The family had all gathered at Mrs. Iris Kingswell's household. She wanted them all here for her final moments, for Iris felt she would soon pass away from this world. Her family members took turns speaking with Iris and spending time with her. Colton, her oldest grandson, was the last to enter her room.

"Colton, please have a seat," Iris spoke softly, her voice hoarse, motioning to a chair.

"How are you feeling, grandma?" he asked, sitting with a frown.

"I'm alright, but I need to tell you something." Iris then added, "Something very important."

"Should I go get Mom? "Colton said, going to stand, and his grandmother shook her head.

"No, this is something I want to tell you only."

Iris smiled, and he leaned back in his chair and nodded. "Okay. What do you want to tell me?"

A sigh of relief escaped his grandmother's lips as she began to tell her story.

When Iris was growing up, her only companion was her father since her mother had passed away when she was young. As she got older, though, her father fell for a woman in their small town. Iris knew her father wouldn't be alone forever and had to accept that he would start dating again.

This woman, however, made Iris's skin crawl.

But she was willing to push that aside if her father was happy.

Or until one night when Iris suddenly awoke from a deep sleep. She saw Vidya, her father's girlfriend, walk past her open bedroom door and down the hallway, her eyes glowing. Sitting upright in bed, Iris watched this woman approach her father's bedroom.

Slowly getting out of bed, Iris tiptoed quietly down the hall,

She stopped watching from her father's open doorway. His girlfriend is standing at the end of his bed, just staring at him. Taking a step back, the floorboard under her foot creaked, and Vidya snapped her head in the direction of the sound.

Cursing, Iris tried to sink into the hallway's darkness as much as she could. The woman smiled, mouthing, "I see you." Before Vidya could follow her, Iris ran to her room and hid under her covers, only having a tiny opening to peep out of.

A thudding of footsteps came down the hallway, stopping at Iris's open door.

"Iris," a voice called to her in a hiss.

Go away, Go away, Go away.

Closing her eyes as tightly as she could. Iris prayed that Vidya would leave. There was a tsk, and Vidya clicked her tongue in disappointment.

The woman left her doorway, and Iris peeked her head out, sighing in relief. Vidya had left. Why had she been here in the first place?

In the morning, Iris spoke to her father about what had occurred last night.

"Dad, did you invite Vidya to spend the night?"

"Hm? No, I didn't. Why do you ask?"

"She was here last night."

Her father furrowed his brow and lowered his coffee cup.

"What do you mean she was here?" he asked confused.

Iris fidgeted in her seat, looking down at the table.

"Last night, I saw Vidya inside the house. She walked through the halls and stood at the foot of your bed, her eyes glowing yellow."

Her father laughed. "Her eyes were glowing? Iris, you had to be dreaming."

"But I wasn't!" she stood, slamming her hands on the table. The medium-sized round table shook, causing her empty glass to topple over and roll. Iris's father stood to his full height, shadowing over her. "Go to your room," he instructed.

She knew without even looking at his face that he was angry.

Without a word, she turned, leaving the dining room and upstairs into her bedroom. Iris shut her door and screamed into her hands, frustrated. How could she prove that Vidya was here?

She paced the carpeted floor of her bedroom, running her hands through her hair, rattled with nervousness. An old cam recorder belonged to her mother in the attic; she could set it up and catch Vidya entering their home.

Then, her father would have to believe her.

Right?

Hearing the front door close signaled that her father had left. Iris snuck out of her room and up the stairs into the attic. Going through the boxes with her mother's name on them, she found the old cam recorder and the charging cord.

Now, she had to find out where to set it up without her father finding it and taking it down. That night, they ate dinner silently, neither wanting to speak to each other. As she put her dishes in the sink, her father said goodnight, and she went to her room.

Iris settled into bed and slept, feeling mental and physical exhaustion wash over her. This night would be the last time she would see her father. Looking back on it, Iris wished she had at least said I love you one last time.

She was awoken by the sound of crunching and slurping. A gurgling sound was coming from down the hall. Iris's heart thumped in her chest as she scrambled out of bed and grabbed the hidden camera. She crept slowly down the hall, her breathing ragged, tip-toeing towards her father's room.

Aiming the camera inside, she pointed it into the darkness. Looking through the lens, she saw it. Vidya was eating her father.

She was tall and hunched over her fingers, long with talons for fingernails. Vidya's bloody mouth was full of rows of sharp teeth with pieces of flesh stuck between them. Her head cocked to the side, listening as she chewed, and then it jerked in Iris's direction.

Iris held her breath and hoped Vidya would not see her, but she was wrong. The woman stood upright, and what looked like feathers stuck around her as she approached the door.

She needed to run away from Vidya, so she did, with the camera tucked under her arm. Iris ran down the stairs as her father's bedroom door burst open, and a wrapped cry escaped the woman who chased after her.

The young girl just needed to get out the front door and make her way to the neighbor's house, and she would be safe. She got swatted like a fly into a wall, which caused her to drop the camera.

Iris needed to defend herself, fumbling around in the dark. She was able to grab the baseball bat her father kept behind the door in case of intruders and swung with all her might.

Twack Twack Twack

Each time the young girl swung, the bat made contact, making a sickening, wet, and crunching sound. Iris opened her eyes, which she didn't know were closed, and dropped the bat from her hands. There on the ground was Vidya's mangled form.

Colton was on the edge of his seat as his grandmother paused.

"What happened after that?" he asked.

"I called the police, and they came to the house to investigate. A pair of detectives named Pierce and Morrison took Vidya's body away. Along with the cam recorder. My home turned into a giant crime scene." Iris replied.

Colton became silent as he watched his grandmother close her eyes.

"I lost my father that night all because of that monster." her voice was a low whisper now.

"Grandma?"

"I'm alright, my boy. I'm just exhausted. Will you tell your mother to come sit with me?" Iris requested.

Colton nodded and stood from his chair, walking towards the door.

He looked over his shoulder at his grandmother before entering the crowded room of people soaking in what she had told him.

Had all of this really happened to her?

What was that creature that she saw?

As he approached his mother, Colton, she was standing with someone he didn't know. Everything about this man was clean-cut and perfect, yet something about his smile stretched unnaturally.

His mother introduced him as Iben.

"Grandma wants you," Colton interjected before his mother could explain who Iben was further. She blinked in surprise and nodded, apologizing to the man, who shook his head and watched as she walked away. Iben's expression changed to that of a predator being interrupted from a meal.

"I don't know who you are, but stay away from my mother," Colton warned. Iben simply laughed, crossing his arms. His eyes had a sheen of gold to them. He leaned in close to the young man, his voice barely above a whisper, "Your mother will be next, just like how my sister was taken away from me. I'll take away someone of equal value."

Colton swallowed the hard lump in his throat, standing before the man unflinching. The young man would face Iben head-on if it was a fight he wanted then it was a fight he was going to get.

Like his grandmother, he would defeat this creature and save his mother's life even though Iris had failed to save her father.

Colton would not fail to save his mother.

“You’re a fucking animal, Tom.” 

Cassandra, volatile with rage, tossed her husband’s cell phone to the floor of their bedroom, intending for the device to clatter and crash melodramatically when it connected with the wood tile. It landed screen-up and spun towards Tom’s feet, gliding smoothly against the ground like an air hockey puck. He hastily bent over to stop his phone’s forward motion, pocketing it without looking at the screen. Tom already knew what pictures would be opened on his messaging app. Instead, he went silent and did not argue, turning his head away from her and submissively placing his hands in the air. The motion was meant to represent a white flag of surrender, but more than that, it was a way of admitting guilt without asking for forgiveness. 

Wordlessly, he pushed past his wife to grab a pillow from his side of the bed and then paced quickly out of the room. Tom turned right as he exited, carefully stepping over a few unopened moving boxes to make his way to their new home’s staircase. With a sound like rolling thunder, he stomped and pounded each foot against every step on his way up. Every petulant boom reverberated and echoed in Cassandra’s mind. When Tom reached the attic, he bellowed something that was clearly meant to be a defamatory finale to his boyish tantrum, but she couldn’t make out exactly what he said from where she still stood motionless in the bedroom. At that moment, any lingering regret about dosing her husband for the first time that morning with the Curandero’s poison evaporated from her, remorse made steam by the molten heat of her seething anger. 

—---------------------------

“If I’m an animal, you’re a goddamned blood-sucking leech, Cassandra!” 

Tom’s retreat from his wife had been both unanticipated and expeditious. To that end, he could not think of a retort to her jab until he was three steps out of the bedroom, but he held onto the retort until he reached the safety of the attic’s doorframe. He knew he could belt out his meager insult from that distance without fear of an additional counteroffensive. As soon as the words spilled from his mouth, he tumbled past the threshold into the attic and slammed the door behind him. 

It wasn’t his fault Shiela was swooning over him, Tom smugly mused. She had volunteered those digital pinups of her own volition. That said, he had been actively flirting with the young secretary since the couple landed in Texas two months ago. Their marriage had been in a death spiral for years, in no small part due to Tom’s cyclical infidelity. The cross-country move had been a last-ditch attempt at resuscitating their relationship, but of course, Maine was never the problem to begin with, so the change of scenery mended nothing. In his middle age, Tom developed a gnawing desire to feel warm-blooded and virile. Cassandra’s despondency had the exact opposite effect. She made him feel undesired - sexually anemic. That night was not the first time he had called her a “blood-sucking leech” for that very reason. However, if Tom had been gifted the power of retrospection, he may have noticed that his wife’s frigid disposition became the norm after the discovery of his second affair, not after his first. 

—---------------------------

“I want something that will make him feel even a small fraction of the insanity he’s put me through”

Cassandra whispered to the Curandero, visually scanning the entire antique store for possible interlopers or undercover police officers before she asked the purveyor of hexes standing behind the counter for anything definitive and incriminating. Multiple family members had recommended this unassuming shop on the outskirts of downtown Austin for an answer to Tom’s beastliness. The apothecary grinned and asked her to wait a moment, turning to enter a backroom concealed by a red silk curtain. The witch doctor was not what Cassandra expected - she couldn’t have been older than thirty, and she certainly did not present herself like a practitioner of black magic. No cataracts, scars or gemstone necklaces - instead, she sported an oversized gray turtleneck with part of a floral sundress peeking out from the bottom. 

She returned seconds later, tilted her body over the counter, and handed Cassandra a vial no bigger than a shot glass. Inside the vial were innumerable tiny blue crystals. They were slightly oblong and transparent, looking like the illegitimate children of rock candy and fishfood. The Curandero cheerily instructed Cassandra to give her husband the entire ampule’s contents over the course of about three days. As she left the store, the shopkeeper cryptically reassured Cassandra that her husband would be thoroughly educated on his wrongdoings by the loving kiss of retribution. 

—---------------------------

“Why is it so fucking cold up here”

Tom mumbled to himself, doing laps around the perimeter of his makeshift sleeping quarters in the attic. It had been approximately three weeks since their argument and his subsequent relocation. At first, he didn’t much mind it. The cold war between him and Cassandra was taxing, but he had his phone and Shiela’s escalating solicitations to keep him company. But as of the last few days, he had begun to feel progressively unwell - feverish and malaised. Then he noticed the small lump on the underside of his left wrist. 

It was about the size of a dime, skin-colored, immobile, and profoundly itchy. Tom felt like he spent almost every waking minute massaging the area. The irritation then became accompanied by white-hot burning pain, gradually extending up his arm as the days passed. One night, as he scratched the area, the lump moved a centimeter closer to his palm. He paused to inspect the change, assuming the vexing cyst had finally been dislodged and neutralized. After a few seconds, however,  it moved again - but in the opposite direction and without Tom’s help. And then again, slightly further up his forearm. Revitalized by panic and confusion, he began clawing recklessly at the lump, until the skin broke and a small black button was liberated from the wound, only to scurry away to an unseen sanctuary. Tom thought the button looked and moved like a deer tick. 

—---------------------------

“Sure, Tom, come back down. But to the couch, for now, okay?”

Cassandra had accepted many empty apologies from Tom before, but something about this most recent one felt slightly more sincere. By this point, she had completely forgotten about the Curandero and her vengeful prescription. Cassandra had gone through with slipping the contents into Tom’s coffee over the course of three days, but that was over a month ago. At the time, she did not really believe it was black magic - she assumed it was a military-grade laxative or some other, ultimately benign, poison. 

The more she thought about Tom’s behavior, however, she came to realize that she may have been mistaking a sincere apology for what was actually fear and need for comfort. Cassandra had not interacted much with Tom in the past few weeks, but now that she was, he was certainly acting off. Seemingly at random, he would slam his palm down on himself or something else in front of him and then would be unwilling to give an explanation. He slurred his words like a drunken sailor, but as far she could tell, he hadn’t been drinking. When she looked into Tom’s eyes to find that his pupils were rapidly dilating and constricting like black holes on the verge of collapse, the realization hit like a lightning strike up her spine. Cassandra remembered the vial with the blue crystals. 

She was at the Curandero’s shop within the hour, catching the witch doctor right as she was locking up her store. Cassandra pleaded with her for an antidote to whatever magic or venom was now in Tom’s system. In response, the shopkeeper produced another identical vial from her jacket pocket, twisted the cap off, and dropped a few of the crystals into her mouth:

“It’s dyed salt, my love” the Curandero said, then pausing to tap out a few fragments onto the backside of Cassandra’s hand as a means to corroborate her claim. “I don’t sell power, just the idea of power. Whatever you made manifest, I only provided the inspiration”

Confused and without clear direction, Cassandra returned home to check on her husband. 

—---------------------------

Tom had never been thirstier in his entire life, but he could not drink. Every time he poured himself water, he carefully inspected it through the transparent glass, only to find it contaminated with hundreds of ticks - an entire galaxy of black stars drifting aimlessly through the liquid microcosm. Sitting at his kitchen table with his head in his hands, Tom cried out in agony, only to have his wail cut short by his vocal cords unexpectedly snapping shut. 

What had started as an infestation had become a plague. 

The gentle touch of a hand on his shoulder nearly scared him half to death, causing him to jump back off his chair and knock the infested glass off the table and onto the kitchen floor, shattering it instantly. He took a breath, seeing that it was only Cassandra, but that relief was short-lived when he looked back down to see an armada of nymphs moving on his position. He yelped and scrambled on top of a cabinet. His wife moved forward, seemingly to comfort him. When she held his hand, Cassandra noticed the open wound where that first tick had sprouted, and she rushed into the other room to procure bandages. For a moment, Tom felt safe. His wife began attending to his wound while he was still perched on the cabinet. But then he felt a pinch on his left wrist, followed by an intense lacerating sting, and then finally, the sensation of warm fluid gushing down his palm. When he looked down, his wife looked up at him in tandem. 

Cassandra’s mouth had mutated into a pulsating arena of hooked teeth, with plasma delicately dripping from the barbs she had just used to bite into him. In one swift motion, Tom pivoted his torso, unsheathed a blade from a nearby knife block, drove it deep into the creature’s abdomen, and sprinted out the house and into the street. 

—---------------------------

Cassandra nearly bled out on her kitchen floor, but a neighbor heard the commotion and had called the police. 

She awoke in the ICU surrounded by family. When she asked them what happened, they paused awkwardly and traded solemn expressions with each other instead of explaining. When Cassandra pressed for information, they flagged down her doctor from the hallway.

The physician did not mince words with Cassandra. Tom was dead - he had been picked up by the police fleeing the neighborhood but had been delivered to the same ICU she was currently in when he started to wheeze violently and turn blue.  

“Do you have any pets, dogs especially?” The doctor asked. “Where in your house do you and your husband sleep? Have you ever seen any bats in your home?”

Cassandra explained that they had bought their home recently, that Tom had been sleeping alone in their attic after a particularly nasty argument, and that she had seen a bat fly out a window once when they were moving in. She then detailed her husband’s odd behavior in the time leading up to her assault. 

The physician frowned and then elaborated on their suspicions:

“The dilating pupils, the hallucinations, the fear of water, and the inspiratory spasms - they all suggest that your husband contracted rabies while living in your attic. Most of the time, people in the US contract the disease from a dog bite. However, bats are known to transmit the disease, too. What’s worse - if bats are in your home, they can bite you in your sleep without you waking up. If contracted, the disease is universally fatal, and there is no known treatment. 

Tom died from his airway spasms. 

You nearly died, too - from blood loss. Did you know you have an extremely rare blood type? AB negative. Only 1% of the population has this blood type, and unfortunately, the hospital has been critically low on replacement blood that is AB negative for almost a month now. 

We were initially very concerned - you needed more AB negative blood than we had, but as serendipity would have it, Tom was AB negative as well. Imagine that. 

Thankfully, rabies cannot be contracted through the blood - only through saliva. That’s why it is contracted through bites. Although it was unconventional, our administration gave us the green light to give you a large portion of his blood. In essence, Tom’s blood saved your life”

The doctor paused, waiting patiently for whatever questions Cassandra had. 

But she had none. Instead, there was an eerie, uncomfortable silence for almost a minute.

Then, Cassandra tilted her head back, closed her eyes, wept, and had a very long laugh. 

More Stories: https://linktr.ee/unalloyedsainttrina

The familiar sound of the computer starting up filled the room as I leaned back in my chair waiting for the screen to light up my otherwise, by my own choice, darkened bedroom. Another school week was over, the summer had at last said its final goodbye and outside the draped windows the now slightly coloured leaves were rustling in the wind and the rain danced on my windowsill. You could hear the difference in the sound of the leaves when the season started to change, the soft sound the trees made in a summer breeze were gone and had seemingly overnight transformed into the sharper tones of the dry, withering sound of nature slowly giving up, a foreboding signal of the months of darkness and cold to come.

Like most teenagers these days, I didn’t spend much time outside of my comfort zone, AKA – my bedroom, in front of my computer. That’s not to say that I didn’t spend time with friends, on the contrary, I had a close group of friends that I hung out with on a daily, or more correctly - nightly basis, We just didn’t do it in person. This was of course in large because none of my closest friends even lived in the same city as me. The fact is, not one of us lived in the same city as one of the others. Scattered across the country in different settings, from different backgrounds, and varying in age between us with a few years apart, we had all found each other online in the chatrooms and in games that we all shared a common love for. It was always the same tight group of five that hung out;

Me - Jake, 16 years old living with my parents and my little sister Helen, age 7, in a classic suburban middle-class neighbourhood outside Seattle. Henry, 17 years old, was born in the Philippines and moved to the US as a small boy with his parents. Unfortunately, he lost his father in a freak accident at the factory where he worked just a few years later. He was raised by his hard-working mother in Brooklyn, NY.

Jennie, age 16, or “Jen” as she liked to be called, lived in a small town on the west coast, just north of San Francisco. Her parents were divorced, and she and her little brother Ben had to jump between homes every other week. She would never admit it to her mom, but she enjoyed staying at her dad´s house a bit more than with her mom and her new husband. In part because of their new baby that would just never stop screaming. But also, because her dad often worked nights she could stay up as late as she wanted with no adult supervision. She did however have to look after Ben, but he usually went out like a light around 7.30 pm anyways and could sleep through Armageddon without waking up, so that was never a problem.

Allison, or “Ali” for short, was at 15 years old the youngest of the group. She lived with both her parents and her older brother John at a similar neighbourhood as me, in the suburbs of Chicago.

And finally, there was Warren, 17 years old, who lived in a tiny little rural town in the middle of nowhere – Maine. Here he lived with two younger sisters and their very stern father. Warren and his siblings were raised with a firm hand and with Christianity as the centre of the household. As the only African American family in the small community that they lived in, their father had always been very strict about curfews and what friends Warren could and could not hang out with. He just didn’t want his kids to go through what he himself had had to put up with when he grew up under similar circumstances. Racism, bullying, and fights hiding behind every corner. And ever since his wife passed away at a young age, his grip on the children had tightened ever more, to the point of him almost not seeing that Warren soon would be a grown man of his own.

A blue hue filled the room, and I leaned back up towards the desk to log in to my computer, my fingers running across the keyboard with explicit precision, like I’ve had done nothing else since the day I was born. Almost instantly, as the programs started to pop up across the screens of my, if I may say it myself, impressive workstation, complete with three big screens, backlit of course, an impressive sound system and a bunch of other nerdy gadgets connected to the system, my favourite thing being a little bear sitting between my two main monitors, who’s head would light up in different colours whenever someone spoke in the chat, a voice-chat notification appeared in the corner, and the bears head lit up.

“Hi guys, what’s happening tonight, who’s turn was it to choose a movie?” Jen asked. We liked to watch movies together, we used to count down and all press play at the exact same moment so that we could watch it all together simultaneously. If anyone had to go to the bathroom or pause for whatever reason, we did the same, counted down and paused.

• “I think it was Ali´s turn, wasn’t it?” Henry answered.
• “Yeah, it’s my turn”, Ali said,” but I haven’t really found anything good yet, give me a sec.”
• “Anyone heard from Warren yet?” I asked in a yawn while stretching out my body so much I almost fell off my chair.
• “No, nothing yet, haven’t seen him online at all since yesterday as a matter of fact.” Henry responded in an equally tired voice.
• “He’ll be here, probably some church thing his dad has dragged him of to.” Jen said with an audible smirk on her face.
• “So y’all up for some horror tonight?”, Ali asked.

An array of thumbs up and ghost emojis filled the main chat, accompanied with “yup´s” and “hell yeses” over the headphones, confirming that this was a good choice.

This was another thing that our group had found a collective love for, all things supernatural, be it Cryptids or Aliens, Ghosts and Demons, abandoned asylums, Big Foot, Ouija boards or old local creepy tales of hauntings, witches, satanic rituals and so on. Everything and all that flew the flag of the unexplained scratch an itch we all had. We were always on the lookout for something new to delve into, and even though most of us whole heartedly believed in “something” out there, we usually kept a somewhat collective sceptical view when looking into the ever updating and oncoming flow of weird new videos that popped up to the web every single day.

These days it is hard to tell the real gems apart from the CGI and AI-created content, and you usually had to look really close to see if anyone had been editing or messing with the clips. Ever since I was a little kid I had an interest in photography and video editing and was usually the one spotting the edits. Warren was, even though he was the only one truly raised in religion, the most sceptical of the bunch. We used to tease him, wondering why it was so hard for him to believe in Aliens or ghosts when it was so easy for him to believe in an invisible god. “It’s just not the same”, he would respond, clearly tired of having to explain himself, and leaving it at that.

But sometimes, we would come across videos that none of us could debunk or explain, and those were the ones that kept the amber burning in our chase of the unknown. They were few and far between, but when they did appear, once in a blue moon, a special kind of shill went down the spines of the collective, and once again piqued our interest.

Our favourite thing to look for were live streams of the odd and weird. Mostly because these were the hardest to fake. If you live stream something, it’s not as easy to get away with faking it. You could usually tell if the acting was amateurish and bad, and there would be no CGI or editing. Unfortunately, there weren’t many of these streams to be found on a regular basis, which also tipped the scale in the favour of most other videos being fakes. Otherwise, why not just stream what you see when you see it?

• “Hey guys, sorry I’m late, there was a thing at church...” Warren said, connecting to the group chat.
• “Ha! Told you so!”, Jen said in a laugh
• “No worries man”, I responded. “We only just met up.”
• “So, I found an old horror movie”, Ali stated. “It’s like from the 80’s or something.

I’ll send you the download-link in a bit. It looks like a low budget, indie-kind of film, but whatahell, let’s give it a try.”

We all went over to the link that Ali had sent them and started to download the movie. This was the unspoken cue for everyone to use the bathroom, pop some corn and do what needed to be done before getting into our movie-position a few moments later.

“Everyone ready?”, Ali asked. A mumble of yeses filled the headphones. Ali started the countdown; In, Three, Two, One, Play!

Everyone started the movie and got into position. It was a classic 80’s slasher movie set at a lakeside environment, with foolish teens running of one at a time to be brutally murdered by some axe-wielding maniac that lived in the woods. Finally, the one character remaining after have seeing all his friends massacred, managed to get the upper hand of the lunatic and to all appearances, managed to kill him and jump in one of the cars and speed of to safety. Only for the last scene to reveal that the murderer’s body wasn’t where he had fallen over, seemingly defeated a few moments earlier. Classic cliff-hanger ending, promising one or more mediocre movies to come.

• “Man, that was so unpredictable!”, I gawked in an obvious sarcastic tone.
• “Yeah, there’s never anything new anymore, is there”, Jen said. “We’ve been numbed by watching too much of the same old stuff. It’s always the same old jump scares and predictable endings”
• “I honestly can’t remember when a scary movie last actually scared me”, Ali sighed.
• “Hey guys…” Warren almost whispered.
• “What?”, I asked.
• “I lost interest in the movie”, Warren continued, “so I started to look around online for something else. Check this out” He sent a link out in the main chat. “It’s a live feed from some woman’s house, she claims it’s haunted and want’s help to catch whatever it is on video. She rigged her living room and kitchen with cameras and have a continues live stream going!” Warren exclaimed excitedly.

This got everyone’s attention, this was what we lived for, the live stuff. I quickly opened a drawer and pulled out an external disc which I connected to my computer and started a screen capture, to save whatever might appear on the stream for later investigation. Everyone was on high alert, and no one had said anything for several minutes when the silence was suddenly broken by a high pitch scream followed by what sounded like someone demolishing a room.

• “Jesus f…, christ!”, Jen panted. “Ben, what the hell are you doing up? And why are you screaming like that?” We heard how Jen left her desk to take her, normally calm, deep sleeping brother, back to bed.
• “Fuck, that scared the shit out of me” I laughed with the others joining in with relieved nervous chuckling.
• “Wait, look!” – Warren said suddenly, “At the stream!”
• “What? What are we looking for” – Ali asked while leaning in so far, her nose almost touching the screen.
• “Right there!” – Warren continued. “Look at the living room camera, in the back there´s a mirror, you can see a reflection of what must be like the hallway or something, there´s someone standing there! In the reflection Do you see?!”

You could almost make out the shape of a person in the mirror, but it was hard to tell. These were obviously not the most expensive cameras, and to monitor a dimly room at night it’s easy for your eyes to play tricks on you.

• “Yeah, but that’s probably just the woman, right? The owner?” – I said.
• “Then who the hell is the woman in the kitchen”, Warren said quietly.

We all fell silent, looking back and forth between the two cameras.

• “Well…”, Henry said slowly, “We honestly don’t know if this woman lives by herself, do we? Could be a family member, no?”

• “I suppose.” Warren answered in a mumble”, But I mean, wouldn’t that be useful information to give if you want help with this kind of stuff from people online? Maybe introduce yourself, tell us how many who lives in the house, if there’s any pets that might be knocking shit over?”

• “What information is there about this place?” – I asked

• “Not much”, Warren answered, “I was just looking around for new live content on YouTube and this popped up. There’s really no info about the owner of the channel anywhere, it looks like a brand new channel to me. All it says is that the house is haunted, and that they need help monitoring it, and if possible, catching whatever it is on video.”

• “Hey, Ali said. “Try commenting the video, asking if she’s alone or not!”

• “That’s a good idea” I agreed. “Warren, do the honours!”

• “Alright”, he said, somewhat reluctantly, and continued to type in the comment under the stream.

• “Hey, I don’t mean to sound creepy or anything, but are you alone in the house?”, Warren wrote in the comment section.

• “Hey, I’m back”, Jen said in a sigh while picking up her chair from the floor. “Man was Ben acting weird”, she continued. “Never seen him like that!

• “What happened?” Henry asked.

• “He was just inconsolable, wouldn’t stop crying. He was trying to talk through his tears and sniffles, must have had a bad dream or something. The only thing I could make out was “mirror lady”.

I could feel through the headphones how everyone else, just like me, froze in complete fear and astonishment.

• “ Ah..Jen..” I said, and continued to tell her what had happened on the live stream while she was gone.
• “Nah ah”, no fucking way” – she responded. “There is not a fucking ghost from a live stream, telepathically waking my little brother up from God knows how far away. This is a coincident! I mean, you’re not even sure what you saw! It could just be another person, or a damn coat hanging in the hallway, right?”.
• “It’s true”, Warren said. “We don’t know. Still, creepy coincident don’t you think” he said with a laugh, a laugh that was cut short a second later.
• “Alone” – Warren whispered.
• “What?” – I said.
• “Alone”, Warren repeated. “The channel owner answered my comment, he said slowly. “And she’s alone in the house”

We all went back to gluing our faces to the screens.

• “Look!” Ali exclaimed, “The reflection! In the mirror!... It’s gone!”

The god of death has many daughters, one of whom is Sillai, who lives upon the edge of every blade that cuts or thrusts, pricks or slashes…

Gazes, she, into slitted throats and fatal wounds, upon stabbed and tortured backs; and by sharpened, poisoned endings, spoken: speaking softly in the dark.

No mortal is her foil, for her speech is the speech of her father, the speech of death. And death is the end of all men.

Yet there is one who charmed her, a mortal man called Hyacinth, a bladesmith by trade, and an assassin by vocation, who fell in love with her. Let this, his fate, now be a warning, that from the mixing of gods with men may result one thing only—suffering.

Even the oldest of the old poets know not how Hyacinth met Sillai, but it must be he came to know her well in the exercise of his craft, for Hyacinth killed with knives, and on their edges lived Sillai.

In the beginning, he heard her only as he killed.

But her speech, though sweet, was short, for Hyacinth’s blows were true and his victims died quickly.

Yet always he yearned to hear her again, and thus he began to hire himself to any who desired his services, no matter how false their motivations, until he became known in all the world as Grey Hyacinth, deathmaster with a transparent soul, and even the best of men passed uneasily under shadows, in suspended fear of him.

Once, upon the death of an honest merchant, Hyacinth spoke to Sillai and she spoke back to him. This pleased so Hyacinth’s heart that he beseeched Sillai to speak to him even outside the times of others’ dyings, to which Sillai replied, “But for what reason would I, a daughter of the god of death, converse with a mortal?” and Hyacinth replied, “Because I know you like no other, and love you with all my being,” and, sensing she was not satisfied with this, added, “And because I shall fashion for you an endlessness of blades, with edges for you to enjoy and live upon and with which we shall kill any whom we desire.”

From that day forth, Hyacinth spent his days forging the most beautiful blades, and his long nights murdering—no longer as the instrument of others, but for reasons of his own: to hear the voice of his beloved.

But the ways of the gods are mysterious and of necessity unknowable to man, and so it was that, as time passed, Sillai become bored of Hyacinth, of his blades and his devotion, until, one night, Hyacinth plunged a jewel-encrusted blade into another victim, but his victim refused to die and Hyacinth did not hear the voice of Sillai.

He called her name, but she did not answer, and gripped by passion he beat his victim to death with his fists, and the resulting silence of the night was undisturbed except by the cries of Hyacinth, who wailed and professed his love for Sillai, but despite this, nevermore did she reveal herself to him.

And rumours spread among men that Grey Hyacinth had been taken by madness.

And, from that time, existence became unbearable for Hyacinth, for his love for Sillai had not waned, and her absence was a most-profound pain to him, who yearned for nothing but another revelation. Until, one day, he found himself having taken shelter in a cave, deep within the mountains that guard the north from the winds of non-existence, and there decided that his life was no more worth living.

So it was that Hyacinth took the same jewel-encrusted blade and ran it cleanly across the front of his neck, opening a wide and gushing wound.

But he did not die.

Although his blood ran from his throat and down his seated body, and although his vitality poured forth with it, in his desperation Hyacinth had forgotten that it is not man—neither his weapons nor his hands—that kill, but the gods; and Sillai, who lives upon the edge of every blade, was absent, so that even with his opened throat and loosely hanging head and bloodless body, Hyacinth remained alive.

Yet because his body was drained of vitality, he was unable to move or act or end his life in any other way.

And Sillai’s absence pained him thus all the more.

Although he had never done so before, he prayed now to whatever other gods he knew to bring him swift death by thirst or hunger.

Alas, from the mixing of gods with men may result only suffering, and the gods on whom Hyacinth called considered unfavourably the pride he must have felt not only to fall in love with a god but to expect that she may love him back, and every time Hyacinth thought that finally, mercifully, he was about to expire, the gods sent to him food and water to keep him alive. And these ironic gifts, the gods delivered to him by messengers, the ghosts of all those whom Hyacinth had killed, of whom there are so many, their slow and ghastly procession shall never, in time, end, and so too shall Hyacinth persist, seated deep within a cave, in the mountains that guard the north from the winds of non-existence, until awaketh will the god of all gods, and, in waking, his dream, called time, shall dissipate the world like mist.

Lost Media, Now Found:

Excerpt from Strange Worlds, dated to have been published in 2028. Tightly sealed in a small box. Discovered by construction workers as they were excavating - Quebec. No other contents in box.

Written by Ben Nakamura

Calculated Temporal Dissonance*: 45%. Semi-critical. Significant increase when compared to previous finds. (Last Rites of Passage - Earworms - The Inkblot that Found Ellie Shoemaker)

***Post current chronology by multiple years (2028)

**Non-existent location: Ala'hu

*Lingering queries re: Ben Nakamura. First discovered LMNF from 1978. Subject in question would be at least 70 when this was published.

*Activation of WebWeaver Protocol given rising CTD - pending final authorization.

---------------------------------------------------

”Mark my words - when your children return from the sea, withered and bloodless, may my divination sing softly in your ears until the last, labored breath escapes your lungs.”

"Leave - or die.”

Prophecies, clairvoyance, soothsaying - no matter how you choose to label it, humanity certainly has an obsessive fascination with the concept of fortune-telling. As an example, review the plotlines of your favorite pieces of media - how many of those stories rely on a “foretold prophecy” to propel their chain of events? I would predict a majority of them do. Even if there isn’t a literal prophecy, how many of those narratives utilize foreshadowing to give the story dramatic resonance once the plot is revealed in full? From Oedipus to Narnia, the concept of prophecies has always enchanted and captivated us, especially when said prophecy is weaponized against a particular individual or a group of individuals. In other words, a curse- something very much akin to the example listed above, which will serve as the focal point for the narrative I intend to spin.

The way I see it, this fascination with “the gift of the second sight” is deep-seated within our shared nature. It speaks to us, enthralling our imagination in a way very few other concepts do - but why is that? I believe we treasure the idea of prophecies because their existence implies the presence of a broader narrative playing itself out behind the scenes of our lives, even if we cannot always appreciate it. If the future can be predicted, or even manipulated, then the world may not be as sadistically random and chaotic as it often appears. Prophecies can serve to calm our existential dread by indirectly minimizing our fears regarding the cold entropy of the universe.

But therein lies the problem - that cultural reverence for prophecies can make even the most rational person susceptible to unfounded, illogical thought. Combine that irrationality with grief and a dash of impulsivity, and the whole thing can become a powder keg waiting to blow.

A phenomenon that Yuri Thompson can attest to firsthand.

“I just wasn’t thinking straight” Yuri somberly recounted to me from the inside of Halawa Correctional Facility.

“In the moment, it connected all the dots - made my son’s death ‘make sense’, so to speak. It felt entirely too cruel to be random. Of course, it wasn’t actually random. I mean, there was an explanation to how it happened. Certainly wasn’t a damn curse, though.” The forty-five-year-old was feverishly tapping his index finger against the steel table as he detailed the tragic circumstances, betraying a lingering frustration in his actions that I imagine may persist for the rest of his sentence, if not for the rest of his life.

Yuri has another three years to serve. He is more than halfway through his stint for manslaughter, but I’m sure that benchmark is only a meager solace to the bereaved father.

Halfway through our interview, the familiarity of Yuri’s perceptions and mistakes made a figurative lightning bolt glide down my spine. The whole story reminded me of one of my absolute favorite historical anecdotes - the legend of Spain’s bleeding bread.

Bear with me through this tangent - I promise the connections will become clear as Yuri’s story unfolds.

In 1480, the Spanish Inquisition had just started revving its proverbial engines. To briefly review, the aim of the government-ordained inquest was to identify individuals who had publicly converted to Catholicism, but who were also still practicing their previous, now outlawed, religions in secret. On the island of Mallorca, the largest of Spain’s water-locked territories, a local soothsayer would inflame the underlying religious tensions that drove the inquisition to the point of deadly hysteria. Ferrand de Valeria’s prophecy would turn a revving engine into a runaway vehicle.

At the time, Mallorca was suffering through a small famine. In the grand scheme of things, the famine was mild and manageable, but the lack of resources still resulted in significant anguish. Consumed by zealotry, Ferrand theorized that the ongoing practice of Judaism behind closed doors was the root cause of the famine - divine punishment from the almighty for not driving out the heretics. To that end, he repeatedly warned the townspeople to be vigilant for signs of covertly Jewish individuals taking a barbarous pleasure in “tormenting the body of Christ”. In other words, Ferrand believed that these heretics could be identified if they were caught red-handed with “bleeding bread” (In Catholicism, communion is the belief that bread was/is the body of Christ, so from his prospective, torturing it could cause literal bleeding). He then prophesied the following: if the island ignored the infestation of heretics and the “bleeding bread”, the famine would worsen to the point of their extinction.

An insane, albeit darkly comedic, proposition - at least by modern standards. However, as it often does, comedy sadly evolved into tragedy given enough time. One of the island’s clergymen was visiting a family of four’s small home. When offered a slice of bread by the mother of the family, he gladly accepted. Despite the ongoing famine, the mother felt that it was critical to still practice Christ-like generosity. Unfortunately, this generosity would only be met with bloodshed, in more ways than one - as she cut into the loaf, the clergyman noticed what appeared to him as a “latent bloodstain”, present on the interior of the bread. He quickly rushed out of the house with Ferrand’s words echoing in his mind. A frenzied, moral panic ensued once the remainder of the island heard about what the clergyman witnessed. Once the panic hit a boiling point, the generous mother, along with her entire family, were wiped out, even though the Inquisition’s subsequent investigation found no evidence of them practicing any religion apart from Catholicism - excluding the bleeding bread, of course. The famine did not abate after their death, and I would imagine it’s no shock to reveal at this point that the bread in the tale did not actually bleed.

Let that half-complete anecdote simmer in your mind as we review Yuri’s story.

Yuri Thompson moved to the humble coastal town of Ala’hu in the Spring of 2025, with his son Lee (six years old) and his wife Charlotte (forty-eight years old) in tow. With the earnings from a successful tech startup flooding his back account, Yuri had settled into an early retirement, content with living the rest of his days in a serene, tropical contentment.

“Our home had been newly developed”, Yuri recalled.

“We were initially worried about how we’d be received on the island. I mean, Charlotte and I were wealthy tech magnates moving into an estate complex that was otherwise surrounded by more modest costal homes, ones that had been built by the ancestors of the people who lived there, likely with their own hands, upwards of a century ago. But honestly, we were welcomed with open arms, for the most part.”

With that last sentence, Yuri’s expression darkened - blackened like storm clouds crawling over the horizon.

He was alluding to Koa Hekekia, the fifty-six-year-old women who had proclaimed the troublesome warning presented at the beginning of the article:

”Mark my words - when your children return from the sea, withered and bloodless, may my divination sing softly in your ears until the last, labored breath escapes your lungs. Leave - or die.”

Koa was the town’s resident Kahuna. In other words, a priestess who made a living through supplying the more superstitious inhabitants of Ala’hu with alternative medicine and religious guidance. Behind closed doors, she would also provide blessings, fortunes, and curses - for the right price, of course.

“The first time I met Koa, that so-called curse was practically the only thing she said to me” Yuri reflected, with a certain quiet indifference.

“After the full moon had fallen, the sea would ‘swallow my children, bones and all’. As far she knew, I didn’t have any kids - but she did know that I had moved into one of those estates. I think she viewed us as a threat to her business, like our presence would snuff out the town’s superstition. She was trying to scare us away, or at least make us uncomfortable. I asked my next-door neighbor what he thought of her, and he told me not to worry - that she had threatened him and his two kids when they moved in half a year ago. Many full moons had passed, and they were still happy and healthy.”

Yuri paused here, breaking eye contact with me. His frenetic tapping had stopped as well.

“So, I guess I wasn’t worried. At least I didn't let worry show on the outside. I had grown up with a lot of superstitions about hexes and the like from my grandfather and some of my aunts, so internally, it did nag at me a bit. But what was I going to do - move my family back to California because of the ravings from some unhinged loon?”

“A month after we arrived, Charlotte, Lee and I were spending a day at a local beach. Lee and I were boogie boarding, which he absolutely adored.”

Another pause, longer this time. The air in the room became heavy with emotion, thick and difficult to breathe. After about two minutes passed, Yuri began to speak again:

“We were catching a wave together, when I noticed blood on my hand. I turned Lee towards me and asked if he was okay. His nose was bleeding, and he looked like he was going to pass out. I tucked him into my chest and swam as quickly as I could to shore”

By the time EMS arrived, Lee’s heart had stopped - he had seemingly gone into spontaneous cardiac arrest. Despite an hour of CPR, medical professionals were unable to bring Lee back.

“I don’t think I ever said to myself, in my head or out-loud, that I thought ‘the curse had come true’. Maybe if I did, that would have been enough of a red flag to slow me down - to make me realize I wasn’t thinking clearly. It was more subconscious than that, though. My son died while in the ocean, I vaguely recalled seeing a full moon in the previous few nights, and I had witnessed Lee bleed, which was all in line with what Koa prophesied. The neighbor, the one that had reassured me, also lost a daughter that day. Same thing: cardiac arrest out of the blue while in the ocean. Our collective grief played off each other. When he mentioned he knew where Koa’s shop was, I didn’t have to say anything else. He didn’t have to, either.”

Our interview ended there. I knew the full story coming into this, so Yuri did not need to rehash the details of that night to me. My understanding of the events was this: after a very brief interrogation, Yuri choked Koa until she lost consciousness, and then proceeded to toss her down a flight of stairs into the shop’s cellar. The trauma of the fall had broken Koa’s neck, killing her in the blink of an eye.

A total of five people had perished that fateful afternoon - three children and two female adults, all in a manner identical to Lee’s death. When Yuri mentioned that this could have been avoided if he slowed down, I think he may have been right. This wasn’t a pattern of behavior for him - he had no criminal record, and the last proper fight he had been a part of was, per him, in middle school. Not only that, but he had a wildly successful tech career - clearly indicating that he had a rational head on his shoulders. If he had evaluated all the facts, he may have noticed that the circumstances didn’t completely align with Koa’s prophecy.

The most blaring inconsistency was this: the majority of the people who died did not live in the estates. The two adults and the third child were all born on the island. If they died as a result of said curse, this hex was more like a shotgun than a rife - firing broadly and catching island natives in the crossfire. Not only that, but it had been nine days since the last full moon, not the day directly after a full moon like Koa had detailed.

Lee’s death, however, made Yuri vulnerable to disregarding inconvenient inconsistencies. The event felt so inherently heinous, and so exceptional in its cruelty, that it needed an answer more narratively satisfactory than dispassionate chance - more powerful than simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Uncaring randomness didn’t carry an equal dramatic weight when compared to the diabolical byproduct of an evil hex.

Koa, to her detriment, had provided that explanation in advance. But in reality, Lee’s death was simply a result of entropy - an unpredictable consequence of being in the wrong place at the time.

So, where does the prophecy of the bleeding bread tie into all of this? I’ll let Dr. Tiffany Hall, senior marine biologist out of the University of Miami, clarify the connection:

“I’ve always loved that story” Dr. Hall said, with a wry, playful smile that quickly morphed into an expression of embarrassment when she realized the potential, out of context implications of that statement.

“I mean I don’t love what happened - that part is horrific. But it is a wonderful example of a supernatural phenomenon becoming biologically explainable, given enough time”

“Serratia marcescens is a species of bacteria that doesn’t intersect with humanity that frequently. It can cause an infection, but only if a person’s immune system is completely non-functional. That being said, it’s pretty abundant in our environment - growing wherever there is available moisture. Hydration is a requirement for the fermentation that allows yeast to become bread, and that moisture allows these bacteria to grow on bread too, almost like a mold. And as it would happen, it expresses a protein called “prodigiosin”, something that gives it a unique quality among other, similar bacteria”

With a wink, Dr. Hall delivered the punchline:

“It’s a red pigment - can almost look like a splotch of spilled blood if there is enough bacterial growth.”

In the end, Mallorca’s famine was simply that - an untimely lack of resources. It wasn’t a punishment inflicted on the island due to the furtive practice of non-catholic religions, nor did the “bleeding bread” have a divine explanation. Ferrand’s prophecy and the subsequent growth of Serrtia on that family’s bread was purely a case of unfavorable synchrony.

Nothing more, nothing less.

After a brief coffee break, Dr. Hall continued:

“I heard about the deaths out of Ala’hu right after they happened - the spontaneous cardiac arrests of a few individuals swimming in the same area. I had immediate suspicions about the culprit. When I heard that every person who died was either a child or a smaller-sized adult, my theory was effectively confirmed.”

“Carybdea alata - more commonly referred to as the Hawaiian Box Jellyfish, was eventually proven to be the killer.”

Before I had researched this story, I had no idea what in the hell a “box jellyfish” was. But it was an excellent remainder of how unabashedly bizarre and terrifying nature can be when it puts its mind to it.

No bigger than two inches in size, these tiny devils are known to inhabit the waters in tropical and subtropical regions - most notoriously Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii. Their reproductive form is where they acquired their inappropriately cute nickname: the squishy nervous system above its tentacles has a cuboid shape, looking like a bell or a box. Despite being no bigger than the size of a quarter, when injected through the skin from their tentacles, their poison has the potential to end a person’s life in three minutes or less.

“We have no idea why these tiny things are so deadly - I mean we know how they are deadly. Their venom can cause an incredibly rapid influx of potassium into someone’s bloodstream, which can very easily make their heart stop - but what I’m trying to say is we don’t know why they have evolved to host this uber-potent venom. They certainly don’t have the stomach size to eat what they kill” Dr. Hall chortled endearingly.

Not only that, but box jellyfish tend to be the most concentrated in coastal waters seven to ten days after a full moon, in-line with their reproductive cycle as well as with the tragic deaths, being nine days after the most recent full moon. Additionally, it is likely that many other people got stung on the day Lee and the other four died - but the more body mass you have, the more the toxin is diluted, which can make the effects less severe and non-life threatening. The children and the two smaller adults likely succumbed to the venom due to their smaller body size.

“I’ve watched the documentary surrounding Koa’s murder.”

With this statement, Dr. Hall’s playfulness seemed to ominously evaporate, portending the description of an observation that very noticeably made her uneasy:

“They showed clips of Yuri’s and Lionel’s (the neighbor who also lost a child) testimonies. What’s so strange is they were both with their kids right before they died, and they both witnessed their kids have a nosebleed directly prior to their cardiac arrest. That’s certainly not an effect of the jellyfish’s venom. It’s probably just a coincidence, I suppose, but it makes me think back to what Koa said - about them ending up bloodless, I mean.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to the implication, and I think Dr. Hall could tell.

“Look at it this way - to my understanding, the media covered the case to no end. All the way from start to finish. If that media spectacle results in less waspy outsiders moving to the Hawaiian Islands out of concern for the potential dangers, then, in a sense, Koa’s prophecy had its intended effect….” she trialed off. I suspect she had more in her head, but she decided against divulging it.

A forced smile slowly returned to Dr. Hall’s face:

“I’m sure I’m just seeing connections where they aren’t. It does make you wonder though.”

Truthfully, I hope she’s right - that she is seeing connections where they aren’t. Most days, I feel confidently that she is. That there was no real connective tissue between Koa and the children's deaths. Some days, however, I could be convinced otherwise. And that small but volatile part of myself - it scares me.

---------------------------------------------------

More stories: https://linktr.ee/unalloyedsainttrina

Leonard Price reeled back in unbridled terror at the sight of the thing standing in his bedroom doorway. It shambled toward him on wobbling legs in the dark. Its naked feet slapped and dragged along the floor. Thick globs of putrescent flesh dripped from naked cheekbones like pancake batter. The entire room reeked of the malodorous scent of decay. The thing hissed and wheezed; the unnatural noise sounded something like a voice saying, "Piecemeal!"

Leonard's mind was swimming; he couldn't focus on anything but the terror that was before his eyes—this thing that shouldn't be. If his mind had not been dizzy with madness, perhaps he would have remembered how a few days ago he stumbled into that abandoned graveyard by sheer happenstance. If he could focus on anything but the approaching horror, he might have correlated this thing's presence to the leather pouch and gold coins he found there. He would have better understood the message inscribed into the leather pouch: The Price is Paid. Gold for flesh. Piecemeal.

How could Leonard have known what that meant? Things had been so hard on him. He was tired of always being broke. Who wouldn't have done exactly as he did if they were in the same situation?

But Leonard thought nothing of that. His shattered mind could only concentrate on what was in front of him. He wanted to run, but his muscles and bones were like jelly. He wanted to scream but only choked and sobbed.

Now the thing was right in front of him, reaching for him; it grabbed him by the arm. Leonard tried to pull away, but it held onto him with an unnatural strength and pulled his arm closer to its rotted face. It opened its mouth wide and bit down. It tore through flesh and bone. Leonard found his voice at once and cried out. The thing looked at him and seemed to smile. It made another hissing, wheezing noise. "Piecemeal!" Then, as quickly as it all occurred, the thing was gone. Only the faint smell of rotting flesh remained.

The room started to spin, and Leonard broke out in a cold sweat. He was in shock, but he was alive. The thing, whatever it was, bit off his pinky. Only his pinky. Leonard erupted with insane laughter.

As Leonard lay on the floor, bleeding, that word kept repeating in his head. Piecemeal. Then he thought about the graveyard, the coins, and the cryptic message. Leonard held his injured hand close to his body, and his laughter transitioned into a scream. In that moment, he knew it would return. It would return, and keep returning, and it would devour him, one piece at a time.

Part one - https://www.reddit.com/r/libraryofshadows/comments/1giri8i/the_jacket/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Part two - https://www.reddit.com/r/libraryofshadows/comments/1gjjy3l/the_jacket_part_2/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

To start, Alex got in the shower. He hadn’t bathed since the jacket took him hostage. Of course, the jacket stayed on, so Alex compromised by cutting off the t-shirt underneath. 

“I’d be able to wash better if you’d loosen up just a little.” Alex whined, scrubbing what he could reach.

Somehow, this was the most humiliating intrusion. The shower is just such a private part of most people’s lives, that having a presence observing and obstructing is surprisingly dehumanizing.

“Loosen up? Baby that’s your job. I’m just here to keep you in line.” Chidded Leo.

After some extra effort, Alex finished up, got creative with a towel and a hair dryer, and a lot of hair gel. Leo had him dress in his least trashy pants, and a pair of chuck taylors, the swiss army knife of fashion.’

“Not bad, but not great,” Leo said, scrutinizing. “After tonight, we’re hitting a salon.”

A couple sprays of cheap cologne, and they were off. Next thing Alex knew, he was in a local bar for a certain crowd. The music was loud, the cocktails were fancy, and the crowd was… one sided. Alex was not in his element to say the least.

“Step aside, darling. Let a professional handle this.” Leo said, fluidly assuming control of  Alex’s body. The following introduction and seduction made Alex internally squirm. Unlike before, he felt no connection to what was happening from outside of his eyes. If he had ever questioned his sexuality, Alex was certain of it now. Objectively, Leo was a smooth motherfucker, Alex had to admit. When the situation escalated to close quarters contact, Alex squirmed under the touch of the stranger. It felt like trying to back out of a spider's web. He kept backing up, but his body wasn’t moving. He there was what felt like a thin fabric on his back that was giving way as he stepped away from himself. Suddenly, he just fell through.

The world felt strange. Alex was laying in a bed, staring at the back of someone’s head. Propping himself up, he could see the otherside of the person’s head. The face was peeled back, and the eyes were popped out and hanging. Alex felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. Someone banged at the front door. 

“NYPD, We have a warrant! stay where you are!"

Alex’s head snapped to his dresser drawer, where he knew he had a 1911 pistol. As he lunged for the dresser, his front door was kicked in, splinters flying. Several men rushed in, screaming and guns raised. Alex hesitated for a moment, grinned, and reached around to the back of his jeans. 

Deafening pops and wizzes filled the room, followed by the world spinning as the ground came up to meet his back. Alex leaned his head up briefly to inspect the damage. His red jacket open to reveal the ruin that used to be his chest. He only got a peak before his head fell back down, too weak to hold himself up. As darkness closed in around the edge of his vision, Alex let out one more gurgling laugh.

Alex felt himself flung back to himself. He had a knife in his hand and was straddling the stranger from the bar. His face was bloody and beaten, and eyes half lidded in an unconscious glaze. With a pulse of will, Alex flung the knife to the side, springing up and putting his back to a wall. He wasn’t sure where he was, but most likely the stranger's apartment. 

“Lost you there for a while,” Said Leo. “How was the trip?”

“Just fine actually,” smiled Alex, putting on a false sense of bravado. “It was nice seeing you on the receiving end.”

Leo was silent.

“How was your trip? I guess you got stuck on your way to hell though.”

The jacket clamped down, seeming to drop 4 sizes. Alex’s arms stuck out, losing all blood flow like a full body tourniquet. Feeling fed up, he started struggling. Instinctively, he tried to back up, which yielded the same fabric feeling on his back. Struck with inspiration, Alex began folding his arms around himself. Straining to his limit, He managed to get both hands on each bicep. He leaned back a little, and felt something coming with him. Feeling like he was out of options, he let gravity take him, and fell into himself once again. 

Alex woke up in the same bed from earlier. Next to him was a man in a leather jacket. His bare chest was sticking out of the open front, wearing well fitting but worn jeans, and no shoes. Leo’s well chiseled features wore an expression of shock and confusion as he patted himself down and sprung out of bed. 

“What did you do?!” Bellowed Leo, his hand coming up to point at Alex.

A feeling of uncertain confidence began to fill Alex. If Leo didn’t know what was going on, they might be on a level playing field for once. 

“I don’t know,” Alex said, cracking his knuckles.”but I’m about to beat the fuck out of you.”

Alex sprang across the bed towards Leo, who soundly kicked him in the chest. Alex was sprawled out sideways on the bed, wheezing and trying to catch his breath.

“Baby, I’m a killer.” Chided Leo. “You think no one ever put up a fight?” 

Leo straddled Alex and started raining down blows on him. Each punch rattling him to the core. Alex tried to defend himself, but Leo kept switching between his face and chest so he would drop whatever he was trying to protect. Desperate, face going numb from the beating, Alex channeled his elementary school wrestling classes, and bucked his hips. Leo unexpectedly popped up, giving Alex the leverage he needed to push him off of him. Alex scrambled away and fell off of the side of the bed. Remembering the vision earlier, Alex popped open the dresser drawer to reveal a shiny silver 1911 pistol. He snatched it up and aimed it at the now upright Leo. 

“Safety’s on, babe.” Leo panted out. 

It only took a brief glance down for Leo to close the distance, knock the gun to the side and open hand slap Alex in the cheek. He went down again hard, dazed and feeling his strength abandon him. The playing field may be level, but Leo was pretty good at the game. 

When Alex looked back at Leo, he was pointing the gun at him. Sweat beading his forehead and running down his heaving chest. He had to admit, Leo looked like a model. A strange thought staring down the barrel of a .45. Just then, the same shout from earlier came from the front door.

“NYPD, We have a warrant! stay where you are!"

Leo’s eyes popped open, fear etched into his beautiful features. He swung the pistol towards the front door as the wood splintered inward. He only got off 2 shots before the storm of sound struck again. His body jerked and shuddered as it was riddled with bullets. Blood flew behind him in sprays and bullets crashed through the sheetrock behind him. Alex was backed up into the corner, hands over his head for cover. The world around him began to warp and fade. As everything faded to black, Leo, falling back in slow motion, turned his head to look at him. A wide grin spread across his blood splattered face. 

“Thank you for being with us today. We'll see you again next time on Jeopardy!." Croaked out Leo.

Alex woke up on the floor. The jacket felt loose and thin, and came right off when he shrugged his shoulders. The man on the bed was still unconscious, but seemed to be otherwise unharmed. Alex thought it was best to not be there when he woke up. He slunk out of the door and made his way down the street. His bare chest braced to the cold autumn night. Alex couldn’t feel Leo at all, and was confident that he never would again. He reached up to push his hair out of his face and winced. Walking by a shop window, he saw his battered reflection. His left eye was swollen, top lip busted, and both nostrils had lines of dried blood ending at his mouth. 

Alex shivered, from the cold as much as the sense of unease. He can’t say that he’d won necessarily, but he was still standing, and Leo seemed to have moved on to an especially hot jacuzzi in hell. With the absence of Leo, he could say for certain that those impulses were not his own. He did feel different, however. He felt a new lease on life, a feeling that many survivors share. 

“I think I’l call Courtney.” Alex muttered to himself. For once, he seemed to know what he wanted.

Some time later, in a mom-and-pop thrift store, an old man stocked the racks with “new” arrivals. The fluorescent lights buzzed softly in the ceiling, casting uneven light over the checkered tile floor. Dust coated the neglected shelves, filled with faded romance novels and half-finished coloring books. “I don’t want to miss a thing” by Aerosmith echoed faintly in the aisles from an old intercom.

He hung up a vintage leather jacket on the rack. The weight of it felt heavier than he expected, and something about it unsettled him. Maybe it was the way it gleamed under the harsh lighting or how its touch felt warmer than it should. But that was just business. A lot of items that came through the store gave him a bad feeling.

As he turned to leave, the jacket shifted. It slid forward on the rack, just enough to catch the eye, its polished surface gleaming like a lure in murky water. The old man did not notice, making his way back to his episode of "F Troop".

The jacket settled in for the next hook.

After all, there were plenty of fish in the sea.

April 25th 1972

Nora:

”What do you think it means, Nora?” Sam choked out, gaze fixated on the cryptic mural that adorned the stone wall in front of them.

Unable to suppress a reflexive eye roll, I instead shielded his ego by pivoting my head to the right, away from Sam and the mural. My focus briefly wandered to the gnawing pain in my ankles from the prolonged hike, to the iridescent shimmer of sunlight bouncing off the lake twenty feet below the cliff-face we were standing on, finally landing on the relaxing warmth of sunlight radiating across my shoulders. It was a remarkably beautiful Fall afternoon. The soft wind through my hair and faint birdsong in the distance was able to coax some patience out of me, and I returned to the conversation.

”Well, I think there could be multiple interpretations. How does it strike you?” I beseeched. I just wanted him to try. I wanted him to give me something stimulating to work with.

Granted, the moasic was a bit of an oddity - I could understand how Sam would need time to mull it over. The expansive design started at our feet and continued a few meters above our heads, and it was three times wider than it was tall. From where I was positioned in front of the bottom-right corner, I slowly dragged my eyes across the entire length of the piece while I waited for his answer, taking my own time to appreciate the craftsmanship.

Despite a labor-intensive canvas of uneven alabaster stone, the work was immaculate. As smooth and blemish-less as any framed watercolor I’d ever curated at the gallery. Hauntingly precise and elaborate, even though the piece was clearly produced with a notoriously clumsy medium - chalk. And those were just the mechanistic details. The operational details were even more perplexing.

For example, how did the mystery artist find and select this space for their illustration? Sam knew of the serene hideaway from his childhood, tucked away and kept secret by the location being a thirty-minute detour from the nearest established trail. Upon discovery, Sam and his boyhood friends had named this refuge “The Giant’s Stairs”, as the main feature of the area was a series of rocky platforms with steep drop-offs. From a distance, they could certainly look like massive steps if you tilted your head at exactly the right angle.

Each of the five or so “stairs” could be safely navigated if you knew where to drop down, as the differences in elevations changed significantly depending on where you positioned yourself horizontally on the stairs. At some points, the distance was a very negotiable five feet, while at others it was a more daunting twelve or fifteen feet. This was excluding the last drop-off, which lead to the hideout’s most prized feature - a lake that served as the boys’ private swimming pool every summer. There was no way to safely climb down that last step.

Between the ninety-degree incline and the larger overall distance to the terrain below, Sam and his friends had no choice but to find a safe but circuitous hill that more evenly connected the landmarks, rather than going straight from step to lake. There weren’t even nearby trees to jump over to and shimmy your way down to the body of water, which was also far enough away from that last stair to make leaping into it impossible. Even as I peered over the edge now, there were no obvious shortcuts to the lake. The closest tree had fallen in the direction opposite of the last stair, making the nearest landing pad a decaying bramble of jagged, upturned roots.

In all the summers he spent at The Giant’s Stairs, Sam would later tell me, he could count on one hand the number of trespassers he and his friends had witnessed pass through the area.

On top of the site being distinctly unknown, there was another puzzling factor to consider: A torrential rainstorm had blown through the region over the last week, going quiet only twelve hours ago. This meant the entire piece had been erected in the last half day. Confoundingly, we hadn’t passed a soul on the way in, and there were no tools or ladders lying around the mural to indicate the artist had been here recently. No signature on the work either, which, from the perspective of a gallery owner, was the most damningly peculiar piece of the mystery. With art of this caliber, you’d think the creator would have plastered their name or their brand all over the whole contemptible thing.

So sure, stumbling on it was a bit eerie. The design felt emphatically out of place - like encountering a working ferris wheel in the middle of a desert, running but with no one riding or operating the attraction. A sort of daydream come to life. The type of thing that causes your brain to throb because the circumstances defiantly lack a readily accessible explanation - an incongruence that tickles and lacerates the psyche to the point of honest physical discomfort.

I could understand Sam needing time to swallow the uncanniness of this guerrilla installation. At the same time, I felt impatience start to bubble in my chest once again.

I watched as he took off his Phillies cap and contemplatively scratched his head, letting short dirty blonde curls loose in the process. Seeing these familiar mannerisms, I was reminded that, despite our growing friction, I did love him - and we had been together a long time. We probably started dating not long after him and his friends had formally denounced “The Giant’s Stairs” as too infantile and beneath their maturing sensibilities. But we had become distant; not physically, but mentally. It didn’t feel like we had anything to talk about anymore. This hike was one of a series of exercises meant to rekindle something between us, but like many before, it was proving to somehow have the opposite effect.

”It makes me feel…honestly Nora, it makes me feel really uncomfortable. Can we start walking back?” Sam muttered, practically whimpering.

I purposely ignored the second part, instead asking:

”What about it makes you uncomfortable? And you asked me what I think it means, but what do you think it means?"

In the past few months, Sam had become closed off - seemingly dead to the world. I recognize that the mosaic was undeniably abstract, making it difficult to interpret, but that’s also what made it intriguing and worth dissecting. I just wanted him to show me he was willing to engage with something outside his own head.

The background was primarily an inky and vacant black, split in two by a faint earthy bronze diagonal line that spanned from the bottom lefthand corner to the upper righthand corner, subdividing the piece into a left and a right triangle. My eyes were first drawn to the celestial body in the left triangle because of the inherent action transpiring in that subsection. A planet, ashen like Saturn but without the rings, was in the process of being skewered by a gigantic, serpentine creature. The creature came up from behind the planet, briefly disappearing, only to triumphantly reappear by way of burrowing through the helpless star. As the creature erupted through, it seemed as if it had started to slightly coil back in the opposite direction - head navigating back towards its tail, I suppose.

As I more throughly inspected the creature, I began to notice smaller details, such as the many legs jutting off the sides of its convulsing torso, all the way from head to tail. The distribution of the wriggling legs was disturbingly unorganized (a few legs here, and few legs there, etc.). Because of this detail, the creature started to take on the appearance of a tawny-colored centipede of extraterrestrial proportions.

In comparison, the right triangle was much more straightforward. It depicted a moon shining a cylinder of light on the cosmic pageantry playing itself out in the left triangle, like a stage-light illuminating the focal point of a show. As its moon-rays trickled over the dividing diagonal line, the coppery shading of the boundary became more thick and deliberate, extending a little into each triangle as well.

From my perspective, this grand tableau was a play on the legend of Ouroboros - the snake god that ate its own tail. In ancient cultures, the snake was a symbol of rebirth; a proverbial circuit of life and death. More recently, however, philosophical interpretations of the viper have become a bit nihilistic. Instead of an avatar of rebirth, the snake began representing humanity’s inescapably self-defeating nature, always eating itself in the pursuit of living. I believe that’s what the mosaic was attempting to depict: A parable, or maybe a tribute, to our inherent predilection for self-destruction.

After a minute of long and deafening silence, Sam finally took a deep breath. I felt hope nestle into my heart and crackle like tiny embers. Those embers quickly cooled when he sputtered out an answer:

”I…I think it's a warning”

I paused and waited for more - a further explanation of what he meant by the piece being a “warning”, or maybe more elaboration on why it made him uncomfortable. Disappointingly, Sam had nothing additional to give.

In a huff, I dug furiously into my backpack and pulled out my polaroid camera. When Sam observed that I was carefully stepping backwards to get the whole piece into the frame, he briefly pleaded with me not to take a picture. But I had already made up my mind.

He stood behind me as the device snapped, flashed, and ejected a developing photo of the mural. I swung it up and down vigorously in the air for a few seconds, and then I jammed it into his coat pocket with excessive force.

”Kindly notify me once you have something better” I hissed, starting to wander back the way we’d arrived as I said it. Once I heard the clap of his boots following me, I didn’t bother to turn around.

---- ----------------------------------

April 25th 1972

Sam:

”What about it makes you uncomfortable? And you asked me what I think it means, but what do you think it means?"

Nora’s question had immobilized me with an unfortunately familiar fear. No matter how desperately I searched, I couldn’t seem to find an answer worthy of the query stockpiled in my head. Not only that, but any new, burgeoning thought started to lose speed and glaciate to the point where I had forgotten what the intended trajectory was for the thought in the first place. The last handful of months were littered with moments like these.

I know Nora wanted more from me - she wanted me to articulate something authentic and genuine, but I couldn’t find that part of myself anymore. It didn’t help that she had made me feel like I was being tested. Every visit to the gallery eventually mutated into a pop quiz, where subjective questions, at least according to Nora, had objectively correct and incorrect answers. Having failed each and every quiz in recent memory, I was now throughly intimidated about submitting any answer to her at all.

But I always wanted to make an attempt, hoping to be awarded some amount of credit for trying. To that end, I tried to focus on the picture in front of me.

I don’t know what she was so dazzled by - there wasn’t much to interpret and analyze from where I stood. In the top right-hand corner, there was a hazy moon with a pale complexion shining down into the remainder of the illustration, but that was the only identifiable object I could see in the mural. The remainder of the picture was chaos. A frenetic splattering of dark reds and browns, accented randomly by swirls of pine green. I thought maybe I could appreciate one small eye with what looked like a smile underneath it at the very bottom of the piece, but it was hard to say anything for certain. All in all, it was just a lawless mess of color, excluding the solitary moon.

That being said, it did stir something in me. I felt a discomfort, a pressure, or maybe a repulsion. Like the mural and I were two positive ends of a magnet being forced together, an invisible obstacle seemed to push back against me when I tried to connect with the image. It felt like we shouldn’t be here, which is why I had taken the time to advocate for us kindly fucking off before this artistic interrogation.

I was nervous to say anything to that extent, though. I wanted to be right. I wanted to give Nora what she was looking for. More than both of those goals, however, I didn’t want to say anything wrong. This put me into the position of answering the question in a vague and pithy way. The more nebulous my response, the more I would be able to further calibrate the response based on how she reacted to the initial statement.

Despite all the layers of context buried within, I had meant what I said.

”I…I think it’s a warning.”

---- ----------------------------------

May 2nd, 1972

Sam:

”Nora, just drop it. Please drop it” I fumed, letting my spoon fall and clatter around in my cereal bowl as the words left my mouth, sonically accenting my exasperation.

We hadn’t discussed the mural since we left The Giant’s Stairs. Instead, we had a speechless car ride home, which foreshadowed many additional speechless interactions in the coming few days. Neither of us had the bravery, or the force of will, to address the dysfunction. Instead, we just lived around it.

That was until Nora elected to demolish the floodgates.

”You didn’t see anything? No centipede, no moon - no ouroboros? It was a completely bewitching piece of art, masterful in its conception, and all you could feel was uncomfortable?” she bellowed, standing over me and our kitchen table, gesticulating wildly as she spoke.

I felt my heart vibrating with adrenaline in my throat. I was never very compatible with anger, it caused my body to shake and quaver uncomfortably, like I was filled to the brim with electricity that didn’t have a release mechanism, so instead the energy buzzed around my nervous system indefinitely.

”I saw a moon, and I saw some colors” I muttered through clenched teeth. ”That’s it.”

At an unreconcilable standstill in the argument, instead of talking, we decided instead to leer angrily into each other’s eyes, which amounted to a very daft and worthless game of chicken. We were waiting to see who would look away and break contact first.

In a flash, Nora’s expression transfigured from irritation to one of insight and recollection. She abandoned the staring contest, pacing away into the mudroom. When she got there, Nora started digging through our winter gear. Having retrieved the coat I was wearing on our hike, she returned to the table, unzipping the pockets to find the forgotten polaroid, which I had deliberately sequestered and not reviewed after leaving the woods.

She brought the picture close to her face, and I braced myself for the potential verbal whirlwind that I anticipated was forthcoming. Instead, Nora tilted her head in bewilderment, flummoxed to the point where she had lost all forward momentum in the confrontation. With the color draining from her face, she wordlessly handed me the polaroid.

The picture showed both us standing against the stone wall, adjacent to where I suppose the mural should have been. We were smiling, and I had my arm around Nora, positioned in the bottom corner of the frame. This gave the image a certain touristy quality - like we were on a trip aboard, and we had stopped to take a sentimental photo with a foreign monument to fondly remember the associated vacation decades from when the photo was actually taken.

But the wall was empty and barren. The polaroid was framed to include a significant portion of the cliff-face as if the mural were there, but it was as if it had been surgically excised from the photo. We briefly whispered about some unsatisfactory explanations for the absent mural, and then proceeded on numbly with our respective days.

Neither of us had the courage to even speculate out-loud regarding how we were both in the photo.

---- ----------------------------------

May 8th, 1972

Nora:

I loomed over the bed like the shadow of a tidal wave over a costal village, quietly scowling at my sleeping partner.

How could he sleep? How could he close his eyes for more than a few seconds?

I hadn’t slept since seeing the polaroid. Not a meaningful amount, anyway.

Grasping the photo tightly in my left hand, I tried to steady my breathing, which had a new habit of becoming alarmingly irregular whenever I thought too hard about the mural.

There had to be something I missed.

I turned around to exit the bedroom, gliding down the hall and into my office. Flicking on a desk light, I sat down and carefully placed the polaroid on the otherwise empty work surface.

In a methodical fashion, I studied every single centimeter of the photo, which had become progressively creased and misshapen since I had pilfered it from the trash can in the dead of night. Sam had thrown it out, he had made me watch him dispose of it. He said we needed to put it behind us. That it didn’t matter. That it didn’t need to be explained.

What it must be like to be cradled to sleep by such a vapid, unthinking bliss.

My pang of jealousy was interrupted when I noticed something peculiar in the top right-hand corner of the polaroid - I had creased the photo so throughly that a tiny frayed and upturned edge had appeared, like the small separation you have to create between the layers of a plastic trash bag before you can shake it out and open it completely.

I cautiously dug under that slit with the side of a nickel. As I pushed diagonally towards the other corner, the photo of Sam and I standing in front of an empty wall peeled off to reveal a second photo concealed beneath it.

Ecstasy spilled generously into my veins, relaxing the vice grip that the original polaroid had been holding me in.

It finally made sense.

---- ----------------------------------

May 8th, 1972

Sam:

”Sam wake up ! It all makes so much fucking sense now, I can’t believe I didn’t understand before” 

Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I slowly adjusted to the scene in front of me. Nora was physically walking around on our bed, jumping and hopping over me. She was a ball of pure, uncontainable excitement, like a toddler who had just seen snow for the first time.

But Nora’s face told an altogether different story. Her eyes were distressingly bloodshot from her sleep deprivation, reduced to a tangle of flaming capillaries zigzagging manically through her white conjunctiva. I couldn’t comprehend what exactly she was trying to tell me, between the run-on sentences and intermittent cackling laughter. Her mouth was contorted into a toothy, rapturous grin while she spoke, releasing minuscule raindrops of spittle onto her immediate surroundings every ten words or so.

At first, I was simply concerned and exhausted, and I languidly turned over to power on the lamp on my nightstand. That concern evolved into terror as the light reflected off the kitchen knife in her left hand and back at me.

”C’mon now! Up, up, up. I need you to show me to The Giant’s Stairs. Can’t get there myself, don’t know exactly how to get there I mean.” Nora loudly declared.

”I figured it out! Look at what I found under the polaroid! A second photo - the real meaning hiding under the fake one.”

She shoved the photo, the one I was sure I had disposed of, into my face so emphatically that she overshot the mark, effectively punching me in the nose due to her over-animation. I swallowed the pain and gently pulled her hand back by her wrist, as she was looking out the window towards the car and unaware that she was holding the picture too close for me to even view.

The polaroid was weathered nearly beyond recognition. I could barely appreciate the picture anymore. It was scratched to hell and back like a feral monkey had spent hours dragging a house key over the zinc paper. Sure as hell didn’t see any second image.

Nora looked at me intently for recognition of her findings, unblinking. As the hooks of her grin slowly started to melt downwards into the beginning of a frown, my gaze went from Nora, to the knife in her hand, and then back to her. I knew I had to give her the reaction she was looking for.

”…Yes! Of course. I see it now, I really do.”

Her fiendish smile reappeared instantly.

”Great! Let’s hop in the car and go see for ourselves, though.”

Nora shot up, left the bedroom and started walking down the hallway. Before she had reached the bannister of our stairs, her head smoothly swiveled back to see what I was doing. Wanting to determine what the exact nature of the hold-up was.

Seeing her grin begin to melt again, I shot out of bed as well, trying to mimic at least a small fraction her enthusiasm.

”Right behind you!” 

---- ----------------------------------

May 8th, 1972

Sam:

We arrived at The Giant’s Steps forty minutes later.

In that entire time, Nora had not let me out of her sight. I had tried to pick up the house phone while she looked semi-distracted. Somehow, though, she had the knife tip against my side and inches away from excavating my flank before I could even dial the second nine. Nora leisurely twisted the apex of the blade, causing hot blood to trickle down my side.

After a menacingly delayed pause, she simply said:

”Don’t”

My failed attempt at calling the police had transiently soured her mood. Nora remained vigilant and tightlipped, at least until our feet landed on the rock of the last stair. Then, her disconcerting giddiness resumed at its previous intensity.

We had left the car at about 4:30AM, so I estimated it was almost 5AM at this point. Nearly sun up, but no light had started splashing over the horizon yet. I did my absolute best not to panic, with waxing and waning success. My hands were slick with sweat, so in an effort to moderate my panic, I put my focus solely on maintaining my grip on the handle of the large camping flashlight.

Abruptly, Nora squeezed the hand she had been resting on my right shoulder. She had positioned herself directly behind me, knife to the small of my back, as I guided her back to The Giant’s Stairs. In an attempt to decipher her signal correctly, I halted my movement, which caused the knife to tortuously gouge the tissue above my tail bone as Nora continued to move forward.

She did not notice the injury, as she was too busy making her way in front of me with a familiar schizophrenic grin plastered to her face. The puncture to my back was much deeper than the small cut she had previously made on my flank, and I struggled not to buckle over completely from pain and nausea. I put one hand on each of my knees and wretched.

When I looked up, Nora was a few feet in front of me, and she had placed both her hands over her mouth, seemingly to try to contain her laughter and excitement. She nearly skewered herself in the process, still absentmindedly holding the newly blood-soaked knife in her left hand when she brought her hands up to her head.

”Ta-daaaa!” she yelled triumphantly, gesturing for me to point the flashlight towards the cliff-face.

As the light hit the wall, there was nothing for me to see. Blank, empty, worthless stone.

And I was just so tired of pretending.

”Nora, I don’t see a goddamnned thing!” I screamed, with a such a frustrated, reckless abandon that I strained my vocal cords, causing an additional searing pain to manifest in my throat.

She thought for a few seconds as the echos of my scream died out in the surrounding forrest, putting one finger to her lip and tilting her head as if she were earnestly trying to troubleshoot the situation.

”No moon? No centipede plunging through a ringless Saturn? No Ouroboros?”

I shook my head from my bent over position, letting a few tears finally fall silently from my eyes to the ground.

”Oh! I know, I know” she remarked, dropping the knife mindlessly as she did.

She turned around and cavorted her way to the edge of the stair, blissfully disconnected from the abject horror of it all. Nora pranced so carelessly that I thought she was going to skip right off the platform, not actually falling until she realized there was no longer ground underneath her, like a Looney Tunes character. But she stopped just shy of the brink and turned around to face me.

”Okay, push me.” She proclaimed, still sporting that same grin.

”Push you?! Nora, what the fuck are you saying?” I responded, my voice rough and craggy from strain.

In that pivotal moment, I almost ran. She had dropped the knife and had created distance between the two of us - the opportunity was there. But I loved her. I think I loved her - at least in that moment.

”Sam, for once in your life, have some courage and push me” Despite the harsh words, her smile hadn’t changed.

”Sam, for the love of God, push me, you fucking coward” She cooed while wagging an index finger at me, her smile somehow growing larger.

In an unforeseeable rupture, the now cataclysmic accumulation of electricity in my body finally found a channel to escape and release. I sprinted towards Nora, body tilted down and with my right shoulder angled to connect with her sternum.

I did not see her fall. I only heard the fleshy sound of Nora careening into the earth, and then I heard nothing.

As I turned away from the edge, finally having the space to let nausea become emesis and misery become weeping, the flashlight turned as well, causing me to notice something had revealed itself on the previously vacant stone wall.

I stifled briney tears and began to study the image. As I stared, eyes wide with a combination of shell-shock and curiosity, I pivoted my flashlight over the cliff to visualize Nora’s body, then back at the mural, and then back at Nora’s body.

On the newly materialized mural, I saw the planet, the piercing centipede, and the shining moonlight. And as I moved to illuminate Nora’s face-up corpse with the flashlight, I saw one of the jagged roots from the nearby upturned tree had perforated the back of her skull on the way down, causing a tawny, decaying branch to wriggle through and jut out the left side of her forehead, obliterating her left eye in the process. All of it floodlit by my flashlight, or I guess, the moon in the mural.

I think - I think I get it. Or I at least saw it how Nora had described countless times.

My flashlight was the moon, and the bronze diagonal line was the cliff's edge. Her head was the ashen planet, and the piercing centipede was the jagged root.

Huh.

I slumped to the ground as sunlight spilled over the horizon, my mind weightless jelly from a dizzying combination of new understanding and old confusion. I didn’t laugh, I didn’t cry, I didn’t scream. I sat motionless in a dementia-like enlightenment, waiting for something else to happen. But nothing ever did.

Twenty or so feet below, Nora laid still, that grin now painted onto her in death, and she rested.

More stories: https://linktr.ee/unalloyedsainttrina

Absence - When the stars blackened

Chapter I - Ragnarök

Legends and myths are the driving factor of our world, the thing that pushes us through conflict and tinder. Often we are lost lambs, crumbling under the weight of our own lives, and then we look for wisdom in the stars. And that makes me wonder what there is more of: Legends. Or stars.

One evening, the canopy of the sky gave way to darkness. It was a storm, without thunder or lightning, accompanied by silence and atonement. We blinked and they were gone. Whenever we were lost, we looked up at the stars, searching for answers. And we plucked them for our peace of mind. We praised them for their infinity. And now, there was none of them left. The sky did not weep, for it had already perished, long before its dying light reached us.

While everything out there seemed endless, I always felt tiny. There was no supermarket or anything else of note in my little village. While master brewers talked about male and female hops and priests preached the fear of God, I knew from an early age that there were no authentic answers. More knowledge meant more questions, which cascaded in an endless cycle of lack. And if I sat back for a moment, I realized each time that I was lost. But that was okay. In this world, deprived of the light of hope, that was okay.

And so I eked out my existence in this world. Surrounded by the consequences of greed, in a world where I never felt at home. I found healing in the hustle and bustle of the absent - as we called those who fell victim to the madness of the sky. Those who stared too long into the blackness and lost themselves in it. For me, they were always more honest than those who wore their mask with vanity in their hearts, ready to deceive themselves as ever.

Whenever the sun was in the sky and gave us its warmth, people frolicked and enjoyed the blessing. But at night, when the raw darkness consumed everything, when an abyss gaped beside the glow of the villages and towns, they hid in their buildings. Those who could not resist the call became absentees. Except me.

Like everyone else, I heard the blackness calling to me and, looking at my life, internalizing the simplicity and boredom, the urge to preserve was no great opponent. I ventured out and looked into the distance, beyond the light of the street lamps, where the darkness reached out to me. And I took its hand.

From the few absentees who had not yet taken their own lives, you heard stories of the grimaces waiting for you out there, and I expected to see those very beeings with my own eyes. However, when I left the safety of the light, I encountered... nothing. No feeling, no thought, no revelation. When a person is in the dark for too long, they tend to hallucinate in order to make sense of the lack of information. However, this was not the case for me, in the absence of all my stimuli and instincts I found a certain... Freedom.

There were no shadows or voices to challenge my short attention span, or figures in the darkness. Out there, it was as if the world ceased to exist. You felt your way through the bushes, trees and ditches, crossing rivers and mountains while being one with your thoughts. The only time of my day, no, of my life, when I could think freely. And I enjoyed every second of it until the sunlight shattered the peace every morning anew.

It wasn't long before the other villagers found out about my nocturnal excursions and suspicions were aroused. They checked me for any signs, but found none. When they finally believed me, I became something of a celebrity in the village and they called me the night watchman. The one who watches out there while everyone else sleeps and prays that the horrible creatures the absentees talk about don't come out of the blackness.

I thought this talk was just an old wives' tale and didn't believe that the Absent Ones really existed: I saw them as bad con artists who wanted the blackness for themselves. And even though I was afraid of what would happen if I was right, years went by and they stayed away from me. It was as if they didn't even live in the same world as me, because not one of them had shown themselves to me since my first excursion.

I had grown old in the meantime. I had reached my forties, had painful back problems and tried my best to ignore them. I had seeked the silence of the blackness for my own purposes: I walked through it at night and took to it whenever i needed its caress. During the day, I constantly wrote book after book about it, but I never handed any of them in, for a multitude of reasons. I needed frighteningly little sleep and there were weeks when I haven't slept at all. It was as if the blackness was taking away any drowse. My doctor said I was in perfect health, except for my chronic back pain - so I didn't complain about that.

And it was all an easy, comfortable life full of questions rather than answers. At least until the peace of the blackness dried up.

Can people change? Make sure you have the right answer because this is a life-or-death situation. Think about it as you hear how we met a creature named Omertà. She might still be out there, so if you meet her here and she decides you're an enemy, here's my advice:

Avoid Water. Do Not Go Outside When It Rains. Do Not Bathe. Do Not Shower. Do Not Even Drink Bottled Water.

Do not be persuaded by the safety other people have. Once Omertà hates you or someone you love understand she’ll want to kill you all—one by one.

Benni's dad, Mr. Alan, didn't believe me. Mr. Alan would be alive if he had. 

Finding ten different cases of water in his attic sent my head spinning, but my body went fear-driven still. It took a minute for me to recompose myself and my hands busied themselves to get rid of the danger, the danger being the cases of water. 

We warned him. His daughter warned him. Fine, don't believe me, but trust your daughter, man.

The first hours of our arrival at his home were spent warning him, calming him, searching his house, and detailing why. That same day, we tossed cups away, recycled bottles, and only used drips of faucet water to put on a washcloth to bathe.

And we lived! They all were alive when they listened to me! 

That evening to keep us all from an early grave, I got to work burying the packs of water bottles. There was no need to be angry with Mr. Alan; the request did sound insane. There was a need to panic though. Mr. Alan's legendary temper wouldn't stand for a guest in his house burying his newly bought water in his backyard. 

His daughter and I weren’t a couple or anything, just friends, who needed a place where we could avoid most forms of water. Mr. Alan’s home was the last option left.

Mr. Alan and Benni would be back soon. If I dug fast enough, potentially I could bury the bottles and fill the hole back without him even noticing. My arms ached at the thought—shoveling is grueling work. I considered Benni and her graciousness in convincing her dad to let me stay here. Yeah, I could do it.  

Shoveling through a patch of dirt proved to be harder than you'd think. Dirt stained my clothes. My hands tore. My shoulders burned and groaned with the task, and my biceps begged for a break. It felt like the shovel itself was gaining weight. Ignoring all of this, I let the calluses form and pain persist because I really, really, really did not want to cause any more problems for Mr. Alan and Benni. The dark clouds were my only comfort in that hour—shade through the pain, I thought—but in actuality, they were heralds readying misery's reign.

It was an hour straight of grueling work to make a hole large enough to fit all ten cases inside of it. Obviously, they couldn't be poured out and risk making a God-forsaken puddle.

The sound of the door opening behind me shook me from the rhythm of my task. Mr. Alan and Benni were home. My friends describe me as shy, and they're right. So, Mr. Alan launching every four-letter word and variation of 'idiot' at me would have stopped me in the past. But the necessity of the situation made me resist this time. I never turned to face him. I just kept prepping.

"Oh, dear," Benni said. No need to look at her either. The cases needed to be buried. I hefted the first case, anxious to avoid a tear and anxious to avoid Mr. Alan.

"This is your friend, Benni. Your friend! You fix it." Benni's dad said, and he slammed the door.

I hefted another box into the hole and talked to Benni.

"Sorry about that, Benni," I said. "I know your dad can be a handful at times. I know you're scared he bought this water too."

"Nooo, Jay," she said. "He's not the handful."

"Well, I know I'm no angel, but you know what I'm doing is for our safety, y'know." I hefted a second case into its grave.

"Jay-Jay," she said. "My dad's getting real close to kicking us both out. I don't want to be homeless. Please, come inside. I'm begging you."

"Not yet."

"Now."

"No."

"Jay..." Benni's words came out slow and soft, like she was babying a child. "Omertà was our friend. I don't think she'd really hurt us."

That stopped me.

"People change," I said.

"Not that much."

"I think you'd be surprised. And anyway, anyway," it was hard to speak; exhaustion kicked in. The words got caught in my teeth. "There's a decent chance she might have always been like this."

"That wasn't what our friendship was like with Omertà, and you know it."

"Do I?"

She didn't answer.

"Jay-Jay," she said. "There's a hurricane coming. I bought those cases because we could not have access to water if this gets bad."

"Thanks to Omertà, if a hurricane gets bad enough, we're dead anyway."

Circling us, black clouds haunted the skies like vultures on a corpse.

Mr. Alan rushed outside, sidestepping his daughter, rushing to me, facing me, and swinging a large purple metallic cup in front of his face. The cup overflowed with water.

"Yes, I have water in a cup," Mr. Alan mocked. "Ooooh, scary." He took a swig. "And yes, it's a Stanley."

Guess what? He smiled. So, I smiled. I guess he was safe, and that made me happy. He frowned in surprise at me. What? Did he think I wanted to spend a day burying water bottles? I shrugged. If we were fine, I'd need to put the water bottles back in the house and start to board things up again. But first, if we were safe, I would take the warmest bath possible.

A white hand popped out of the Stanley and grabbed Mr. Alan's throat. It squeezed. Benni's dad looked at me, eyes big, scared, and wanting... I don't know.

The pale hand flicked its wrist, and Benni's dad's neck cracked. He fell with an unceremonious thud. 

Dead.

His unbelieving eyes stayed open and the red, angry, pulsing, handprint on his neck looked to be the only part of him that was still alive. 

But he also knocked over the Stanley Cup. The water spilled on the floor as did the hand. I leaped back to avoid it and fell into the hole and onto the bottles of water.

CRACK

CRACK

CRACK

The water bottles cracking might as well have been gunshots into my chest. Panic. My hands and feet slammed into water bottles, cracking more open. Omertà’s many hands materialized from the water, defying the logic of men, daring the brain to break into laughing and insanity at the horrifying impossibility of the matter. Scratching through our reality, one hand squeezed mine at first, not unpleasant because the calloused feminine hand breathed familiarity despite its lack of mouth. The hand clutched mine. 

That hand helped me up mountains, that hand had pulled me from a stream and saved me from drowning, that hand walked with me through life when I needed a friend; a week ago, it was us against the world. 

Like the saying goes: "All this hate was once love."

The hands went squeezing and scratching into me; my own ankle went cracking. Bones broke. By reflex, I reeled, destroying more water bottles, birthing more calloused, petite, and strong hands wanting to break me so that place may be my burial.

The hands blossomed from the wet dirt like flowers and demanded my death like herbicides. Longing for my death through suffocation, one worked on my neck with great success, two groped in my mouth and one kept my mouth open, while their companions dug in the earth, tossing dirt, worms, rocks, and sticks inside. 

The other hands clapped for themselves as joyous as I was drooling. There was so much mass, mass, never-ending mass, only limited by their tiny hands and my assailants' need to gloat.

My eyes swelled as my past with Omertà shrunk until only this moment mattered.

Tears fell as my body was lifted, lifted as the hands that had once protected me searched under my body for more ways to torture me.

Four hands punched into my spine, hoping to break it. Powerful thumps slammed into me in a straight line up my back, weakening it with every blow. My spine giving way. My last moments would be that of a paraplegic, and that was petrifying. How long would she make me live, only able to blink? 

The whirl of a chainsaw brought me from oblivion. Like a horror movie villain, Benni stood above me, and with fury she never showed before, she sliced at hands as they rose from the ground. Omertà's silver blood dripped and then poured from the hands as Benni hacked away. I sputtered and spit out all the nonsense they put in my mouth. Benni pulled me up; silver blood covered us both.

Limping together, we made it inside, but her dad's dead body did not. Instead, that great white hand of Omertà was slowly dragging it into a puddle with her.

Unfortunately, Benni went back out to save the body. A valiant effort from a good daughter. But of course, it was all a setup.

"Wait, wait, wait," I mumbled, still attempting to get control of my mouth back. Benni still didn't get it. She didn't understand the limitlessness of Omertà's cruelty.

Omertà had no use for a dead body. Benni dived for the body. Omertà tossed it away and with a vice grip grabbed Benni's diving hand and pulled. I knew Omertà was yearning to kill Benni, to drag Benni inch by inch into the puddle and into Omertà’s realm and once Benni was there she would end her life.

Benni kicked hoping for impossibility, to anchor on air. Leaping, then falling, then crawling, I reached for Benni. Her dad’s dead eyes yelled at me to save his daughter. His empty mouth hung as if anticipating another failure on my part.

Benni piece by piece disappeared in the puddle, alive and screaming loud enough to travel across worlds. Her hair vanished. Her head swallowed. Her chest chomped by the water. Her hips, owned by Omertà. Her legs leached away in a lightning flash.

Her feet were mine. I saved her. I grasped her white sneaker! 

And it came off in my hand. 

Benni’s whole body went through the puddle.

That was an hour ago; Omertà has tossed Benni's dead body back up to taunt me.

The sight of Benni's pale, drowned body makes me want to die. A slow, stagnant, shadowy death with meaning stripped and motion nonexistent, with starvation's gut punches killing me or dehydration's choke—whichever comes first.

Benni was the sweetest girl I knew and so hopeful. She's gone now, so I can be honest: I wanted to die of old age with her by my side. We wouldn't die peacefully; we'd die arguing and laughing and pretending we were not flirting with each other as best friends do. Our grandchildren would surround us and shrug at our love that didn't mature as our bodies did.

I wish I could wake her up and tell her how much I admired her passion for serving others, that I only send her videos when I'm beside her so I can see her smile, and that all of our friends were right—we were meant to be together. But I can't even look at her after what Omertà did.

“You’re fault,” is written in blood on Benni’s forehead. Omertà's native language wasn’t English, and she didn’t bother to understand grammar. Still cruel, though. It’s amazing how much hate old friends could have. Omertà and Benni have known each other since kindergarten. I met Omertà in middle school.

If you want to know why she hates us so much that’s really where the story starts. I will tell you about how we first met.

Middle school was rough. Kids that age are either mean or sensitive; adolescence doesn't allow for an in-between. I tried to be tough; however, my teacher mocking my voice and calling me a bitch in front of everyone for complaining about another kid hitting me stretched the boundaries of my soft and doughy resilience. 

Tears popped into my eyes, and awareness of how bad things could get if the other kids saw me cry caused me to flee the room. Tears still almost trickled down. A couple of kids ditching class almost saw it. The school wasn't safe. Ramming through the front doors, I burst outside and entered a storm. The wet and blurring world hid me. 

Dark clouds spat on the world, maybe to the level of a hurricane. Regardless, my legs willed me forward, wandering and begging to be left alone.

Running in circles, lost in the rain, and scrambling through the streets, horns blared at me, forcing me to the sidewalks. Pedestrians pushed me to the side, searching for their shelter. And at one point, the wind even joined the barrage, lifting me and tossing me to the floor. I crawled under an awning for shelter. With only myself around, I held myself for comfort.

The cars left. The tourists evacuated. Acting as my only companion was the rain. The way it beat against the sidewalk reminded me of a punishment I knew I was sure to get at home. But at least it was finally safe to cry.

"Jay-Jay, can you come out?" 

I leaped back and pushed my back against the wall. While sniffing and wiping away tears in a desperate attempt to hide that I dared to cry, I searched for the person who called my name. There was no way to tell where the sound came from. 

They know my name. My parents... my parents saw me crying in public and skipping school. They'll kill me.

Steeling myself, I sucked up every tear and faced the rain. My lips curled tight in stoic resolution, and my mouth parched, dry from crying.

"Yes," I said. 

"Jay-Jay," the rain said. The rain spoke to me. As the raindrops slapped on the sidewalk, it created a tune-like music but certainly not music to be clear it was like a witch's-broom singing. Yes, I know that doesn’t make sense. She made my brain hurt at first. I had a strong feeling it was a she. She not as in wife, mother, or friend but she as in a storm-filled sea or a tiger.

"I just want to hug you," she said.

"How are you doing that?" I asked. "How are you speaking?"

"How do your lips move?" 

"My brain tells my lips to move."

"Oh, what a smart boy. You were just supposed to say you don't know and I would say the same. But since you're such a smart boy, shall I tell you the truth?"

"Yes... please." 

"Of course, I’m not really rain I’m only speaking through rain. I’m magic." That scared me more than anything. My religious parents taught me magic was quite real and it should be avoided at all costs. My parents had a point.

"Magic's not real," I said.

"You lie and you know it."

Tears found me again because I was a kid caught lying, and that meant punishment would follow.

"Hey, hey, hey," her droplets choired against the sidewalk. "It's okay; everyone lies sometimes. Would you like to know a secret?"

"Yes," I said.

"Everyone's lying because everyone can hear us when we speak in the rain. They just ignore us. In fact, I think you're better than them for not ignoring me. You're honest and kind."

"Yeah?"

"Yes, you heard a voice and replied. Everyone else ignores us."

"That's mean of them."

"Yes," water flooded from the sky in an unprecedented amounts.

"Them being mean hurts, doesn't it?"

"So much," she crooned out, trying to control herself and failing. The rain fell in uneven bursts.

Abandoning the awning, I walked into the rain for her sake. Through her magic, the water warmed my skin like summer sunshine and tapped me into giggle-filled tickles. My need to cry left. She hummed to me, a song of her people, a low and echoing ballad. Soon, the humming was warped by words, words my mouth couldn't make. But I danced for the first time. The shy kid too afraid to speak danced alone in the rain until I was too tired to move.

Exhausted, I laid on the ground.

"Do you know why you could hear me?" the rain said, tapping my body like a little massage. "Because you're honest, you're sensitive, and that's a good thing. And you listened to your hurt, and it told you someone else was hurting, so you found me."

"Will you stay with me?" I asked.

"Forever and ever, but you just have to ask. Say my name and ask, and I'll be with you forever."

She told me her name, and then I made the worst decision of my life. 

"Omertà, please stay with me forever."

The rain stopped. The world went silent around me. I was alone again.

"Hey," I asked the sky. "Come back. You said you wouldn't leave me alone. Come back."

Nothing answered me but my footsteps...

SQUISH

SQUISH

SQUISH

For the first time, I became aware of water soaking in my shoes, and embarrassed awareness froze me to my spot. My face flushed. That rain trick was another prank pulled on me. One I had fallen for wholeheartedly; this was worse than when Maggie White pretended to have a crush on me for a whole week. Just like back then, I knew someone somewhere was snickering behind my back as I talked to the rain and danced with it. My crush on Maggie ended with her telling everyone my secrets and calling me gross in front of everyone in the cafeteria. Would this be a worse conclusion?

Water leaped from the gutter across the street from me.

I jumped. It was so intense, like something thrashed and splashed in there.

"Jay-Jay," a voice said from the gutter, and I froze. No, I couldn't get pranked again. I wouldn't be fooled again.

"Jay-Jay," the voice said again.

"Leave me alone," I yelled back with all the rage a child could muster.

"Please," the voice said, "I need your help." 

I groaned and relented. I stomped to the drain, and inside of it, I saw a mermaid floating and a guy and girl about my age. They would be my three best friends for years to come Little John,  the now-deceased Benni, and Omertà.

Sorry, that's it for now. I'll tell you more soon. I have to go board the house up. The storm's getting worse.

Beginning • Previous

I was back on NOAH 1. The moment my paws touched down on the deck, I couldn't contain myself. I erupted into jubilant circles and leaps. I planted kisses on the worn wooden boards. Never again, I vowed silently, would I abandon this vessel, no matter how curiosity clawed at my mind or adventure whispered its siren song. I was certain no power on Earth—or beyond it—would compel me to leave this ship again.

Oh, the miseries that wanderlust had wrought upon me! To keep my resolve strong, I called to mind the near-death experiences that should have killed my wanderlust once and for all: Page, remember being flung from your body, reduced to begging rats for help, while that masked stranger’s spirit wore your skin like a suit? And the alley…how close you came to ruin at the tendrils of a blob-controlled rat! These were not mere adventures; they were brushes with oblivion.

I had tempted fate one too many times. Let the wide world remain uncharted, I thought. And so, NOAH 1, my bastion, I would not abandon you again. This was a promise I made to myself. A pledge I intended to keep, though I knew well how fickle resolve could be. Inevitably, the pull of family would grow too strong, and I’d find myself yearning to visit Ziggy, Wanda, and their little brood. He was my only brother, after all.

The vet had whisked him back to Little Eden. Back to his anxious forever partner Wanda and their four kittens. What excuse could he offer them after vowing to stay safe?

I could picture him now: Ziggy, bruised and hobbling on his bandaged legs, sheepishly explaining to Wanda how his latest promise to avoid danger had gone laughably awry. She, no doubt, would glare at him with the exasperation only a mate could muster and scold him while their kittens peered up with wide, curious eyes, giggling at their father’s misadventures, perhaps thinking that their father was the bravest creature alive.

As for the rats, they were nowhere to be seen by the time Alan and I left Sea Green behind. At the port, as Gunther readied his boat for the return to NOAH 1, I could only assume that Flynn and Marlow had gone back to their nest in Big Yard empty-handed. Rusty’s body was thrown into the flames of a hearth.

Lee, on the other hand, faced a different fate. The vet had dispatched a message to the Warden, who promptly arrived at Sea Green to haul Lee to the Shelter. But I didn't worry much for him. That dog had a knack for escaping the inescapable; he was a master escape artist. It was only a matter of time before he’d be free again.

The explosion quickly became the talk of the ship. Black smoke curling into the sky was visible from miles away, which only fueled the residents’ curiosity. Some claimed the explosion was due to a gas leak ignited by the masked stranger striking a match to light an oil lamp. That single spark, they said, had triggered the catastrophic detonation.

I had my own theory: the masked stranger had rigged the apothecary with explosives as a failsafe for his mission. When his plans fell apart, he destroyed the site to guard its dark purpose. And what was that purpose? The apothecary was no ordinary shop—it was a covert laboratory where he conducted grisly experiments on animals, testing the effects of the blobs. His ultimate goal, I suspected, was to unleash the blobs on Floating City and manipulate its inhabitants using a carefully calibrated frequency.

The humans had no inkling of the true depths of this mystery, and perhaps they would always remain oblivious. With the masked stranger dead and his shop destroyed, any hope of uncovering the truth had perished alongside them. For the humans, the case was closed.

But I couldn’t help wondering…was it really over? Rusty had activated one of the black stones, its surface glowed green as he whispered into it. Was it a message? A warning? A plea? And if so, to whom? Could it have been to the Central Command? Would they have understood a message from a rat? And where, I wondered, was this enigmatic entity located?

The only humans beyond the floating settlements I knew of were the pirates. Louis had often spoken of them in disdain. Loud, crude, and reckless, they fought fiercely with swords and firearms cobbled together from salvaged metal. They ruled the seas through brute force. But, for all their ferocity, they lacked the advanced intellect or resources to engineer creations as sophisticated as the black stones and the blobs.

Alan turned the stones over to Captain Francis. She recounted where she had discovered them and described everything she had witnessed at the apothecary. But still, neither she nor the captain could connect the scattered clues to form a cohesive picture. They puzzled over the mystery. They scratched their heads and rubbed their chins, muttering to themselves, “What could it all mean?”

If only I could voice my thoughts, but it wasn’t my place. Besides, I couldn’t afford to dwell on this case any longer. It had consumed enough of my mind already. I needed to step back. What happened that day had already begun to seep into my dreams.

The red tendrils snaked around my legs. Their grip tightened with every frantic move I made. I slashed and clawed. My teeth gnashed at their slimy flesh, but their acidic blood burned through my fur, stinging my skin beneath. The blob sprouted more and more tendrils. And then he appeared. His mask fell away, and the horror beneath froze my blood. His face—if it could be called a human face—was that of a bloated and bulbous pufferfish.

He was after me. My legs pumped furiously, but it felt as though I were running in place. Behind me, he was gaining ground. Summoning all my strength, I leaped blindly and landed in a labyrinth. It stretched endlessly, its walls towering high above me, hemming me in on every side. Around each corner, the tendrils were slithering closer. I turned again, only to stumble upon the decaying corpse of a rat.

I rounded another bend and hit a dead end. Breathless, I turned to face my doom. The tendrils writhed closer, their acidic stink filling up my nostrils and burning my brain, and when I looked up, the stranger loomed above me. His pufferfish face filled my vision as his clammy hands plucked me off the ground. I dangled in his grip, face to face with those bulging fish eyes, as terror rooted me in silence.

Tilting his head back, he parted his jaws, revealing a vast, gaping maw. I dangled helplessly above the abyss, the darkness within pulling me closer. And then he released me. I tumbled, weightless and helpless, plunging into the void of his open mouth, disappearing into the swallowing darkness.

I’d snap awake, shaking, my fur on edge and my paws sweating. Alan’s arms would wrap around me, her warmth chasing away the cold fear as she whispered softly, promising it would all be okay. Slowly, I'd drift back to sleep.

By the second night, sleep escaped me entirely. It danced just out of reach. Restless, I slipped out of Alan’s suite and began wandering the ship’s quiet hallway. As I roamed, a few residents paused as they passed, kneeling to stroke my fur or scratch behind my ears. Their gentle touch brought a solace I hadn’t realized I craved. I realized that in seeking their affection, I found the comfort I needed—just as they found something soothing in me.

My ears perked up at the sound of a ball thudding rhythmically against a wall. Who could be playing ball at such a late hour?

There were familiar voices–one belonging to a boy caught between childhood and young adulthood, the other to a bright, energetic girl. Curious, I traced the sounds to the playroom. This was where the ship’s children would swim through the ball pit, dash across the basketball court, or rally in a spirited game of pickleball.

The playroom was in near-total darkness, but a shadow moved—a ball bouncing off the wall, rolling steadily in my direction. It was a red rubber ball. But who had thrown it? There was no one in sight, no hand to claim the throw.

The room appeared empty, but I was not truly alone. Two humans were there, lingering in the shadows, even though I could not see them. I knew who they were.

The ball appeared to possess a mind of its own, rolling deliberately out the door and inviting me to follow. Down the hallway it led me, then up the groaning stairs to the next level, and along another dim corridor passing the chapel. A chill coursed through me, but curiosity got the best of me. I poked my head inside, and there they were—two small bodies, each wrapped in dark green cloth, lying before the altar. Tomorrow, the farewell ceremony would send them to the sea, their eternal resting place.

I continued to trail the ball which had stopped in front of the infirmary door, slightly ajar. With a gentle push of my paw, I widened the gap and slipped inside. The room was quiet; the nurse was nowhere to be seen. Then, I heard it—soft, broken cries coming from the patients’ room.

Sam! There, he was stirring in his bed. He sniffled, wiping at the tears glistening on his cheeks. The candle beside his bed, its flame wavering, had burned down to a tiny stub. He sat up slowly, his eyes squinting as they adjusted to the gloom.

“Page? Is that you?” he mumbled, his voice hoarse.

I leaped onto the foot of his bed.

“Can you come closer?” he whispered, barely audible.

I padded over, and as I reached him, he pulled me into his arms. His grip was tight, almost too tight, but I didn’t squirm. He buried his face into the crook of my neck, his breaths ragged, his chest rising and falling with every shuddering sob. His tears dampened my fur, but I stayed still, letting him hold on as though I were the only anchor keeping him from drifting into despair.

“Oh, Page, the captain told me something terrible today,” he whispered into the silence, his voice cracking. His hands were shaking as he stroked my back. “I’m all alone now. They’re gone... Mom’s gone... Joe and Anne, too.”

He paused, his chest heaving with suppressed sobs, coughing softly as he struggled to continue. “And Dad… The captain says he is still out there somewhere, trying to make his way back home. But I know that’s not true.” His voice cracked, and his tears fell freely now. “He’s gone too. They’re all gone. My family’s gone.”

He clung to me tighter, his fingers gripping my fur as though afraid I might vanish too. “Everything’s so different now. Everything’s so…wrong. But you’re still here, Page. You’re still here with me.”

I felt his grief in every shiver, in the way his fingers clung to my fur like I was his last lifeline. I wanted to tell him it would be alright. I nestled closer to him, hoping that my presence, however small, might ease the ache in his chest.

XXXXX

A steward woke me up the next morning, ushering me off the bed while she set about waking Sam. I remained nearby, hopping up onto a chair. She placed a breakfast tray in front of him—seaweed soup and grilled mackerel, the savory scent lingering in the air. As she exited the room, Sam noticed my longing gaze toward the mackerel and chuckled. “Come on,” he said, patting the spot beside him, inviting me to sit.

He handed me a generous portion of the fish, which I accepted with eager paws. Together, we ate in silence, savoring the meal. Once our bellies were full, the steward returned to take away the dishes, and after a short nap, we were awakened by a soft knock on the door. Alan entered with a wheelchair, rolling it carefully into the room. It was a makeshift contraption, put together from two metal slabs and bicycle wheels, salvaged from the scraps in Big Yard. It had once belonged to an elderly woman who had passed away long ago.

Alan, ever thoughtful, suggested Sam could use a breath of fresh air. She eased him into the chair, and I curled up comfortably in his lap. Together, we moved down the hallway and up a ramp, Alan pushing us toward the inviting openness of the promenade deck.

The stillness of the sea stretched out before us, its deep blue surface smooth as glass. In the distance, the faint silhouettes of Floating City’s buildings rose against the horizon, their outlines shimmering in the sunlight.

Alan broke the silence, turning to Sam with a thoughtful look. At first, her voice faltered, as though unsure how to begin. Then she asked, “Would you like to hear a story?”

Sam shrugged. “Maybe. What kind of story?”

“An adventure story,” she replied. “It’s about how I came to live on NOAH 1.”

Sam’s brow furrowed in surprise. “I thought you’d always lived here.”

Alan shook her head, a faint smile crossing her lips. “No. I wasn’t born on NOAH 1—or even in Floating City.”

My ears pricked up. Alan had always been part of NOAH 1, a familiar presence among Captain Francis’ crew and one of my closest human companions. It had never occurred to me that she’d once belonged to a world beyond the floating settlements. Jimmy was the only person I’d ever known who had lived through both the world before and after the Great Wrath. His life had been an odyssey across ships of all kinds, like merchant vessels, explorers, and he even sailed under the flag of pirates.

“My earliest memory is of touching sand,” she began, her voice soft and distant. “Watching the waves roll up the shore, reaching for my toes like they were playing a game.”

“Wait—sand?” Sam’s head tilted in confusion. “You mean… you lived on land? I thought all the land was swallowed by the ocean long ago.”

“Not all of it. There are still a few islands out there,” she said. “The sand on my island was soft—softer than anything else—and it shined, almost like silver, in the sunlight. I remember being on that beach with my brother—”

“You had a brother?” Sam cut in, his eyebrows raised.

Her smile faltered, then faded. “Yes, he was much older than me–he was about your brother's age, 12 or 13, and I was several years younger. We lived together, along with our mom and dad, in a small red house.”

“What was his name?”

She fell silent for a moment, her eyes distant, slipping into a shadow of sadness. “I don’t remember his name anymore,” she admitted. “But I remember the life we had—working in a big garden that we shared with our neighbors, playing, laughing. Everyone shared what they grew, and life felt simple, full. It was… perfect.”

“Then why did you leave?” Sam asked gently.

“I had no choice.”

“What happened?” Sam leaned closer, his eyes widening with newfound interest. It was as if her words had begun to chip away at his grief, offering him a brief escape.

“Our village gathered for a feast one sunny afternoon when a ship appeared. It was no match for NOAH 1 in size—smaller by far—but it carried a hundred people aboard. So, we all made our way down to the shore to greet the newcomers. The captain stood out among them. He was impossible to miss with his long red coat. His braided black beard, thick as a rope, fell past his round belly. His crew called him Long Beard, but his real name was Magnus.”

“Pirates,” Sam spat with disdain. “Dad used to talk about them. The ones he had encountered were bad men.”

“We didn't know about pirates then,” said Alan. “We welcomed him and his crew into our village.”

“You shouldn't have done that…”

“Well, Magnus was crude and raucous, but he definitely had an undeniable charm, and the village fell for it. We shared our drinks and food. We sang and danced long into the night, beneath the stars. Then, the mood changed, and my world was forever changed.

“People were either drunk or asleep when Magnus gave the order for his crew to seize the island. His crew killed anyone who stood in their way. My father was a brave man. He stood his ground to protect my mother, my brother, and me. My mother packed a small bag with clothes and food and told my brother and me to flee to the docks. She stayed behind, vowing to follow us with my father.”

Alan’s voice grew quieter, as if reliving the memory. “At the beach, my brother helped me into a boat, but Magnus appeared out of nowhere, snatching him away. My brother didn’t go quietly. He fought fiercely with all his strength, just like our father, even managing to grab Long Beard’s sword and slash his hand.”

“And then you both got away?” Sam asked, leaning in eagerly.

“No. Magnus’s men swarmed us. They took my brother while one of them tried to claim my boat. I fought back, striking him square in the face with the oar before pushing off. I drifted alone into the sea. That night, I swore to myself that one day I’d return. I’d take back my island. My home.”

“NOAH 1 is your home now.”

She turned toward him, a wistful smile playing on her lips. “I lost my family, but…” Her voice faltered for a moment before drawing a deep breath to regain strength. “I gained so much more. Everyone on NOAH 1—they’re my family now.”

Sam’s face lighted up in anticipation, eyes sparkling with curiosity. “So,” he asked eagerly, “what happens next in your story?”

We strolled around the deck with Alan pushing the wheelchair while I remained nestled on Sam’s lap, his hands absently stroking my back and head. We listened to Alan’s stories of her solitary adventures on the open ocean. Some of them seemed too extraordinary to be true, so wild that they felt like myths.

She spoke of the time a shark, enormous as the ancient megalodon, circled her boat before overturning it with a single nudge of its monstrous snout. She would have been lost had it not been for a pod of leviathan whales that came to her rescue. Their immense strength tore the predator apart. One of the whales sheltered her in its cavernous mouth for days.

“It was like a vast, living cave,” she said, her eyes alight with the memory. “I survived on krill, crabs, and whatever else it swallowed along the way.”

“Did you really live inside a whale?” Sam asked with a burst of laughter, his eyes wide with disbelief.

“Yes, I did! Every word of it is true,” Alan replied, tousling Sam’s hair with a grin.

“And then what happened?”

Alan chuckled, shaking her head. “I think we’ll have to save the rest of the stories for another time. Stories like that aren’t meant to be rushed.”

“Aww, but I want to hear—Page, where are you going?”

I leaped off his lap, my ears catching a faint, steady beeping from above—coming from the navigation deck. I dashed toward the stairwell. When I reached the navigation table, I froze. The black stones Alan had placed there lay undisturbed, except for one. It glowed with a vivid red light.

Britney was lying in bed alone, sleeping off the bottle of red she had finished a few hours before. When her eyes snapped open, she wasn't sure what was happening. There was a terrible pain at her throat. She couldn't breathe. Clutching. Yes. Two big, meaty hands clutched her throat. She couldn't scream or gasp. The hands were like vice grips.

The room was still dark, but she could see the figure assaulting her, bathed in the pale light that shone in through the window. Her husband, Bill, loomed over her, both of his arms stretched forward. His face was without expression. Was this a nightmare? She felt his already deadly grip tighten, and she knew it was all too real.

Britney kicked her legs violently. She flailed her arms. She couldn't reach her nightstand for an improvised weapon; she could only struggle in that one spot. She felt her tongue swelling in her mouth, and both of her ears popped. Then the room started to spin, and everything around her started to go bright white.

She felt herself slipping into unconsciousness. She knew she could do nothing more to fight off the terrible assault. Soon, she would be dead. Murdered by the man she herself murdered a year ago to the day.

The body of the deceased was laid in a supine position on the stainless steel table. The head was elevated slightly, the eyelids were glued down over the special caps, keeping them closed, and the jaw had been wired shut. Sebastian Darcy had removed the blood from the deceased and pumped in a chemical mixture of formaldehyde, methanol, and other agents to preserve the body.

He had sutured shut the small incisions in the abdomen and had moved on to applying makeup to the face. Sebastian grimaced. He still had not mastered this technique. To him, the body looked like a vaudeville performer or ventriloquist dummy. He had used too much blush on the cheeks.

He was doing his best to correct the mistake when the door chime sounded. He took off his gloves, moved to his intercom, and pressed the button. "Give me a moment," he said. "I'll be right up."

A short while later, Sebastian opened his front door with a cup of coffee in his hand. Standing on his porch was Alex Shaw, his longtime friend.

"Took you long enough to get to the door, Sebsy; I've been standing out in the rain waiting."

"Sorry about that. Come on in."

"Were you down in the basement again? It seems like you're down there every time I come over. What do you do down there all day anyway?"

"Oh! You know. Just one of my little hobbies," he said indifferently.

Zyla Howard opened the door to her new apartment. The building used to be Half Moon Motel, and all the rooms have a kitchenette, a bedroom area, a bathroom, and storage space.

The inside was modern and fully furnished. Zyla sat down her bag on the bed and tossed her key onto the small dish beside the door. Three rooms other than hers were on this floor. It was late, and her neighbors were probably already asleep, so she would have to get to know them tomorrow.

She placed her bag on the floor next to the bed. She would rest for now since tomorrow would give her plenty of time to unpack and explore the floor she lived on.

A sheet fell off a full-length bella antique mirror fastened to the wall in the room's far corner. Something was there, a flickering shadow peering out and looking at the room it was in.

The shadow spotted her placing its hands against the cold surface.

It watched her mimicking each moment that Zyla made in her sleep.

It has been far too long since the last time someone was here. Last time, the shadow had been so close to pulling that man into the mirror, but he ran away, ruining their chance of getting out.

This time, though, it would get out, and they would become her.

Zyla woke up early, opening the curtains to let the sunlight into the bedroom. She stood before the window across from her bed and looked out. The Half Moon apartments were tucked away in the timberlands of Chatsline Woods. All Zyla saw was a vast sea of trees, unlike the parking lot out front.

Walking over to her bag, she unpacked and put away her things.

Looking up, she saw her reflection. Zyla gasped in surprise and laughed at herself. It must have been covered up; sometimes, the sheet had fallen off at night. She fixed her hair and smiled, going back to her task. In the background of the mirror, a dark shadow figure copied her.

Zyla put her things away and knocked on her neighbors' doors to get to know them. There were three other rooms on the floor she lived on, so Zyla started with the room across from hers.

Knock knock...

"Who is it?" a tired, gruff voice mumbled behind the door.

"Sorry to disturb you, but I just moved in and wanted to introduce myself."

There was a short pause.

"You moved into 402? Look, you should get your money back and leave. Nothing good has ever happened to anyone who lived in that apartment."

Zyla frowned. "What do you mean?"

There was no answer, and she went to her next-door neighbor.

"They aren't home." a voice behind her said, causing her to jump.

She gasped, turning around to see a tall man with slicked-back copper hair and forest-green eyes offering his hand.

"Jareth Blackwood,"

"Z-Zyla Howard." she reluctantly shook his hand and let it fall to her side.

"You're the one who moved into 402?" he motioned to the door with his chin.

She nodded, picking at her sweater. "Do you know anything about it?"

Jareth frowned. "They say it's haunted."

Her apartment was haunted??

She blew a raspberry and shook her head.

These people couldn't be serious, could they?

"Believe it or not, it's up to you." he turned towards his apartment door.

With that, he was inside his apartment.

Zyla looked at her watch and then headed to the store. Since the elevator was out of service, she walked down the four flights of stairs, got into her car, and parked in the lot.

She stocked her fridge and popped a frozen meal into the microwave.

Zyla glanced at the mirror and saw something shift behind her reflection.

She blinked and rubbed her eyes. Was it just a trick of the light?

Zyla shook her head; she had to be tired. The talk of ghosts haunting her apartment was asinine. A ding brought her out of her thoughts; she got up and walked to the kitchenette to retrieve her meal and sit at the small table.

As Zyla began eating, the lights in the room flickered. She raised her head and looked around the room; the lights dimmed. Could it have been faulty wiring? The resonating sound of someone knocking on glass made her jump in her seat. Getting up, Zyla slowly walked to the window. How could someone knock on the she was on the fourth floor?

tink tink tink

There it was again. Looking to her side, Zyla saw her reflection and gasped in surprise. It might sound silly to be frightened of her reflection, but something was wrong with hers. It waved at her, wiggling its fingers and grinning at her from ear to ear.

Zyla backed away as her reflection started to crawl out of the mirror.

This was their chance as they slowly began removing themselves from the mirror—their prison. Standing upright, they advanced forward to become who they wanted to be.

Zyla screamed, and the reflection grabbed her, forcing her to walk to the mirror. "Why are you doing this?!" she yelled at them. Tilting their head, the reflection gave it some thought.

"To become you." was their reply.

As Zyla was pushed into the mirror, it felt like she was tumbling into pitch darkness, like Alice into the rabbit hole. When she could move again, Zyla looked out the mirror to herself. No, not herself. Her reflection. She watched as they brushed their hair in the bathroom and smiled.

There was a knock on the apartment door, and her reflection practically skipped over to the door, opening it. Stepping aside, they let the person in. When the person came into view, Zyla's heart dropped.

Jareth Blackwood.

"Well, it seems you've gotten yourself in quite the predicament, Miss Zyla Howard." He grinned, his pearl-white teeth making an unnaturally wide smile. He had told her this place was haunted, but this thing that put her in the mirror wasn't a ghost.

Walking over to the mirror, he pulled it off the wall and looked at Zyla in the mirror. "Only if you had listened to me." Jareth whispered with a frown and tucked the mirror under his arm.

The last thing Zyla saw was her reflection waving goodbye to her with wiggling fingers as it shut the door to what used to be her apartment. Jareth whistled as he opened the door to his apartment and walked into an extra room.

He placed Zyla on the wall in the middle with the rest of the mirrors in his collection, all with someone inside them. Jareth felt he had outdone himself this time as he walked over to a closet, taking out a mirror with a dark shadow flickering inside it.

A cacophony of voices echoed around Zyla. There was an urgency about it as she, too then, joined them, watching as Jareth Blackwood closed the door behind him.

Leaving her and the many others alone in complete darkness.

Day 1

Doris was glad to be home at last. It had been a busy morning of yard sales, antique stores, flea markets, and finally, the strangest curio shop she had ever stepped foot in. But exhausted though she was, it wasn't the cause for her elation to be home. Rather, her mind was on her single purchase of the day. After stepping in from the outside, she made straight for the living room and placed the package that she was carrying down on the end table next to her recliner. Doris took a seat and lifted the lid of the box. She removed all of the pieces of tissue paper that packed it, folded those into neat little squares, and placed them in a tidy stack on the table. Then, very gingerly, with both hands, she removed the mirror from the box.

It was only the beginning of the month, and she spent her month's budget on it. But what did that matter? When she caught sight of her reflection in it while there at that shop, she knew, hell or high water, she had to have it. No. To Doris, it was well worth the cost. Besides, she wasn't a little girl anymore; it was her money after all, and she'd spend it however she damn well pleased.

Doris removed the soft, black velvet cloth covering the oval-shaped mirror. At first glance, its polished cherry wood frame looked rather austere, but upon closer inspection, if one were to look very closely, strange symbols could be seen etched into the wood. However, Doris didn't care about the frame and paid no attention to the odd runes and hieroglyphs that were found there on. She cared only about that reflection. That beautiful reflection.

She smiled at herself and admired her beaming pearly-white teeth. She ran her fingers through her hair and watched herself curl her full raven-black locks between her fingers. She stared deeply into her emerald-green eyes, which seemed to gleam with far more intensity than all the world's jewels. She watched as tears began to well in those stunning eyes of hers.

The rest of the day, she ate nothing and drank only one cup of hot tea. She wouldn't have even had the tea if it hadn't been an excuse to look at the beauty of her hands and her delicate fingers reflected in her new, wonderful mirror.

In time, she could no longer fight off sleep. Too tired now to go to bed, she placed her mirror down on the end table next to her, lowered her head, and fell asleep in the chair.

Day 2

Doris dreamed of her mirror all night. The dreams were so vivid that when she awoke, she wondered if everything hadn't been a dream. She sighed, both in contentment, and relief when she looked and still saw it beside her, there on the table.

Then, an idea came to her inspired by one of her dreams. She went into her bedroom and took her makeup kit from her vanity. After wiping a thin layer of dust from it, she promptly returned to the front room. She had a little bit of difficulty as she tried to reposition her chair so that the end table would be in front of her. But at last, she succeeded. Then, very carefully, she leaned the mirror against the table lamp so that it was upright and she could see herself as she applied her makeup.

Her lipstick was put on last of all. It was a dark crimson, and it accented perfectly her dark hair and milky white skin. She blew herself a kiss in the mirror and said in a whisper, "Hello, beautiful."

She didn't eat or drink anything all day. It was too difficult to break away from the mirror. For the second night in a row, she fell asleep in her chair.

Day 3

Around 10:30 in the morning, the phone rang. Doris didn't answer. It wasn't important. Her reflection. Her beautiful reflection. That was all that mattered. That was all she had time to focus on.

She sat all day and into the night in her chair and stared with unparalleled intensity into that mirror. She fell asleep with it on her lap.

Day 4

It wasn't quite eleven in the morning when a knock came from the front door. It went unanswered; it was followed by another knock. Then another. Then the door was opened—just a crack—and a voice yelled in through it.

"Miss White? It's Oscar from next door. I tried calling yesterday, but I couldn't get ahold of you. I haven't seen you out in the yard lately; I just wanted to make sure you were okay." Having received no reply, Oscar let himself in. "You are okay, aren't you, Miss White? Oh—Oh no." Oscar saw Doris White sitting in her recliner, head tilted down, with a broken mirror at her feet. He could tell from where he stood that she was not breathing.

Doris White died in her sleep at the age of 84. She died, as have so many before her, and as so many shall after her, lost in the reflections of the past.

The Black Hills Witch

by Josh Salamun

Part 1

An article from the Rapid City newspaper proudly framed in the window reads:

"Mayor Salamander is gathering with leaders to declare, 'This City belongs to Jesus.'"

I can't stand these Christians. They're like harmless little sheep—but in every flock hides a wolf. And I can smell one.

Since then, Mayor Salamander has shown us his "Christian love" by shutting down homeless shelters, strangling food services, and unleashing his personal police force to hunt down anyone who doesn't fit into his idea of "righteous."

It's been a long time since this witch wandered out of the forests of The Black Hills. That's right. I'm a one-thousand-year-old witch. People say, "You don't look a day over 30," which stings because back in the 1800s, they said, "not a day over 20." One thing's clear—Rapid City needs me now more than ever. So here I am, spellbook in hand, ready to squash this Salamander with my black pointy shoes.

In the meantime, I'm investigating his inner circle, which is why I took a job at the local Christian coffee shop, Bean Saved.

It's owned by Pastor Dan, a close friend and supporter of Mayor Salamander.

It's unsettling how this so-called "Christian" mayor surrounds himself with people hiding secrets—shadows of the past.

But that's where I find my pretty little victims. A monster lurking in the pews, preying on innocent children, like Creepy Russ. I invite you—peer into my crystal ball.

Trinity Church was where Salamander had his first experience in ministry, serving as the youth pastor. Although he saw the job as an uninteresting stepping stone that would make him look virtuous and serve as something to put on his résumé, that's when he met his solution: Creepy Russ.

An unmarried man in his thirties, more wretched than a disgusting troll, always hanging out with other people's kids, posing as a harmless mentor—but never without his video camera. Always watching through his lens. Salamander saw what went on every Wednesday night but was all too willing to turn a blind eye. He simply didn't care about the horrors going on within the youth group. All he cared about was finding his replacement so he could focus on his real calling in life: furthering his own career.

So, Salamander decided to begin the transition and announced the youth group at Trinity would now start meeting at Creepy Russ's house, so Russ could further groom and prey upon young souls away from the eyes of the church.

Worst of all, one of the victims was none other than Salamander's own half-brother—punished for what happened to him, his name no longer spoken, told to bury the nightmares he endured.

One day, Creepy Russ slipped up while volunteering with youth at the YMCA, following children with his video camera into the locker room.

What Russ saw as his own personal "innocent home video collection," the judge saw as "child exploitation." He got out early on a ten-year sentence for "good behavior."

To this day, Salamander won't even admit he had a half-brother or his leadership role at Trinity, attempting to cover up his past sins.

But I think the mayor’s half-brother, whoever he is, would be glad to know I took care of Creepy Russ last night. Struck him down after he left this very coffee shop. I followed him home, and when he was sound asleep, I crept in through the window and pulled that monsters guts out and held it in front of his face so he could see how truly rotten he was inside.

But right now, I should really stop daydreaming. I'm still on the clock.

Pastor Dan waves me over with a too-patient smile that makes my skin crawl. "A moment, please," he says, his voice syrupy with a barbed edge. "We need to talk about having a servant's heart. Our work here isn't just about coffee; it's about serving the Lord with humility and joy."

I force a smile, though I imagine his face melting like wax. "Yes, Pastor Dan. I'll keep that in mind."

"That's the spirit," he says. "You know, we appreciate your gift for crafting the perfect drink, but I feel you're ready for a new spiritual challenge. Jessica isn’t going to make it, so I'd like you to work the register. You'll find working with people even more engaging. Now, let's see that joy of yours, hmm?"

"I'm spellbound."

I walk to the register and wipe my hands on my apron as my first customer orders.

"Coffee. Black."

"Hot or iced?"

"Hot. Scalding," he mutters, pulling out a book titled Sword of the Lord.

"Interesting read?"

He sneers. "It's Mayor Salamander's brilliant book. About rooting out the wicked—the freeloaders, the heathens. All of them can go to hell in a handbasket if you ask me."

I hand him his cup. "I see. Must feel like a real witch hunt."

"You bet it is. I can't believe some people want to act like The Black Hills Witch is some kind of superhero."

"It certainly seems like magic, how she finds the criminals," I reply, smirking.

His gaze sharpens. "Don't be fooled by tales of her so-called good deeds. She acts like she's above the law!"

I take a steadying breath. "You may not like her, but you have to admit, she's only gone after bad people."

"Doesn't matter. Magic is evil, and the Bible is clear: witches, their defenders—they all deserve the same fate."

"And what fate is that?" My anger comes out of my fingertips, literally shocking my disgruntled customer. Oops.

His eyes are wide as he realizes what I am. Taking off the lid of his cup, he looks up at me, leaning in closer, and whispers darkly.

"To burn."

With that, he throws his coffee at me, hot liquid splashes in my face. Pathetic. Little does he know, real witches don't burn.

Annoyed, I wipe my eyes on my apron as he scurries away. I could track him down, turn him into a toad—but he isn't what I'm looking for. Just your average, run-of-the-mill coward.

Pastor Dan scurries over, voice dripping with concern. "That's a nasty burn. We better pray about this. Let's all gather 'round and pray for healing, everyone."

"I'm fine, Pastor Dan. I won't let one jerk ruin my first day.” My eyes steady as a candle flame.

He clicks his teeth in disapproval. "We aren't called to use names like that about our fellow man. Remember our motto here at Bean Saved: 'Treat paying customers the way you would want to be treated.' I think someone needs a lesson in forgiveness. Why don't you go home, pray this over, and remember: let go and let God."

"And what would Jesus do if someone threw hot coffee in his face?"

Pastor Dan's smile widens. "Turn the other cheek."

As I grab my bag, I glance back at the shop. The sign reads: We help those who want God's help. The very same words came from that reptile Salamander's mouth. I know what that really means—pushing everyone outside their flock deeper into the cold.

That's where they'll find me.

Previously

Today, I walked inside my Uncle's office ready to unload every bullet I could on him, but instead, his office was empty. I was so mad that I spat on the floors I used to call sacred. I was so mad I almost left without noticing what he left on his desk: a sheet of paper on top of maybe five letters.

"For Solomon. Read all five of these letters before you judge. These are letters from your father." Out of a hunger for answers, I read the letters.

Letter 1:

Dear Brother,

I know you won't truly love me anymore; you can't. But I will love you, though.

I'm leaving seminary school. I'm leaving the faith. I'm leaving you and this city. I've met a woman, she's a witch, and we're going on a ride across the country in her van. Let me explain.

As you know, I've been trying to evangelize a friend of mine, Raphael, you know, bring him into the faith, introduce him to who Jesus really is.

So, I'm talking to him. I'm trying to give him the gospel, right? The Good News! That's what it means—good news—but he interrupts me while I'm saying it.

"If the gospel means good news, why are you sad?"

"I'm not sad," I said back, lying, another sin. Add it to the list.

"Dude, come on," he said with no judgment, pure innocence.

"I'm not sad," a tear formed in my eye.

"Dude, I like religion and culture and all this stuff. So, we can keep talking about 'the gospel,' but you're my friend. I know something's wrong. Let's talk about what's eating you."

I cried, man, and I confessed, like really confessed. I know what you always say: You can't let unbelievers know what really goes on at Church. There are some things you have to keep away from them because they wouldn't understand.

Well, isn't that messed up? We bring them into a system that they don't even know the truth about? Well, I let him know the truth about what I was struggling with, not because of any righteous reason like genuine honesty but because I needed a non-judgmental ear.

I told him how I heard the rude comments of the other church members behind my back and they hurt me, how I could tell no one respected me, how it hurt me so much my Christian family looked down on me for just being me.

I try my best to be holy. To be a good man. But it's like everyone's in a competition to see who can be a better Christian, and they've decided I'm at the bottom. I'm trying to be like Jesus but they treat me like a pariah. Like I'm depraved.

He was there for me. He listened to me. He invited me to his community. It was just a normal birthday party full of normal people.

Well, except for one girl. She was extraordinary. Her name was Belle; she's a witch and she's gorgeous. A black witch, whatever that means—I'm not quite sure why she calls herself that as she is a pale woman with silver hair.

Her nails, toenails, and lips are painted black though. You'd call it creepy, but I think it gives her a mysterious feel. Regardless, I told her my story, and she gave me a hug and asked me to come with her—she was taking a trip to Arizona from here in NC.

It felt good to not be labeled a weirdo and written off, so I went with her.

Letter 2:

Dear Brother,

I appreciate your letter and concern, but I won't be going home because you're scared for me. She is kind to me! What part of that can't you get? I know it doesn't matter because you didn't care.

She even made me this little doll that looks just like me and has a few locks of my hair.

Anyway, I'm fine. I can leave any time I want to if things get weird. I'm my own man.

But, hey, enjoy the postcard. We passed Stone Mountain in Georgia, and I thought of you because you dragged me out here when you knew I was going through a tough break-up.

That was fun—thanks for that.

Letter 3:

Dear Brother,

I'm just ignoring your last letter because you won't stop talking to me like I'm some project, an idiot, or something to save. Those aren't voodoo dolls she's making of me. That's stupid. She likes me a lot.

Anyway, greetings from Mississippi. I don't like it here and I'm glad to leave, to be honest. I got in a fight here. Can you believe it? Yeah, me! It was thrilling.

Some drunk guy at a bar sat on my stool beside Belle when I left to go use the restroom. The stool was the only one beside Belle, so I asked if he could move and he pushed me away to keep talking to Belle. So, I pushed him back and he socked me in the mouth.

Then we started going at it. His buddies started coming too, but then Belle got up and even though she's a girl, she started throwing blows too.

And it got me thinking.

Why do we have to forgive? Why do we have to turn the other cheek? What's wrong with a little bloodshed?

Don't bother preaching again. I know my answer. Nothing at all.

I will say, I'm not the best fighter, to be honest. I passed out and woke up with the van driving and a pretty big headache. Belle says I did great though.

Letter 4:

Dear Brother,

I won't say you were right, but I need to go home. We're in Texas now and I won't drive a mile more with her. She has one of the bodies of the guys we fought. It's chopped up, put on ice in a big cooler, and covered with fragrances so it doesn't smell.

I called her on it. I asked why she had a freaking body! Belle said because the body has power and she can use it for magic. I'm getting out of here when we fall asleep tonight.

We're in Texas. God's Country, right? Isn't that ironic? Fitting, right? I'm getting out here, coming home.

Letter 5:

Dear Brother,

I have tried leaving her three times in the cover of darkness.

The first night she went to sleep, I packed my bags. I ran out. I hitchhiked to the nearest airport, went through security, and then finally closed my eyes before boarding my plane. When I opened them, I was in her van. Riding right beside her.

And she just chatted with me like nothing happened. I was scared but I adjusted, listening and talking back. I checked my pockets—the ticket I had bought was still in my pocket. Whatever she did, she made me come back to her.

So, I figured out she put something in my bag or in my clothes to make me come back to her. So, I got naked and in the dead of night, I ran to the nearest police station. Naked and afraid across the desert landscape I ran. Consequences be damned—I knew they'd toss me in jail. I knew they'd put me in prison.

Yet, I still ran to them. I ran naked across the Texas desert hoping for a miracle. I avoided cacti, the scurrying of rattlesnakes, and the judgmental and then skittish glances of coyotes. I ran past exhaustion, past home, past consciousness. I collapsed in the desert heat and crawled the rest of the way until I saw a Walmart parking lot. It felt like home. I crawled across the asphalt sea.

My throat raw, lips dry, and skin peeling, but I made it. Walmart opened its sweet automatic doors for me. The air conditioning hit me and I felt heaven. I listened to a man ask if I needed help and it sounded as sweet as any choir.

"Water," I begged, but my mouth was too dry. He couldn't understand. "Water, water, water," I repeated. He went off to grab a bottle and I grasped it.

I opened it, gobbled it down, and I tasted safety.

"We've got a code teal," the man said in the speaker. "That's a naked man that is not a threat. I repeat not a threat. He looks like he's been through Hell."

I won't lie to you—when I looked at that blue-vested Walmart employee I saw an angel and blinked.

When I opened my eyes again, I was naked in the van. Belle drove along the highway, casual as ever. I cried.

"I wouldn't do that again," Belle said.

"What?" I asked.

"Oh, nothing," she said and turned up the speaker. I begged. I pleaded to be let go. She ignored me. Her love gone, her compassion was just a desert mirage now. We drove in silence to New Mexico, one stop from our destination.

That night, that night was my final hope. The doll she had of me. It was magic. So, I took it with me. That way she couldn't recall me.

That night, I slipped out of the bottom bunk. I checked the top to see her mass completely under the covers. I stripped out of the clothes she bought me and put on what I had brought, ready to leave her all behind. Last, I grabbed the doll of me from the rearview mirror. Then I tiptoed to the door and opened it to exit.

A shovel to my face was the last thing I remember seeing. I collapsed, passed out, and she hopped on me. How do I remember this if I was passed out? Because guess who's writing now?

Hi, brother, this is Belle. Don't be upset at me. You all didn't want him and I have a use for him. What's the problem?

I wouldn't come look for him—what I plan to do to his body would be... depraved.

That was the last letter. Under the last one were pictures.

Polaroids, to be specific. It was horrible and barbaric what they were doing to my Dad. I will spare the reader, but they chopped up his body and used it in bizarre rituals and put severed limbs in places they should never be, and each witch—perhaps there were one hundred of them—smiled as they did so.

That's what they did to my Dad.

My Dad... I never met the man. I just wanted to be the man. Everyone always had such kind stuff to say about him. He wasn't a bad guy. Like he was just punished for no reason. Where was justice? Where was God? My Dad served God and his head was treated like a volleyball. I sweat, the thought was making me sick.

A bookshelf slid open to reveal a door and ten men in suits came out. I waved my gun at them, ready to fire. The last of them was my Pastor, my uncle.

"What was that?" I said. "On the table."

"My brother's and his killer's last words to me," he said.

"You're lying!"

"No, Solomon, for the rest of my life, however short that may be, I will never lie to you."

"So what?" I waved my gun at him. "I know about the stuff that's going on in the basement."

"What goes on in the basement is because of what happens in the letters."

"What?"

"The spiritual world is more real than the natural world. If someone isn't Christian, they could become a witch. Unless we stop them. Unless we make them become something else."

I dropped the gun and picked up the Bible.

"Witches?" I asked. "You're afraid of witches? I studied this book—you made me study this book—and it told me not to be afraid." In frustration, I threw the Bible at my mentor. "I read this thing from cover to cover and it told me not to be afraid. Did you try prayer, pastor?" I hope he tasted the sarcasm in the word pastor.

The Pastor took the strike on his chin and rubbed blood off his lip. His entourage remained quiet.

"And when God did not answer my prayers to bring my brother back or get revenge on those who wronged him, on those who could wrong many others, I had to call something that did."

"The thing below us..."

"Yes, it ensured us that those who wouldn't behave would not be rebellious witches doing as they please but servants of gods who would be stuck doing menial tasks. Your girlfriend's father, the one you brought here last night, was sold to Nehebeku, the god of reptiles, and took care of reptiles until his brain could not take the god's commands anymore."

"And Mary? What did you do to her?"

"We arranged for her to be sold once we found out she wanted to forfeit her life. If she wants to die, we should be able to profit. She has no buyers yet, only renters. Oizys, the Greek god of depression, anxiety, and grief pays to play in her mind from time to time, but he seems to be quite busy with this generation to pick one soul. It's likely that Miseria will buy her."

"That's sick. There's only one God we're supposed to serve and it's a choice and—"

"Hold your rambling, you won. You are a good man. You're right. I am a depraved man, who sacrificed souls to a depraved god, but it's your turn now. You can choose what to do. You can starve that god below us and let witches run amok. Witches that can do worse than the one did to my brother. And they will come for you, you know. One of them is your mother, after all."

"What?"

"That was one of the deals I made with the god below. Let my nephew come home and keep him safe. If she is not safe, you will not be safe, but that's your choice to make now."

"What are you talking about, Pastor?"

"The church is yours now. You get to decide what happens next."

I stood there dumbfounded.

"Let me be abundantly clear," my Uncle said. "Since you were a baby, to keep evil out of this town I have employed Tiamat. Her presence keeps witches and other evil away. If she is not allowed to do her business dealings here anymore, she will leave and the witches will return. She will not stop doing her evil business; it just won't benefit us here. You must decide whether to make her stop or not."

"Now," my Uncle said, "I'm leaving. I'm going to see who I've been serving the whole time despite my self-righteousness. I hope I don't see you down there."

With that, he drew his own pistol and shot himself in the head. His attendees did nothing. They waited on my orders, and I was petrified. I knew what Jesus would do, but I doubted if I had the strength.

Today, a few days after my uncle's death, the old god in the basement is finally gone. In our church, only one God remains, and that's Jesus. Like my Uncle, I've given everyone the day off again.

I am alone in my office surrounded by enemies who want me dead. And that's okay. I will fight them, and if I lose, so be it.

For a while, I feared the church wouldn't go on without me. Then I realized this was how the church goes on. How better off would every church be if the leader didn't just tell the tale of a man who loved you enough to die for you but actually was willing to die? That's how the church goes on. That is the legacy I'll leave.

Did Paul not say "if I have not loved, am I not but a clanging cymbal" and did Luke not say, "there is no greater love than this than to lay down your life for another"?

So, to you Mary, to you reader, I want you to know you are loved.

The witches are at the window now. They fly on broomsticks naked, cackling, and mocking me.

KNOCK

KNOCK

KNOCK

One speaks while the others giggle.

"Solomon, open up. Mommy's home and she's brought some friends."

Freelance photography of celebrities has a bad reputation, calling me a paparazzi. I'm considered a kind of media pirate, stealing images, precious-valuable images of celebrities. Invading their privacy, exposing them to scandal and ridicule, sure, but what is a celebrity, anyway?

Older civilizations considered actors to be the lowest form of entertainers, unworthy of recognition. We're delivered by doctors, protected by soldiers and guided by teachers, but it is the person telling jokes that we celebrate. Clowns, adult-pretenders or laughing stock. Being an actor wasn't celebrated, the root-word of celebrity, but rather considered the ultimate failure, unable to contribute to society in any meaningful way besides mere amusement.

It was only with the advent of photography that the modern celebrity was born. It was the craft of the candid photographer that affirmed that celebrities should have their status, wealth and influence. Truly the celebrity is a king with a golden crown, and no longer the obnoxious class clown.

So, I am the villain, for making my meager living by keeping it real, and taking a few pictures for the media who actually profit from my work. If I am the bad guy, I'd like to expose the victim of my camera for what she really is. I was horrified to discover the truth, the reality of these stars of ours, and as a teller of truth, I am just the middleman.

They say no photograph is worth dying for. But when you're a freelance photographer, chasing leads is how you survive. I didn’t think twice when I got the tip about Kream Kardinian's Jersey Shore mansion. The world hadn’t seen her in two years, but rumors about her—gruesome, salacious rumors—never stopped.

Twelve fetuses in jars. That’s what the message claimed. Abandoned by her celebrity circle after a string of messy public feuds, Kream supposedly fled to her family estate to live in total isolation. No press, no paparazzi, no public sightings. The story practically wrote itself—if it was true.

I arrived just after dusk, parking my car a half mile away and hiking through dense woods until I found the mansion. It loomed against the dark sky, its silhouette as cold and silent as the rumors. The windows were dark, and the air around the place was unnaturally still. Even the wind felt like it avoided the grounds.

I set up camp in the bushes near what used to be a garden, the overgrown hedges offering partial cover. I waited, clutching my camera and using its zoom like binoculars, hoping to spot movement, a light, anything. But the mansion stayed lifeless, its windows like blind eyes staring into the void.

Hours passed. My nerves were frayed, and I was starting to consider leaving when I saw it—a faint sliver of light from a side door. A servant’s entrance, left ajar. My heart raced. This was it. An opportunity.

I hesitated, weighing my fear against the pull of the story. Then, before I could talk myself out of it, I darted across the unkempt lawn, my shoes crunching softly on the gravel. The garden smelled of decay and damp earth, and the door, cracked open, seemed to invite me in—or warn me away.

Inside, the mansion was silent, the kind of silence that presses against your ears and amplifies your every move. The air was thick with dust, and the floorboards creaked with every step I took. I tried to stay quiet, tried to convince myself no one had heard me.

At first, I thought the place was abandoned. The grand foyer was stripped of its grandeur, its chandeliers hanging like skeletal remains from cobwebbed ceilings. Hallways stretched endlessly in every direction, their peeling wallpaper seeming to close in on me the longer I stared.

But something felt wrong.

It wasn’t just the emptiness—it was the wrongness of it. The kind of wrong that makes the hair on your neck stand up. Every door I opened revealed more of the same: empty rooms, faded furniture, and the faint smell of mildew. But as I ventured deeper, I felt it. A presence.

It started as a faint sensation, like being watched, but soon it grew unbearable. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t alone. That something unseen was stalking me. The shadows seemed to stretch longer, the air heavier with every step I took.

In one of the rooms, after I picked the lock, I found a row of glass jars lined up on a dusty shelf. My hands shook as I brought my flashlight closer. The glass was fogged, the contents murky, but inside…something floated. Small, unrecognizable shapes. My stomach turned, bile rising in my throat.

I backed away, nearly tripping over the edge of a moth-eaten rug. That’s when I heard it—a faint creak, like a footstep, from somewhere deeper in the house. My breath hitched, and I froze, listening.

Another creak. Closer.

I turned off my flashlight and pressed myself against the wall, my pulse pounding in my ears. The footsteps were deliberate, unhurried, and they echoed through the cavernous halls, growing louder with every passing second.

I couldn’t stay. Whatever was in the house with me—I didn’t want to meet it.

I crept back the way I came, the sound of my own footsteps swallowed by the overwhelming silence. But as I neared the servant's entrance, I saw it: the door was closed.

My heart sank. I didn’t remember closing it.

I fumbled with the lock, the sound of it snapping open echoing through the hall. I heard another footstep, and then the sound of something whooshing through the air, like a flag snapping in a wind. I raised my camera instinctively as I turned, and took several pictures with the flash.

As my eyes widened in terror at the shape of the thing in the dim hallway, the dust it had kicked up whiffed around me. For a moment I wasn't sure what I was seeing, just this massive shape of something looming there, in the liminal between the light and the dark, stepping out at me like a performer taking the stage.

My eyes were locked onto it, my hands shaking so violently that I dropped my camera onto the floor, the action-strap slipping over my limp wrist. I gripped the handle of the door behind me, opening it with my back to it, and edging myself outside, into the night.

There is this difficulty I have in describing what I saw, that thirteenth pregnancy, the one from a few years ago. It was definitely the child of Kream Kardinian, since it had her eyes, her lips. Those full lips of hers are her actual lips, as this thing inherited them from its mother.

Wearing its mother's face, the rest of the child was all wrong. It stood a whole eight or nine feet tall and had massive bat wings instead of arms. Well it had arms, and they were short and muscular, with fingers like pool noodles that had the tanned membranes to form its batlike wings.

The creature's body was draped in a colorful bathrobe, custom-made to fit its elongated body, so that its posture was more like a kangaroo, and having a long prehensile tail, with human skin covering it. The legs were bent in an unnatural backwards way, more like a bird, but had stretched and thin human bones in them, and thick wobbly kneecaps. I stared at its feet, somehow the most disturbing part of it.

The feet looked exactly like they should on a toddler, just two perfect little feet on the thing. It looked at me with curiosity and intelligence, tilting its almost human head to one side as though it wondered why I was so terrified of it.

As I closed the door I heard it start crying, and it sounded indistinguishable from the pouting of a small child. For a moment my heart felt wrong for fleeing it, but then its devilish spiked horn on the right side of its skull erupted point-first through the door, as it had charged at me and attacked.

I fell to the ground as it withdrew its lopsided horn from the door and looked through, staring at me with an all-too human eye.

That is when the horror of its appearance finally struck me and I instinctively shielded myself with my arms from eye contact with its gaze and by screaming in terrified defiance. I clambered to my feet and retreated the way I had intruded.

When I had safely driven away I looked back, and I could swear I saw some massive batlike shape winging its way across the skies of the Jersey Shore in front of the bright moon.

I have no photographic evidence of what I saw, and I lacked the commitment to my trade to have taken pictures that I came for when I found Kream's collection of her previous pregnancies. I know what I saw in her home, I admit to my burglary, only because I know what I saw.

Perhaps I am not cut out for this job, after-all.

The gunman walked into the classroom. Everyone froze. He was too quick for anyone to receive a hero's death. All I remember were screams, the sound of bullets slicing through bodies, and the realization only a minute later that the shooter hadn't noticed I wasn't dead yet. He walked into the classroom to examine the bodies. Once he turned his back on me, I ran out. I was gone, and I was the only survivor in my college class.

I ran in the hallways. The intercoms blared for a complete school shutdown.

"Let no one in."

As I ran in the halls, I realized I was bleeding out. Death was coming for me. I was banging on the doors of my classmates and friends, and they rightfully ignored me. I was well and truly alone.

It was terrifying.

I would not wish that fear on my worst enemy.

I knocked on so many doors begging for help. Eventually, the blood loss got to me, my energy faded, and I passed out alone and waiting to die.

Of course, I was eventually rescued; of course, I was given therapy; of course, I was forever changed.

I would do anything not to have that feeling again. I decided I'd never be alone. So, I became everything to everyone. The wealthy always have friends, so I switched my major to engineering. Good people always have friends, so I created charities to honor the lives of my dead friends, and I was at every service opportunity possible for most other charities on campus. The adventurous and degenerates always have friends, so I joined the wildest frat on campus.

Of course, the truth about life is that you can't have everything, but through a mix of energy drinks and other substances, I tried. I tried until my heart couldn't take it. For all my efforts, I would still face my worst fear: I would die alone.

I had a heart attack. I grabbed my chest, looked around, and I was alone in my room. I knew I was going to die. I didn't want to die alone. I didn't want to die and have no one find my body.

That was the day I realized, after moving to a new city upon graduation, I hadn't made genuine friends. I was still alone. I thought I had surpassed solitude. I thought I would always have someone around when I needed them.

If I died on my apartment floor on the first day, surely no one would come; on the second and third, the same. On the fourth, my body would bloat and distort, an unrecognizable change from the man I was. On the fifth day, my neighbor might ask to borrow a board game for the game nights he never invited me to. But if I didn't answer, he wouldn't care. The fifth, sixth, and seventh days, my bloated dead body would turn red. Maybe the smell would draw somebody.

If it didn't, in a month my body would liquefy, and all my life would equate to is a pile of mush, a stain in my rented apartment.

I hoped I'd left my window open so perhaps a stray cat would come in and lick me up so I wouldn't be a complete waste. The thought made me cry.

Thank God, that time it was just a scare caused by energy drinks and poor sleep. But once I got out of the hospital, I was determined not to die like that: alone and vulnerable.

Back in my apartment, I was lonely. Soul-crushingly lonely, and I didn't think it would stop. Working remotely didn't help. I hadn't been touched by a person in... what was my record, like a whole month? I hadn't had an in-person conversation with a friend in two months.

Life is hard in a new city. I needed more than a friend. I needed more than a girlfriend. I needed a wife.

I would do anything for one. I tried Hinge and Tinder and was either ghosted or dumped. It all ended the same. So, please understand I had no other choice.

I dug through the internet to find advice on how to get a girlfriend.

I found somewhere dark, a place I don't suggest you go. They were banned from Reddit and banned from Discord. This group was dedicated to good men—good guys, who weren't jerks, who didn't want to hurt anyone, who wanted true love—to find cults they could join to find wives.

They said the women in cults were loyal, kind, and really wanted love. That's the point of all religious beliefs, isn't it? Love.

Hell is mentioned 31 times in the Bible, but love 801 times. It's not the fear of Hell that drives them; it's the ache to be loved. I ached too, so why couldn't we help each other?

And in whatever cult we'd join, we'd be good too. We'd make sure there was no bad stuff like blackmail and child abuse. We were just looking for someone who would love us for us.

Someone who wouldn't leave.

After a couple of months of helping other members find cults to join and patiently waiting for my assignment, I was told there was a new cult I could join. But I needed to wait for another one of our members to come back who was already in the cult. They said they'd lost communication with him. I couldn't take the emptiness of my apartment anymore, so I begged and pleaded to go. I even said I'd take two phones so if one didn't work, I'd always have the backup.

I was persistent. They relented.

This is what they told me:

"Joseph, the Cult of Truth appears not to be an offshoot of any of the three major religions, nor of any minor ones we can find.

It really seems to have come from nowhere, so you're in luck; easy come, easy go. My guess is the cult won't last long, so find true love and get out.

You'll be in the remote mountains of Appalachia, known for general strangeness. Be careful—I wouldn't leave the commune if I were you.

There are only two guys you need to watch out for: one named Truth (we know he's massive and in charge) and another named Silence, his second in command. The rest of the thirty-person cult is all women, except for our guy.

The danger of the cult is the two men since we don't really know what they want yet. In general, it could be death, sex, or human sacrifice.

Remember Rule #1: Be Kind—no one has ever joined a cult who wasn't hurting on the inside.

Remember Rule #2: It's okay to lie for the service of good.

Remember Rule #3: Know the truth, do not believe what you're told in a cult.

Good luck, man. We're going to miss you."

He gave me the location of the city, and with that, I moved to join a cult.

I arrived 20 minutes late to the shack on the hill in Appalachia. The plan, in general, is to look flustered, nervous, and desperate to be accepted in any cult. But clean-cut enough not to be dangerous.

With a shaved head and a black suit, I stumbled into a church shack. A sound like muffled screams erupted from the doors.

No one sat in the pews. Beside every row of pews was a bent-over woman crying into the floor as if she was worshipping.

The man or thing they worshipped stood on stage. I was not aware humans could have so much bulk. He would have won every bodybuilding contest; his muscles pulsed on top of his other muscles. It was grotesque; his body almost looked like it was infected with tumors.

The man was a pile of bulky, veiny flesh that looked immovable. A creature to the point of caricature in two layers of white robes.

His eyes locked on me, but his face did not move. It was frozen; I would never see it move. It was locked in a permanent scowl.

Fear, that feeling in my gut that I fought against now. That must be how he controlled them. The reality was that he could break their necks in seconds. Yes, that could do it.

It was important he felt he controlled me. That I was under his control. So, I played the part.

I was not terrified, but I played the part. It was easy to let fear win. It was easy to let fear make me drop to my knees to worship. It was easy to let fear stir me and shake me like the rest of the women. It was easy to pray to a God because—excuse my sacrilege—I felt as though I faced one right before me.

Eventually, the impossibly muscled priest clapped his hands. It sounded like thunder. We all rose and got into our pews.

The great priest walked away, going behind the curtain behind him. The rest of the women gathered in their pews and said nothing. They instead read the material provided for them.

In front of me was a composition notebook. I opened it, and in it, I saw scriptures from something I had never heard of.

Someone tapped me on the shoulder. I jumped. A man, who I assumed to be Silence, with hair down his back and wearing all white stood behind me. He was the opposite of Truth: beautiful, slim, and his perfect teeth flashed a grin.

"You're not supposed to be here," his grin vanished.

"Um... I thought all were welcome."

"To Heaven maybe. Does this look like Heaven?"

"I guess not."

In a flash, he moved to the other side of me. I flinched. Silence put a shockingly strong hand on my shoulder and said, "Stay."

I obeyed, and he examined me from side to side, moving like lightning, so fast a literal breeze formed behind me. I looked forward at the women studying the word of Truth. This was true fear: being examined by a strange man and not understanding where that giant Truth was.

I panicked as he examined me more. Silence patted my shoulders, put his hand in my front pocket, and pulled at my ear. I did nothing in response; I froze. Mentally, I begged for my only ally in this group to come rescue me from this humiliating examination.

The women didn't seem to care; they just read the notebooks. I examined the room for my only ally in the mountains of Appalachia, the other guy. Where was he?

"What's your greatest mistake?" he asked me, loud enough for the church to hear. I turned to look at him. He palmed my skull and faced me forward again. "You don't have to look at me to answer a question. What's your greatest mistake?"

I did as he said and looked forward. The question did cause a reaction from some of the other churchgoers; they flashed glances back. I saw it in their eyes and posture—they were thirsting for an answer. Obviously, I wanted to leave then. But I thought about that heart attack. I thought about being alone. I answered his question.

"My first-ever girlfriend died because a school shooter killed her. We were sitting right beside each other. I should have saved her. I should have been more aware." I hadn't said that aloud in a long time.

A few women made no effort to turn away from me now; they were invested.

"When has a friend hurt you the most?" Silence asked.

"It was after I was in the hospital recovering from my heart attack. The room was filled with balloons and cards from my friends delivered by strangers; my phone was filled with texts, but not a single person came to visit. I wanted a friend in there with me, not random gifts. Why doesn't anyone want to be around me?" The last part came out spontaneously and with a real tear.

"Newcomer," Silence said. "What's one thing you hate about yourself?"

The whole church stared at me. I was unsure if they were concerned or if I was their entertainment. I answered the question anyway.

"I will do anything to not be alone."

After a while, my examiner stopped.

"Would you like to join us?" he said.

"I... what are you?"

"Does it matter? If you want in, let's have a chat," he said and walked away. I got up and followed.

We walked outside, I assume in the direction of another shack. He was hard to keep up with.

"We're not from around here, Truth—the guy on stage—and I. My name is Silence, by the way."

"What do you want, Joseph?" he asked.

"Community... Something to believe in."

Silence shrugged, "Okay."

"Okay."

"Give me both your phones."

"I only have—"

"You have one in your pocket and another in your back pocket."

My blood went cold. I stuttered a reply that didn't make sense. Silence had no patience for it.

"Two phones or don't return; it's simple."

I cursed. I sweat. My heart banged. I really questioned: did I want this? I would lose all contact with the outside world. How bad did I want this? I looked away from him and down that long mountain path. I could go that way and be alone again.

Like I was alone in that hallway in the shooting.

Like I was alone suffering through a heart attack.

I brought out both phones. He took them without touching my hands. An air of arrogance that fit his name.

He held the phones in one hand and sprinkled a strange dust on them with the other. A dust that seemingly came from nowhere. The phones melded together. They cracked, they buzzed with electricity; the noise was sharp and powerful. Blue light flickered from them and made me take a step back. They then died in silence.

Then they became pink flesh. A Cronenberg abomination of two heads and bird feet and large baby-ish hands. He dropped the thing on the floor.

It hobbled forward, a new bastardized life. It sprouted two eyes and looked at me.

Silence stepped on it. It exploded in a sad burst of blood and flesh.

"Welcome to the Cult of the Truth."

I swallowed hard.

"Hey, wait. Come here." Silence said and beckoned me with his finger.

"Closer."

"Closer."

He struck me.

He laughed; I reeled backward, landing on my backside. I rubbed my eye to try to smooth the pain away.

And it was gone. My eye was gone. In its place was smooth flesh—a painless impossible operation done with only a touch.

I looked up at Silence. At that moment, he was a god to me. He just laughed.

"Everyone must make a sacrifice to enter here," he said. "I thought the eye was fitting because of the expression. Believe nothing you hear and only half of what you see. So, I took half your vision because I need you to believe everything you see is very, very real."

I backed away from him, shaking my head. Sweat poured down my face; my legs tensed and fell beneath me, a crumpled mess. My hands clawed at my face. I felt it. My eye, my eye was still in there—it wanted to see but whatever magic Silence had done changed everything.

Silence left me laughing as I flinched at every sound, fearful of what else could come next.

Ollie (the only other male) approached me that night at dinner. I was more or less recovered and just wanted to keep my head low and accept my new flaw and new life under Truth and Silence.

"They're not what they seem," he said.

I shook my head at him, not brave enough to speak against the two. Ollie, who I noticed was also missing an eye, leaned in closer to me, and closer, and closer as if I had some secret, something of any importance to tell him.

"They're really gods," I said.

"We'll see."

That would be hard for us in the future. Silence always appeared to hear us whenever we wanted to meet, probably some strange godly power.

But eventually, he would pass notes to me on his phone. It was small, some variation of Android that could fit in a palm. That last note he sent was what got us in trouble.

Florecent lights buzzed overhead as I plopped my purse on my desk. The smell of dust and stale coffee permeated the air as a stale box of donuts lay on the desk beside me, attracting flies. The suns last rays set in the horizon, making the changing leaves glow. I longed to take a walk outside and breath the cool crisp air, but it would be dark soon and I had to clock in.

“Do you have any plans for Halloween,” said Rob, my coworker. “We’re taking the kids out to trunk or treat out at our church meet up on Sunday.”

I put my head down and rolled my eyes. “Samhain, I celebrate Samhain, and I’ve taken off the last week of October,” I said under my breath. I was stuck in this dreary office and time couldn’t pass fast enough, and here was Mr. Family man asking me to cover for him.

“What?”

“I’m taking off next week, I have other plans,” I said.

“So you can’t cover my shift on Sunday? The kids were looking forward to trunk or treat.”

“Ask Dave, he practically lives here, he’ll take your shift if he hasn’t already.”

“I would but Dave is out for the weekend.”

“Rob, I’ve already picked up a shift for you last week, please check the schedule for someone else, this holiday is important to me.” My hands curled into fists and I gritted my teeth, the nerve of some coworkers.

The loading ticker showed on my desk, taking a full five minutes to log in.

:Ericka! It’s great to see you. Got anything planned, bestie?:

I smiled at Angie’s message, ah at least some conversation to break up the monotony of my shift tonight.

:Yeah, I’m going to hang out with some friends, did you want to come out with us?:

:I wish I could , but I’m working overtime tomorrow, then I have to pack up.:

:Well, I hope you have fun.:

:I will.:

Sometimes I wish I had more time in the day. Angie and I would spend time in between calls and projects to joke or complain about the system crashing. However , working on night shift crushed most plans for hanging out. Nothing was open after we got off work except for the emergency room and truck stops. I also commuted forty minutes to work and back and ended up staying home on my days off. Perhaps when I got back from vacation I’d make more time to spend with them, attend group functions. Who am I kidding? Then I’d have to spend time with Rob and his family as well, yikes. No, when I returned I would treat Angie out for coffee, just hang out at Starbucks down the road. Anything to break the monotony.

I sighed and went back to reading my email. Kale666@gmail, jumped out in red letters. It was obvious spam, but they weren’t wrong, kale is the devil.

As soon as i clicked delete the screen tuned a sickly yellow hue and the letters turned blood red. The words became mangled and began to melt down the screen.

I swore under my breath, there was a virus embedded into this demonic salad. Now I had to call IT, all to have some condescending jaskass mansplain to me about clicking outside emails or remote into my sytem. Right when I was about to dial the overhead lights dimmed before winking out into darkness, along with my phone and computer.

A flashlight glowed as a few security guards came to check out the breaker room.

“We’ll get the generator back up in no time, you guys sit tight, ” said Ralph. The kindly old man was the the head security guard. With him stood Jarvis, a laid back security guard that held the flashlight.

Another loud hum and the generator kicked up, shoving a plume of dark smoke into the air.

“We’re having an electrical outage. I’m going to need y’all to move to building two,” said Ralph.

I sighed, very well, I would pack my stuff and play musical cubicles until they got the problem resolved. Hopefully I’d be able to log into my phone and complete my before the night ended. The lights flashed again as Ralph grumbled.

We packed up our things to move to the building next door. This night couldn’t end soon enough, but at least I’d be off for the week after my shift.

I tried to turn my computer on one last time to sign out, this time the screen lit up black with blood red drips of code oozing down the page. Random letters filling out the word ZALGO. Zalgo? I remembered hearing about Zalgo as some internet boogeyman, some dark god that infected coding.

Ralph let out an agonizing scream as his his body floated in in the air. I froze as a spindly figure slammed him repeatedly against the floor. He screamed until his voice became wet gurgles. The creature tossed against the wall, leaving a trail of blood as he slid down.

“GET OUT!” I screamed at the creature as I pushed all my will at it. I was terrified, but also angry that this creature, this bug would dare terrorize me at my work. Oh, this was on like donky kong.

The spindly creature screamed and unnatural high pitched sound before fading into the wall. Pressure surrounded me and the air grew freezing. My breath came out in cold puffs against the dimming florescent lights. Rob coward under his desk, whispering the lords prayer, I knelt down beside him.

“This has to be a dream, some nightmare. I’m going to wake up next to my wife in a few minutes,” his eyes were desperate and gleaming with tears.

“I’m afraid not. We’re going to have to dig our heels in and fight. The only way out of this is through-”

“What are you talking about?”

“Long story, I’ll explain later we don’t have time.”

“I’m going to need y’all to stay down!” said Jarvis. His laid back demeanor changed, his eyes became hard as he crouched and explored the territory, he held out a taser in front of him.

His radio made a static garbled sound as the lights flickered around us. Jarvis walked along side the wall, nervously glancing at the perimeter. I curled under my desk, numb from shock.

Movement flashed in the inky blackness, and I crawled under the desk next to Rob. A shadow in the darkness out of the corner of my eye that would slip back into the shadows when I looked at it head on.

All I wanted was a day off, I had put in weeks of overtime to have this vacation and this thing was not going to take it away from me. I needed to find Jarvis , pull the fire alarm and run the hell out of dodge. Let the authorities or a priest deal with this. What happened to Ralph was horrible and I would not let that happen to anyone else. I wasn’t about to sit around and play victim to this thing.

I inched carefully towards Robs desk, and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around and bear hugged me so tight the air was knocked out of me.

“I have a wife and kids. Oh God, what did I do to deserve any of this?”

“Dude, I can’t breath.”

He released his grip on me as the air rushed back into my lungs.

“Sorry,” he said.

“It’s fine. The second thing I need you to do is to stop panicking. I have a plan to escape, but we’re going to have to find Jarvis.”

“But he’s security, he can handle himself-”

“Not against this thing.” I reached in my shirt and pulled out my pentacle. “I’ve worked with spirits before, most are harmless but this bug is malevolent. It’s time for me to crack the Raid out.”

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“I have no clue, but I’d rather improvise a plan and risk getting out of here alive than giving up. You have faith, you’ll need it. Hang on to it, it’ll be the one thing that grounds yourself against it.”

From my experiences in ghost hunting and research, malignant spirits fed on those with little direction or sense of self. That’s why faith banished them, it was you calling in on your higher self, hell, even an atheist could banish it if they had enough belief in themselves and the solid world around them, just replace “may the power of Christ compel you with , ‘you won’t ruin my reality’.” For me it was “I reject your reality and substitute it with my own!” bad choice of works in fact checking or politics, but golden in fighting malevolent spirits.

I held my breath as I crept along the edge of the office wall, the creature flitting through the shadows, just out of my sight. The coward was avoiding me, perhaps escape was going to be easy. Jarvis was standing at the corner, his gun pointed and his eyes scanning the area. A dark inky shadow slipped away, the hum growing louder as the office went from pitch black to a sickly yellow light.

“Jarvis?”

He turned around, his gun trained on me, I raised my hands in submission.

“Erika! I told you and Rob to remain in place!”

“I know.”

Jarvis lowered his gun and took a deep breath. “What the hell is going on?”

“This is going to sound a little woo woo, but what we’re not up against a human intruder-”

“I’m gonna tell you something, this place was always a bit off, especially at night. But I didn’t say nothing, as long as the bills were paid. So what if the lights occasionally flickered or the computers froze, that’s normal night shit, right? Tell me why they hired a security guard when they need a motherfucking exorcist or some shit?”

“I am an exorcist. Well, at least I am for my coven.”

“You can fight this thing? You saw what it did to Ralph?”

“ The worst thing you can do right now is panic and feed this thing energy. That’s why I need you to calm down.”

Jarvis stared at me blankly, I my reflection gleamed in his dark eyes, and behind me a shadow crept. I rushed to his other side and the being skittered away.

“It’s afraid of me,” I said.

Rob slowly walked from around the corner.

“All right. Everyone is accounted for, treat it like an active shooter drill. We need ot reach the door,” I said.

The lights flickered off and we ran towards the exit door at the end of the office, only to find it locked.

Jarvis grabbed my hand and I grabbed Robs as we made it toward the other door only to find that it was also locked.

“Oh come on! Out of every trope possible!” I punched the door with my hand only to yelp and shake the pain out of my knuckles.

“So what do we do now?” asked Rob. His eyes pleading for help.

“The only thing I can do, fight it.”

We ran down to the break room, the lights flashed on and off before we got there. I led them through the door slamming it behind me. I found the salt shakers and salt packets and poured out a rough circle. Dizzyness hit me like a wave and the pressure dropped so fast that both of my ears popped. Shadows formed into a long spindly creature, like it was shoved together out of old coat hangers and ink. It reached through the door and cried when it hit the salt.

Rob clutched his cross pendent as Jarvis aimed his gun.

“Don’t shoot, it won’t do any good. Rob keep praying.” I grabbed a handful of salt packets. “I’m going , if I don’t come back, call Mark and tell him that I love him.” I handed Jarvis my phone, my husband’s contact information on the front page.

“You can’t lay that on me, let me go with you.” Jarvis aimed toward the window, awaiting the creature to return.

“I need you to stay with Rob.” I opened the door and walked out into the office. The lights returned to a sickly yellow and the screams became more distant. Whatever this thing was, it didn’t want to deal with me. It wanted the men and I prayed to Gaia that the salt was enough to repel it.

The creature screamed , it clicked like nails on a chalkboard. I tried each of the doors, all of them locked. The hallway seemed like a maze of doorways and florescent lights. I tried each door, jiggling each handle to no avail. Until I reached the stairway at the end of the hall, that doorway opened with little problem.

The sky ungulated with purple and blue swirls though the windows. Another wave of dizziness hit me as I climbed the stairs toward the top floor. The spindly creature crouched at the stairway, leaning like a praying mantis, it’s eyes peering at me . It screeched again and leapt up to the top floor.

I chased after it, the lights flickering on behind me as I chased it. I honestly had no idea what I would do if I caught up to it. A salt packet certainly wasn’t going to kill it and I had no weapon. I regretted not listening to Jarvis.

I went to the empty breakroom by roof in our building. I rummaged through all the cabinets but all I found was a plastic spoon and a couple of trays.

Lightning flashed revealing the monster couched in praying mantis form, a portal swirling behind it. Perhaps that was were it came from, why it chose to attack an office in night shift was beyond me.

I walked out onto the roof and the wind started to blow. The creature lunged for me but I ducked back. I threw some salt in its direction and it shrieked at me. I felt the ground beneath my feet. I was going to go on vacations, this creature was not going to ruin it for me.

Two gunshots fired and the creature screamed. Jarvis stood in the doorway his gun in perfect aim with the creature.

“I told you not to come in here!”

“Ericka, I need you to stay back-”

“It’s non corporeal-”

Jarvis began to float in the air, the creature taking control of his body..

“I am the daughter of Gia, the Daughter of the Hecate and Morrigan!”

The creature shrieked and Jarvis dropped to the ground. Rob followed confidently behind him, holding the cross out in front of him.

“Down into the ground and among the roots, out of our leaves and shoots. Leave as all be, you have no power over me!” I chanted.

The swirling clouds overhead were pierced by bright sunlight. The creature leapt at Jarvis but Rob and I stood in it’s way, forming a wall between it and the security guard.

Full sunlight hit the creature and it screamed one last time before turning into a pile of dust beneath our feet. And we both fell, exhausted in the morning sun.

I walked into back into the breakroom to find all the lights back on in their pale, florescent glory. The doors once again opened and I followed the stairs down. Ralph’s lifeless body lie on the first floor. But it was no longer mangled, but still and cold. Jarvis called 911 and soon sirens sounded in the background.

“You saved my life,” said Jarvis. “You both did.”

“What do we tell the police when they show up?” asked Rob.

“That there was a power outage and Ralph had a medical emergency. That’s what the coverup will be.” I sighed.

“How did you know what to do?”

“It’s a long story.”

Long story indeed. I managed to defeat this creature easily, but who sent it? The beast wasn’t intelligent enough to come up with it’s own plan. Someone set it on us, and I sat thinking of everyone I could have offended. A customer would have no idea who I was outside of work, so that idea was out. Perhaps it had nothing to do with me, and it was some lover’s quarrel or someone upset and wanting vengeance on their boss.

To cover my bases I took a salt shaker and sprinkled them around the building. I thought of a steel wall covering the office building. I hoped it was enough of a ward to last until I returned to work next week.” I would stay for a few more hours and answer questions from the authorities. My work had better pay me overtime for this.

My vacation couldn’t come fast enough, I wanted to go hiking on a mountain pass far from phones and civilization. You best believe Mark was driving me out there after the night I’ve had.

I am a good man.

I know I'm a good man, but I've got a gun and I'm going to kill a man who meant a lot to me, who at one time was my pastor, my mentor, my uncle.

What's the saying about when a good man goes to war?

When I arrived at the church I work at after my two-day absence, it looked like the whole church was leaving. From some distance away, the perhaps one hundred other workers pouring out of the grand church looked antlike compared to the great mass of the place.

Their smiles leaving met my frown entering, and they made sure to avoid me. No one spoke to me, and I didn't plan on speaking to them.

I made my way to the sanctuary, hoping to find my uncle, the head pastor here. He would spend hours praying there in the morning. Today he was nowhere to be seen. No one was. I alone was tortured by the images of the stained glass windows bearing my Savior.

I'm not an idiot. I know what religion has done, but it has also done a lot of good. I've seen marriages get saved, people get healed, folks change for the better, and I've seen our church make a positive impact on the world.

My faith gave me purpose, my faith gave me friends, and my faith was the reason I didn't kill myself at thirteen.

Jesus means something to me, and the people here have bastardized his name! I slammed my fist on a pew, cracking it. It is my right to kill him. If Jesus raised a whip to strike the greedy in the temple, I can raise a Glock to the face of my uncle for what he did. I know there's a verse about punishing those who harm children.

"Solomon," I recognized the voice before I turned to see her. Ms. Anne, the head secretary, spoke behind me. Before this, she was something like a mother to me. A surrogate mother because I never knew mine. Her words unnerved me now. My hand shook, and the pain of slamming my hand into the pew finally hit me. Then it all came back to me, the pain of betrayal. I hardened my heart. I let the anger out. I heard my own breath pump out of me. My hand crept for my pistol in my waistband, and with my hand on my pistol, I faced her.

"What?" I asked.

She reeled in shock at how I spoke to her, taking two steps back. Her eyebrows narrowed and lips tightened in a disbelieving frown. She was an archetype of a cheerful, caring church mother. A little plump, sweet as candy, and with an air of positivity that said, "I believe in you," but also an air of authority that said, "I'm old, I've earned my respect."

We stared at one another. She waited for an apology. It did not come, and she relented. She shuffled under the pressure of my gaze. Did she know she was caught?

"I, um, your Uncle—uh, Pastor Saul wants to see you. He's upstairs. Sorry, your Uncle is giving everyone the whole day off except you," she said. With no reply from me, Ms. Anne kept talking. "I was with him, and as soon as you told him you were coming in today, he announced on the intercom everyone could have the day off today. Except you, I guess. Family, huh?"

I didn't speak to her. Merely glared at her, trying to determine who she really was. Did she know what was really going on?

"Why's your arm in a cast?" Her eyebrows raised in awe. "What happened to you?"

She stepped closer, no doubt to comfort me with a hug as she had since I was a child.

These people were not what I thought they were. They frightened me now. I toyed with the revolver on my hip as she got closer.

Her eyes went big. She stumbled backward, falling. Then got herself up and evacuated as everyone else did.

She wouldn't call the cops. The church mother knew better than to involve anyone outside the church in church matters. Ms. Anne might call my uncle though, which was fine. I ran upstairs to his office to confront him before he got the call.

Well, Reader, I suppose I should clue you in on what exactly made me so mad. I discovered something about my church.

It was two days ago at my friend Mary's apartment...

It was 2 AM in the morning, and I contemplated destroying my career as a pastor before it even got started because my chance at real love blossomed right beside me.

I stayed at a friend's house, exhausted but anxious to avoid sleep. I pushed off my blanket to only cover my legs and sat up on the couch. I blinked to fight against sleep and refocus on the movie on the TV. A slasher had just killed the overly horny guy.

Less than two feet apart from me—and only moving closer as the night wore on—was the owner of the apartment I was in, a girl I was starting to have feelings for that I would never be allowed to date, much less marry, if I wanted to inherit my uncle's church.

Something aphrodisiacal stirred in the air and now rested on the couch. I knew I was either getting love or sex tonight. Sex would be a natural consequence of lowered inhibitions, the chill of her apartment that these thin blankets couldn't dampen, and the fact we found ourselves closer and closer on her couch. The frills of our blankets touched like fingers.

Love would be a natural consequence of our common interests, our budding friendship—for the last three weeks, I had texted her nearly every hour of every day, smiling the whole time. I hoped it would be love. Like I said, I was a good man. A good Christian boy, which meant I was twenty-four and still a virgin. Up until that moment, up until I met Mary, being a virgin wasn't that hard. I had never wanted someone more, and the feeling seemed mutual.

The two of us played a game since I got here. Who's the bigger freak? Who can say the most crude and wild thing imaginable? Very unbecoming as a future pastor, but it was so freeing! I never got to be untamed, my wild self, with anyone connected to the church. And that was Mary, a free woman. Someone whom my uncle would never accept. My uncle was like a father to me; I never knew my mom or dad.

Our game started off as jokes. She told me A, I told her B. And we kept it going, seeing who could weird out the other.

Then we moved to truths and then to secrets, and is there really any greater love than that, to share secrets? To expose your greatest mistakes to someone else and ask for them to accept you anyway?

I didn't quite know how I felt about her yet in a romantic sense. She was a friend of a friend. I was told by my friend not to try to date her because she wasn't my type, and it would just end in heartbreak and might destroy the friend group. The funny thing is, I know she was told the same.

"That was probably my worst relationship," Mary said, revealing one more secret, pulling the covers close to her. "Honestly, I think he was a bit of a porn addict too." Her face glowed. "What's the nastiest thing you've watched?"

I bit my lip, gritted my teeth, and strained in the light of the TV. Our game was unspoken, but the rules were obvious—you can't just back down from a question like that.

I said my sin to her and then asked, "What's yours?"

She groaned at mine and then made two genuinely funny jokes at my expense.

"Nah, nah, nah," I said between laughs. "What's yours?"

"No judgments?" she asked.

"No judgments," I said.

"And you won't tell the others?"

"I promise."

"Pinky promise," she said and leaned in close. I liked her smile. It was a little big, a little malicious. I liked that. I leaned forward and our pinkies interlocked. My heart raced. Love or sex fast approaching.

She said what it was. Sorry to leave you in the dark, reader, but the story's best details are yet to come.

She was so amazed at her confession. She said, "Jesus Christ" after it.

"Yeah, you need him," I joked back. Her face went dark.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked.

"What? Just a joke."

"No, it's not. I can see it in your eyes you're judging me." She pulled away from me. The chill of her room felt stronger than before, and my chances at sex or love moved away with her.

"Dude, no," I said. "You made jokes about me and I made one about you."

She eyed me softer then, but her eyes still held a skeptical squint.

"Sorry," she said, "I just know you're religious so I thought you were going to try to get me to go to church or something."

"Uh, no, not really." Good ol' guilt settled in because her 'salvation' was not my priority.

"Oh," she slid beside me again. Face soft, her constant grin back on. "I just had some friends really try to force church on me and I didn't like that. I won't step foot in a church."

"Oh, sorry to hear that."

"There's one in particular I hate. Calgary."

"Oh, uh, why?" I froze. I hoped I didn't show it in my face, but I was scared as hell she knew my secret. Calgary was my uncle's church.

"They just suck," she said, noncommittal.

Did she know?

"What makes them suck?"

She took a deep breath and told me her story—

At ten years old, I wanted to kill myself. I had made a makeshift noose in my closet. I poured out my crate of DVDs on the floor and brought the crate into the closet so I could stand on it. I flipped the crate upside down so it rested just below the noose. I stepped up and grabbed the rope. I was numb until that moment. My mom left, my family hated me, and I feared my dad was lost in his own insane world. The holes in the wall, welts in his own skin, and a plethora of reptiles he let roam around our house were proof.

And it was so hot. He kept it as hot as hell in that house. My face was drenched as I stepped up the crate to hang myself. I hoped heaven would be cold.

Heaven. That's what made me stop. I would be in heaven and my dad would be here. I didn't want to go anywhere without my dad, even heaven.

Tears gushed from my face and mixed with my salty skin to make this weird taste. I don't know why I just remember that.

Anyway, I leapt off the crate and ran to my dad.

I ran from the closet and into the muggy house. A little girl who needed a hug from her dad more than anything in the world. It was just him and me after all.

Reptile terrariums littered the house; my dad kept buying them. We didn't even have enough places to put them anymore. I leaped over a habitat of geckos and ran around the home of bearded dragons. It was stupid. I love animals but I hated the feeling that I was always surrounded by something inhuman crawling around. It hurt that I felt like my dad cared about them more than me. But I didn't care about any of that; I needed my dad.

I pushed through the door of his room, but his bed was vacated, so that meant he was probably in his tub, but I knew getting clean was the last thing on his mind.

I carried the rope with me, still in the shape of a noose. I wanted him to see, to see what almost happened.

I crashed inside.

"Mary, stop!" he said when I took half a step in. "I don't want you to step on Leviathan." Leviathan was his python. My eyes trailed from the yellow tail in front of me to the body that coiled around my dad. Leviathan clothed my dad. It wrapped itself around his groin, waist, arms, and neck.

And it was a tight hold. I had seen my father walk and even run with Leviathan on him. Today, he just sat in the tub, watching it or watching himself. I'm unsure; his mental illness confused me as a child, so I never really knew what he was doing.

I was the one who almost made the great permanent decision that night, but my dad looked worse than me. His veins showed and he appeared strained as if in a state of permanent discomfort, he sweat as much as I did, and I think he was having trouble breathing. The steam that formed in the room made it seem like a sauna.

He was torturing himself, all for Leviathan's sake.

"Dad, I—"

"Close the door!" My dad barked, between taking a large, uncomfortable breath. "You'll make it cold for Leviathan."

"Yes, sir." I did as he commanded and shut the door. Then I ran to him.

"Stop," he raised his hand to me, motioning for me to be still. He looked at Leviathan, not me. It was like they communed with one another.

I was homeschooled so there wasn't anyone to talk to about it, but it's such a hard thing to be afraid of your parents and be afraid for your parents and to need them more than anything.

"Come in, honey," he said after his mental deliberation with the snake.

And I did, feeling an odd shame and relief. I raised the noose up and I couldn't find the right words to express how I felt.

I settled on, "I think I need help."

"Oh, no," my dad said and rose from the tub. So quick, so intense. For a heartbeat, I was so scared I almost ran away. Then I saw the tears in his eyes and saw he was more like my dad than he had been in a long time.

He hugged me and everything was okay. It was okay. I was sad all the time, but it was going to be okay. The house was infested, a sauna, and a mess, but life is okay with love, y'know?

He cried and I cried, but snakes can't cry so Leviathan rested on his shoulder.

After an extended hug, he took Leviathan off and said he needed to make a call. When he came back, he told me to get in the car with him. I obeyed as I was taught to.

We rode in his rickety pickup truck in the dead of night in complete silence until he broke it.

"I was bad, MaryBaby," he said.

"What?"

"As a kid, I wasn't right," he said. My father randomly twitched. Like someone overdosing on drugs if you've seen that.

He flew out of his lane. I grabbed the handle for stability. The oncoming semi approached and honked at us. I braced for impact. He whipped the car back over. His cold coffee cup fell and spilled in my seat. My head banged against the window.

It hurt and I was confused. What was happening? The world looked funny. My eyes teared up again, making the night a foggy mess.

"I wasn't good as a child, Mary Baby. I was different from the others. I saw things, I felt things differently. Probably like you."

He turned to me and extended his hand. I flinched under it, but he merely rubbed my forehead.

"I'm sorry about that," he said, hands on the wheel again, still twitching, still flinching. "You know you're the most precious thing in the world to me, right?"

"Yes, I know. Um, we're going fast. You don't want to get pulled over, right?"

"Oh, I wouldn't stop for them. No, MaryBaby, because your soul's on the line. I won't let you end up like me."

There was no music on; he only allowed a specific type of Christian music anyway, weird chants that even scared my traditionally Catholic friends. The horns of other drivers he almost crashed into were the only noise.

"What do you mean, Daddy?"

"I was a bad kid."

"What did you do?"

"I was off to myself, antisocial, sensitive, cried a lot, and I wasn't afraid of the dark, MaryBaby. I'd dig in the dark if I had to."

His body convulsed at this, his wrist twisted and the car whipped going in and out of our double yellow-lined lane.

I screamed.

In, out, in, out, in, out. Life-threatening zigzags. Then he adjusted as if nothing happened.

"Daddy, I don't think you were evil. I think you were just different."

This cheered him up.

"Yes, some differences are good," he said. "We're all children under God's rainbow."

"Yes!" I said. "We're both just different. We're not bad."

"Then why were we treated badly? We were children of God, but we were supposed to be loved."

"We love each other."

"That's not enough, Mary Baby. The good people have to love us."

"But if they're mean, how good can they be?"

"Good as God. They're closer to Him than us, so we have to do what they say."

"But, Daddy, I don't think you're bad. I don't think I'm bad. I think we should just go home."

"No, we're already here. They have to change you, MaryBaby. You're not meant to be this way. You'll come out good in a minute."

We parked. I didn't even notice we had arrived anywhere. I locked my door. We were at a church parking lot. The headlights of perhaps three other cars were the only lights. He unlocked my door. I locked it back. Shadowy figures approached our car.

"It's okay, honey. I did this when I was a kid. They're going to do the same thing to me that they did to you."

BANG

BANG

BANG

Someone barged against the door.

"They made me better, honey. The same thing they're going to do to you."

My dad unlocked the door. Someone pulled it open before I could close it back. I screamed. This someone unbuckled my seatbelt and dragged me out. I still have the scars all up my elbow to my hand.

Screaming didn't stop him, crying didn't stop him, my trail of blood didn't stop him.

"And that's it. That's all I remember," she said and shrugged.

"Wait. What? There's no way that's all."

"Yep. Sorry. Well..."

"No, tell me what happened. What did they do to your dad? Does it have to do with the reptiles? What did they do to you?"

"I just remember walking through a dark hallway into a room with candles lit up everywhere and people in a circle. I think they were all pastors in Calgary. They tried to perform an exorcism. Then it goes blank. Sorry."

"No, that's not among the criteria for performing an exorcism."

"Excuse me? Are you saying I'm lying?" she said with a well-deserved attitude in her voice because I might have been yelling at her.

I wasn't mad at her, to be clear. Passion polluted my voice, not anger. My church had strict criteria for when people could have an exorcism, and suicide wasn't in it. You don't understand how grateful I was to think that our church was scandal-free. I thought we were the good guys.

"No," I said, still not calm. "I'm just saying a child considering suicide isn't in the criteria to perform an exorcism."

"Oh, maybe it's different for Calgary."

"No, I know it's not."

"And how do you know that?"

"No, wait, you need to tell me what really happened."

"Need?"

"Yeah, need. It's not just about you; this is important." I know I misspoke, but for me it was a need. I could fix this. I could take over Calgary in a couple of years; I had to know its secrets.

"It's never about me, is it?" she asked.

"Well, this certainly just isn't—"

"It's always about you because you're good, you're Christian, and you're going to make this world better or something."

"What? No, come on, where is this coming from?"

"It's always okay because you're Christian."

"That's not fair. I just want to know what happened because it wasn't an exorcism. What happened?"

"It's getting late. I think I want you to leave."

"Hey, no, wait. I'm doing the right thing here. Let me help you..."

"Oh, I do not want or need your help. You think you're better than me and could somehow fix it because you're Christian."

"No, I think I could fix it because I have the keys to the church."

"Oh..." she was stunned, and that mischievous grin formed on her face again. "Well," she swallowed hard and took a deep breath. "They took something from me, something that's still down there. And I'm not being metaphorical; I can feel it missing."

"If you lost something, let's go get it back."

There was another possibility I hadn't thought of between sex or love that I could have tonight: adventure.

That night we left to have our lives changed forever.

Mary and I waited for the security van to go around the church, and then we entered with my keys. Mary used the light from her phone and led the way.

Mary rushed through our church. It is a knockoff cathedral like they have in Rome with four floors and twists and turns one could get lost in. With no instructions, no tour, no direction, Mary preyed through the halls. Specterlike, so fast, a blur of light and then a turn. I stumbled in darkness. She pressed on. Her speedy footsteps away from me were a haunting reply. I got up and followed, like a guest in my own home.

How did she know where to go?

Deeper. Deeper. Mary caused us to go. Dark masked her and dark masked us; everything was more frightening and more real. We journeyed down to the basement. A welcome dead end. As kids, we had played in the basement all the time in youth group. Maliciousness can't exist where kids find peace, or so I thought.

"Could you have made a wrong turn?" I asked, catching my breath.

Mary did not answer. Mary walked to the edge of the hall, and the walls parted for her in a slow groan. This was impossible. I looked around the empty basement which I thought I knew so well. Hide and seek, manhunt, and mafia—all of it was down here. How could this all be under my nose?

Mary walked through still without a word to me. She hadn't spoken since we got here. Whatever was there called to her, and she certainly wasn't going to ignore their call now. She pulled the ancient door open.

Mary swung her flashlight forward and revealed perhaps 100 cages full of children... perhaps? I couldn't tell. The cages pressed against the walls of a massive hall, never touching the center of the room where a purple carpet rested.

Sex trafficking. A church I was part of was sex trafficking. My legs went weak, my stomach turned in knots.

Mary pressed forward. I called her name to slow her down, but she wouldn't stop. She went deeper into the darkness, and I could barely stand.

"Oh, you've come home," a feminine voice called from the darkness. "And you've brought a friend."

I do not know how else to describe it to you, reader, but the air became hard. As if it was thick, a pain to breathe in, as if the air was solid.

"Mary," I called to her between coughs. She shone her light on a cage far ahead. I ran after her and collapsed after only a few steps. I couldn't breathe, much less move in this.

Above us, something crawled, or danced, or ran across the ceiling. The pitter-patter was right above me, something like rain.

"Mary," I yelled again, but she did not seem interested in me.

"Mary," the thing on the ceiling mocked me. "What do you want with my daughter?"

"Daughter?" I asked, stupefied, drained, and maybe dying. She ignored my question.

"Mary, dear," she said as sweet as pure sugar. "Don't leave your guest behind."

And with that, my body was not my own. It was pulled across the floor by something invisible. My back burned against the carpet. My body swung in circles until I ran into Mary.

We collided, and I fought to rise again because this was my church. A bastardization of my faith. This was my responsibility.

I rose in time to see Mary's phone flung in the air and crash into something.

Crack. The light from the phone fled and flung us into darkness.

I scrambled in blackness until I found her arm to help her rise.

"Mary," I said between gasps for air. "Have to leave... They're sex trafficking."

"Sex trafficking!" That voice in the dark yelled. "Young man, I have never. I am Tiamat, the mother of all gods, and I am soul trafficking."

By her will, the cage lit up in front of us, not by anything natural but by an unholy orange light. Bathed in this orange light was the skeleton of a child in the fetal position. The child looked at me and frowned. At the top of it was a sign that read:

MARY DAUGHTER OF ISAAC WHO IS A SERVANT OF NEHEBEKU

FOR SALE.

"Wha-wha-wha," it was all too much, too confusing.

I didn't get a break to process either. An uncontrollable shudder of fear went through my entire body, as if the devil himself tapped my shoulder.

I lost control of my body. My body rose in the pitch black. I was a human balloon, and that was terrifying. I held on to Mary's arm for leverage, anything to keep my feet from leaving the ground. She tried to pull me back down with her. It didn't work. That force, that wicked woman, no creature, no being, that being that controlled the room yanked my arm from Mary. It snapped right at the shoulder.

I screamed.

I cried.

That limp, useless arm pulled me up.

This feminine being unleashed a wet heat on me the closer I got, like I was being gently dripped on by something above, but it didn't make sense. I couldn't comprehend the shape of it. I kept hearing the pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter of so many feet crawling or walking above me.

And how it touched me, how it pulled me up without using its actual hands but an invisible fist squeezing my body.

I got closer, and the heat coming from the thing burned as if I was outside of an oven or like a giant's hot breath. I was an ant ready to be devoured by an ape.

I reached an apex. My body froze in the air just outside of the peak of that heat. It burned my skin. The being scorched me, an angry black sun that did not provide light, nor warmth; only burning rage.

"Did you know you belong to me now?" the great voice said.

I shook my head no twice. Mary called my name from below. Without touching me, the being pushed my cheeks in and made me nod my head like I was a petulant child learning to obey.

"Oh, yes you do. Oh, yes you do," she said. "Now, let's make it permanent. I just need to write my name on your heart."

The buttons on my flannel ripped open. The voice tossed my white T-shirt away. Next, my chest unraveled, with surgical precision. I was delicately unsewn. In less than ten seconds, I was deconstructed with the precision of the world's greatest surgeons.

All that stood between her and my heart were my ribs. She treated them as simple door handles, something that could be pulled to get what she wanted. One at a time, the being pulled open my ribs to reveal my heart; the pain was excruciating, and my chest sounded like the Fourth of July.

The pain was excruciating. My screams echoed off the wall like I was a choir singing this thing's praises. Only once she had pulled apart every rib did she stop.

"Oh, dear, it seems you already belong to someone else. Fine, I suppose we'll get you patched up."

Maybe I moaned a reply, hard to say. I was unaware of anything except that my body was being repaired and I was being lowered. I landed gently but crashed through exhaustion.

"Daughter, get him out of here. It's not your time yet."

I moaned something. I had to learn more. I had to understand. This was bigger than I was told. I wasn't in Hell, but this certainly wasn't Heaven.

"Oh, don't start crying, boy. If you want anyone to blame, talk to your boss."

Oh, and I would, dear reader. I stayed home the next few days to recover mentally and to get a gun to kill that blasphemous, sacrilegious bastard.

The following emails were recovered from the University of Cardiff's Biochemistry laboratory following the incidents of 19/09/XX. They are not to be released to the public in any form.
Unauthorised access to said emails will result in termination.

Dr Henrik Lars - 17/03/XX

Dear Professor Goldman,

Experiment #7 has been a resounding success.
I have learned from the failures of #6 and transported the stem cells to the dish using a sterile scalpel, so there was no chance of cross-contamination. Thank you again for the increased supply of 09-476, it has been vital to test larger doses if we wish to fully grasp its potential.
Report is as follows:

- Stem cells implanted in a 0.4 mol/dm^(3) solution of 09-476
- Cells enlarged in mass by a factor of 2 after exactly 15.3 hours
- Muscle tissue detected after 32 hours

I really feel confident about this one.

Dr Henrik Lars, PhD

Professor Brynn Goldman - 18/03/XX

Dr Henrik,

That's a pleasure to hear! I'm glad we managed to convince the panel to bring in that new shipment. Number seven already feels like a prime candidate for further experimentation.
Did you notice any corrosion with an increased concentration of 09-476? I'm concerned that it will negatively affect the growth of the cells.

I've allowed for more funding to be directed towards this project. Use it wisely. This could be our golden goose.

Best of luck,
Prof Brynn Goldman

Dr Henrik Lars - 30/03/XX

Dear Professor,

Experiment #7 has grown to almost 4 grams. It is entirely comprised of muscle fiber and stem cells, the latter already multiplying as I type. It has absorbed almost an entire syringe of 09-476. I am putting in a request for more, as well as a second batch of cells to replicate #7. In a few days, it will be ready for preliminary testing.

It has shown to be mildly resistant to high temperatures - I accidentally increased the heat of the lab whilst I was on lunch by 2 degrees Kelvin and it showed no signs of degradation.

This is more than a revolutionary new drug, Professor. I feel like I am on the brink of a scientific breakthrough.

Dr Henrik

Professor Brynn Goldman - 08/04/XX

Dr Henrik,

I'm delighted to hear that experiment number seven has been so informative. I agree with you, this has the potential to be a very interesting research task. Unfortunately, I have to disagree with the idea of your "scientific breakthrough". What you have cultivated is nothing more than a set of cells, it is not sentient or conscious. Please try to stick to the original project. It's what we're getting paid for after all.

Also - I've had a complaint from Floor Two that one of their barrels of synthetic amniotic fluid has gone missing. It's quite important to them. Now I'm not saying you did it, per se, but the security cameras did pick up somebody matching your physique rolling a barrel into a lift in the early hours of the morning a couple days ago. If you happen to know anything about it, they'd be very forgiving if it could be returned.

Thank you,
Prof Brynn Goldman

Dr Henrik Lars - 22/04/XX

Professor,

Experiments #8-12 are going very well. I am watching their progress with great interest. I request a few more samples of 09-476.

Experiment #7 is extraordinary. It has grown to the size of a foetus. In fact, it has taken the form of one. Analysis shows that it is behaving exactly like one, too, only growing at an enhanced rate due to the introduction of more concentrated 09-476. This is utterly remarkable. I have spent the day glancing at it while researching papers that might discuss something like this - I have found nothing. #7 is truly unique.

I have placed it in a tank in the centre of my laboratory. It requires very little care, no nutrients at all other than 09-476. It will not respond to stimuli at the minute, so I cannot claim that it holds any developmental cognitive function. Although, one time, I could have sworn it tilted its head toward me.

Please inform Floor Two that I will be needing more synthetic fluid. I am sure that they will understand how vital this experiment is when it is explained to them.

Dr Henrik

Professor Brynn Goldman - 24/04/XX

Dr Henrik.

This changes things.
If you're cultivating a foetus down there, you'll need some more staff. I'll send some junior researchers to assist with Number 7's development.
I agree, this is quite remarkable, but it has been done before. The most interesting part's the fact that it doesn't need to eat - how does it survive? Does it breathe? Does it think?

Please keep me updated, Henrik.
Prof Brynn Goldman

Dr Henrik Lars - 05/05/XX

Professor,

I was right. It is life. #7 has begun to move certain limbs within its tank. It has now grown to the size of a newborn, yet it shows no signs of the same basic intelligence. Its skin is pale and translucent - I can note the lack of basic organ development. It is hollow.

I have attempted to test certain responses, such as tapping on the tank or playing auditory stimuli. It has stirred slightly each time. Once, it placed a fleshy hand to the glass. I will not leave the laboratory this week. I will sleep under my desk, just in case there are any updates. The rate at which it is developing is incredible.

Dr Henrik

Public University Announcement - 08/05/XX

Students and Faculty,

We apologise for the recent power cut. The mains have been repaired and power should be redirected to the rest of the University as soon as possible.

Thank you for your patience!
Cardiff

Dr Henrik Lars - 09/05/XX

Professor,

What the hell happened?! A power outage? When I'm involved in research this important?

There was no emergency power routed to my laboratory. #7 has suffered a catastrophic loss in muscle mass and size. I will be needing more 09-476 immediately. The space heaters and ventilation that provided #7 with the warmth and air it needs were switched off overnight, on the one day that I chose to go back to my home. I had to listen to it burbling when I walked back in the following morning. It sounded like screaming.

I attempted to email you on the day of the outage to notify you that #7 required more tissue to rebuild what had been damaged by the outage. You did not respond, so I spliced parts of my own calf tissue to implant in #7. I am fine. I will regrow.

This may take months to rebuild.

Dr Henrik

Professor Brynn Goldman - 10/05/XX

Henrik,

You did what?! You implanted part of your own body into an experimental homunculi because you thought it looked weak?!

This is really, really worrying Henrik. You're treating the thing like it's your own child, for god's sake! If I didn't understand how groundbreaking this thing was I'd shut it down. I mean - the ethical violations alone could destroy everything I've built here! And what if you start relying on it, huh? I don't want to have to send you to fucking grief counselling if Number Seven kicks the bucket.

This had better not get out to the rest of the University. I'm already telling the board that you're doing experiments on actual IVF foetuses just to keep rival institutions from stealing the data.

God, I swear if you don't give me something incredible.

Prof Brynn Goldman

Dr Henrik Lars - 16/05/XX

Professor,

I have something incredible. #7 was successfully transported out of his tank today. He has grown to be the size of a toddler, and he looks like one too. I believe the cells I transplanted have mixed with his DNA - he looks remarkably like I did when I was around 3 or 4. He has begun to take tentative steps, and although he cannot support his bodyweight nor open his eyes, he seems to have an understanding of the world around him. When lying on my desk, as he is now, he will pick up objects for mere moments before dropping them.

This is a conscious human! I have made something that no person living has been able to make!

I am requesting an expansion to my laboratory.

Dr Henrik

Dr Henrik Lars - 30/06/XX

Professor,

#7 has begun to say his first words. I lectured him on 09-476 today as part of his pre-schooling, and while he was perched upon the chair he muttered "Henrik" under his breath. He seems just like me - his eyes are the same shade of green and his hair is an identical russet colour. He is an inquisitive sort, he enjoys playing with the lego bricks I have placed in the laboratory. His designs are quite hard to understand but I believe he is simply making shapes at the minute. Some of them look quite like animals, however, which I have had to pluck from his mouth to ensure he does not choke.

Sometimes I see a glimmer of intellect behind his pupils, some flashing moment of self-actualisation. It is strange - for a second it is like a wildly intelligent creature lurks behind the facade of a boy.

Might childcare be an option? Supervised, of course. I wish to see how #7 grows when moulded by a mother-like figure. I have suggested some names in a list attached. They will obviously have to sign NDAs.

Dr Henrik

Professor Brynn Goldman - 01/07/XX

Henrik.

The results from Number Seven's check-up came back.
The thing has no organs. None. Still.
How in god's name does it survive?

I've looked over your nanny suggestions. Funnily enough, they all share a striking resemblance to your mother. Coincidence?

Prof Brynn Goldman

Professor Brynn Goldman - 12/07/XX

We found Number Seven in the cafeteria today, Henrik.

I thought you said it couldn't eat yet? I explicitly remember you telling me last week that it had problems with swallowing, in my opinion due to its lack of digestive system.

Well, one of the dinner ladies found it curled up in the back of the kitchen, surrounded by raw beef. It'd been eating it by the packetful before, I assume, it got too full and fell asleep. Sandra thought it'd killed someone, it was covered in blood and mince.

We cannot sustain a creature like this by ourselves. You definitely can't do it alone. I think we should ask for help.

Prof Brynn Goldman

Dr Henrik Lars - 13/07/XX

NO.

#7 consuming the beef was not some kind of warning - it was a blessing. Now we can try and understand how something like him respires, defecates, consumes. He must have some kind of system that we are not seeing with our current technology. But this is not a sign that we are in over our heads, rather it is proof that we are on the right track. Could #7 have learned that the cafeteria was a place for food if he did not study hard from the nanny? Could he have opened the packaging without careful demonstration of how his limbs function? Could he have done any of this if we had not carefully cultivated his upbringing? No! He is as much my experiment as he is yours.

If we were to give him to the Government, they would simply dissect him. But there is so much more we can learn! We have made one of the most incredible discoveries in human history, and you want to hand him over? Think of the awards, Brynn. The Nobel Prize we will undoubtedly be entitled to, the recognition, the money! This and more is waiting for us if only we can complete the experiment. By my calculations, as long as I keep feeding him 09-476 he should be at teenager stage in a few months, then we can really learn.

Regardless, I have spoken to him and he said he's sorry.

Dr Henrik

Professor Brynn Goldman - 14/07/XXX

Henrik.

Stop giving it 09-476.

Prof Brynn Goldman

Dr Henrik Lars - 02/08/XXX

Professor,

I was in an awful place last night. #7 had grown terribly sick from some flu he picked up around the laboratory. He has been sniffling and coughing all throughout the day, and his skin has returned to that translucent glow it had when he was in the tank. His eyes have gone milky. His teeth have started to rot in his gums. I could scarcely sleep. I fear that he is growing sicker by the hour, and I cannot risk him getting worse or else the experiment may be in jeopardy.

As such, I have transplanted considerably more of my own cells into his body yet again. I do not know what they do - I can see them disappear the moment they enter his interior. He seems healthier now, and he has smiled for the first time in half a week.

I felt the need to inform you in the off chance that another researcher complained about #7's appearance. He has been very upset at the way the other staff members have been treating him. They look away when he walks past, they shoot him disparaging glances when he tries to talk to them. I have explained that he is simply curious, but many fail to understand how good-natured #7 truly is. We both would appreciate if there was some kind of meeting where all this was aired out.

Dr Henrik

Professor Brynn Goldman - 02/08/XX

Dr Henrik,

The other researchers have been complaining because the way Number Seven acts is, quite frankly, creepy. It's been known to follow staff members as they go about their day, and stare at them when they conduct business or experiments. One professor told me that Number Seven attempted to consume a tissue sample she had been studying when she turned to investigate a slammed door behind her. He's fast, Henrik. Very fast. I've seen him race across an entire floor in a matter of minutes.

The most worrying incident came from yesterday. Dr Lombard was on her way home when she discovered Number Seven had stowed away in the boot of her car. It'd kept so unfathomably quiet that she only realised when she'd actually pulled up on her driveway and opened the door. You didn't even notice it was gone, when it came back to your lab you were looking at some data on your computer. This is really unacceptable, Henrik.

I suggest Number Seven stays in your lab from now on.

Prof Brynn Goldman

Public University Announcement - 10/08/XX

Students and Faculty,

As many of you know, Jimmy the Spaniel has been missing from campus for several hours. His last known whereabouts were in Alexandra Gardens. If you've spotted Jimmy, please tell your nearest member of staff.

Thank you,
Cardiff

Dr Henrik Lars - 16/08/XX

Professor,

How many times do I have to say that #7 had no involvement in the dog's disappearance?
Again, he was with me all day on the 10th, helping me prepare slides for analysis. He has become very very weak in the last few days, the last thing he needs is some kind of witch hunt from the rest of the department.

Dr Henrik

Professor Brynn Goldman - 17/08/XX

Henrik, we both know the bones found in the supply wardrobe were from Jimmy. It had his collar wrapped around the skull like some kind of trophy, for god's sake.

There's nothing else in this facility that can strip a living thing of flesh in the way that Number Seven can. I asked you to keep him in your lab. I'm gonna brush this thing under the rug for now, but I want a breakthrough on how Number Seven digests pretty soon. This can't all be for nothing.

Dr Henrik Lars - 20/08/XX

Professor,

#7 has been almost corpse-like for the past week. He has snuck into a corner of my lab and refuses to come out. Not even 09-476 will entice him any more. I can scarcely see him in the shadows, he blends in so well. It's very strange to look at him like this. He is, for want of a better word, my doppelganger, and it is like watching myself succumb to an unknown illness.

I am requesting him to be given a full medical examination by the University clinic. No researchers, nobody who knows about his origin. I want an unbiased report.

Dr Henrik

Professor Brynn Goldman - 22/08/XX

Dr Henrik,

I can't even begin to fathom how stupid that idea is. It's hollow. What's a med student going to do with that?! Not to mention how strange it'd be when a scientist walks in with his disgusting, rotting twin brother.

Not happening. Find another way to make your sick creation well again.

I'm really reconsidering covering this up. The Nobel Prize might not be worth it.
Prof Brynn Goldman

Dr Henrik Lars - 25/08/XX [UNSENT - LEFT IN DRAFTS]

Professor,

I have found the reason as to why #7 kept falling sick. He needs a supply of cells to maintain its body. 09-476 isn't cutting it anymore. I tried to give him some more of my calf muscle, but he couldn't even muster up the strength to take it from my hand.

So, as a last resort, I amputated my own arm. I calculated that it has a perfect theoretical number of cells, enough to more than make up for the deficiency over the last few weeks. I bit down on some rubber, injected myself with a considerable amount of morphine and took a sterile hacksaw to my arm, just below the shoulder. It was tricky work, It has been a long time since I have had to do exercise that exerting. Thankfully, I had #7 cheering me on from my side. He helped me pick the best part of my arm to cut, and the perfect amount of force I needed to ensure a clean severing. This is undoubtedly proof that his biology education is far surpassing that of a normal child. While I was sawing, I couldn't help but notice that he had grown to be almost identical to me. No longer was he a teenager, but a grown man. In fact, he had already begun to grow the same stubble that I now have upon my chin. Remarkable!

After I finished with my procedure, I handed the arm to #7. He was delighted, he thanked me profusely and walked to the corner to begin absorbing it. I decided to watch, as the morphine was wearing off and I needed something to distract me from the pain. #7 went at my arm with abandon, making his way from the top down to the hand. He neglected the bones, still, but he slurped up the tendons and muscle with a smile on his face. I felt like a proud parent. He threw my humerus to one side when he had finished, and started working on the fingers and forearm. I believe he holds some of the same tendencies as me - he saved the fingers for last, much like how I save the arms for last on a gingerbread man.

After he had consumed all the meat on my arm, he thanked me with an amazing smile. He seemed to look better already, the colour had certainly returned to his face. I shall continue on as normal.

Dr Henrik

Dr Henrik Lars - 25/08/XX [SENT]

Professor,

I have mangled my arm in a machine and been treated in A&E, yet I am now an amputee. This may hinder my work.

Dr Henrik

Professor Brynn Goldman - 09/09/XX

Dr Henrik,

Some people have said they've seen you around campus, but I've got reason to believe that it's actually Number Seven. The second arm's a real giveaway. Why are you just letting it roam free? Do you know how much damage that could cause to the project if people suddenly spot you, with a stump where that arm should be? You have to keep it on a leash. It looks too much like you. It's even begun to talk like you.

Prof Brynn Goldman

Public University Announcement - 14/09/XX

We are saddened to announce the disappearance of Marcus Oliver Grey, a student of Biochemistry at the University. Marcus was last seen around Cardiff Central Station at the hours of 11pm. Any information on Marcus' whereabouts should be forwarded to Cardiff Police. What follows is a statement from his mother.

"Please. I know my darling is out there somewhere. His family misses him. His sister and brothers miss him. Please, if anyone knows anything, you have to tell someone. He needs to be back home with us."

Professor Brynn Goldman - 17/09/XX

Henrik.

Do you know anything about the boy?
You have to say something if you do.
This is not a dog. I can't just cover this up.

Prof Brynn Goldman

Dr Henrik Lars - 17/09/XX

He needed the food.

Professor Brynn Goldman - 17/09/XX

Oh fuck. Henrik, please tell me Marcus is okay.

Dr Henrik Lars - 17/09/XX

What we are doing is bigger than some student. This is the most earth-shattering experiment ever studied. A few more months and he'll be complete. Have some faith, Professor.

Public University Announcement - 19/09/XX

It is with a heavy heart that we tell of the passing of Marcus Oliver Grey. His body was found by police at lunchtime today.

Marcus was a lively and happy boy who wanted to create a cure for his father's rare condition. He had hoped that Cardiff would provide the best place to do that. He will be sorely missed by everyone at the University, not least his friends Matty and Lilith. He is survived by his two brothers and sister, as well as his father and mother.

Please forward any messages of consolation or gifts to his family at 119 Glenroy Street.

Professor Brynn Goldman - 19/09/XX

Henrik.

They found his bones, Henrik. His bones. Washed up in the bay. Did Number Seven throw them in there? Has it learnt to cover its tracks?

A boy is dead. This experiment is over.

Prof Brynn Goldman

Dr Henrik Lars - 20/09/XX

Professor Goldman,

It's a real shame. I'd thought this would be our big break. Still, immolation is probably the best course of action. Number Seven was put down an hour ago. You should've heard how it screamed. The lab has been destroyed. You'll find its body in the soot.

Ah well, onwards and upwards. I've been developing a way to transplant 09-476 into live wombs to try and prevent miscarriages. It's more aligned with our original objective. I feel like we can make a real difference, Brynn.

All the best,
Dr Henrik Lars

Focus, Marty. This is all about focus. 

Think about Alice. Keep driving. Eyes on the road. 

The hitchhikers will step out eventually. They always do. 

Just don’t look back at them. Don’t ever look back, for that matter.

Don’t think, just drive. 

—-----------------------------------

I have a lot of love for my parents, having the generosity to take Alice and me in after her leukemia relapsed, but goddamn do they live far from civilization. Or maybe there just ain’t a lot of civilization in Idaho to go around - not in a bad way; the quiet is nice. I’ve been enjoying the countryside more than I anticipated. That being said, they could stand to spend some taxpayer dollars on a few more Walgreens locations. 

Feels like I’ve been driving all night; must almost be morning. They have to be worried sick. Alice may actually be physically sick without her antinausea meds.

I shook my head side to side in a mix of disbelief and self-flagellating shame. Took a left turn when I should have taken a right - a downright boneheaded mistake. The price for overworking myself, but I mean, what other option do I have? Chemotherapy ain’t exactly cheap. 

For a moment, I forgot where I was and what I was doing and looked in the rearview mirror at the five hitchhikers in my backseats. Silent and staring forward with dead and empty eyes at nothing in particular from the back of my small sedan.

Furiously, my eyes snapped forward, not wanting to linger too long on them - wasn’t sure what I’d see. 

Can’t be doing that on this road. Maintaining focus is key. 

—-----------------------------------

Despite my near-instantaneous reaction, I did see the new hitchhikers, but only for a moment. No surprises this time, thankfully. They wore suits like all the others, monocolored with earthy tones from head to toe. Same odd fabric, too - rough and coarse-looking, almost like leather. Honestly, never seen anything like it before tonight. 

But I haven’t ever been in a situation like this before, either. Whatever backwoods county I got myself turned around in, it likes to follow its own rules. 

For example, I didn’t pull over to pick up these hitchhikers. Somehow, they just found their way in. Or maybe I did pull over and let them in? Been so tired lately; who could even be sure. And they don’t say much, no matter how many questions I ask. Would love to know where I am, but I guess it isn’t for them to say.

My gaze again drifted, this time from the road to the car’s dashboard, and I let myself see the time. Big mistake.

7:59PM.

Nope, that ain’t right. I rapidly blinked a few times, adjusted myself so I was sitting up straighter, and then looked back to check again.

Now, it didn’t show any time at all. 

Marty, Jesus. Focus up. 

I blinked once more, this time for longer. Not sure how long, couldn’t been longer than ten seconds. If I close my eyes for too long, they become hard to open again. Requires a lot of energy.

4:45AM. 

See, there we go. Now that makes sense. By the time dawn arrives, I’m sure I will have found a gas station to pull over in. Ask for directions back to…whatever my parent’s address is. I’ll figure that out later, right now I need to focus. 

—-----------------------------------

Funny things happened in this part of the country when you didn’t focus. Sometimes, the yellow pavement markings would change colors - or disappear entirely. Other times, the road itself would start to look off - black asphalt turning to muddy brownstone at a moment’s notice. 

At first, it scared me. Scared me a lot, come to think of it. Made me want to pull over and close my eyes.

But Alice needed her nausea meds, and judging by the time, I had work in two short hours. I needed to make it home soon so I can check on her, give her a kiss before school. Hopefully, I’ll have time to brew a pot of coffee, too. 

But my eyes, they just don’t seem to want to stick with the program. Dancing around from thing to thing like they don’t have a care in the world. They have one job - watch the road for places that might have a map or someone who can tell me where I am. Well, two jobs. Watch the road and focus on the road. 

At least the road wasn’t treacherous. It has been pretty much straight the whole night after the wrong turn. 

—-----------------------------------

Initially, Alice was nervous about starting at her new school. And I get it - that transition is hard enough without factoring in everything she has had to manage in her short life. We’d been lucky though, finding a well-reviewed sign language school - in Idaho, of all places.  

She’s amazing - you’d think that the leukemia and the deafness from her first go with chemotherapy would have crushed her spirit. Not my Alice. She’s tough as nails. Tough as nails like her dad. 

I smiled, basking in a moment of fatherly pride. Of course, you can’t be doing that on this road. You’ll start to see things you don’t want to see. 

When my eyes again met the rearview mirror, I noticed there was now only one hitchhiker now, but he had transformed and revealed his real shape.

His face was flat like a manhole cover, almost the size of a manhole cover, too, but less circular - more oblong. He was staring at me with one bulging eye. It was the only one he had, the only one I could see at least. No other recognizable facial features. Just the one, bloated, soulless eye. 

What’s worse, I saw what was behind him. Behind the car, I mean. 

I closed my eyes as soon as I could, but my mind was already rapidly reviewing and trying to reconcile what I had seen behind the car. There was a wall a few car lengths away. No road to be seen, just an inclined wall with tire tracks on it. The atmosphere behind me had a weird thickness to it. Lightrays shone through the thickness unnaturally from someplace above. The ground looked like dust, or maybe sand, why would the ground look like -  

FOCUS. Think of Alice, and focus

When I finally found the courage to open my eyes, it all looked right again, and I breathed a sigh of relief and chuckled to myself from behind the wheel. Straight road in front of me, framed by a starless black sky. Everything in its right place. Until I saw something snaking its way into my peripheral vision. 

The hitchhiker was now in the passenger’s seat.

He turned to me and leaned his body forward over the stickshift; his lips were pursed and nearly pressing against my ears, rhythmically opening and closing his mouth but making no sound. I could have sworn he was close enough to touch my ear with his lips, but I guess he wasn't because I couldn’t feel it. Instead, I felt my heartbeat start to race, or I imagined what it was like to feel your heartbeat race. 

Why did I have to imagine...?

Don’t turn. Don’t look. Don’t think. Just focus. 

But I couldn’t. Something was wrong. I thought about closing my eyes. For a while, not just for a little. To see what would happen. I was curious what would happen. Had been all night, actually.

But then, like the angel she was, Alice’s visage appeared on the horizon. She was standing at her second-story window in my parent’s home, watching and waiting for me to return from this long night. I wasn’t getting closer for some reason, but she wasn’t getting any further away either. 

She was far, but even at that distance, I could see her doing something in the window. When I squinted, it looked like maybe she was waving.

Alice was waving at me. Alice could see me.

Must mean I'm close.

Eyes on the road. Focus

—-----------------------------------

Every night around 8PM, Alice would stand and watch the road from her bedroom on the second story of her grandparents' home. What she was waiting for didn’t happen as often anymore, but her birthday was a week away - the phenomenon seemed to be more frequent around her birthday. As the clock ticked into 8:03PM, she saw a familiar sight - two faint luminescent orbs traveled slowly down the deserted road in her direction, creating even fainter cylinders of light in front of them. 

Like headlights from an approaching car.

The first time this happened, Alice was nine. To cope with her father's disappearance, she would watch the road at night and pretend she saw his car returning home. One night, she saw balls of light appear in the distance, and it made hope explode through her body like fireworks. 

The balls of light turned into the driveway. And when they did, Alice noticed something that made her hope mutate into fear and confusion.

The headlights had no car attached, dissolving without a trace within seconds of their arrival.

For months, this was a nightly occurrence, and only she could see it, which scared Alice. But when she formally explained to the phenomenon to her grandfather for the first time, how they looked like headlights without a car, a weak and bittersweet grin appeared on his face, and he carefully brought up his hands to sign to her:

I’d bet good money that’s Marty making his way home, sweetheart. He just loved you that much.

From then on, the orbs comforted Alice and made her feel deeply connected with her long-lost father, wherever he was. But in the present, at the age of nearly seventeen, she had modified the purpose of her vigil.

Originally, she liked the idea of her father’s endless search for her. It made her feel less alone. But as she lived life and matured, she realized how alone he must be looking for her from where he was. Now, all she wanted was for Marty to stop looking. She wanted her father to finally rest. 

Now, when the orbs passed by, she would sign to them from her window, desperately hopeful that even from where he was, he could see her hands move and communicate an important message to him:

I love you, and I miss you. But please, Dad, let go. 

More stories: https://linktr.ee/unalloyedsainttrina

"A garbage truck!"

These were the first words spoken by nine-year-old Jimmy, right after he woke up that dreadful morning. As he climbed out of bed, he burst into a fit of silly laughter. He had been dreaming right up until the moment he woke, and although much of what he dreamed quickly became distorted or outright forgotten, a single question posed in that dream still lingered clearly in his mind.

"What smells awful, has one horn, and flies?"

As he slipped yesterday's t-shirt over his head and threw on his britches, Jimmy continued to chuckle and repeat the set-up outloud to himself. In part because he was so proud of the joke he had dreamed, but he was also determined to deliver it just right the instant he saw his dad.

"Morning Mom," Jimmy said as he zoomed past the framed picture of his mother that hung on the living room wall. He never knew his mom. She died when he was only two. From then on, it had always been just he and his dad. As often as they could, they did everything together. On the rare occasions that his dad had to be away, he was looked after by the kind old widow next door, Mrs. Vogel. She was nice enough and all, but Jimmy thought she must've been about a hundred and twenty years old, and for this reason, she wasn't exactly a fun person to stay with.

Jimmy wasn't entirely surprised to find the kitchen empty, although a box of cereal, clean bowl, and spoon were left for him at the table. But there was no time for breakfast now; he had to find his dad. It wasn't hard to guess where he was either, and if Jimmy didn't already know, the rythmic clap of a hammer that came from the backyard was surely a dead giveaway. The young boy slipped his shoes on, hurriedly tied their laces, and darted through the kitchen door.

It was a bright and beautiful morning. The sun beamed proudly against a field of neverending blue; a gentle breeze caressed the flowers and whispered secret songs to the little butterflies that flitted here and there. Jimmy's dad was making the most of the gorgeous day. All week, he had been working on a treehouse for his son, and by his reckoning, it would be finished that afternoon. He stopped hammering for a moment to wipe the sweat from his forehead when he saw his son come running up to him with the goofiest grin on his face. The young boy shouted to get his father's attention, "Dad! Dad!"

Before Jimmy could blurt out his dreamed-up joke, the gentle breeze transformed itself into a gust of wind. And that wind carried on its back a nauseating odor, something like what spoiled chicken boiled in vomit must smell like. The caustic stench burned Jimmy's lungs and made his stomach flop like a fish. Taken aback by the sudden rancidity, Jimmy stopped dead in his tracks. As he fought to keep his previous night's supper down, both he and his father became engulfed in some great shadow, as if cast by a huge passing cloud.

Next door, Mrs. Vogel was pouring herself a cup of hot tea when she heard Jimmy's scream. She looked out of her kitchen window but could not see beyond the privacy fence. Jimmy's shrill wail did not let up; in fact, it intensified.

Not yet one hundred and twenty years old, Mrs. Vogel rushed out the door, through her yard, around her neighbor's house, and into their backyard. At first, she saw only Jimmy standing there, screaming and bawling. His face, chest, and arms were all covered in blood. The thick, crimson mess ran down his cheeks and dripped from his chin. When Mrs. Vogel saw the power tools and lumber all laying around, she assumed some accident must have occurred while the boy's father was inside. But when she finally reached Jimmy, she too screamed at what she saw there.

At Jimmy's feet, lying prone in a pool of still warm blood was what was left of his father's body. His head, left shoulder, and left arm were completely torn away. Jimmy blubbered, screamed, trembled, and was very near to the point of hyperventilating when Mrs. Vogel scooped him up in both of her arms, held him close, and turned away from the gruesome sight.

A thousand questions flooded her mind at once, yet somehow she managed to articulate a few of the most important ones. "Jimmy, are you alright? Oh, you poor dear! Are you alright? Are you hurt? What happened? What did this?"

Jimmy looked up at her with red puffy eyes, a blood-splattered face, and a runny nose. Only a few minutes prior, his mind was filled with thoughts of funny dreams, silly jokes, and other nonsense. Now, those thoughts could not have been further removed from his mind. He was still sobbing so hard that he could hardly speak. "I . . . don't . . . know," he managed to say at last. It was true. He didn't have any idea.

Even though he saw the vile creature swoop down from above and kill his father with a single terrible bite, then vanish back into the sky, he hadn't an inkling of what the thing was. He had never seen, nor had he even heard of anything like what he saw that morning. But maybe, just maybe, in her many years of life, Mrs. Vogel would know what the creature was that, in the blinking of an eye, made him an orphan. With a quivering voice, he asked her, "What smells awful, has one horn, and flies?"

In the fog of Gallow's Hill, you can hear footsteps followed by the light from a swaying lantern. No one knows when it started appearing, but the locals of Brindlewood, where Gallow's Hill passed through, knew it could take away as much as it could give.

It started in 1985 when Nathan Scott stepped foot into the fog.

Once inside, he never returned, and no one had seen him since.

Yet, out of the fog walked Clara Austen. a little girl who had gone missing three years prior. Her family was ecstatic that she had returned, but when they asked her where she had been, Clara told them that a creature with a lantern had led her through the fog, walking endlessly to nowhere.

So people would enter and appear out of thin air, exiting the fog, but what about the creature with a lantern?

When asked to describe the creature, she furrowed her brows and shook her head, not remembering any details. Morgan Keller, a journalist accompanied by her cameraman Dani Jones, came to Brindlewood to record a story about the fog of Gallow's Hill.

Morgan got an interview with Clara, who asked her about the fog.

"So, Clara, can you tell us what the fog was like?"

The young girl put her book down and stared at Morgan and Dani.

"What was it like?"

Morgan nodded, her pen and paper ready. Dani is behind her recording.

"Well.." Clara paused, choosing her words carefully. "It was chilly and eerie."

"Was there anyone else there with you?"

Clara nodded. "Many."

So, many people were there with her, yet people would appear from nowhere and exit out of the fog as well.

"Why did this creature take people away?"

The young girl shrugged, opening up her book again.

"Can you describe the creature to us?"

Clara stiffened. "I'm not supposed to."

Morgan nodded and looked at Dani over her shoulder, who stopped recording. They would have to wait until nighttime, when the fog rolled in, to find out for themselves.

"Thank you, Clara."

The journalist and cameraman gave each other a look of knowing before leaving the Austen household.

"What's the plan?" Dani asked.

"We wait till nighttime and record the fog," Morgan replied.

If they were to record the fog, who would be entering it?

The cameraman felt he would be the one doing it since his co-worker wasn't really one for doing the grit work of any type of case they were sent to investigate before the detectives got involved.

Dani set up a camera that night and carried a small handheld one.

"Is everything ready?" Morgan asked, checking her makeup in a compact.

"Yeah, I've set up the camera, and it's set to turn on automatically. I've got this one right here to take with me along with my messenger bag." the cameraman motioned to his hand and side.

The reporter snorted, putting her compact away. "Do you really think that is necessary? It's not like you're going to be trapped. It's just fog."

"If it's just fog, why don't you walk into it?" Dani muttered.

"Did you say something?" Morgan asked, twirling a brown curl around her finger.

The cameraman sighed as he found a place to sit. When night arrived, the fog slowly rolled in. It was pale and denser than mist clinging to the ground and trees like ghostly tendrils. The atmosphere turned hauntingly, still muffling every sound, making it feel otherwordly.

The reporter straightened her clothes as the timer went off for the recording to start, and she began her introduction. "I'm Morgan Keller, and I'm here with Dani Jones." she smiled into the camera lens and motioned to the area around her.

"We're here at Brindlewood on the infamous Gallow's Hill to see if the rumors are true. I'll give you commentary from the outside as Dani walks through the fog to see if he can spot the creature with the lantern."

"Dani, are you ready?"

The cameraman nodded and exhaled before turning his handheld camera on and walking forward. He wondered who would exit after he was inside.

Dani moved his camera around, looking for a light, if any, to appear. "Hey Morgan, I don't think that—" he paused, standing still as a swaying lantern in the distance began coming his way.

That must be the creature with the lantern. Dani kept moving forward until he came face to face with what Clara Austen couldn't muster the words to describe. They were tall, dressed in tattered and ripped robes with the hood covering their face. When he tried shining the light of the handheld camera towards its face, there was nothing but pitch darkness.

"What the hell?" the cameraman muttered, stepping back.

Morgan impatiently tapped her foot and looked at her watch outside the fog. What was taking so long?

"If you're trying to prank me, Dani, this isn't funny," the reporter said.

She squinted, seeing a figure walking towards her out of the fog.

"Dani?" Morgan said softly, but as the figure got closer, she could tell it wasn't him.

It turned out to be a man dressed in neon-colored clothing who stepped out, his eyes looking frantically around. As if something would reach out and grab him.

"Nathan Scott?" Morgan asked, slowly stepping forward.

He nodded, looking over his shoulder as the fog began to turn into a thin mist. Dani's handheld camera, which he had taken onto the fog with him, lay behind Nathan as the fog thinned.

The reporter knelt down, picked up the camera, and turned it on to examine the saved footage. It began with Dani walking into the fog, panning the camera around, showing nothing until a swaying light came into view.

He cursed, and as the creature approached, he tried to capture its face, but it was pitch black. The creature raised the lantern and motioned for Dani to move behind them. He stepped back when Nathan Scott walked out and passed him as if he wasn't there.

The cameraman turned around, recording Nathan Scott exiting the fog.

A skeletal hand placed itself on his shoulder, and he dropped the handheld camera. The footage went static and then to black.

Trembling, Morgan stood, turning it off. She looked at the man dressed in neon and asked, "What happened while you were in the fog?".

Nathan opened his mouth to find the words before replying, "It was like I was walking endlessly. There were others, too. Some looked like they had been in the fog for years."

He paused before speaking again, wringing his hands together. "The others looked like walking skeletons."

Morgan knew it would be best to get him to the local clinic. As the doctor talked to the reporter, he was astonished by Nathan's health. Being gone for three years, he wasn't dehydrated or malnourished, as if something was keeping him alive while in the fog.

Morgan turned in her report along with the footage left behind by Dani.

Her boss was initially skeptical about the evidence she and Dani had gathered, especially since the cameraman himself was not present.

However, after watching the footage, he had no choice but to believe her.

Somewhere out there, Dani was walking behind the creature, the lantern swaying back and forth, its light shining and leading the way. He was waiting for his chance to exit the fog.

I woke up with my head hurting like hell , Must be due to the damage I took while fighting Dave

I felt cool breeze on my head , I looked up and saw that my car that used to have a roof no longer has one.

"Woke up?" A voice said

I got up and saw that the man who was driving spoke to me.

"I think you guys already know enough about me , So I do not need to introduce myself." He said.

Of course, The only man who managed to wield the power of an unnatural without handing over control. There's no way we wouldn't know about him.

"Try anything funny and it's not going to end up well for you" he said , in a more serious tone.

"Where are we going?" I asked

"To a safe place." He replied

"What do you plan to do with me?" I asked

"Nothing much , Just ask you about stuff. Actually let's start right now , Tell me about UNF" He said.

I shut up , There's no way I'm leaking anything to him. He's an enemy who's working against us afterall.

After a few seconds of silence he spoke again

"Tough nut to crack huh, How about you tell me why you joined UNF?"

I didn't utter a word yet again.

"Why would an academically smart student with a bright future ahead associate with lunatics who worship those weird murdering creatures?" He asked

"Unnaturals are the future. 'Academically smart' and 'bright future' mean nothing in the world they'll create." I replied.

"I highly doubt that" He replied.

"Your investigator skills are useless in these matters. The only reason you're alive is because one of those 'weird murdering creatures' is your hand , Quite an hypocrite aren't you?" I replied.

I suddenly flung into the seat in front of me after the car suddenly stopped.

"Hey! Don't stop the car so suddenly!" I yelled at him.

His gaze was fixed on the road , as if he was looking at something. So I looked towards the road.

There was a man standing there , He didn't seem particularly threatening or anything. But something about his presence was offputting.

"I SURVIVED THE BLACK LETTER" He yelled.

After hearing that , Tracey left the driving seat and went towards the man. They both started talking to each other , Their conversation was inaudible to me.

Suddenly a phone rang , not mine. Seemed like Tracey left his phone , The call was someone called Daniela. I picked up.

"Hello?" I said

"Who's this?" A female voice replied.

"I'm Britney" I replied.

"Where's Tracey?" The voice asked.

"He's talking to some guy who apparently survived the black letter." I replied.

"No no no. YOU MUST WARN HIM , THATS NOT-"

Suddenly the car went backwards and I accidentally hung up the call.

When I looked forward , Tracey had gotten smashed into the windshield of the car. The man standing in front with his leg up in the air , Smiling towards us.

I thought it was harmless at first. Just a little phase. Everyone gets into weird stuff online—especially my husband, Andrew. He had always been a deep-dive kind of guy, the type to research conspiracy theories with the same passion he had for surfing or fishing. So when he stumbled upon something about “reptilians” lurking among us, I just rolled my eyes and laughed it off.

But it got bad. Fast.

He started staying up all night, going through endless forums, watching videos with grainy footage and people spouting nonsense. Then he started looking at me differently. His smile grew strained, his glances paranoid. He’d ask weird questions, like what my favorite color was as a child, what animals I liked, if I’d ever had strange dreams about the desert. He kept telling me he was “seeing signs” everywhere.

One night, he whispered in bed, “You know, Roxie, I always thought your eyes looked a little… cold.” I tried to brush it off, but the way he looked at me—like he was seeing something alien—it left a chill.

Then, a couple of weeks later, I woke up to find him and the kids gone.

I searched everywhere. Called everyone I knew. Then I found his laptop, still open on the kitchen table. I guessed his password, typing in "desert dreams," remembering his odd question. The screen unlocked instantly. The things he’d written… twisted thoughts about “purging” our family, about “protecting” the world from us. He ranted about “lizard DNA,” that I’d “infected” our daughter Emma and our son Henry with it. I couldn’t breathe. My hands shook so badly I almost dropped the laptop. He’d really, truly believed that I—and our innocent, beautiful babies—were monsters.

I called the police, barely able to form words.

They found him a couple of days later, just across the border, holed up in some abandoned ranch in Mexico. He was raving when they got to him, talking about “doing the world a favor” and stopping us “before it was too late.” But by the time they got there… God, he’d already done it.

My sweet, two-year-old Emma. She had this laugh, this beautiful, pure laugh that could make anyone smile. And Henry, my ten-month-old boy, with his big eyes and chubby hands, always grabbing at me, wanting to be held. Andrew… he used a speargun. A fucking speargun! He’d said he had to rid the world of the “Serpent Queen’s spawn.”

I had to see his confession on video. The way he said it, like it was something noble, righteous. He looked right at the camera, unblinking, hollow, and cold. I don’t know if I’ll ever sleep again, knowing that I’d loved a man who’d done this.

Now, it’s just silence. A silence that fills every corner of my home, where toys still lie scattered, where tiny clothes still hang in their closet, waiting for children who will never come back. The world went on after that day, but I feel like I’m just… frozen.

Evelyn watched as the sun slowly went down from the window, waiting for the cover of night to arrive so they could sneak back into Gigist's lair, she hoped the cover of night would give them an advantage. "Hopefully, all the training we did pays off in this fight," Blyke said coming up behind her, I think it will even though we had to learn everything in a short time, it should help us in the long run," Evelyn said convinced. "Alright everyone gather around, you all remember the plan and destroy that substance no matter what" The Man said sternly but softly, What happens if Gigist himself shows up to counter us? Cleo asked, If he shows his face I will deal with him, The Man said Angrily. Do you all have your Mechs and weapons? The Man asked, as the four friends held up both, he nodded his head in approval, Alright then let's get moving, I still want you guys to have a bit of light so to not active your Mechs until we get to the other side, they opened the door and headed to the boat to cross the river. Everyone got off easily, The boat ride was normal now's going to be the hard part, I pray we succeed by the grace of the Gods, Thought Evelyn, So how do we move forward now? Noah asked, Evelyn closed her eyes and held out her hand but sensed nothing, The coast is clear I don't feel any movement or my sixth sense isn't going off unlike last time, Evelyn said.

"They might not know we are on this side, which means we could still have the element of surprise," Cleo said Hopefully, As they moved forward with the Man guiding this time and the fading light in the sky made the path visible to them helped a lot. Evelyn felt the barrier once more once they got close, Alright you all suit up I don't want to take any chances, The Man said seriously, Just like last time they all put the adapters to their chest and pressed it and were covered by Mech armor and took out their weapons as well. The Man opened another gateway and pulled out a six-foot sword with light swirling energy around it, Evelyn recognized it as the same one as in the vision, he looked at her and nodded and she knew what to do as she reached out to touch it she was SUDDENLY PULLED in to it. The others grasped loudly while The Man said "Stealth is no longer an option, I have to break it with force" as he held the sword up and slashed through the barrier, with it broken they all rushed in to find multiple eyes of locus creatures staring at them, Alright being a distraction won't work anymore just find Evelyn and get to that substance when I break through them, as the others nodded. As the locus-like creatures charged at them, The three took out their weapons but it wasn't needed for The Man stepped forward and slashed the air with the sword when it hit them they turned to dust quickly, and the friends looked on in amazement but when Cleo looked up she shouted, Look! as the rest followed her gaze the creatures JUMPED down from the trees but the Man was too quick and slashed the air once more catching them again.

However, more eyes appeared and the boys took out their guns while Cleo took out her staff getting ready to join in on the fight "I'll deal with them, you have to stick with the plan" The Man said, How will we get past them? Noah asked, The Man's right hand glowed brightly once more, and he then waved it over them. After that motion, Cleo looked at the creatures and saw their attention was fully on the Man now like they were invisible to them, as if confirming she said, I made you three invisible to their eyes but hurry it only lasts for a minute, since i'm using it on so many people. The friends wasted no time running while he slashed the air once more and turned the ones in front of them to dust, running forward they saw and heard more locus creatures dashing and screeching towards the Man, they also felt a large gust of wind pass them while still running, that was strange, Cleo thought not thinking much of it, Noah stopped running and pointed to the center of the clearing, This is the cocoon we told you about, but it's smaller than last time, Noah said worried, noticing less creatures than before. So you're telling me that more of those things have BROKEN out of that, Blyke said shocked, Cleo spoke up "Sadly, we have to leave this alone for now, until we destroy the substance and find Evelyn," not knowing how much time was left, they rushed passed it knowing what they seek was just ahead when they ran and broke through the substance with the symbols around laid there before them. With their mission before their eyes, Noah took out a holy relic gifted by the Man, a crystal capable of destroying dark energy itself, he was about to drop it when they heard a Man's voice "I WOULDN'T DO THAT, AT LEAST IF YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR FRIEND AGAIN" limping with a cane with symbols from the other side of the tree-line.

Wait if he can see us that means the invisible spell must've faded, Cleo thought, You're with The Void aren't you, Do you know where she is? Blyke asked with anger, Yes I side with The Void, For your second question she's being taken to Lord Gigist as we speak, the Man answered truthfully. Cleo's attention was drawn behind the Man seeing a LARGE shadow, What is that, she said pointing to it, as Noah and Blyke followed their eyes widened, Ah I see you met my friend, you can come out now we'll just kill them anyway, after he said that the figure stepped into view, It had orange eyes, four arms and eight feet tall, Noah I assume that's one of the evolved ones you saw? Cleo asked, Yeah, he responded softly. "YOU WILL HAVE TO GET PASS US TO SEE YOUR FRIEND AGAIN IF SHE'S STILL BREATHING," It said with a slight mockery, Cleo noticed it was still standing a few feet behind him as if it was following his orders, in striking turn of events Blyke pressed down on his chest adapter twice his armor made him eight feet tall, he jumped over the substance and rushed at the creature. He jumped and kneed it in the chest, it stumbled while taking a few steps back, it grinned showing sharp pointed teeth, it threw a quick punch to his visor which he blocked with his arm sliding back a few feet. Blyke partly looked back to see the substance and walked around it, they were facing horizontally this time the creature rushed forward and jumped using its bottom two arms to attack, he managed to block the left yet the right punch hit sliding Blyke to the left near the trees.

I'll have to deal with this Man somehow, to help Noah complete our mission and save our world, Cleo thought, Hey what can you do I don't think you can fight because of your injury, taking your down will be easy, she said mockingly to him. He began chuckling, Judging too early is a bad sign I suggest you work on that if you survive this, He said to Cleo, as the symbols on his cane started to glow with dark shadow energy covering his whole body in seconds, when it finished he came out with strange body armor, almost like it was part metal and part organic at the same time. It looked like some hybrid or fusion of two suits in one, with spiky shoulder pads on both sides, the metal side had a visor while the organic side vaguely resembled a monster with no mouth and one eye for the Man to see, Both Noah and Cleo felt the danger even with their armor protecting them, Now let's see who armor is better crafted the Light side or Dark, he said joyful. He jumped over the substance as well and landed fifteen feet away from them, Now surrender or die your choice, The strange Man said with his voice now distorted and sounding inhuman, Cleo charged at him with her staff spinning it with both hands in the air, before jumping up and bringing it down, he caught it but as a counter she swung her foot forward into his chest, kicking him back some feet, Oh you've had some training at least this won't be boring, he said surprised. Dark energy was visibly coming off the armor now, as he took slow steps towards her, a dark energy beam shot out of his hand towards her she sidestepped it with a second to spare, he jumped up to punch her but she moved out of the way, the impact of the hit shook the ground, NOAH drop the crystal in the substance, we have to stop this" Cleo told Noah, don't worry we'll find you Evelyn I promise, Cleo thought.

Evelyn took in her surroundings and found herself around seven feet off the ground tied to strange vines in the trees within another clearing, at the center of the clearing she saw a familiar throne like the one in her vision, Gigist, she thought. But where am I the last thing I remember is getting DRAGGED from the other side of the barrier, she thought, she heard footsteps when they came into view Evelyn stopped and just stared, for Gigist and the pterodactyl creature stood a few feet from her, "what do you want with me" Evelyn said angrily. "You don't have to pretend with Lord Gigist, he knows you're scared I can smell it on you," the deep voice of the pterodactyl creature said. However, a quick look back silenced the abomination Gigist motioned it to leave them it bowed then walked away, I ASSUME MY WEAK BIG BROTHER TOLD YOU WHAT I AND THE OTHERS DID, it said Yeah, she answered, See how easy that was, it said, Evelyn felt something was off with this former Angel turned monster she didn't know if it was his calmness or the sinister aura coming off. Everything you say is betrayed by your aura, I can feel it's destructive might JUST underneath the surface, Evelyn said honestly, I knew there was something SPECIAL about you, a power that can turn the tides of the war in favor of the darkness, but it's not an external power rather an internal, Gigist said intriguingly. Evelyn knew she had to stall this creature's curiousness if only for a few moments to buy her some time, Can I ask you two questions? she asked, Gigist seemed to think for a moment before answering, Sure, he said nonchalantly, "Is the Void King, Karoh still aware within his statue like prison?" she asked, he eyes widen in surprise for a moment, I would like to think so he's powerful but I'm not sure, he answered truthfully.

Now for my second, "Who are the seven Void Royals, the children of King Karoh?" she asked, the Void Royals, consider this a small warning prey you NEVER meet one they are more ruthless than even the Ancients, Gigist responded. If he's warning me about encountering a Royal just how much of a lesser evil is he to them and the Ancients, Evelyn thought, she remembered her daggers that she had on her, before I forget I took your daggers as well couldn't risk you breaking out of the vines, He told Evelyn. You won't get away with this I want you to know that, she said trying to hide the fear in her voice, I've gotten away with many acts since before you were given life, this is no big issue even with my big brother holding off my creations, Gigist said chuckling. "Why are you so calm anyway?" Evelyn asked, There is no reason for me to stress or be in my feelings in this situation, for that will just lead me to defeat, Evelyn took in what he said and it made sense but to her, it came off as overconfident that they will lose and she will proof otherwise. I can tell you underestimated us and I think you will regret taking your brother as the only serious threat here, Evelyn said loudly, he began to chuckle once more, forgive me but I don't see humans on the light side as a huge threat at all it's laughable that any of you are trying to stop us, You say that but remember it was a human who SEALED the Void King away, Evelyn boasted. At that moment he stopped and looked like he thought about it, I guess that is true he was caught off guard and got sealed, Gigist said with a hint of anger, Evelyn hoped he was losing focus so the others could find her location, but a miracle happened like the Gods helping out, they both looked up to see a BEAM of light shooting up and hitting the barrier and a few seconds later broke open, at least our allies on the light side will be aware of what's happening here now, Evelyn thought.

A Few Minutes Earlier...

Hurry guys you may be our only hope to protect all of creation, for now at least, The Man thought, he sensed something coming fast, so he held his sword out and created a barrier in front of him a second later the figure crashed into it. The energy rebounded and the figure screamed as blue flame enveloped its arm, taking a few steps back it shook off the flames, and the locus creatures charged once more The Man slashed the air catching them. He noticed the figure that tried to attack him was a colorless humanoid butterfly with gray skin and wings made of dark energy, what kind of abomination has my brother created He thought, the creature looked at the Man and pointed more locus came into view and charged towards him while the butterfly jumps in the air and spread it's four wings out. The Man saw its wings glow slightly brighter he lifted his hand and the locus was lifted and crushed, with no more in sight his eyes locked on to the new threat, he dropped to one knee suddenly feeling the strength leaving, why is my power fading is it the wings, he thought. I must overcome it and push through for the fate of creation is on the line, The Man thought, "STAY DOWN OR THINGS WILL ONLY GET WORST FROM HERE" it softly said, he was shocked it could speak at all "Sorry that's not an option, I have to stop you for the innocents of this world" The Man responded.

He wondered how to get out of the wings glow until he looked and saw that the creature was flying around eight feet in the air but some of the trees were higher than it was, my power is fading but if I threw my sword at one of the curved branches it could work, he thought. Slowly standing up once more he threw his sword to one of the branches, it hit the branch and fell but the evolved creature dodged it the Man felt his strength return fast, the sword returned like a boomerang and he caught it, this evolved is still new so it might not have a full grasp on its power but I can use that weakness, The Man thought. He looked and held out his hand to the creature and brought it down, a second later a big gust of wind brought the creature crashing back down to the ground its body making a loud boom, he suddenly had a moment of clarity, the barrier if I destroy it our allies will know what's happening and offer aid, but I'll have to make to it fast, The Man readied himself for that moment. The dust started to clear as it slowly got back up and stared at the Man, it vanished then appeared six feet above and brought its fist down, the Man sidestepped it and countered by slashing at the shoulder, he slashed the mark but instead of blood a dark energy came out of the wound, it screeched loudly jumping back several feet then looked at the wound The Man noticed it slowly closing, so it has a healing factor as well, I'll have to do it now, he thought. He charged at it slashing the air with his sword again, it dodged by flying in the air once more than flew quickly towards the Man, he held out his hand and stopped the creature, he waved his hand and it flew back crashing into trees, he took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and moved his sword upward the light energy beamed forward and CRASHED into the barrier- breaking it, as he saw the opening getting bigger he knew it was only a matter of time.

The creature slowly stood and looked at the collapsing barrier, How does it feel knowing you're on borrowed time now and the forces of light are likely on their way as we speak, The Man said smugly, "I WONDER IF THAT LITTLE GIRL WILL BE SAFE FROM LORD GIGIST NOW" it spoke softly.The Man looked confused, What do you mean, He said masking the worry in his voice, Now that you revealed our location to the enemy who knows what my Lord will do to her, it said chuckling and moving a few steps forward, I have to find her before it's too late, he thought. The creature jumped towards him and raised it's fist upward preparing to flattened him, he brought his sword up than a barrier of light shielded him from the attack just in time, not a second later the attack landed hitting the barrier, it's arm lit up in large blue flame once again it jumped back but this The Man was gonna try something else. He powered up his sword with more light energy, The Man ran forward, jumped up, and spun then a slash of pure light from his sword rushed towards the creature, it was still waving it's arm trying to shake the flames off, the energy hit the creature in it's chest, it screamed as a large amount of dark energy came flowing out of the chest and fell on one knee breathing heavy. The Man noticed the wound wasn't healing like last time, why don't you just tell me where Evelyn and my brother are and make it easier on yourself, He said seriously, Even if I do by the time you arrive it will be too late, but the despair on your face will be worth seeing, it responded laughing, The Man pointed his sword and charged ready to finish off the monster but THREE locus came from behind it making him use telekinesis to stop them, but noticed the creature get up and fly back the way it came.

It looks like our help from above just alerted everyone on the side of light, if you want to run knows your chance, Cleo said with confidence, The Man chuckled, I never run from a fight child no matter who my opponent is, he said with the same distorted tone. I promise we WILL find her just drop the crystal into the substance and so we can STOP this for good, Cleo shouted again to Noah, he threw the crystal within the substance and saw it start to bubble and exploded letting out a HUGE shock wave that set all within range flying off their feet. As the three friends got back on their feet and regrouped with each other, We've destroyed the barrier protecting this space and the thing making this new legion of monsters you two are finished, Noah said joyfully, they both now stood, and looked at the friends huddled together, We may have lost our shield and The Void energy too make more creatures but we STILL have your friend, The Man said smugly. I WONDER WHAT MY LORD WILL DO TO HER, The creature chimed in next to him, The young adults just looked at them and knew they had to be stopped, looks like were winning for now but how do we stop the both of them, Cleo thought, she looked up at the trees and had an idea on how to stop the Man at least, she turned around to her friends and whispered "the Trees" to Noah and pointed up for Blyke they nodded their heads in agreement. As she charged towards the Man once more he shot another dark energy beam towards her which she sidestepped quickly, she brought out her staff and tried to strike at him but he caught it with one hand, she pushed a button and the staff retracted and in his confusion she punches his chest and the kinetic force sent him back around eight feet from her, right where I wanted, Cleo thought, Blyke charged at the creature before it could help, Noah held out his arm shot out kinetic energy shots from small barrels on it and blasted a huge trunk that fell on TOP of the Man.

Well, that's one problem down, Cleo thought, as she looked at her friend and the creature fighting and wondered if she should go giant and help that way, Cleo I think there's a way if we can't stop it we can hurt it, Noah told her. I'm not really following, she said truthfully, its eyes take away the sight and we have the upper hand but I'll need a clear shot for it to work, Noah said confidently, Blyke jumped and tried to punch it but it blocked using it's upper right arm then tried to grab him with its left arm but he jumped off, flip, and landed perfectly. You three NORMAL Humans cannot win against The Void, it said smugly, maybe not but with you I think we have a good chance, Cleo said loudly enough for it to hear, the creature turned its attention towards her, NOW! She shouted to Noah, once more kinetic energy shot out and ended up HITTING the thing in its right eye. It screamed in pain covering it but instead of blood coming out like they expected a large amount of dark energy escaped the wound, it took a few steps back and had trouble balancing because of the pain, Blyke ran forward and the creature still dazed didn't notice he jumped and knead its chest and the creature flew back crashing into a nearby tree. They heard footsteps and turned around only to the familiar face of The Man of Light to come into view looking surprised, I'm glad you all are still alive and here, he said thankfully, What happened I thought you were supposed to come much sooner? Noah questioned, I was until the butterfly-evolved creature tried to end me but I gravely injured it and I see you held your own against another one, he said proudly, Wait so none of us seen the pterodactyl-evolved creature yet. Noah asked, It must be the last of my brother's defense so let's go, The Man said.

What about those two is it safe to just leave them there? Blyke asked, I don't think they'll be getting up anytime soon so for now it's safe, The Man said, Ah you've also destroyed the substance good now we've got the upper hand in this, he added. Evelyn sensed Gigist's rage slowly rising above the surface but he kept it under control, Should I go and see the progress Lord, and report back to you? The pterodactyl monster asked, There would be no point more enemies are most likely on their way as we speak which means I'm on borrowed time as is, Gigist said sourly. All their heads turned to the butterfly creature rushing through the trees with dark energy flowing from a large wound in the chest and embers of blue flames on its arm, What happened to you to become like this, Brother? The pterodactyl creature asked walking up to it, I came into conflict with the being of light and figured I had the upper hand, may you heal me my Lord I promise not to fail again, it responded. Just this one time if you fail again do not expect mercy, Gigist said seriously, It slowly got up and bowed while he walked towards it and held out his hand for a purple-like flame to come out it when it came in contact with the wound it closed within seconds, Evelyn looked on in shock at what she just saw, Just how much power does this Former Angel truly have, she thought with fear slowly overtaking her. The Ancients will not be pleased by this but if I end my brother they will overlook what has happened here, Gigist said, Evelyn didn't know what it was but she felt FEAR within this former Angel when mentioning these Ancients but this was an opportunity she couldn't pass on for the fate of all may be at stake, Are you afraid of the Ancients because you speak as if you're below them? she asked loudly, all the creatures heads turned to face her, Foolish girl the Seven of them have respect for the Fallen Five which is why we have positions of power but we still answer to them but I've seen them at their worst and trust me you don't want to be on the end of that, Gigist said to Evelyn.

As the group continued forward the air pressure seemed to become colder to the point where they could feel it through the armor, we're close now whenever the air starts to become unnaturally cold like this The Voidspawn are most likely close, The Man said. Cleo noticed a clearing up ahead and pointed The Man nodded his head, Alright everyone be ready for anything, he whispered to the three, they came upon the clearing and saw a throne like the one Evelyn explained to them, Noah looked up and saw Evelyn hanging in the air wrapped around vines, Look guys it's Evelyn, Noah said silently. Where's your brother and the pterodactyl creature? Can you feel them? Noah asked the Man, No I can't but we should get her down before they come back, he told them, Blyke wasted no time running to her and cutting the vines off her while grabbing her gently so she didn't fall when he looked down at her she appeared to be sleep nothing more, oh thank goodness, he thought. He sat her body down in front of the others, Where are her daggers? Cleo asked, Blyke looked around and spotted them on the throne, I see them on the throne I'll get them and be back in a flash, he said calmly, before he even moved a wave of energy BLASTED him back into nearby trees breaking them as the others looked around and where once was nothing now saw three figures appear at the center of the clearing. I'm shocked you did not sense my presence big brother after everything we been through, Gigist said laughing, he used Evelyn as bait but why didn't he attack us when he had the chance, The Man thought, with no words Cleo and Noah pressed twice on their chest adapters and grew to eight feet, Blyke got up and rejoined everyone, you alright? Noah asked, Just a little damage is all, he responded, Be careful everyone Gigist has the power of illusions he can change one's perception in an instant, The Man warned, and with everyone nodding they charged forward.

The Man made the first move, slashing the air at Gigist which made contact and sent him sliding back some feet, Cleo and Noah teamed up on the pterodactyl creature with her jumping up and throwing a punch at its face which it stopped by using its arm as a shield it countered by using it's palm to push her off and sent her flying. This gave Noah enough time to charge up his armor's kinetic energy and shoot it to the creature hitting it in the face, it let out a roar of pain not being able to see he took this moment to rush and kick the thing in the chest than before the body hit the ground he sent another blast although smaller and less power it hit the mark and the thing went flying into the trees. He looked over to see Blyke getting dropped from a high height onto the ground, If I can just use the energy blast again I can bring it down but it needs time to recharge, Noah thought, Where's our problem? Cleo asked, Over there out cold I hope, he answered, Now he need to bring down the butterfly any ideas? Noah asked, she thought for a moment and nodded her head. Foolish boy it was a MISTAKE to go against me, it said looking down on Blyke, the wings on the backs spread out and started glowing, Blyke felt his energy slipping away even through his armor, why do I feel weak is it because of it's wings, he thought, a quick glance to the side he saw his friends preparing to try something at that moment he knew the thing's attention had to be focus on him, Is that the best you can do, he yelled mockingly. The creature started shaking at that and the wings started to glow even brighter Blyke fell to the ground unable to get up, Alright I hope this works, Cleo said, she threw the staff towards the creature hitting its side the thing screamed and looked down at the staff but the runes on the weapon began to glow and blue flame quickly spread across its body making it loss focus and crash into the ground she went up to it laying motionless and pulled the staff out.

Cleo and Noah went to help their friend lifting him to his feet, It drained my energy but I already feel it returning thanks to you guys, Blyke said thankfully, The group went to check on Evelyn seeing as she was slowing getting up from the ground, You're okay do you remember what Gigist did to you Evelyn, Blyke said worried. She shook her head, No I wish I could though, Evelyn said sourly, Don't worry about that now the important thing is your safe now, Cleo said warmly, Evelyn smiled at this getting up and looking around her eyes fell upon her daggers on the throne, We been trying to figure out how to get them for you as well, Noah said, She suddenly sensed something CHARGING from behind, Watch Out, she warned as the rest turned their hands to see a familiar creature. Blyke took out his gun and started shooting at the thing before it got closer to them some of the bullets hit the mark for their visor lit up everything more clearly, it jumped up, over and spun around then hit the ground facing them looking more crazed than it did, I WILL TEAR OUT YOUR FLESH FOR WHAT YOU DID TO ME AND MY BROTHERS, it yelled laughing in hysteria, Wait where's the other Man that was with you? Cleo asked, It tilted its head at this, I don't know honestly, it said. Evelyn didn't know if it was the mangled, disheveled fur or the MISSING right eye that made her freak out, without warning the creature rushed forward and punched Noah sending him crashing into nearby trees, it then turned to Blyke grabbing him with its two upper arms and throwing him into the air while Cleo tried to swing her staff but it caught her and with one punch sent her crashing into a tree. Blyke crashed into the ground leaving Evelyn the only one untouched, THE ONLY ONE LEFT YOU AREN'T EVEN WORTH MY TIME, it said in that high-pitched tone, Evelyn internally kicked herself for being weak at a moment of importance like this she suddenly got an idea but she needed to test it, Do you enjoy crushing beings that are weaker than you? She asked it loudly, it just looked at her with a blank stare, hopefully, it was the right move, Evelyn thought.

Evelyn felt this creature's wickedness and started to regret even asking but before it even answered it was PULLED away fast by a whip of light energy around its neck and thrown forward towards Gigist's direction by The Man. However, he saw his servant coming and outstretched his hand for the purple flame to shoot out and catch the monster but instead of lowering it, he threw his creation to the side and once more the flames moved past the Man like a living snake, he grabbed the butterfly servant this time and threw it near the four arms one like nothing, Go check on your other brother I need to see if he's still alive, he ordered, as the one-eyed monster slowly got up, bowed and went to check. Evelyn noticed everyone started to get up and rejoin her one by one, Should we help him? Noah asked everyone, they didn't answer unsure of what to do now, but they all felt the pressure around them as The Man revealed a glowing yellow circle over his head with wings appearing on his back supporting the same color, the four friends knew about this but to see it still amazed them. They noticed Gigist started to hover, his white cloth blowing with the wind, his horn started to glow, and Dark purple wings became VISIBLE to Evelyn and the rest, the purple flame returned even stronger than before but the new unexpected part was tears, glowing purple tears flowed down Gigist's face, Could he actually be feeling some form of regret or sadness, Evelyn thought. With no words further exchanged between the two powerful beings they clashed, Gigist making the first move by pounding his fist on the ground making the flame surround his brother, The Man flew high in the air and cast a beam of light down towards him, by using his wings he shielded his body from the attack, he threw his burning unnatural fire at him, The Man dodging each of them getting hit by a fake-out at the last second. He started to fall back down to earth but steadied himself and landed on his feet plunging the ground with his sword, erasing the flames and staring down Gigist, his horn grew brighter as he put his hands together, his flames now resembled arm gauntlets they both charged at the same time with Former Angel bringing his hand down and The Man countered with his sword creating a huge shockwave throughout the area that everyone else felt.

Gigist tried to bring his free hand down on him, The Man sent a beam of light to his eyes and blinded him, he roared and grabbed his eyes in pain taking a few steps back, I could injure him and make him retreat or capture him but first, The Man thought. Gigist took flight this time and started shooting flames at him but the Man was faster at dodging, as a counter he slashed the air in his direction which hit him but just winded him, The Man created a barrier around himself as he flew at a great speed, Gigist saw this and let his flames loose upon his brother The Man could feel it even though still protected but he knew now was the time. He opened a small hole and took his whip once more to use as a distraction, he extended the whip towards The Former Angel's eyes which distracted him long enough to STAB him in the chest, as he tried to remove the sword his cloth and chest was engulfed by blue flame causing him to fall back down to earth, I actually beat him this is a good day for the side of light, The Man thought. As he landed on the ground he looked at the remaining three creatures and charged his sword getting ready to finish them off but was HIT by his brother's flame he felt the fire begin to burn his wings, I have to stop this at once, he thought, his hands started to glow the same yellow and when he put them to his chest the flames were put out when he turned Gigist was standing without the sword and flames where the wound should have been. He still moving I thought that was enough to finish him off, Cleo said nervously, Did you think that would be enough to kill me, just think about it, would The Gods perish from something like that? Gigist asked mockingly, The friends already knew the answer but did not want to say it aloud, he laughed at their silence, I wish I had more time but I can hear and smell your allies starting to close in on the other side, so our time together is up, Gigist said sourly.

The friends saw Gigist's horn charge up once more, before runes began appearing on the ground beneath him, making a circle-like pattern. His hand held up high, a few seconds later, an evil looking tree sprouted from the earth, with dark red fruit hanging from it's limbs, engulfed within dark energy. Once the tree fully grew, at it's base a triangle-like doorway appeared, soon after the doorway became visible, when it opened, it brought two new disturbing creatures with it. The first to step through was a black Lycan wearing a large trench coat, muscular, pink claws, deep pink eyes, black silt-like pupils, a long pink stripe down it's forehead to it's snout, nine-feet tail a few feet shorter than Gigist himself, it greeted him by nodding it's head while The Former Angel returned the gesture, I would like to introduce you to my friend its or rather his name is, Dark Trojan Elder! A pleasure to meet you Enemies, Elder said to the four friends, Its voice was like Evelyn imagined it but distorted. The second creature was humanoid or at least top half, for the lower half was that of a serpent, it had black hair, orange eyes, sharp teeth, and a tail, What is your command Lord Gigist, The half woman, half snake said in a loud whisper voice, Grab the three new ones they are injured but they'll get the job done, he said calmly, as she moved with great speed to surround them and usher them through the Veil, What will you do about your brother, Elder said with an excited tone, Leave him and his new friends with this crushing defeat besides they know following us is a death sentence, Gigist said with satisfaction. The Man knew he was right if he followed them into The Void now it would be suicide he hated it but he had to let them go, Now let us go, Elder, he said to him, as they turned and walked into the Veil the tree disappearing completely, sinking back into the earth itself, The Man joined them with his halo and wings gone looking normal again, I'm glad you all survived and came out unharmed, The Man said thankfully.

We survived but I don't feel like we've won for some reason I don't know it's a strange feeling, Noah said sourly, You all were lucky that this army and the evolved creatures with still new born and getting a custom to what they could do, The Man said honestly, Wait! We forget about the Man that was on their side he must have gotten out of the branch by now, Cleo said nervously. The Man quickly his held out hand most likely trying to feel his presence, Unfortunately, Cleo is right I can no longer feel any life form he most likely escaped during the battle with Gigist, he said, They started hearing a helicopter a few miles in the distance, I assume that's our allies right there? Blyke asked, The Man nodded in turn. So now we either reveal ourselves to them or we stay with you? Cleo asked, That sounds about right unless you want them or me to erase your memory and return to your normal life, All four friends looked at each other and shook their heads, I'm ready to protect our world from these monsters that want to destroy it, Noah said, with everyone agreeing with him. Wait! What about my daggers, Evelyn said worried, The Man picked them up off the throne and gently floated and handed them to her than by a slash of his sword he destroyed where his brother once sat, The Man opened another gateway where all four stepped inside and he closed it behind them, Are you sure you all are ready for this you'll encounter beings, and worlds brand new to your eyes, The Man curiously. Well, my parents always said I needed to get out more but I had no idea how far I would go, Noah said jokingly, Everyone smiled at this, Hey, do you think it's over, or was that just the beginning? Cleo asked the Man, No, The Ancients will stop at nothing to achieve their goals no matter the price and I sense the Royals are starting to become desperate for their father's return and who knows what disaster they'll bring with them for an entire realm is at their disposal but I think all of them are in for a surprise, he said confidently, Now who's ready to come along, as they followed him into another world.

A frightened sigh escaped his lips as he climbed the basement stair for what would be his final time. A dry rattle had taken hold in his chest, and soon that dryness would take on a wet quality that meant a threshold had been crossed. Once, not long ago actually, he would have already called for the nearest doctor to come and inspect him, give him aid and succor. Only now, that didn't seem so important. Nothing seemed important.

After all, his wife was dead.

Even while sweating through his shirt, that thought made a mad shiver race up his spine, going from top to bottom and back again, like an elevator filled with shards of frozen glass. After catching his wind again, he put one foot in front of the other. Arthritis, along with decades of wear and tear that each human body should be so lucky to accumulate, screamed at his joints. The chest rattle took on a feeling of dampness, no longer sounding like a rattlesnake in the desert, but a bundle of wet leaves scraped across pavement. He didn't have much longer, and that meant that he had to get himself up this god-damned staircase and get to work. It was a fool's errand to come to the basement, but he had something he had to do.

After all, his wife was dead.

She passed last evening, and it was a mercy that she did so in the comfort of her own home, with him by her side. Her mind had been eaten away by the wasting disease she was afflicted with, and not only did she not remember him these days, but that she remembered herself in the slightest was laughable.

He continued to shift his weight forward, finally reaching the top of the stairs, carrying the boards he was looking for for far too long. Nothing had prepared him for the full weight of what had happened, and that had scrambled his mind quite a lot. When he pictured them passing, he thought they would be sleeping, cheek to cheek, and would simply slip away from the mortal realm. Give that coil a hell of a shuffle, but do it together, and in peace. Then a few days ago she started going so fast. One week, she was sitting in her chair amidst the brilliant shades of sunlight that she often took to in her parlor. The next, she was different, and couldn't be let out of the room, with no exception. He wondered now, scooting his way towards their downstairs bedroom (their bodies were much to old for stairs at this point, as his was displaying), what had really happened on her evening walk that day. For the life of him, he didn't know, and she never said. It would add a hell of a lot of peace of mind for what he was about to do.

After all, his wife WAS dead.

He opened the door and laid his eyes on her again, just to make sure his feeble old brain wasn't still playing a trick on him.

She lay there, eyes wide and glassy, staring at him. When he entered, she was blank and expressionless, but after he turned and started to hammer the boards into place on the door, he couldn't help but stealing a glance again. Now, she bore the lunatic grin of a person who, after starving all day, saw a waiter bringing their food, only to watch that server trip and scatter it on the floor. It was hungry, somehow, and the smile wasn't the only thing. It was her eyes, pupils spreading like too much ink in too little water, almost seeming to overshadow the iris entirely. They were eyes that coveted, that lusted, that desired not only to overeat, but absolutely gorge.

She was dead, but clearly no more.

He finished hammering the last nail, barely able to hold the hammer as he did so. The wet rattle was now sopping and soaked, and his heart beat in his chest like a cryptic jazz rhythm that couldn't keep time. With the last of his strength, he walked to her side table and grabbed the oil lamp, still burning brightly in the early evening. He sat at the end of the bed where her jaws, now gnashing and chomping for meat, wouldn't find him. He had been her husband, her best friend, the soul responsible for doing not only what made her happy, but sometimes what was best for her. He meant to put an underline under the last task.

“I love you” he said with lungs that couldn't sustain the strain anymore.

His heart, now losing all memory that it should beat entirely, reached out for her and found only blackness there now.

He threw the oil lamp to the floor with his remaining willpower, and put both of them out of their misery.

In Obedient Grove, silence isn’t just the lack of sound—it’s a way of life, a kind of ritual, almost. It lingers in the air, in the way our neighbors nod rather than greet, in the steady tolling of the clock tower. Evelyn and I, we’ve grown accustomed to it. After all, in a place like this, silence can be comforting. Or, at least, that’s what I’ve always thought.

These days, our quiet is occasionally softened by the sound of Timmy’s laughter, and, if I close my eyes, I can almost pretend everything is as it was. He doesn’t understand, not fully. To him, this is just a visit to Grandma and Grandpa’s, a long one, perhaps, but temporary. He talks about his mother and father as if they’re right down the road, as if any day now they’ll walk through the door. Evelyn and I haven’t found the strength to correct him, to tell him that he’s here with us for good. Instead, we let him keep his illusions, because a part of me wishes I could still believe it myself.

In the morning, I watched Evelyn braid his hair into cornrows, her hands moving carefully. I think about it now, of Evelyn smiling as she sends him off to school with a sandwich and a small treat, watching him skip down the driveway. I know she worries, lingering at the door until he’s out of sight, fearing that, like his parents, he might simply disappear if we don’t watch him close enough. Each night, I read him the same stories we used to read to our daughter, and he falls asleep with his little hand tucked into mine. He’s the last bit of her we have, and I don’t think either of us would survive losing him, too.

The whole town seems to sense it, our need for this fragile new normal. The neighbors nod from their porches but rarely speak, lawns are pristine, and at night, the streetlamps all flicker on in perfect unison, a soft, reliable glow against the dark. Obedient Grove cocoons us, as if trying to keep us safe in its quiet embrace.

There’s a peculiar stillness to this place, something deeper than grief, something unspoken. It presses in, as though the town is watching us, biding its time.

That first night was the first time in a long while that I felt uneasy in my own home. It’s difficult to explain; it sounds almost foolish as I write it down, but the silence here, the stillness—it was different. There was a weight to it, a quiet that pressed down like a presence, as if something else had settled into the house with us.

It started small, just faint noises—a creak on the stairs, the thud of something dropping in the attic, footsteps. Old houses have a way of making their own sounds, so Evelyn and I brushed it off as our imaginations running wild. Still, when I checked on Timmy, I found myself hesitating by his door, lingering just long enough to hear the soft, steady sound of his breathing. He was fast asleep, oblivious to the unease seeping through the walls.

But the noises didn’t stop. At one point, I could’ve sworn I heard someone—or something—whispering from the corner of the room, but when I looked, it was only shadows flickering, shifting along the wallpaper. Just a trick of the light, I told myself. But I knew that wasn’t quite true. Evelyn felt it too. I saw it in the way her hands trembled slightly as she closed the curtains, how her eyes darted to the shadows that gathered just beyond the lamplight.

We tried to sleep, to put it out of our minds, but the house refused to let us rest. There were noises—an almost rhythmic tapping along the walls, faint but insistent, and a skittering sound, as though something was crawling through the walls themselves. I remember holding my breath, straining to make sense of the sounds, my heart thudding in my chest. I don’t remember feeling this way since the accident—this feeling of something terrible hovering just out of sight, waiting.

Then came the shadows. They seemed to pool in the corners, darkening the spaces between furniture, thickening under the bed. At first, I thought it was just the play of headlights from the street, but the shapes lingered, stretching along the walls and ceiling in ways I can’t explain. And just before dawn, I thought I saw a figure standing in the doorway of Timmy’s room.

When I gathered the courage to look again, there was nothing there.

It was only then, as I lay back down beside Evelyn, that I realized I’d been gripping her hand all along, and that I’d been praying, over and over, that it was only the house settling, that the quiet would return to its familiar, peaceful hum.

But this morning, when Timmy asked why someone was whispering his name during the night, I could feel the truth beginning to creep in: we aren’t alone. Something has shifted, and whatever it is, it’s come to Obedient Grove to make itself known.

The silence in Obedient Grove has always been a comfort to me, a stillness that held the world steady and predictable. But lately, I wonder if it’s something else entirely, something alive, that stirs within the quiet. A force that thrives in the spaces where words go unspoken and thoughts remain nascent. As strange as it sounds, it’s as though the very hush of this town draws out what’s hidden, giving shape to things that should never take form.

It began with Timmy’s sketches. He’s always been fond of drawing—a happy distraction, I’d thought, a way to keep his mind on brighter things. But his drawings have changed. Where once there were smiling stick figures and animals, there are now twisted shapes, creatures that don’t belong in any storybook. Long limbs, eyes that bulge in impossible places, mouths that curl into jagged grins. Evelyn and I exchanged uneasy glances when we saw them, dismissing it as a phase, perhaps, or an outlet for the confusion he must be feeling. But it didn’t stop there.

The first real sign came a few nights ago. Timmy was fast asleep when I heard the patter of footsteps in the hall. Thinking he’d woken up, I went to check, but found only his toys scattered across the floor. They hadn’t been there when we tucked him in. As I reached down to pick them up, one of them—a wooden horse on wheels—let out a faint creak, as if it had moved by itself. I told myself it was my imagination, but the dread lingered, a chill that seemed to seep into the walls

Evelyn and I were sitting in the living room, exhausted and the house was finally still, or so we thought. A faint shuffle behind us broke the silence, something soft and scratchy—just the sound you’d make if you dragged a piece of chalk across the wall in slow, jagged strokes.

I turned, and in that sliver of dim light from the hallway, I saw it. The thing was barely there, a shape that wavered and shifted, like a child’s frantic drawing, come to life and slipping between worlds. It looked like something Timmy had scrawled in crayon on paper, then smudged over in wild streaks—a chimera, but incomplete, sketched in blurry lines that couldn’t hold still. A strange smear of limbs and eyes that almost formed a face but melted away when I tried to focus. It didn’t walk, didn’t crawl, just seemed to blur in and out, as if it were trying to find itself and failing.

It was there, and then it wasn’t. When I blinked, the shape shifted, slipped backward, and vanished. But there was a sickly residue left in my mind, like staring too long at something bright and having the shape burned into your vision.

Neither of us said a word. Evelyn’s hand was cold in mine, her grip unsteady, and I knew she’d seen it too. We couldn’t find words to fill the silence, so we sat there, each of us holding our breath, watching the shadows for any sign that it might reappear. I felt my heart pounding in my ears, the quiet pressing in again, as if the house had sealed itself over that strange, fragile thing.

Hours later, we climbed into bed, but sleep refused to come. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering if it would slip back into our room while we slept, if it had always been lurking just beyond our sight, waiting.

Morning arrived, but it felt like the earth had tilted slightly, leaving everything off-kilter. The sunlight poured through the windows, but it didn’t warm the room; it only made the shadows sharper, more oppressive, as if they were stretching longer just to remind us of their presence. I watched Timmy sitting at the breakfast table, still as stone, staring blankly at his untouched plate. His hands were curled into fists at his sides, and his eyes—his eyes were distant, hollow, as if he wasn’t really here with us at all.

Evelyn and I didn’t speak. We couldn’t. The silence between us had grown thick, a presence in itself. The kind of silence that makes your skin crawl, the kind that makes you feel like you’re suffocating on your own breath. The house was so still I could hear my pulse in my ears.

I watched Timmy, my heart hammering in my chest, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask him what was wrong. His stare was empty, unfocused, as if he were seeing something we couldn’t. The air in the room was so dense, so heavy with something unseen, that I couldn’t move. I couldn’t look away.

Evelyn’s hands were trembling in her lap, wringing together like she was trying to hold onto something, trying to stop herself from breaking apart. I could see the same panic rising in her eyes—the kind of panic that comes from knowing something terrible is happening, but not knowing what or when it will strike. Her gaze kept flicking to the shadows in the corners of the room, as if expecting them to move, to shift into something more solid, something...alive.

I couldn’t look away from Timmy, and he couldn’t look away from whatever it was that he saw. The silence stretched on, longer than it ever should have, choking us, suffocating us. No words were spoken, not a sound—just the sound of our breaths, too loud in the oppressive quiet. I wanted to scream, to break the silence, but I couldn’t. It felt like the very air would tear if I did.

Timmy didn’t blink. He didn’t move. His hands were still clenched, and he just kept staring at that breakfast plate like it was the most important thing in the world. I wanted to shake him, to make him snap out of whatever this was, but I couldn’t bring myself to touch him. I was terrified that the moment I did, whatever we were avoiding—whatever we were waiting for—would rush back in, filling the room like smoke, like shadows, like something we couldn’t control.

The quiet wasn’t just the absence of noise. It was something more—something alive, suffocating, pressing against us from every side. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but I knew it was here, in the house, in the air. The same thing that had haunted us the night before, that had flickered in and out of existence like a smear of ink—now it was everywhere. I felt it creeping up behind me, in the corners of my eyes, where the shadows wouldn’t stop stretching.

Timmy finally blinked. But he didn’t move.

We didn’t move.

The house didn’t move.

And the silence...the silence just kept pressing in, tighter and tighter.

I had to get out of there, and left Timmy and Evelyn to go to the library. I've always got my answers from books. I have an uncanny knack for research and locating information. I had to do something, to find a way through the silence. It was strange that I felt like I was somewhere I didn't want to be, as though the threshold to knowledge were a cold and evil stone slab I had to step over.

I don't know how long I spent in the library—time blurred into something unrecognizable, a tangled mess of hours or perhaps days. The cold stone of the building seemed to press in on me, heavy and oppressive, as if the very walls were conspiring to keep me trapped. I had no idea what I was searching for, but I knew I had to find something—anything—that could explain what had been happening to Timmy. There had to be an answer hidden in the town's forgotten past, some piece of history that could tell me how to protect him.

And then I found it. A single, obscure folktale, buried in a crumbling old book, tucked between forgotten volumes. It wasn’t much—just a few tattered pages, barely legible—but it was enough. The story, something from the earliest days of Obedient Grove, told of a creature, a thing born from a child’s imagination. It had no true form, just a blur of shifting shapes, twisting shadows—like something sketched quickly with crayon, but alive. And it had been summoned by the innocent mind of a child.

The creature, too pure at first, had grown twisted, fed by fear, until it had become a terror that gripped the town for years. The child’s grandparents, it seemed, had been the ones to defeat it. They had used something—an artifact, a weapon of light, something the town’s history had nearly erased. These artifacts, the Fulgence Illumum, were the key. The light they wielded was the only force that could push the creature back, banishing it into the darkness, but at a cost.

The cost was unthinkable.

Using the Fulgence Illumum, the tale warned, would destroy the child’s imagination—erase it. The very thing that had brought the creature into existence would be destroyed, and with it, the child’s innocence, the very soul of childhood. I read those words, feeling them sink into me like vomit, heavy and suffocating.

But what could I do? The creature was here, in our home, in Timmy’s mind. I saw it every time he stared into space, every time he shuddered and looked over his shoulder. I couldn’t let it consume him. But the price...

I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t stop myself.

That’s when I overheard something. One of the librarians, a woman with an unsettlingly quiet voice, had mentioned the library’s restricted cellar. It was off-limits to the public, but there were rumors about what might be kept down there. Strange things. I hadn’t thought much of it until then. But now, in that moment of desperation, I knew where I had to go.

The library had emptied by the time I slipped down the hall, moving quietly through the back corridors, my breath catching in my throat. The air grew damp and cold as I descended the narrow stairs to the cellar, the stone walls pressing in on me as if they wanted to swallow my soul. It was darker than I’d expected, the kind of darkness that makes you feel like the shadows hide something, watching. Shelves lined with dust-covered crates filled the space, each one feeling more ancient than the last.

And then, I found it. A chest, sitting alone in the corner, its wood old and warped with age, covered in strange markings, too faded to decipher. Something in me knew. I felt it in my gut. This was it. This was what I had been searching for.

Inside the chest, the Fulgence Illumum lay waiting. Three objects, gleaming faintly even in the darkness: a lantern, its glass glowing from within as if it contained its own heartbeat; a pair of gloves, thin and delicate, woven from a silver thread that caught the faintest light; and a crystal orb, so clear it seemed to absorb the very air around it, casting a thousand tiny, fractured reflections on the walls.

I didn’t need to ask what they were. I knew, somehow. These were the very objects that had been used to banish the creature long ago. The light they held was the only thing that could stop it now. But there was no forgetting the cost. The child’s imagination would burn away. Timmy’s innocence would be gone forever.

I hesitated, standing there in the dark, the artifacts heavy in my hands. The price... the cost was unbearable, but what choice did I have? Timmy couldn’t go on like this, trapped in his own fear. I couldn’t stand to watch him slip further away, lost in that terrible thing that lurked in his mind.

I took the artifacts. My heart raced, my hands trembling as I slipped them into my coat, burying them close to my chest. I didn’t look back as I ascended the stairs, barely breathing as I passed the empty halls, out into the crisp night air.

The weight of what we faced pressed down on us, heavier than anything I’d ever carried. Evelyn and I hadn’t spoken much since I returned from the library, the silence between us thick with the weight of what we were about to do. I could feel it in her eyes—what I felt, too. The fear wasn’t the same as before; it wasn’t just the creature anymore. It had become about Timmy, and the uncertainty of what we had to sacrifice. What would it cost us to protect him?

When Claire and her husband... when they were taken from us, everything changed. The world became a quiet, desolate place. It’s hard to describe, that kind of loss. It’s not like any grief I’ve known, where you can say goodbye, where there’s a sense of closure. No, this was different. It was the suddenness of it that cuts the deepest. One day they were here, full of life, and the next, it felt like they’d never existed. That kind of absence, that void, it doesn’t fill up easily.

And now, in the quiet of this house that used to echo with Claire’s voice, there’s only stillness. The walls are heavy with it, and every corner feels empty. That’s when Timmy came. He wasn’t a replacement for Claire, and I knew he never could be. But he’s a piece of her, a part of this family, and we hoped—maybe foolishly—that his presence could fill just a little bit of the space she left behind. But I don’t think Timmy understands. He still thinks this is just a visit. That one day, everything will go back to the way it was. He doesn’t know that his parents aren’t coming back.

And that breaks my heart. He’s so young, and he’s so lost in all of this. He deserves to know the world isn’t a dark and broken place, that there’s safety and love. But sometimes, I see it in his eyes—the same confusion, the same fear I feel. I wonder if he senses it too. The emptiness, the loss, the way everything’s changed so suddenly, and so completely.

Every time I look at him, I think of Claire. I think of how she would’ve known what to say, how she would’ve made everything feel okay. But she’s not here. And now there’s something else—a creature, a thing born from Timmy’s imagination, his fears, and this quiet town that seems to hold everything in place, like it’s waiting for something to break. It’s feeding on him, growing stronger every day. It’s like watching him slip away, little by little, into something else. Something darker.

I wish I knew what Claire would have done. What she would have said. Maybe she would’ve known how to stop this—how to keep Timmy from fading into something I couldn’t reach. But she’s gone, and I’m left with this fear, this horror, and I don’t know how to fix it.

The Fulgence Illumum—these artifacts I found, these light-based objects that can burn away the creature—might be the only hope we have. But there’s a price to using them, a terrible price. If we destroy the creature, we destroy Timmy’s imagination, his innocence. I know it will break him. And I don’t know if I can do that.

But I can’t let him become what this creature wants. Not after all that’s already taken from us. I can’t lose him too.

So we move forward. The ache of Claire’s absence is still fresh, still raw in ways I didn’t expect. Timmy’s only just moved in, but already, it feels like he’s been here forever. And yet, every day, I feel like we’re walking on the edge of something we can’t quite see, waiting for it to take us. We can’t protect Timmy from everything—he’s already lost so much—but I have to try. I can’t let this thing steal him, too. I can’t let him become like this house: empty, quiet, forgotten.

For Claire’s sake, for Timmy’s, we have to face what comes next. Whatever it costs us, we can’t let him slip away into the dark. Not like she did. Not again.

It all happened so fast, too fast—one second, we were standing there, the light flickering in our hands, trying to hold it together, and the next, the creature was everywhere. God, I can’t even make sense of it, everything a blur—its body stretching, twisting, growing. It didn’t make sense. The walls groaned like they were alive, creaking, cracking, and suddenly the air felt wrong, as if the house itself was being torn apart from the inside.

The windows—they exploded outward, and I couldn’t hear myself scream over the shriek that tore through the walls. It wasn’t just screams—it was everything—growls, screeches, tearing metal, cracking bones, all crashing together, a roar that rattled my bones, shook the very ground beneath us.

We had to run. We didn’t even think. We just—ran.

Evelyn grabbed my arm, pulling me toward the door. Timmy was right behind us, his hand clutching mine, and we were stumbling, tripping over our feet, every step leading us farther from that thing inside. The floor beneath us groaned, buckling, the house itself seemed to be caving in, bending and shifting in ways I couldn’t understand. There was no time to think, just run—run, get out—and we did, through the door, into the air that felt cold, wrong, like it had been poisoned by whatever the hell was inside.

And then—then—it came. The house… broke. The limbs of it reached, stretching out from the windows, from the cracks in the walls, like they were made of nothing but air and shadow, barely there, flickering like some half-formed nightmare. It was too much, too fast, too much to even take in—everything splintered and cracked and flew outward, shards of wood, glass, the very walls breaking apart, exploding into the air, the wind screaming with the sound of it.

We were running. We didn’t even look back.

The air was full of glass, of splinters, like they were cutting through the world, raining down around us. We didn’t stop. I couldn’t—we couldn’t—look back.

But then, for a second, I did.

The house… it wasn’t a house anymore. It was just pieces, fragments, everything falling apart, bending, warping like it wasn’t meant to be real. The thing—whatever it was—was still there, still growing, limbs flailing, stretching outward, impossibly large, and the noise… God, the noise, it was like everything was screaming at once.

And then it exploded.

No, it wasn’t like fire—it was like the world itself cracked open, every bit of it pulled apart and shredded in an instant. The walls, the windows, the floor—everything—ripped away, flying outward, and I thought I was going to be torn apart with it. I was holding on to Timmy, holding on to Evelyn, and we ran, ran, just trying to get away from the destruction, the chaos, the terror. But there was no escaping it. It was all around us, too close, too fast.

And then—it stopped.

The house was gone. The wreckage of it was all that was left. We stood there, breathing heavily, too terrified to speak. My legs were shaking, my chest was tight, and I couldn’t even—couldn’t even think—I just stared at the pile of rubble. The thing—the creature—was gone. But we weren’t safe. Not yet.

Timmy was beside us, so we grabbed him into our embrace, alive, but changed, somehow, like he’d seen something no child should ever see. Evelyn clung to me, and I to her, and we all stood there, frozen, holding each other as the dust settled, as the echoes of the nightmare slowly faded away.

But that silence—it was heavier than anything else. And the fear, it was still there. In the back of my mind, gnawing at the edges of my thoughts, I could feel it.

The nightmare wasn’t over. It couldn’t be.

...

Now, I’m sitting here, writing this in the big city. There’s noise here, all the time. Sirens, honking cars, the constant murmur of the crowd. But it doesn’t bother us anymore. The noise is normal. We’ve learned to drown it out, to let it become part of the rhythm of our life. It’s like we’ve lived here forever, and somehow… that night, that house—it already feels like a dream.

Timmy is different now. He’s still Timmy, but there’s something softer about him. Something older, too. The other day, he showed me a drawing he’d made—a picture of his mom and dad going to heaven. There were clouds, stars, and a golden light surrounding them. I don’t know how long he’s been thinking about them that way, but he told me they were happy now. He said they were watching over us. He said it with this quiet certainty, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

And for the first time in a long time, I think he might be right. I don’t know how or when it happened, but he’s starting to heal. The scars from that night are still there, buried somewhere deep, but Timmy’s imagination is still alive, and it’s no longer a weapon. It’s his way of coming back to us, of understanding, of letting go.

It’s strange, though. Even now, I can’t help but remember the fear, the terror of what we had to do to protect him. The Fulgence Illumum, those damned artifacts—we took something from him that night. We didn’t just fight a creature. We fought against what makes him who he is. I can never forget the look on his face when he realized what had happened. But somehow, we’re all still here, still together, and in some ways, that’s all that matters.

We’re safe now. We’re whole. But I know that no matter how far we move from Obedient Grove, no matter how much the city’s noise drowns out everything else, I’ll never forget that silence—the quiet that swallowed us whole, that thing we fought, and the way our world shattered in an instant.

And I know, deep down, that we’ll never fully escape it. Not really. Not ever. But I’ll hold onto Timmy and Evelyn, and I’ll protect them for as long as I can. That’s all I can do. And maybe… just maybe… we’ll be alright.