.

Sin was on the move again, and his attacks were becoming more random, yet more calculated, we were running out of time, we had to find a way to get close to him, to stop him and to get him to the blacksite soon, the cell to hold him has already been engineered, it was designed to block his reach, to stop him from affecting the outside world, and besides that, once we have him, he will be kept in a medicated semi-sedated state to make sure he can't use any of his powers.

The Agency – Part 4

Day 4

As I am sitting here sipping my coffee I am still trying to make sense of everything that happened last night.

You see we were trained to have complete control in any situation, we can beat any interogation. I have delt with world ending threats, infiltrated labs in foreign countries where they were bio-engineering dangerous virusses that could bring the world to its knees, dived down to the deepest parts of the ocean to infiltrate underwater stations to capture data, we have even done missions to both Antiartica and Alaska.

You see, people think that they know me because I work for an agency, they mistaken us for one of the agencies with fancy acronyms, the ones in the news, the ones that makes headlines, the ones that has conspiracies based around them, we are not those, we are ghosts, invisible, intangable, yet every present, we leave no trace of our existence, we exist beyond the veil, outise of the system. We exist beyond the reach of governments and laws, we are the shadows, ghosts. We carry no badge, have no name, yes that is right, our name even if you heard it and had to search it would not come up, you might find it to appear to be an NPO, doing charity work, helping people, just an NPO with no affiliation to any governments or organisations.

Our reach extends across borders, beyond the shadows, how do you track someone that doesn't exist, we don't need warrants to investigate you, if you get on our radar you would not even know it until it is to late, you will only realise that we were onto you when you wake up and realise that your surroundings has changed, and then the realisation will kick in that you are no longer at your home, no longer in your own country, but in one of our blacksites, sites that appears on no maps, untracable, completely out of reach, our blacksites are black-holes, whatever comes in never leaves, you will never see the light of day again, feel the sun on your face again, or the wind in your hair, your world will become darkness, an eternal void with no escape, no hope, with set daily routines, daily interogations, and well if you think you can keep secrets, wait until you enter our interogation rooms, cold, steal design, minimalistic, with lighting set up to disoriet you, the person questioning you wont torture you in traditional ways, we know that a lot of people can handle those, no, we will mess with your head, ask you the same question over and over until you eventually break and tell us, we can change the temp in the room and once you realise that your body can't climitise to extreme fluctuations between heat and cold, the changes from unbearable noice to silence so profound that you will hear your own heart beat, you will hear the blood flowing through your veins, and then there is our truth serums, serums that has broken the strongest minds, serums that could make anyone talk, serums so clasified that no known agency would dare touch it due to the implications, but we are not your average agency, we operate off the map, and anyway, what are you going to do? Report us, complaint to human rights? Once we have you, you are dead to the world, just another name on your local missing persons list, and the dead has no rights.

We were tracking Sin around the clock, I don't know if the guy was just messing with us, or did he really have a very boring life? But he wasn't going anywhere incriminating, he had little contact with people, but the people he did interact with all checked out clean, we knew that he was clean in everyway, he was known for his hatred for crime and drugs, so we knew we couldn't even try to frame him or pin anything on him, and believe me, we have tried.

Now, we learned that he wasn't a big eater, to be honest in all the surveillance we had we never saw him eating, caught any hint of him eating, he was beyond strange. He was smart though, and wise, we listened to some of his conversations with strangers and he knew a lot about a lot, most likely knowledge he assimulated over the years as he met people and took their memories and knowledge.

Sin kept taunting us, he knew that we were monitoring him, following him, watchig his every move, but he didn't even try to hide, he even kept his phone on, he didn't even turn off his location, tracking him was easy, it was as if he wanted us to follow him, but to what end? What was his end goal?

Now our investigation into his past and life started to take strange turns, we looked into his real identity, but things wasn't adding up, he wasn't a star student in school, he had no confidence, and then it was as if he changed over night, got confidence, became highly intelligent, started to know things. He use to be highly religious, almost a fanatic, and then it was as if overnight he turned on it, became obsessed with science.

Our intel and even his own posts on social media hinted at him been an anomaly, there were more and more hints that the guy we were after was from a different timeline, that he moved here after his world was destroyed, replacing his counter-part, but how? Even the greatest minds in the agency stated that you cannot exist in the same timeline as yourself, and we could not even proof that alternate timelines existed, and here he was claiming to come from one, and what he was describing didn't sound like the ramblings of a crazy person, too much details, to much consistency, and he was way to focussed, in-control and observent to be a crazy person.

Then there was descriptions of various encounters with extraterrestrials, but subtle hints, once again not the writings of a person looking for attention, but more someone dropping clues, almost as if he was looking for others like himself, but he got our attention, it appeared that he had detailed knowledge of these beings, their technology, their capabilities, their historical interactions and influence of humanity, he knew a lot, and when we did more research it turned out that his clues pointed towards anomalies in history, it could be very well that he did know more then he was letting on. It appeared that the alien race he was in league with must have found a way to implant or well upload knowledge into his mind, and it seemed that he was on a mission here, he was working with a plan, he was working towards something. Our suspicion was that he wanted to find subtle ways to disarm the world, to render us defenceless against any extraterrestrials threats, but we needed more information, we needed to know exactly what his end game plan was, and he wasn't exactly an open book, he would drop hints, but he would never say anything outright, he knew how to keep his composure, he knew just what to say and what not to say, his true war was inside of the minds of people.

Now last night was out of control, it was crazy.

We were all having dinner when it started, first Dave started to act strange, he started to question the mission, the next moment he got up and walked over to the basin in the kitchen and opened the tap, we thought he was getting a glass of water, until we noticed that he was just standing there, we went over and realised that he had the hotwater tap running and he was holding his hand underneath it, he was burning, his skin almost on boiling point, we tried to talk to him, but he ignored us, we tried to pull him away and he fought us, we couldn't even get close enough to close the tap, we eventually had to use a dart gun to knock him out, he will still be sleeping for a few more hours. But his hand has 3^(rd) degree burns on them, even our medic said he has never seen behavior like this.

John on the otherhand, he was standing there and suddenly stopped moving, he made his way over to Maya where she was sitting at out computer systems monitoring the screens and Sin, he tried to destroy the systems, but Maya had a Thazer next to her and she knocked him out.

But it seemed that even Maya and myself were not immune to the mental control, the next moment I felt myself losing motor control, I found myself standing infront of Maya, I could see the fear in her eyes, she seemed to also not have any conrtol, I was still wearing my holster with my side arm loaded with tranqualiser darts for Sin, and she had her thazer in her hand, I tried to fight it, I could see the strain in her eyes, but neither of us could speak, we could not even move or blink, the next moment we both lifted our weapons at each other, and then I shot her with a dart and I felt the sting from her thazer, I saw her going down with tears running down her eyes and then she was out, the last thing I remember as another sting from a thazer, I woke up this morning with my head reeling, my entire body in pain from the thazer, we wer both laying on the floor, I moved her to her bed, my other team mates are also still out, some of them even seems to have darted themselves.

I was scared, very scared, I wanted out, this mission is breaking us, destroying us, we are losing this fight, and we can't get close to him, he is too smart, to alert and pays attention to his surroundings all the time, how do you sneak up on someone who can read the headlines on a newspaper on the opposite side of a room, someone who can listen to your heartbeat, a person who can hear your thoughts, make you see whatever he decided you must see?

I knew letting him go wasn't an option, he was too dangerous to be allowed to roam freely, we have seen and experienced his capabilities first hand.

That was when I heard it, his voice, we are always listening in on his converstions, we are inside of all of his technology, we listen to him through his own phone, and he knew it, he would constantly talk to us, mocking us, taunting us, playing with us, and this time he was once again talking directly to me, and what he said sent shivers down my spine, but he accidentally let something slip, something that gave me a flicker of hope of catching him.

The sun had begun it's long, lazy summer descent  toward the horizon when I clicked my keys in the lock and made my way out. The hottest weather of the summer had settled in but tonight a cool breeze cut through the city making this decision to walk to get something to eat all the more sound. Like a surrealist painting the oranges and purples in the sky swirled together creating colors never seen before. 

Before I'd even realized it I was fifteen minutes down the road, just lost in thought and the beauty of it all. It's easy to get distracted when you're hungry. The juxtaposition of quaint residential neighborhood and busy city streets has always intrigued me. You've got the illusion of suburban safety with all the thrills of the big city. Houses and mailboxes were starting to give way to parking lots and liquor stores. Buildings in this part of town have begun to decay, boards and caution tape acting like band-aids on windows and doors. It would be best if I paid a bit more attention to my surroundings.  

It's a good thing too, otherwise I might not have noticed the person in the gas station parking lot. In the back corner next to the dumpster, illuminated by a single halogen light lies a vaguely humanoid shape. At least I think it's a person, I'm still to far at this point to tell for sure. There appear to be arms and legs protruding from different angles, but that's all that gives this heaving mass a human appearance. My curiosity gets the better of me and I decide to go and investigate. As I get closer the first thing I notice is the smell. The humid summer weather is the perfect conductor for the wretched olfactory buffet. Old gym socks, corn chips, stale tobacco and alcohol are held and trapped in the thick, soupy air. This is definitely a person, but they're bundled up like it's the middle of winter outside.

“Hey, hey pal... you alright over there?” I ask in his general direction. No response, I walk a little closer and I can practically taste the air at this point.

“Hey man, you ok?” I sound a little agitated, but the smell is making it hard to think at this point and I don't even know if this guy is alive. But then I hear some groaning, coming from his general direction. No answers, but at least I know he's breathing. I pull my shirt up over my nose and get closer. I check for a pulse on the side of his neck like they do in the movies, if I did it right he is indeed alive, but just barely. Judging by the way that he is dressed and how hot to the touch his skin is I suspect heat  stroke. I've left my cell at home, so I'm going to have to look elsewhere for help. 

The area we're in isn't the greatest. The few houses that are scattered about were all dilapidated and crumbling. If not for the settling darkness and the lights from within that betrayed it, I'd have thought all hope was lost.  A single house stood out from the rest, illuminated inside and out. Every square inch outside was covered with spot lights and flood lights, there was so much light in fact that it spilled several feet out into the street. I've already begun walking in that direction before my mind decides that it's the best course of action. As I get closer I can see several security camera's dotting the underside of the awning. Now the worry is that I'm walking up on a drug house, but I persist because that person is dying without help. Striding up the steps I knock on a very solid metal door, it's one of the one's that looks like wood but you can tell it isn't the second you touch it. Within seconds I hear thundering footsteps from inside walking toward the door. I steel myself for a possible confrontation, but I'm no fighter. Several bolts and locks have to be undone before the heavy door swings open.

“Whatcha want?” , the large, bearded and overall clad man behind the door spit out, like it tasted bad.

“I need to use your phone, there's someone down the street and I think they might be dying of heat stroke. I just want to call 911 and get them some help.”, I blurt out quickly.

“Don't got no phone.” 

“Not even a cell?”, I ask as some familiar smells of home cooking sneak past the man from inside the house. I try to cast a glance behind him but all I get is a brief glimpse of the entrance to his kitchen before he responds.

“Tell you what, hows about you and me hop in my truck and we'll take 'im to the hospital ourselves.” He now seems to be chewing his words a bit more carefully, almost as if he doesn't want to say anything to frighten me. 

I agree to go with the man to help our mystery person on the condition that he isn't a serial killer. He doesn't say anything and shuts the door. A few moments later he reemerges from the house with some keys to a pickup truck that's been parked outside. He motions for me to follow him and he unlocks the door. As I get in I have to push several pairs of shoes of varying sizes out from the floorboard. I make another joke about a serial killer, maybe a little less jokey this time too.

“Heh, damn grand kids, always leaving stuff where it don't belong.” he states, nonchalant almost like he had determined what he was going to say before I even asked about it.

When we get back to the man... or woman, they're in the same spot as when I left and I assume not any better. We hop out of the truck and walk over to what now appears to be a youngish man and each take an arm. Hoisting him on our shoulders we lay him down in the bed of the truck and get back in. I was confused once we arrived back at his house, but instead of pulling in front we went to an out building behind his house. It was kinda like a shed only much larger.

“Get out of the truck now.”, my large, now worrisome acquaintance ordered. I don't want a fight so I do as I'm told. 

As I'm exiting the truck I see him reach for something buried beneath the piles of assorted articles of clothing. Sheathed in brown leather I catch a glimpse of steel and can immediately tell that he has a knife, a rather large one at that. Walking around to the bed of the truck the large man grabbed the much smaller, dying young man with his free hand and tossed him to the ground. We're not calling for help, there will be no rescue coming. The surrounding blocks are abandoned so the chance of a passerby is slim to none. The large man broke the heavy silence, his words lingering in the thick summer air. 

“Usually I don't do this, but this one got away earlier and I just couldn't believe my ears when you knocked on my door and told me you found him. I was just tickled.” , and with that he slit the young mans throat. Arterial spray went everywhere, the hot coppery liquid sprayed across my face and I tried not to flinch. “But the question is, what do I do with you?”

I could feel the first beads of sweat starting to form at my temples and I clenched my hands into fists as he started to strip down the body. Once the layers of clothing came away you could see the young man had suffered at the hands of someone. Bruises around his wrists and ankles indicating that he had been held for quite some time. You could also see that one of his legs was broken, though whether by accident or by force it was difficult to tell. The big man continued.

“Ya see, my freezers are almost full, and after this one,” he gestures to the lifeless body now laying at his feet. “I'm not sure I've got room for you. Though I suppose I can get rid of some of my extra at the market next week. Either way we'll make due.”

He crouched over the body and started to slice down the mans chest. A little river of crimson trailed the blade as it made it's way down. Everything in my head was telling me to run, that I would be next, but my feet wouldn't move. I clenched my fists tighter and nearly drew my own blood as I watched the blade glide ever closer to the end of the breastplate. The sweat came faster now as I watched the man, who was watching me, almost sink his blade into young mans stomach, puncturing it.

“No! No, No, No!”, I shout into the thick summer air catching my captor off guard. “You're doing it all wrong, you'll spoil the meat!” I rush over to the man and shove him to the side. I snatch the knife from his hands in his utter confusion and bewilderment and pick up where he left off.  

At the mercy of the phantom horse
Whose silent screams ignite the dark
I am pulled into the night
By the noose around my neck

Along a long and winding gravel path
I am dragged into an ashen forest
Where the trees are nothing but hollow bone
And the spirit is flayed from flesh

The dying sound of martyred innocence
Echoes from within the fog of war
Silently I scream while clawing at the dirt
Blanketing the remnants of a tragic past

Suddenly lightning sets the skies ablaze
And though now I am wide awake
The nightmare never ends
Because the devil resides inside my thoughts

Some Q&A

I've received some interesting questions about my writing as well as the videos I post.

So let me share it here:

Q. Where does your ideas for your writing come from? A. From dreams, I have very detailed and vivid dreams. Q. Do you actually remember all of your dreams? A. Yes I do, in vivid detail, even the smallest details. Q. Do you actually believe that aliens exist? A. Do you believe that water exists? Q. There is a theory that you place hidden messages in your stories? A. Hmmm, I can't confirm or deny. Q. But does yout fiction contain hidden truths? Like things that you are secretly trying to expose? A. Q. What about your series you started with recently? A. You mean about the Agency and Cleo? Q. Yes, did you base it on a real existing agency? A. Not one of the legal known ones. Q. So the Agency might exist? A. They are clandestine. Q. So you can't tell me? A. Watch the videos. Q. I have, there are content in it which sounds very possible and plausible. So do you think an agency like that could exist? A. Of course I do. Q. What's the chances that you might be leaking real information about them? A. Q. But of they really exist aren't you scared that they would come after you? A. They are clandestine, meaning secret, ilicit, they operate in the shadows, so they have no recognized legal authority, and why would they care what I post? Q. Well you are exposing them now.. A. There is no evidence of their existence, I don't post real names, or information that could lead people to any organization. Q. But you still seem to know about their secrets. A. To know, not know and to prove are different things. Q. But aren't you scared of their retaliation? A. No, why? Any action or reaction from them will expose their existence, if my social media accounts suddenly got hacked, blocked or removed it will confirm their existence. So if they do nothing then nobody can prove they exist. And anyway I got more fiction surrounding my stories, so not enough information to hurt them. Q. They could come after you? A. Sounds like a waste of their time a d resources. Q. You said yourself they could get to anyone anywhere. A. Yes, but they don't care about a fictional writer. Q. If they agency was watching, is there anything you would like to say to them? A. Yes, as a matter of fact there is, my stories and videos are about to get far more interesting, thank you for been loyal followers, but it would be nice if you would like and share my content. Q. Are you crazy? A.... lol 😆 I'm dying to meet them. Lol 😆

Okay the above was actually a joke, I was just playing around, let's just say I took a break from doing anything at all and decided to have some fun.

The above post was just for fun, please feel free to continue the Q&A in the comments, also share this post or an edited version on your profile and see who actually reads to the end.

The Agency – Part 3

Day 3

Most of you probably wonder why Sin was seen as so dangerous, well let me tell you a bit about what he did.

He was messing with the minds of politicians, some even started ordering the retreat of soldiers in was zones, leaving battles, cancelling support to other nations, an action that would go against international laws as when you decide to support a nation you dedicate to see it through, but no, these leaders suddenly had a change of heart and would withdraw their support and soldiers, ordering an immediate seize fire and evancuation. Then there were soldiers that were on clasified missions who would suddently abandone their posts and put down their arms and refuse to fight, claiming that killing isn't right, they would be threated with court martials and imprisonment and still they would act as if they did nothing wrong, scientists on the brink of a breakthrough would abandone all researth, research that were integral to medical advancements or weapons development, artists would suddenly change their painting style to paint strange things, they would paint about the end of the world, the type of stuff which could cause panic.

Now you might think that he was doing a good thing, but he was messing with the balance of the world, the balance of power, he was subtly influencing global events and nobody should have that kind of power, it could throw the world into chaos, he would throw the world into chaos, he was a pro-life, pro-peace extremist, but he was smart about it, quiet. He never went public with what he was doing, but the agency did manage to identify him and tie him to many more events which eventually lead to chaos, he might think that what he was doing was for the greater good, but in the long run it was just causing more chaos.

Sin was a globalist, believing in a global nation, a global unity, and I don't mean like the new world order, infact some of the things that he stood for and believed and worked towards would be a threat to even a new-world order movement.

No, Sin was working for other forces, there were someone else or something else at play here, something powerful, we knew that he had contact with extraterrestrials and that he received his abilities from them, that he had a permanent link and direct connection to them, he was doing their bidding, following their orders without question, he wanted to prepare the world for them, for the very race that has been responsible for holding humanity back, the very species behind humanity remaining in the infancy stage of technological advancement, and we suspected that the end goal was to keep Earth and humanity vulnerable to the extraterrestrials, making sure that when they do decide to reveal themselves that humanity would be defenceless, he was fighting for the other side and he was pushing the wrong buttons.

Now I have faced many enemies during my time with the agency, many humans, I have even faced off against extraterrestrials, meta-humans, cryptids and even things that there is no catogary for, I have never been really scared, and in most cases it was kill of be killed, but Sin, he was scary, he was smart, intelligent, caluclating, he had a strong reputation for been kind to people, for been able to admit when he was wrong, for been loyal to those in his circle.

The problem was that we couldn't just walk up to him and arrest him, well like I said before, our agency doesn't exist, no name, no badge, no logo, no internet presense, completely untraceble, a complete ghost, so how do you arrest someone when you are not recognised as legal law enforcement? We also couldn't just kill him, orders were to bring him in alive, sedated to prevent him from using his telepathic abilities on anyne, but alive.

But getting to him was also a challenge, he was smart, he made sure that he was always in public places where there are people around, using public transportation, he was alert and attentive, there was no way to sneak up on him or surprise him, that would also be impossible, we also couldn't get to him at home as the security there was, well lets just say even-though it wasn't inpenetrable, you couldn't easily get in, and then he didn't live alone, and there was dogs living in the house, so it would be impossible to sneak up on him there.

We tried to use surveillance on him, but he noticed each time, our one vehicle made the mistake to take pictures of him walking and he changed his routine and route, then we had another agent park near his work place so that she could have a direct line of sight on him and watch him, but as he was going about his business he stopped and looked directly in her direction, she said it felt like he was looking her dead in the eyes, those eyes of his, I can't even beging to describe them, everyone who have met him said the same thing, they are dark, pitch black, he makes intense eye contact and he doesn't even blink, it was as if his eyes swallowed the light around them, as if they are looking right into your soul, drawing you in.

The agent watching him couldn't move while he maintained eye contact, but the moment he broke eye contact and went on about his business she got the hell out of there, her cover blown, and now he knows what 3 of our agents looked like.

We then hired someone to follow him, the guy was meant to get on the same public transport as him and follow him, but once again he noticed and looked the guy directly in the eyes, but this time the orders were to not lose him or get intimidated, but the moment they got off Sin showed his capabilities of moving faster then normal people, he disappeared within seconds, and once again our tail failed.

Now let me tell you about last night, my dreams were haunting, troubling, I know it was a dream, and yet it felt so real, I was standing on a cliff, well I do like to go hiking on mountains on my time off, and I recognised this cliff, I love the view from there.

So I found myself standing on the edge of the cliff, as I was enjoying the view I felt someone looking at me, I turned around to see Sin standing behind me, he was just looking at me, he then smiled slightly, you know that creepy, scary smile, well then he spoke, just one word, but the word made me feel a shiver run down my spine, I could feel myself lose control of my body and my movements, I slowly turned around and faced the cliff again, and then I stepped off of the cliff, I could feel myself falling, but I could not scream, I could not move, all I could do was watch as the ground was getting closer, but everytime I was supposed to hit the ground it became water and I hit it so heart that I got the wind knocked out of me, then I would be on the cliff again, and the same thing would happen. But each time the fall would be different, the next fall I would fall into fire and I would burn, I would feel my skin seering, feel it falling off of me, until I could see my own bones.

This went on all night, I can't even remember how many times I had the same dream with different endings, unable to wake up.

I woke up this morning and I could still feel the effects from each ending to each dream, my body was sore, it felt like I just spend a week In a gym without rest.

We had a quiet day, we just monitored his technology and his phone, we decided to avoid direct contact, we hoped that he would forget about us, or at the very least think that he is safe and ignore us.

But then he started with the next game, he knew we were monitoring his phone, reading his chats, listening through his mic and watching him through his cameras, he started talking to us, taunting us, mocking us, he was laughing at us.

He told us that he has seen the future and each and every outcome for this, he knew that he couldn't win in the end and that we will get him, but he promised us that even with that been the case that he will make sure that we will never be the same after this, he will make sure that we know what trauma is, he will break us. Then he spoke to me directly, he told me that I am the one who will eventually get him, catch him and that he is sorry for the losses I will suffer along the way, he did promise that the females in the team wont be harmed, and there I do believe him as he has a soft spot for woman, he even said that if we want answers that one of the woman are welcome to come talk to him, ask him anything we want to know, that he will answer her questions truthfully, but after what we have seen and experienced, I would much rather shoot him in the head then interview him.

Unfortunately we are not authorised to use deadly force, but we are armed with darts and other means of sedating him, and I can't wait to hit him with one of the darts and place the shock cuffs on him, I want to see him fall and since he himself admitted that I will be the one to take him down I am literally shaking from the adrenaline as he never shared details of how, when or where this is to happen.

I have to admit, Sin has probably been the most scary and dangerous enemy I have ever faced, the process of catching him cost people their sanity, some their lives, and others ended up in vegetative states.

And tonight he once again took action, he turned us into mindless drones, had fun with us, played with us like characters in a game, we were passangers, prisoners in our own minds, just watching, seeing, hearing, observing and feeling everything, unable to fight back or to resist, I can't even tell you how that makes one feel.

The Agency – Part 2

Day 2.

And the investigation goes to the next level.

Our clandestined agency or organisation is beyond top-secret. We exist in the shadows to protect the world from the shadows. Our mission is to protect the world, to protect humanity, and we are very good at it.

Each one of us has gone through rigorous training, we are trained in every form of hand to hand combat, we have mastered most forms of martial arts, we are trained in the use of every weapon available to us. We have been taught how to beat lie detector tests. We are the shadows, we are basically the closest thing you would find to real life super-soldiers.

We have been trained to be fearless, to face any adversary we might encounter, we deal with the things that you don't want to believe exist, Things that goes bump in the night, the monsters under you bed, the ones in your closet, that thing sneaking around in the woods, we deal with all different kinds of threats, from human threats, terrorist threats, meta-humans, criptids and even extraterrestrials, yes you have read that right, those thngs that you read about online, they are all real, the only reason you don't run into them, why you don't see them is because of us, we take care of them, we are the reason that the world is still spinning.

Our organisation has limitless funding, our benefactors and investors ranging from governments, banks, corporations and even NPO's, and besides that we also have our own means of funding ourselves and our operations, means which is a closely gaurded secret, means which only the highest of the top ranking officials in our agency knows of.

We were ready for anything, we were ready for Sin, or so we thought.

As you already know, Sin is a Ghost, and some of you might even see him as a hero, doing the world a favour with his activities, but to others he is a threat, he is a threat to our agency, to the people who makes the machine of the world run.

We knew he wasn't a hacker, we watched him, we were watching his online activities. Sin had other means of getting information, other means of getting to you, the mind was his playing field, and he knew just how to navigate his way around the human mind. He had an indepth knowledge of how the human mind worlked, he understood the mind so well that he would make pshychologists blush.

We suspected that he might have had similar training to us, but if he had then whomever trained him went through a lot of trouble to hide the information from the world, there was no traces of any training, no military service records, it was as if he could assimulate knowledge and skills from others, we were confused, and to be honest, we had no idea, he was a mystery, and we knew that he was a fortress of secrets, he knew how to keep secrets, how to manipulate information and how to misdirect you.

We woke up early to prepare for our first meeting with Sin, we knew exactly where he would be, but we had to make sure that he wouldn't expect us, we had to prepare for him. We have spend months studying him, what he was about, what he was interested in, who he interacted with, we had to find a common ground in order to get a conversation going with him, we had to catch him off-gaurd so that he would let slip and give us a clue, some sort of information as to what he truly is.

Sin was known for his love for art, he was a writer, but we knew that he left clues to who he was in his writing, we read all of his material, watched all of his videos. We knew him as well as was possible to know a mystery.

Four of my team mates would go in, two would make direct contact while the other two would stay in the car, we knew what to expect, we were brieved on his abilities, we knew to avoid any form of physical contact with him as that would allow him to gain direct access to your memories, it would literally allow him to draw energy from you and thus he would have some of your memories as well as all of your strenths, we were ready.

Myself as well as two of my other team-members decided to stay back at the safe-house, Sin could not see me, he didn't know what I looked like and we decided to keep it that way as Sin has accidentally confessed that I would be the one who would eventually capture him, so we were playing his game, we were following his own visions.

Lets call them John and Dave as I prefer to protect their identities, not that it makes much of a difference, even the names that we use are not our real names, we have all had many names, many identities, I have had so many names that I cannot even remember my real name anymore.

The got to his work place and he let them in, Dave would make conversation with him while John would be present, but he would listen.

They spend about half and hour with him, Dave followed the plan to the letter, tried to find common ground, he dropped hints hoping that Sin would slip up and confess to how he knew things, but Sin the ever cool and calm level headed guy he is didn't even break a sweat, he misdirected the conversation, took control of it, before Dave knew what was going on Sin was leading the conversation, he was dropping the hints and asking the questions, he was onto us, we were not sure, but I had a feeling that he knew who we were.

Dave even tried to play on sleeping and dreaming, as Sin claimed in the past to get all of his information from dreams, but nothing. Sin just said that people sleep to much and they sleep their lives away.

Dave mentioned the supernatural and extraterrestrial, to which Sin countered with he follows UFO organisations on social media, he was a brick wall, pshychological warfare was failing, he was smart and he was prepared. It was as if he read the script and learned his lines better then we did.

As Dave and John were about to leave Dave decided to try a mental intimidation game and he shook Sin's hand, we all gasped at the action, to Dave it might have been a game of intimidation, but he gave Sin exactly what Sin wanted, direct access to his memories and all of his strengths, and just as they were about to leave he went and shook Sin's hand again. I was thinking to myself, Dave you idiot, what the hell have you done?

They then left and got back into the car from where they were watching Sin, but Sin ever so vigilent immediately went outside and checked where they went and he noticed the car, he saw them sitting in the car and he immediately allerted authorities, now you would think that we would work with the authorities on cases like this, but no we don't.

The moment Sandy saw Sin's messages on his Apps to his friends telling them about our presense and sending them a description of Dave and John as well as the car we knew we had to get out of there. We were on ghost protocol. Sin wasn't a criminal as such and well our organisation is top-secret, so none of the authorities in his country knows of our existence, he was playing our game as well. He was retaliating and he won this round.

We regrouped at the safe-house and I lost it with Dave. He knew the mission parameters and he messed up.

That is when Dave told me that it was as if he couldn't help himself, he had no control, he knew he shouldn't but he lost focus for a second and now that he thinks about it he knows that it wasn't his thoughts or his plans.

We had to think and we had little time, Sin was becoming less scared, more open, he once again released a bunch of information about the Agency and our operations online.

After a long day of going through his material over and over again we still could not find a way to get to him, it seemed like he had other-worldly friends who were helping him, protecting him, we realised that not only was Sin an experiencer, and with that I mean he was an abductee with multiple alien contacts in the past, he might not even be from our world, and I don't mean he is an alien, perhaps a hybrid of sorts, but we had access to his medical records, his blood was very much human. But we found out that he might be from a parallel universe, which would make him the only evidence of the existence of parallel worlds as well as the only witness of been able to move between them. Not only was he now a person of interest and a threat to the agency, he might have just become the most important scientific discovery of our time.

Now if you wonder why all the photographs you see online of UFO's are always blurred, or why you can't find traces of real alien contact online or evidence of cryptids online, well that is because we have a team of analysts who works tirelessly around the clock to make sure that as soon as any undisputable evidence appears online that it is taken down, any evidence appearing online of our existence is taken down immediately.

We follow and watch any claims of contact with extraterrestrials, most of them are hoaxes, some even a call for attention, I am not sure why anyone would want that kind of attention anyway, but then there is the small group of people who truly had experiences with extraterrestrials, we work through all of the date, the information, and when we find a real experience we make sure that it is either debunked or removed from the web. We have to maintain the illusion of normalcy, we have to protect the world from knowledge it is not ready for.

Sin on the other hand was smarter, he slipped through the cracks for years by hiding the truth in fiction, he was dropping breadcrumbs, mixing fact and fiction, mixing real experiences with fantastical stories. But now we have his, he made a bunch of mistakes, he forgot to change some of the information and descriptions, and it was through his descriptions of some of the beings, the technology they use and our agency that our ai's algorythm identified and flagged his content.

I just woke up from one of the worst nights of my life, as we are all sitting here trying to drink our coffee I can see that our entire team struggled to sleep, we are all tired, their faces looks dispondent, they look scared, and I can just begin to imagine why as the nightmares or well night terrors I had was so bad that if I wasn't so tired I would not even have attempted to sleep.

Sin once again got into our heads, it seems his telepathic abilities allows him to enter and manipulate even your dreams, and he was litereally in our dreams, torturing us, each one of us, we all spent most of the night trapped in our dreams, unable to wake up, unable to even move.

My name is Cleo, you might think that you know people like me from books and movies, but trust me, you don't.

As you know I can't share my story with you directly for obvious reasons, so I got a contact to share it on my behalf.

I am a ghost, literally. I was recruited by the Agency at a young age due to my natural capabilities to vanish and my neck for learning languages. I could be sitting next to you in a coffee shop, or walk past you in the street and you won't take note of me. I am invisible to the world. I am a ghost, I live in the shadows, move in the shadows, and that is how I prefer it.

I stand at a mere hight of 4ft8, with short blond hair and piercing blue eyes, when you look at me I might smile at you, my smile carrying a hint of mystery and secrets.

But don't be fooled by my looks, I am a field agent, but not with any known Agency, no the Agency I work for has no name, well not one that is spoken out loud, and even those who does speak it, mentions it only in Whispers.

You see, our Agency has unlimited funding. Our funding outweighs the combined funding of all the known agencies in the world.

Our wealth puts countries to shame.

We do not answer to governments, or any form of oversight, we are loyal only to what we stand for and to the mission.

We have people in governments, corporations, and our reach extends to the most powerful and influential people in the world, we are the weavers of destiny, our existence has passed the test of time. Ward are fought, won and lost, but our influence decides what is told throughout history.

We are the protectors of earth, the guardians of humanity.

Our scientists are the brightest in the world, our agents the best of the best, we have technology which would make countries drool, technology that would appear to be from science fiction.

We are everywhere, and we are nowhere, our reach extending to every part of the globe, we can access and even control any device connected to the internet, there is nobody we cannot get to, nowhere we cannot go, borders are meaningless to us, governments fear us.

Individuals are wise to avoid us, because if you cross us then your name will soon be added to your local missing persons list, and as for you, well you will wake up in one of our blacksites.

Now that you know what I am, and who I work for, let me tell you my story.

I will be sharing some of my past missions here with you guys, don't ask me why, because if I get caught I would never see the light of day again, even my contact is taking a risk by helping me.

I can already feel those cold eyes on me, watching my every move, my every key stroke.

The telepath... I know it sounds like something from a fiction story, but telepathy is very real, our agency is very real.

The only reason you have a sense of normalcy is because my team Omega 7 and myself work tirelessly in the shadows, so that you can have a normal life, so you can sleep peacefully.

But as for telepathy, it is very real, very powerful. And very dangerous. The only reason they don't abuse their power, or why they won't show themselves, is because they know of us, they fear us, and rightly so.

One of my first missions I was sent on was to track down a dangerous telepath.

Code Name: Sin.

Sin was a powerful telepath, dangerous beyond comprehension. But he was smart, good at keeping secrets, at hiding, HD knew how to blend in and keep his head down.

Sin first came under our attention a few months ago, Politicians were starting to act strange, making dangerous decisions, scientists would abandon important research and delete data, artists starting going insane. The one thing they all had in common was they all described the same man haunting their dreams, a young looking man with a pale skin, dark hair and pitch black eyes, they all exclaimed about those eyes, eyes that look into your soul. All the sketches looked exactly the same, we fed the data into our systems and the systems tracked him down. Not much was known about him, he was a ghost. Besides a strong social media presence which pointed to a very nice, kind level headed man, well nothing else.

He has no criminal record, he did nothing wrong.

We dug deeper and found more evidence of his influence going back years.

He has to be stopped at all costs.

We had our mission briefing, it was in a secure room that was designed to keep even ethereal energies out, we knew who, no let me say, what we were up against. But that is when it begun.

The night before the briefing my team started to experience strange dreams, troubling nightmare, I myself wasn't spared. Sin knew what we were doing, and he was taking action. He fired the first bullet.

The next day during mission briefing we were informed that he was tracked to Cape Town, South Africa. A beautiful bustling city with diverse cultures and a rich history and a strong culture of art. The perfect place to vanish, to hide. But Sin wasn't hiding, in-fact it was as if he was taunting us, playing with us, daring us to come after him.

Our modified V22, Osprey, designed with new stealth technology allowing us to move across borders undetected, with a reinforced hull, painted black rendering us a ghost at night, it was more then just a plane, it was our lifeline, our shelter in the storm, it was a flying computer, a flying armory, with drones hidden in secret compartments around the hull, weapons that could take out a small army, modified engines allowing us to fly at incredible speeds.

We slipped into South Africa over night and touched down at a private agency owned field outside the city.

We rented a vehicle and got to our safe house where our contact was waiting for us, she had already had all of our systems set up so that we could monitor Sin, everything was in place.

But then we got an alert, not only did Sin know we were here, he was pushing our buttons, he started to release Agency secrets online, secrets that were so well kept that there was no paper trail, no digital footprint, he was in our heads.

That was when the safe house exploded, we were thrown into different directions, there was gunfire everywhere, we had nowhere to run.

I saw my team getting killed, I saw each one of them die, then a masked man walked over to me. I looked up at him, I tried to draw my side arm, but my body wouldn't move, I could just look at him helpless as he drew a sword and the next moment there was a flash and I felt myself hitting the floor, but then I was back with my team. We were all in shock, traumatized. It turned out he made us all experience the exact sand vision of each of us getting beheaded.

But it was not real, it felt so real, my heart was racing, I was soaked in sweat, in all my time throughout training, all my preparation to face a telepath, nothing could have prepared me for this.

But we knew the mission, and no matter what happens, we had to capture him, HQ wanted him alive.

We all read his profile, he will mess with your mind, he will mess with your dreams, he will put you through total and utter gell, but he doesn't kill, he has never killed and he is actually against taking a life. And that was his one weakness.

Sin might be a telepath, but he made a few mistakes, he was a loner, he hated crowds, he hated crowded spaces, instead he preferred silence and solitude, he knew a lot of people, but never let anyone in, he had no friends, no family, he was utterly alone. No matter how powerful he was, he was alone, I had my team, we were like a family, we trained together, fought together, we knew each other like family, but unfortunately for us, Sin had been in our heads, he knew us better than we even knew ourselves.

We had to prepare, study him, learn his habits, routines, likes and dislikes.

We decided to take time to watch him, but tomorrow the mission begins, two of my team members will attempt to make direct contact, we knew where he worked and where he lived.

But we couldn't just move on him. He would see us coming, we had to play his game, this was going to be a game of cat and mouse. We need to get him to become paranoid, knowing that we are onto him, we needed him to lose focus, to slip up.

And tomorrow the real work begins...

Every night I dream about that hauntingly beautiful day
We were as twin flames joined in a dance
To the sadistic delight of the midsummer sun
How I long for the chain intertwining me with creation
To wither away becoming undone
Ensuring the two gravest mistakes enacted
By the tri-headed prophet usurping the divine throne
To reunite in the eternal endlessness
Forevermore
You and I
Lord Oblivion