I woke from a tattered mattress, it mushed at parts, and uncharacteristically stiff in others, as if reinforced by narrow beams. Barren, with no dressings, patches still damp with unknown fluids. How could anyone rest here? Yet there I was. I lifted myself from the bed and swung my legs off to the side. It squished and leaked whenever I shifted. Planting myself on the floor greeted me with a hollow cracking followed by a mush tinged with oil and shells between my toes, it left me to recoil in shock. I could narrowly make out shells and husks of black things blanketing the floor, married with the layer of dust and tar. Chimeras patchworked with the forms of cicadas, roaches, beetles, and locusts, belonging to no particular order, in fact, conjoined to make new taxa. Some headless, some with conjoined thoraxes and abdomens, some larvae with chitinous exteriors. They writhed with horrid sensations along my feet, dead and alive, bleeding oily, overly ripe, heavy scent with hints of rotting potatoes into the air.

 I gathered myself for a moment and looked over the sea of tiny corpses, hunting through it with an untrained eye. I chose a mound elevated higher than the rest of the layer, spotting a particularly lively creature burrowing and gnashing at its kin’s wake, the legs tapped and wiggled hypnotically, mandibles followed as it gently cut away at the bodies, swallowing some of each corpse’s essence. It dissected rather than maimed in all of this death, a tending scavenger, pulling apart, eating, and placing the chitin upon the mound, a meaningless task to build the highest hill in the lowest graveyard. It worked and ate, worked and ate, worked. And. Ate.

Another creature came, birthed from the tar and dust. Hateful and full of spite yet entirely identical, it rose with seemingly one intent, malice. It directed its focus on the tending scavenger, sinking crushing mandibles into its back.

 It held so much hatred despite being moments old. Born gnashing and fighting, an instinct passed down from countless clades, there was no other emotion in it but hate. The worker locked in the jaws, squirmed and writhed, slowly crushed from the newborn malice. It cracked into two still writhing from the spasming of nerves, firing panickingly in its death throes, unable to come to terms with its demise, frantically thrashing to halt death's enduring creep. The mangled thing  And then the malice took the worker’s role. Building, eating, building, eating. All as docile as the first.

I glanced over the graveyard they laid in. Three stark walls with imposing presences shooting upwards to a bleeding, uneven dark. One with a towering window paneI lining perfectly straight rays along the black coast all the way to the far wall, unnaturally so, as if to keep the threshold from colluding with the shadows. The thick heat bound my head with a firm, dull tether that would tug nausea through me with every head turn.

The frame was rather large, even from a distance. It stood doorless with light from the window illuminating a pale yellow wall contrasted to the brown and black shades of this room, all knotted and gnarled, protruding hostile spikes that attacked in every direction. The heat rested better on me, not constricting my head. I took steps towards the light and exit, turned to the pane adjacent to it, a veil or translucent curtain hanging outside the wall of glass blurred all but the sickly glow of dusk. Hums of wind were absent even from the window, and I listened intently. It was an unnerving, stifling silence, suffocating even my thoughts, cracking me. With stilted gasps, I leaned on the window, closed my eyes, balled my fists, and impotently slammed at the pane. My eyes welled, squinting, and clenching and hoping I would wake in my trembling. It set in that the moment would not come. 

 The sinking pit in my stomach filled and my trembling ceased. I looked past the sill where the dead black things never fell. The light that peeked beyond it revealed the floor. Pallid, off white, dry, contiguous, without segments, yet pristine. The filth and chimera stood at the border as if they knew their place, never crossing the sacrosanct. I took measured steps towards the exit, and placed my hand upon the sill as I walked further into the dark. A distant ray cast from further down the hallway, the spotlight suggested another room. I turned back to gaze at the dark behind the mattress, sharing kinship to the ceiling, but still insisted upon itself utterly distinct from all else not as a boundary, but a crossing. Almost inviting in its presence, beckoning one to strip themselves of light to join. It held everything unknown, offering an accord to be part of the forgotten. The ambient light keeping the bed from obscurity began to reveal something. It emerged from the crossing, a tease to what the black holds.

A great face with misshapen features. Blocky and dented as if it was a crudely put together clay sculpture plastered with noses, ears, pits of black, and eyes, all flaring, tearing, and leaking. Tufts of hair grew in purposeless areas, over some eyes and pits, growing out of them even. The skin mottled and tawny, darker patches riddling it like pock marks, all the while slick, slimy, and shining even in the gloom. It was impossibly large, spanning the foot to the rest.  The shape slowly rose further up revealing warped, monstrous black beads surrounded by a thin sclera twinkling and twitching and welling like its lesser eyes. The figure rose further, its mouth a great pit, neither a smile nor a frown, spanning from ear to ear, or where they would have been. Deep blackness from that hole that distorted the already heavy dark around it, pulling it inward. It spoke in a din of countless voices, discordant but still clear in their calling to me, and all without moving that gaping hole. It locked my eyes on it as I felt a strain on my body, weight on my feet. 

The bed hovered from the dark, with the obscured head behind it. I retreated, huddled into the corridor and paid close attention to the doorway. The thud of a heavy thing pounded away at the door frame as light narrowed from it. The mattress imposed itself on the doorway blocking half of it, attempting to fit through the threshold, but nothing else came with it. The attempt to pull further from the door left me too heavy to even avert my gaze, seizing my chest and laboring my breathing. Slowly it turned, and squeezed itself in the hallway, and the light cast behind it slowly began to dim as it swallowed the door frame and bed with its hideous face, a horrid half moon, still smiling, bleeding, welling and squeezing, lumps of fat and skin piled on top of each other as it tried to force its way through. when the body swallowed the light and I remained in darkness, all I could hear were the groanings of a bed and wood being stressed by a massive thing, the creaks were rapid at first, producing almost a drone of tension, abating further and further from a constant stream to intermittent stutters. Then a break.

A single ray out of a broken frame illuminated a ghastly visage stuck in the sill with the mattress consumed by the mass, staring those orbs at me, through me, with a unpleasant tether it commanded me. Its whispers spoke, calling me by my name… how did it know my name?

I felt such a morbid joy, pulling towards it, what a wonderful feeling. Embraced in such loving eyes and mouths, all batting upon me, whispering promises of eternally compounding love, sating any fearful notions that grew from the dark it came from. I ran till it grew distant.

The hallway cooled down further into the dark I went, frigid at some points, but wind never hit my fogging breath. It felt the most comfortable in this area, most like home. It produced the same stillness of the bedroom, but the pattering of my feet broke some silence. The ground seemed to be taken care of, devoid of the husks that littered the bedroom, and ladybug’s fright no longer lingered past the clear division, rather a smell of iron. Soft, spongy floor cradled my feet as they slightly formed around my heel and sole like foam laid underneath the carpet. I slid my hand across the wall and felt the paint unevenly rolled along it, but nonetheless smooth. Further down, the smell of iron was overtaken by raw sewage. I had walked halfway to the light until I had felt wetness on the floor and wall, touching moist chunks fitting against my palm.  Viscous pools drowned the hallway, tripping me, my hands caught my fall on a hairy chunk. The long stringy hair clumped together in my hands, it dripped with a firm squeeze.  I had wrapped my fingers around the front, I ran across no features familiar to the face, but an inconsistent mush with sudden bumps of teeth and bone. 

The carnage left in the hallway brought my sinking stomach and nausea. It seemed like something  of pure malice. The thought gripped my head, tightening it in the sharpness of the cold air. My feet numbed as I moved through the thick pools. That coldest part of the hallway passed and I had almost reached the light.

It came out of the darkness on the other side, a corrupted thing, not an animal, but something greater, a hovering gnarly, knotted stump of flesh that spanned the narrow hall, and towered into the infinite. It bubbled with rot and barnacles, discoloring the mottled flesh with rounds of irritated red and crusted yellows, all layered as pustules. The stench grew to an unbearable wretching miasma, viciously assaulting the nose, thickening the air with still-silent fetid clouds.  And out of the dark, a body plummeted. It hit the ground, wheezing, coughing, dazed and in clear shock as she laid broken on the floor writhing, lazily holding her hands defending an inevitable end. It failed to shout any plea past a choke through her split mouth and mangled throat. I watched… it had not seen me and looked up. The stump rose over her torso and head and it slowly fell. Her upper body popped and cracked as it rose again, leaving a pile of viscera with legs twitching in the spotlight of the rays cast out the doorway. The bits pulled up from the floor on the tumorous foot, leaving an elastic gush that stuck to the floor and stretched like an insect, bits of bone and flesh dropped from its base. Little creatures, chimera erupted in fear scattering from the broken meat like the underside of a stone shown to daylight, clumsily skittering in every direction, wantonly screeching a horrid song as they spilled upon the floor as if burned by consecration.

I gawked, unable to speak. It reached down, revealing a delicate mottled arm. It carried a cloth large enough to wrap the mangled remains, and lifted back up to the shadows effortlessly. The thin hand dipped back and forth from the dark, spilling clear bubbling fluid from above, then bringing the cloth down to wipe frantically in every direction. Vibrating and halting, spilling, vibrating and halting, pulling up, dipping down, vibrating apnd halting. It smeared brown black and red till the floor gave off clean, placid gloss.

It crossed further into the light and shrouded itself in darkness. The tower silently hovering towards me. The thing behind the bed lay further back waiting for me, lurking beyond the doorway. I turned, saw the light still half cast from that threshold, hurried through the corridor carefully, and cautiously sidestepped the unseen carnage for a moment, then back to full sprint.  In the corner of that doorway, there was a glimpse of that twinkling twitching bead, still tracked on me. My eyes closed as I ran through the light, huddling and flinching and curling myself into the smallest shape while passing back into the dark.  looked back to the half cast light bound at the hallway, quickly eroding as the massive thing swallowed all that past it blanketing everything in darkness. It was moving faster than me now. I kicked off the floor back into a full sprint, panic fueling me.

Something else laid in the hallway and caused me to stumble and roll over my ankle. Pain came in thin strands, throbbing pulses up and down my legs, relegating me to a tired limp or hurried crawl. I laid on the floor prone clawing down that hall. That pungent scent soon entered the air and an intense draft rushed over my body that carried that rot and chillwind in it. It's presence so close to my head, inches from a violent splatter. It was wise to collapse myself in this dark, and chose to crawl on my belly, back to the mound of dark that saved me. No pools or viscera coated the walls and floor near it, it was entirely intact. I nudged it and it lugged with the heft of a corpse. I listened to it in perfect silence, and my hand fumbling in the dark wandered around it. Bones poked and pointed, hung over skin. The face gaunt, angular, facing upward with patches of fuzz connecting around cracked lips, but perfectly bald. He wore light coarse vestments, tattered from time or abuse. Ribs bumped in perfect ridges out of his shirt and the stomach was concave to them. His last movement towards the light from that endless dark must have been a desperate one. He must have seen it, that glimpse of hope casting a warm glow. Hoping for rest. I crawled, slowly pulling him towards the light in that broken sill.

The rays of dusk fully passed through as if the mattress was removed. The absence of those haunting orbs relieved me, allowing me to creep around the bottom of the sill. The bed and face were gone, with the piles of creatures still a constant. I returned with the man and carried him over my shoulder. Lifting him, even for my injuries, put no stress on myself. He was a near skeleton, draped in exotic robes with dazzling patterns of an unknown origin. Loose skin matching the dun brown walls hung off of him. I laid him at the base of the pane Although not much comfort, a proper place for him to rest. His eyes were open, still shining but gave off no anguish, instead it was awe. In his moments, belly up, he saw something in that bleeding dark or maybe he dreamt past this hell. And he may still be dreaming. The silence was no longer as maddening, he and I enjoyed the peace.

"I wish I knew your name, Honored Guest." A deluge of relief passes through a slight giggle, leading to a gentle moment in the midst of a waking nightmare, sharing it with a corpse, no less. It is an inexorable contract, paid duly every moment, impossible to fulfill and seemingly endless until death idles by. What was his role in all of this? We sat and I dressed him for his rest, folding his arms and leaving his eyes staring upward, gently speaking to him. Intimacy seemed etched in the dark as the words carried to him, this place wanted only us to share this sentence. I sat by his side for some time and the light still shined at the same angle and intensity, beating beams of dusk warmed the room. I returned to the hallway and looked back at that enticing rest. Thank you.

Further up the hall I saw it again, I hesitated to stand looking for that horrid shadow smothering lights ahead, but there were none past the unknown room. I creeped around the bottom of that sill. A quick scan identified it to be a living area and kitchen, some items immediately stuck out in familiarity, some were obscured by that ever present dark lingering in this place. I rose from the floor in an uneven gait, hobbling on my good leg and gravitated to the sets of furniture littering the left side. It was in an open area of the already broad room. The floor was a disgusting pattern of unknown material, overly glossy and uneven. It drove me to investigate further. In it, it still moved, an incomprehensible resin of the smallest creatures vibrating still and silently screaming. Walls matched the brown tones of the first room, and that infinitely crawling dark that hung over this structure persisted. Upon further inspection, however, it exposed itself, each passing moment examining revealed more and more mirages of acquaintance, the structures now alien. Once tables and chairs from afar, now twisted exhibitions of wood and cushion, at best uncomfortable and at worst, entirely hostile. Ladybug's fright lifted from the twisted constructions, hanging heavy in the air, as noxious as the first room, buffeting my sinuses. I pressed down on the cushions, they crunched unexpectedly, puffing out choking black dust. The only congruency in this place was its failure to produce a copy, or it's willful disdain for the ordinary, replacing it with a corrupted vision instead.

My frustrations came to a head, I began smashing the corruptions. Slamming them against each other, splintering the twisted wood, the cushions ripping and billowing dust. Black husks of those little monsters shot out violently, planting forth onto my chest, I flailed about like a dim animal, swatting myself thinking they were still alive. It subsided as I saw the cruel joke. Those creatures I hated the most, piling more rage in me. This room mocked me with these false comforts, placing them for me to find, to hope for respite, to heighten my optimism, and then to cruelly snuff it out. Lies all upholstered in uncanny pageantry, too ignorant to be considered malicious. No. This was an addled being devoid of context, unfamiliar with all things, but crafting along as thought it was. It spoke of something that was observed, and never felt, leaving it with these twisted creations, stinging at the senses.

 The needling of the structures, though not the first, were the last to crack me, and I had frenzied. Leaving a whirlwind of broken structures just as comfortable as I found them. It did not help. It only dried my mouth and exacerbated my injury. I looked down upon the swollen mess, now dripping and twitching, sending beats of pain with each pulse. I dragged a sharp table limb while limping on my burdened foot, over to a kitchen island and collapsed by its side. What an undue burden to be made of such frail material. Meat that decays, bleeds, and ruptures and carries messages of pain to halt you, giving you limits to an already limited form.

The island pressed inward with no resistance, reminiscent of the hallway floor, but even deeper, spongier, I sunk in the oddly comfortable material, though the floor was oddly unremarkable. The kitchen area was shrouded in darkness, only silhouettes of squares revealed themselves further in. The living area, although anything but, caked in dusk emanating from the several massive panes taking up the wall nearest to it. The scene.  An all encompassing vague yellow of dusk without measure, lacking any markers other than the hostile sun bleeding colors and heat. I stared over the chaos and into the void, my indignant rage subsided and felt the pit once more. Not a nightmare, a broken vision, a haunting simulacra that mocks the comforts of the world. in no uncertain terms, means to strip any semblance of home. I unraveled quickly upon that realization and curled into myself, tensing up in the heat bearing down on me. The plans were meaningless, pretending as if I had any agency here. 

A shifting behind the counter interrupted my collapse. Something had heard me, prompting me to grab the jagged limb I had torn, but I found myself unable to rise fully. The shadows held a figure shambling aimlessly, bumping into appliances, the clanging and banging came and went through the dark. It exposed its leg in the light, a malformed appendage that bent and folded like burlap. It emerged further past the island corner I was tucked behind as I struck it. The splintered wood smashed and stuck in it's soft mush, bursting with sticky black fluid, covering me and the proximity. In the black splatters, I saw a pathetic sack of a thing, a pile of weak flesh, split open and pulsing, releasing live chimeras with each throb, and they fled out of the sack the legs rested upon. An amalgam of melting wax, weighted by several jaws hanging off its head; it drooped like a wide stone pulling down on a rotted grain bag. Knobs of what seemed to be fused arms hugged the torso, caught like a living straight jacket.  Its skin wrapped and folded around the chunks of black rot and insects inside. I broke it even more, stamping the insects with my good foot as I held onto the soft island, supporting my lame one. The sack burst more and more as I mushed my bare feet into the flimsy flesh, slipping a bit on the sticky fluid. Ladybug's fright poured throughout the room with each wet thud, with evicted chimera rushing outward in every direction. As a few tickled up my leg, the crude response of flailing took over. I stamped and stumbled and slipped over the floor with the grace of a newborn foal, ultimately grabbing at the limb I struck the sack with and continued a slightly more coordinated tantrum, chimera to the sack of flesh until nothing but black puddles and broken shells.

Yet another bound of relief, easier and more immediate. Violence being so therapeutic made sense in a hell like this. It pulled me out of the victim role, and placed an amount of agency not found in any hall or corner of these shadows. The feeling dulled the painful throngs of thirst and hunger, the heat of the dead and stale heat, the dread that my mind wanders into looking into the infinite dark. What frenzied me called upon something very primal, that my reaction pulled from the deepest root of my biology. It made sense that it was the only thing that made sense, the only constant outside of unknowing. My ability to enact upon this world. Relief was supplanted with horror upon this realization, retreating back from the idea of frenzy, as it spoke to truth. 

I rolled over and basked in the sun, in some thirst but nonetheless content.  For dusk it was still burning heat, beating different pains on my tender ankle, soothing pains as comforting as bitter alcohol poured on a wound. I closed my eyes. Sun pierced through my lids, presenting a translucent membrane partially shading a warm glow. My mind wandered through a void, grey blanks where memories and thoughts should have populated, staring with my eyes shut, shrinking, laying there, pulling down into the floor, distancing further and further from the room until it was a blip, then the grey.

I awoke to still imagery. Black mush still splattered along the island and further past the bordering light, things still crawled or twitched or shook abound the ugly floor. It tingled in my ankle, soft vibrations resonated up and down it, tickling with odd comfort that overtook the searing pulses, internal pains and the sun's heat were not present. I tilted my head, still hazy in a trance. In my skin, shaking their half exposed abdomens while their heads burrowed further into my foot. A layer of black crusted abscesses accumulated crumbling and cracking skin, two pale yellow squares that were once toenails collapsed with insects drilling straight through them, the others peeled off or housing the parasites in the cuticle. I curled my toes, hundreds of creatures rushed,  scrambling out of the fetid wound, leaving gaping bleeding pits of tar. 

They crawled inside me, I could feel them tickle the oozing wounds. Despite the direness of being marred with this blighted limb, being able to walk in something other than a staggered limp was preferable, though, those soft tingles creeped further past the site of entry, well up my ankle. They had made themselves at home in me. That awful scent stayed with me, on me, in me and failed to fade. I retched and heaved.

I looked off into the kitchen, still a gory site. The ruptured sack laid, sloppily painting the island and floors a dying tar, the fluid clinged tighter than the shadows holding the corners and far side of the room.

I pushed further in, grasping along the waxy surfaces of the appliances and counters. There was numbness and crawling in my festering wounds, they moved when I moved, exiting each time I stubbed my toes about the arrangement of drawers and cabinets. The kitchen bent and turned, slowly closing in on itself, once giving a decent berth, now a collapsing labyrinth accessed by sidesteps. In the pitch black narrows, the smell of heated iron hovered nearby.  Warming the dead, cool dark, it gradually intensified past the torrid rays of that hostile sun hanging perpetually in the void of dusk. Amongst the rows and columns of squares and rectangles, one -- or many burned inexplicably. Seared meat polluting the air, bringing the faintest clicks and sizzles of a burning slab neglected on a pan. Smoke plumed and clung to my throat and lungs, seizing me into coughing fits. The creatures that crawled inside me skittered more, climbing up and down my leg and out of it to escape. I ran my hands along carefully and found my palm resting near a blazing opening, it glided across the top, felt the empty heat and I jammed my lame foot inside. It was the first time they ever made a noise, summer's cacophony, the horrid call of cicadas swarming the hollows of a dying elm packed into concert, playing out the agony in the halls with great discord in the perfect vessel to amplify it. They tickled as they were baking, sounding off, trying to escape. They left the crescendo one by one until it was but a lone trill... then comforting silence. The smoke masked burning rot and popping tar, trading ladybugs fright for the stench of charred meat. I pulled it out and only imagined what this burned stump would look like, reluctant to even touch it -- instead choosing to let light reveal the graveness of my wounds. I turned back from the outer darkness.

 I traveled out the burning labyrinth and back to the dusklight. My foot was exposed now, but I chose to stare ahead towards the panes holding back the sickly glow. It kept my attention for only a moment as a man walked out of the dark, left of the stained island and kitchen. He entered the frame hunched over clasping, and wringing at his hands. A ghoulish figure, sharper than the skeleton of a man I carried. Knifelike ears, a witchy nose that hung over the lower half of an uncomfortably stretched face. He lumbered over to me, presenting himself much larger than I thought as he stared downward to my feet, never meeting my eyes, but giving quick glances to my neck. The overbearing sourness of urine marked him, with a plodding uncomfortable dampness following his shuffle towards me.

"Hello -- stranger." I engaged but hesitated the latter half of the phrase, remaining neutral, as I would only smile at dead men. "It feels… odd."

 He shared a toothy smile, revealing primordial clumps of plaque isolated by spacious gaps. His mouth reeked of neglect.

"Feels fine." He mumbled slowly, the stench carried further than his meek voice.  His eyes wandered up to mine for a moment, then back at the floor. 

I shuffled, thinking I misheard him and hesitated, but eventually heeded. My hand traveled down the charred leg, the skin was petrified, tightened in place, with little give, deeper and harder in some places, reaching bone. The stench of burned flesh still masked by this unclean man’s aura. The senses paused however at the strangeness of the situation. The man seemed to be lacking any faculty and looked of an inbred nature, bludgeoned in the womb and uncared for afterward. Pity to this man, but I kept at arm's length.

He let loose a sudden yelp. A pained expression abruptly crossed his face as he grit his tartar caked teeth, his eyes traveled down to my feet.

I instinctively held my hands out to him, breaking the boundary I placed earlier. I hovered closer to him with my hand laying over his shoulder. “Easy.”

"Yes ma'am." his tone shifted back to the weak and slow half whispers he opened with. He shuffled a bit, pointing his feet inward and clasping his hands, huddling further into a reserved position.

"Oh…" I drew more caution from the situation. Stepping back, that sour odor filled the room even more, a puddle formed at his feet, a child in the recently poured rain his feet splashed playfully in the excrement. "John?" I knew his name. Somehow I knew. "Again..." I unduly groaned, what is this? What was an empty. The puddle and his neglected feet gleamed from the dusklight. The putrid shimmer was highlighted even by the black goo of the dead thing splattered about the kitchen. I took his arm, leading him out of his own fluids and walked him further into the room. “Perhaps you and him would share a word out in the hallway, ‘Hmm? He’d spoil you in more ways than one.”

He screeched his name, voice cracking he harmed himself and stamped about. Tantruming in the light amongst the broken structures as his voice boomed "SHUT! UP!" He hurled expletives and broken phrases, crying. He repeated his own name in different pitches, drawing blood from his own head, and melding with the tears welling. Gritting his foul teeth, and closing his eyes. He dripped incontinence on the floor as he filled his pants more with his frustrations. 

My nausea came, sharper and situated entirely around my head, as if a leash tugged on it, seizing the temples, relief lied in one direction so I engaged again. "It hurts to see you like this. You know that." I gravitated towards him. Words with the most earnest sincerity left me and formed a silver thread, connecting us. It burned. "Come, poor thing." My voice gave with my resistance and he pulled me closer to his embrace. I sucked to his chest, so deep into it, I smelled all of his filth and looked up to the hideous face.

He whined and sniffled, an undulating bubble of snot beat from his nose. "Yes ma'am." Once again in a timid timbre, he wrapped his arms around me. The silence fell again, a fitting theme to the peace. In those moments I did feel an embrace to this man. I for once did not hold spite or contempt for another being, drawing empathy from an unknown font recently revealed to me through this strange compulsion. I found it all in this gravity. 

It burned. The man's chest and arms seared me and I pulled back from him, my skin still stuck to him and his skin to mine. His wails were etched in grooves to playback in my mind, anguish that could only be expressed by ripping the most base instincts deep within the reptilian brain, a response that could not be put to words, only understood through that primal language spoken deep within the gut. We rushed away from each other. He fell on his face and slowly drifted towards me, the slow drift meant certain death as I pulled to the hallway door, the gravity pulling back. John dragged across the floor with shrieks of pure terror piercing even the omnipresent silence. Pleading helplessly, digging his nails into the floor, cracking and breaking them, leaving ten red, uniform trails. 

I reached for another limb that was broken from my outburst and dug it into the floor, promptly snapping under immense force, causing me to fall on my belly, and dragging me backwards. Our feet touched and seared, conjoining each other at the sole. The cooking of flesh and sharp localized pangs of agony forced me to look down. My healthy foot morphed past his ankle and his, mine, resembling a knotted stump of protruding bone, but my disfigured leg remained intact. The dead flesh tapped at his foot and remained a barrier. Quickly. I grabbed a splintered limb and flipped over. Sitting up barely enough to gain purchase on his neck, it twisted and ripped through the other side, and I turned it once more to rip as I felt the vertebrae crack and grind against the stump with sickly knocks that carried through the room.

He coughed and bled through his mouth. Choking on his fluids, flailing his arms, spilling blood from his nails, kicking his leg now formed with mine and splashing about in a growing puddle. Yellow and red stained teeth jutted from his gaping mouth, crimson spewing with every rattled gasp. Bits of skin and flesh from me spotted his ghostly skin with darker, unevenly patched tones. The darkness above assisted in excising any transient life from his eyes. It stared at me and the bleeding black, enchanted with an ever-awestruck gaze -- its final sight. "In any event where we choose. We choose ourselves."  My voice shook from a poor foundation as it dropped like weighty chains off an atrophied frame... "And I would I would not let a fool end me." My chest expanded to breathe new life and old senses. That connection, that gravity started to repulse me as it left. It would meld me into a lesser being, a blight, a half idiot, worse than my sums. This disgusting albatross. I would forget it, I would wipe its presence from me, even the disgusting patches of white, tattooed on my arms.

I looked down to my legs to see a charred husk of broken flesh and exposed bone, whatever nerve endings once present were singed or eaten and had left my leg numb. The other foot seized most of my concern and lament. White gnarly toes and heels protruded below my shins, sharp poorly cut toenails embedded into the skin, emerging like decrepit tombstones, joints popped in unfamiliar places. Sensing my foot above its limbs, but not the tumors it marred me with, a feeling likened to splints holding flesh in place, I was unable to roll my ankle as I could not find it. Pulling from the body merely towed it with me, our failed merge seemed to have left me firmly bound to the carcass. My efforts to stand were short lived, the idiot had great heft with its large skeleton, skin, and urine drenched clothes. "Even in death you are a burden." I cursed it, exhausted, waiting. 

I lay caged in an impossible structure, infinitely spirally upward. Stretching further than any imagination, it wracked the mind. Even more, I could never remember an existence worth being. These moments seemed to be natural, this horrid state was the way of things, this seemed to be what I knew and what I will always know. Uncertainty ruled and security remained scarce. Any familiarity eluded me. All that was familiar were the feelings in me. And I hated them.

Maybe it sensed that, but it could not replicate that in me. It instead opted for some perverted manipulation and instilled gravity into that miserable thing. It etched its name on my mind, made me speak -- embrace it.  Mockingly cooing at me, all the while binding me to a straight jacket. A resplendent mirror of the other world. I pummeled the carcass, falling on it with heavy wet thuds, interrogating it with nonsense. Questions it could not comprehend in life, let alone as broken meat. My arms tensed as the flesh ruptured, hanging a light red coat upon me with each splash. The rage grew, I thrashed, bleary eyed and primal. The only sounds left were that of soft flesh squishing about and the questioning that dissolved into feral bleats of distrust. My spite carried for hours, it felt. Even in this overhanging shroud of evening's twilight, I saw the dark pool drying, tacitly admitting time's passage. That bitterness was truest to me. That repulsion

I pulled myself from my work with some of the cretin still fused to my leg. The unsightly white made me want me to dig into my own flesh and spread a fresh gaping wound. Bone from the creature protruded under my sole, long enough to be comfortably gripped by a fist, making my gait uneven when standing. I would attempt to shave it down by dragging it across the floor in rough strokes. B

The sun still gleaned indifferently with parching stares, deepening my thirst. My throat gulped with an uncomfortable thickness with notches stabbing at my inside, like swallowing broken glass. The bone began to finally crack along the ugly floor, dressing it with off-white flakes. It abruptly gave up a hole in the floor. I peered in, unable to stop shaking.

A second floor, just as hideous, with light shining in the same direction, and a shadow of something that lingered still. The distance from the hole to the ground had to be no more than twelve feet. I was the ceiling, not that creeping black. I jammed the bone through to leverage the hole, chipping and prying away at the sides. It managed to crack further, allowing me to see deeper. I maneuvered myself around the hole for every vantage… I was down there. I was down there looking up, eyes bared three whites with a wildness that captivated me. An expressionless face, almost catatonic from violence cast and caught as bloody and bruised and mangled, sprouting patches of hair strewn about the body, somehow staring past the infinite dark with foul intent. Then I began to walk.

That horrid feeling cascaded down my back as I pulled myself out the eyehole. Numbing my arms, arresting my breath, sinking my stomach, and spacing my head. I was coming.

"What did you do?" A light voice eked from the darkness. Over where the creature had emerged, another followed. Its hair was a stark contrast, wild with long curls that formed a black mop on its head. The eyes twinkled from dusklight, reflecting the tears running down its weak face.

"A mistake." I refused to turn, still sitting on the floor, looking over my shoulder, exposed in the yellow, and glistening with red; rotting and broken. “Have we met, creature?”

It recoiled into the shadows, shading its pale skin. Quivering breaths that punctuated the silence. "I-I’m sorry.” The darkness inquired, stuttering through the simple phrase. "I just wanna go back outside, I'm sorry I'm in the house." It whined and cracked. 

 I turned my head up to the darkness, raising my voice. "Take me for a fool and you'll end up like one." I could feel it flinch. I rose with a stagger bracing myself on the chair leg and towered over it like the idiot did me.  It still hid from me, judging me, with no light of its own in the comfortable dark. I shot my finger toward the pane. "What 'Outside'?" I questioned, with an unapologetic contempt that choked the room.

"With the man! In the Garden!" Its weak face poked from the black, glancing quickly at the pane, while still hovering its periphery around me. "I don't know. It wasn-" anguish collapsed its face, sniffling and leaking onto the floor bordered by light.

The thief blindly grasping out of the halls sought my security. My knowledge. My time. Weak in character and form, even as a parasite it failed, a headless worm unable to force its will on wet clay, let alone flesh. I could grind its face to the floor till the colors ran just as ugly. "Come out." I said with barely restrained contempt.

It neared the light with little resistance. The worm's eyes wandered like the idiot's, shifting up and down but never on me, shameful of looking. It stood head to my waist, decorated with her comfortable fragrances of another place. "You're naked and hurt." She squeaked softly, still eyeing the floor while tears dried and pain ebbed from its face. "What happened?"

 "I fell…" I spoke briefly, twisting my burned leg, and switching to the other. I found myself more amicable, more understanding. “I fell too close to someone.” I pulled toward her, she seemed so frightened, new to all these horrors. Who would bring this bright spirit here? Don't do this to me. "And I awoke indecent." Please.

A moment of pause brought back the unnatural silence, she planted herself and refused to make eye contact. "Sorry-" She finally looked up at me with a contagious smile, reassuring enough that it twisted my face as well. "It's just that I missed you!" Help me. Let me go back to the hallway. Please. The gravity felt so tight on my lungs, my chest was bound with horrible regrets. Please. Let me go.

It will burn. I spoke. "Don't ever run off like that again." I did not want to kneel, I did not want to reach to her, I did not want to embrace her. 

She wrapped around me, pressing her soft cheek against mine. Her name was Violet.

Nathan Suthering really believed he had accumulated everything. Like a prison warden leering down from the ramparts, he watched the laypeople, his metaphorical inmates, traverse the eroding city streets from his thirtieth-story high rise. They were incarcerated by financial circumstance; he was wealthy, liberated, and free. They were chained to each other, to their menial careers, and to the bank. Through his affluence, his ungodly excess, he had severed those ties that bind. The perception of superiority intoxicated him. No dark brandy, nor sexual enterprising, nor synthetically perfected opioid could match the feeling that came with that perception. To Nathan, they did not even come close. The strongest cocaine that money could buy barely even registered as pleasurable when compared to the inebriation of cultural supremacy. The white powder was a sickly red-yellow flicker of an old match, consumed and assimilated in an instant by the roaring, draconic inferno that was his ascendance from the common man. Alone in his newly purchased multimillion-dollar penthouse, he felt comfortable and sated. The elevation from the dregs of society made him safe, he mused. Laypeople were cannibals. Maybe not literally, but desperate need forced them to tear each other limb from limb on a regular basis. The physical distance was a necessary security measure for a man of his financial stature.

For about a month, things were perfect, Nathan thought. As perfect as they could be for someone whose humanity had been excised clean and whole by the blade of avarice, at least. He would always feel at least a little hollow. But to Nathan, that was just his killer instinct - his boundless ambition to climb one more rung up the societal ladder. He would get up every morning at seven and start his routine by moving to view the city streets from his bedroom. The window he did this from was ostentatiously large, sleek, and stainless. It effectively was the wall that separated Nathan from the outside atmosphere, running the length of the floor and all the way up to the ceiling. From his lonely perch, he would observe the people beneath him, fondly daydreaming that they were ants wriggling and squirming futilely beneath the shadow of his waiting foot. Sometime later, his vigil would be expectantly interrupted by a call - his driver letting Mr. Suthering know that he had arrived in the garage thirty floors below him. He would take one last long look, basking in his rapturous elevation, before leaving for the day. Nathan would then reluctantly descend those five hundred meters to the ground floor. As he approached sea level, Nathan experienced a sort of withdrawal. He would yearn pathetically to return to his spire mere moments after leaving it. Nathan hated the space between his apartment and the car because of what it revealed to him. He felt powerful and vital when he was in his penthouse, impossibly high above the city and its people. He felt identically powerful and vital when he was masquerading as one of the partners at his law firm, which began the moment he entered the company car with his chauffeur. In the brief space between those places, however, he could feel the actual hideous truth, and it made him feel helpless and brittle. Nathan would experience a rush of primal nausea, followed by his palms becoming damp with sweat, all due to the crushing pressure of the reality that he did his absolute damnedest to ignore - the reality that he was nothing, and he had nothing. Thankfully, navigating that existential space was less than one percent of his day. In the grand scheme of things, it was negligible and manageable. As soon as he was away from that truth, he'd push it as far back into his brainstem as it would go. Nathan would have continued like this indefinitely had the view from his high rise not been obscured by an inky black veil, a tenebrous curtain falling over his window to the sounds of an imperceptible and otherwordly standing ovation, marking the end of Nathan Suthering's brief and forgettable stageplay.

When his digital alarm sounded that morning, Nathan awoke in utter disorientation. His sixteen-hundred square foot master bedroom was unexplainably sunless. He widened and squinted his eyes, trying to adjust to his lightless surroundings, but to no avail. He could appreciate the faint glow of the light coming from the hall that led to his kitchen in the top lefthand corner of his vision, but otherwise, the room was pitch black. He sat upright in bed, motionless, struggling to compute the change. For obvious reasons, he never had his bedroom window shades drawn, not wanting to block his view of the serfs below. He had recently contemplated removing the shades entirely, but was too lazy to do it himself. Nathan began troubleshooting the possibilities - what if a storm had rolled in? It felt unlikely - even if the cityscape was enveloped by some exceedingly dense overcast, the millions of small urban lights would have provided some vision, like a glimmering swarm of fireflies breaking through a moonless night. He considered the possibility that the city's power grid had gone haywire, and it was still the middle of the night, but the entire city without power felt impossible. Moreover, if everyone was without electricity, what light could he faintly appreciate coming from his kitchen? The only explanation he had left was that he was in a vivid, if not exceptionally odd, dream. So Nathan Suthering sat and impatiently waited for this dream to abate. An excruciating forty-five seconds passed without such luck, so he blindly fumbled to locate his cell phone plugged in across the room, swearing and cursing at the almighty and the universe for these new and unfair phantasmagoric circumstances. After some slapstick trips and falls appreciated by no one, he found his phone and activated the flashlight. Carefully, he used the makeshift lantern to guide himself out into his kitchen.

With compounding befuddlement, Nathan found his kitchen bathed in the rising sun's light, same as every other day. Standing at the end of the hallway that connected the two rooms, his disorientated state glued him to the wood tiling, just trying to comprehend even a piece of the situation. He swiveled his head toward the void that used to be his bedroom, then back to the normal-appearing kitchen, back to the void, and so on a dozen times. This repetitive appraisal did not illuminate Nathan but was another comedic beat that, unfortunately, was again appreciated by no one.

He decided the next best course of action was to involve the complex's concierge in the troubleshooting. At the very least, they would serve as a punching bag to direct his confused rage toward. The concierge working that day had been thoroughly desensitized to the inane tantrums of the obscenely wealthy, but this complaint was beyond petty disapproval. It was downright absurd. Finally, there was someone to appreciate the comedy of the situation.

"Your window is...malfunctioning, sir?"

A maintenance worker made his way up to the thirtieth-floor high-rise. He had dropped what he was doing to attend to Mr. Suthering's outlandish complaint but was still met with righteous indignation when he opened the door, due to the perceived delay in arrival. No response would have been quick enough for Nathan, however. The worker could have materialized at his front door by way of teleportation, and Mr. Suthering would have still been frustrated that the worker didn't have the common courtesy to materialize inside his condominium instead, which could have saved this very important man valuable time by not forcing him to answer his own door.

Nathan led the worker to his bedroom and outstretched his arm, placing his hand palm-up in the direction of the darkness. It was a gesture meant to absurdly imply fault on the worker's part while simultaneously asking what he intended to do to fix it. The worker looked at the bedroom, then back at Mr. Suthering quizzically. Nathan impetuantly doubled down on his previous gesticulation, reperforming it with more gusto and vigor, rather than wasting his words on a blue-collar man. The worker then scanned the area for signs of alcoholism, drug abuse, or mental illness. When he did not find any liquor bottles, hypodermic needles, or empty pill bottles implying that Mr. Suthering had missed a refill of something important, he decided his only course of action was to examine the "malfunctioning window" more closely. He made his way into the bedroom and towards the "problem".

To Nathan, it appeared that the worker was swallowed whole by the miasma of his bedroom. Once again, he was dumbstruck. Nathan grabbed his phone, pointed the flashlight into the darkness of the bedroom, and cautiously entered. He watched as the worker navigated the room without question or concern. He stepped over loose items of clothing on the floor and avoided stubbing his toe on the oversized bedframe that held Nathan's king-sized bed. Nathan stood at the edge of the darkness, watching him perform these feats without the assistance of any auxiliary illumination. The phone flashlight he held could not penetrate entirely through the ink that filled the volume of his bedroom from where he was standing, making the worker intermittently disappear and reappear from the blackness. From Nathan's perspective, it was like he was spelunking deep within the earth, only to find the worker was some subterranean humanoid who had only ever known darkness, granting him the ability to attend to his duties without needing light. Eventually, unsure of how to proceed, the worker returned to the bedroom entrance, where Nathan stood petrified by confusion. The sight of an old man confounded and afraid of seemingly nothing, holding a phone light forward into a room that was already damn bright from the morning sun, did manage to spark some pity in him.

"Do you need me to call you an Ambulance, buddy?"

Of course, this only re-invoked Nathan Suthering's rage. While in the middle of an unfocused tirade, his phone began to vibrate, causing Nathan to throw it to the ground and jump back as if it had spontaneously metamorphosed into a tarantula. His driver was calling; he had arrived in the garage. Mr. Suthering promptly kicked the worker out of his home, trying to let wrath mask his embarrassment over the situation. Nathan threw on a suit and tie, finding the clothes using a large flashlight he found in a cupboard to shepherd him through the stygian dark. As he was walking out the door, he had an idea: he left only after stuffing a pair of binoculars into his briefcase.

Instead of immediately going to the garage, he went to the city sidewalk that faced his penthouse. Through his binoculars, he slowly counted floors until he hit thirty. From the outside, he could see into his apartment, recognizing his wardrobe and other furniture easily visible through the windows. This, again, made no earthly sense. Why could he not appreciate the darkness from the outside?Dazed by the morning's events, he finally found his way into the company car, hoping this all represented a transient stroke or unexplainable optical illusion. When he arrived home that evening to find deathly blackness still oozing from his bedroom, he had to face the reality that this phenomenon was neither a stroke nor an illusion.

For the first few days, Nathan Suthering mitigated the unbridled existential terror by filling the catacomb that used to be his bedroom with various electrical light sources. Each light source, in isolation, was much too weak to cut through the haze - Nathan required an absolute military cavalcade of fluorescence to stand a chance of fully seeing his bedroom. With his lights set up and on, he tried to sleep, but it was a futile effort. After about an hour, like clockwork, the lightbulbs in his bedroom would explode into miniature fireworks, no matter the source housed them. Unable to relax without every corner of his bedroom illuminated and constantly awakened by the tiny implosions, he laid his head on the sofa farthest from his bedroom. The entrance of the bedroom was, thankfully, still visible for monitoring from the sofa. This change in tactics did afford him a few minutes of shuteye, but only a few. He had run out of spare lightbulbs by the time he had migrated to the sofa. To Nathan's distress, he was forced to give up on pushing back the oppressive darkness. He found himself constantly opening his eyes to ensure the ink was not spreading, vigilant as well for signs of movement that could represent a malicious entity emerging from somewhere in that tomb. The ink did not spread, and no phantoms were ever born from the darkness. Despite this good fortune, night after night, Nathan found himself getting less and less sleep. Although nothing appeared out of the darkness, something eventually manifested from inside of it, and it turned his blood to ice. Abruptly and unceremoniously, a noise began to emanate from his bedroom: short bursts of rhythmic tapping, the unmistakable sound of knuckles rapping on glass - the horrifically familiar reverberations of human knocking.

Hours passed between instances of the knocking. Nathan tried to convince himself it was just sleep deprivation playing tricks on his aching psyche. But what was at first an hour's reprieve from the uncanny disturbance then became only minutes, and what was initially the sound of one hand knocking on glass eventually became two, then five, and then the noise was so chaotic that Nathan was unable to discern how many different knocks were overlapping with each other. At wit's end, Nathan arrived at a sort of tormented frenzy that almost could be mistaken for courage. He jumped up from the sofa and violently descended into his bedroom, wielding only his phone for protection.

When he entered, he could tell instantly that the knocking was coming from directly outside his bedroom window. As he approached the window, however, the knocking slowed - stopping completely when he was a few feet from it. Directing his phone light at the glass, he could only see darkness outside the window, simultaneously framing a faint silhouette of himself reflecting off the inside surface. Nathan then stood statuesque in the black silence, unsure of how to proceed, when the bulb in his phone erupted into sparks. In a fraction of a second, he was subsumed by the miasma. The heat from the explosion burnt the palm of his right hand, pain causing him to throw the phone somewhere unseen into the mire. Compared to before, he could no longer orient himself to his position in the bedroom by the gleam of the kitchen light - he simply could not see it. He could not see anything.

Nathan Suthering desperately tried to find the way out, but without light, the size of his bedroom had become seemingly infinite. He started by walking carefully in the direction opposite to where he thought the window was, but after a few steps, a sharp pain like a cat bite inflamed his right ankle, bringing him to his knees with a yelp. Now crawling, he kept moving away from the window. He did not pivot to the right or left, yet he never encountered a wall or the hallway, no matter how far he went. Nathan felt like he had been meekly pulling himself forward for hours. At times, the carpet felt wet and sticky with an odorless substance. At other times, it felt like grass and soil were somehow beneath him. When a flare of madness overtook Nathan, he attempted to pull what he thought was grass out of the ground in an exercise of pointless frustration. Instead of the grass-like substance yielding from the soil, each piece stayed firmly tethered in place while creating multiple lacerations into the flesh of Nathan's left palm as he dragged it upwards. The sensation was as if he had forcefully run the inside of his hand along multiple razor blades. Nathan reflexively brought his hand to his mouth, tasting metallic blood as it leaked from him. Defeated, he curled up into a ball and fell on his side, resigned to eventually starve in that position rather than facing more of the abyss.

As his head touched the floor, he was startled by a familiar vibration and a dim light against his cheek. He picked up his lost phone, finding it difficult to answer an incoming call because of the blood that had oozed onto the screen. He missed the call, but it did not matter. Looking at his phone, tinted crimson through his murky blood, he could discern that he had missed a call from his driver and that it was eight in the morning. In abject horror, Nathan recalled looking at his phone before he foolishly entered the darkness, and it had read six forty-five AM. He had been in his bedroom for only a little over an hour. Utilizing the dim light of the phone screen, Nathan attempted to determine where he was and how close he had been to making it out into the hallway. Instead, the light revealed his reflection in the window, staring back at him, indicating he had not moved anywhere at all.

When he finally found his way out of the bedroom turned schizophrenic nightmare, he fell to the floor of the hallway and sobbed. After he had no more tears to give, Nathan numbly examined himself, looking to evaluate his injuries. There was a tiny burn on his right hand from where his phone's exploding bulb had scorched it, but he did not see the gashes on his left palm. He did not see the blood on his phone. He felt his right ankle for evidence of the perceived cat bite, but he found only smooth, intact skin. Disshelved and in a raving panic, he determined he was most likely clinically insane from a brain tumor and needed a physician. The next step in that plan would be to go to the garage and find his driver, who would then deliver him to the hospital.

Nathan Suthering spilled out his front door, enjoying the welcome relief of his escape, though this was cut short by the resumed sound of knocking on glass. He turned his body in the doorway to face the obsidian depths of his bedroom and its incessant knocking, and then he involuntarily screamed into it out of fear, exhaustion, and anger. When he stopped, things were briefly silent, and Nathan felt a shred of pride rise in his chest, as he earnestly believed that he had managed to strike back and injure a fathomless void. After a moment, another scream broke the quiet, exactly identical to Nathan's, but it was not coming from him - it was coming from his bedroom, twice as loud as before. When he turned to sprint towards the elevator, the knocking resumed with a heightened ferocity. Nathan assumed that creatining distance from the window, from the sound, would dampen the hellish drumming, in accordance with natural law. As he created space from the window, however, the knocking only grew more deafening in his ears. When he reached the elevator threshold, the noise was like helicopter blades thrumming inches from his head. Nathan Suthering wanted to escape, but he knew implicitly that the only time the knocking had ceased was when he was next to the window. Despite this, he pushed forward and entered the elevator, managing to press the button for the garage. He had only reached the twenty-seventh floor when the cacophony became unbearable, like his skull was perpetually splintering into thousands of fragments from the pressure the sound created in his mind, but his brain did not have the mercy to implode alongside the pain and actually kill him. He wildly hammered the open door button and ran the three flights of stairs back up to the thirtieth floor, down the hallway, and back into his penthouse.

All sense of self-preservation erased and overwritten by the need for the knocking to abate, Nathan Suthering rocketed headfirst into the miasma of his bedroom. Guided by the dim light of his phone screen, he located where he stood before, but the knocking did not cease this time. He moved a few steps closer, but still, the knocking did not cease. With no more space between himself and the window, he pressed his face against the glass, looking to where the street should be, and the knocking finally lifted and dissolved into the ether. The relief, again, was short-lived.

With his eyes directed downward, he saw the sidewalk adjacent to his building, framed and isolated from the rest of the city with a familiar blackness. An enormous gathering of people gazed up singularly at Nathan, elbow to elbow and unmoving, but they were grotesquely malformed. The people below Nathan had bulbous heads sporting inhuman features. Their eyes dominated the top of their faces, and their mouths dominated the bottom of their faces, and there was barely any visible skin to demarcate the two characteristics. Their mouths were that of a lamprey's, gaping and circular, asymmetric teeth littering the cavity. Their eyes were compound and honeycombed like that of a fly or a praying mantis. Thousands of these abominations all stared up at Nathan Suthering, waiting. Finally, a chime sounded from an unknown location, and one of their numbers was lifted above the crowd onto their shoulders. The myraid slowly turned away from Nathan and towards the chosen one, and in horrific synchrony, they descended on that chosen one and viciously severed them into innumerable fleshy pieces. The creatures close enough to the carnage greedily filled their gullets with the remains. They inserted meat into their cavernous mouths, but they would not chew. Instead, the circles of teeth would spin and rotate, flaying and deconstructing the tissue until it could slide gently into their throats. The vision and the accompanying soundscape were mind-shattering, and Nathan reflexively drew his head back and closed his eyes. As soon as he did so, the knocking would resume at peak intensity, debilitating pressure finding home again in his skull. The pain would cause him to reflexively open his eyes and place his face against the glass to once again bear witness to whatever infernal rite was occurring on the ground below. The horrors would gaze up at him, patiently awaiting another chime to sound and signal sacrifice. When it did, he would watch the bloodletting until he could no longer, and then the knocking would find purchase in him again. This surreal cycle continued, with no signs of relenting, until a divine visage pressed its hand against the glass of Nathan’s window from the outside.

Amidst the hallucinogenic maelstrom, it took Nathan a few moments to recognize his ex-wife. Elise was somehow floating in the ether outside, curly brown locks swaying gingerly like wisps of air and a familiar set of green eyes meeting his.

The couple had met in law school when Nathan's psychopathy was in its infancy. Initially, Elise had pulled him back from the brink, from the point where he would need to divest his identity as collateral for the chance at wealth and power. A year after meeting, they were wed, and there were talks of starting a family. In a pivotal moment, however, Nathan Suthering internalized what starting a family would mean for him - children meant hospital bills, exponential living costs, and college tuitions. It wouldn't bankrupt him, not by a long shot, but it would lead to his devolution into one of the people on the sidewalk. As a common man, he would be constantly looked down upon from a high rise by some other devil. He realized he could not and would not tolerate that judgment. Out of the blue, and with Elise two months pregnant, Nathan Suthering filed for divorce. Having divested his soul, no amount of pleading, reasoning, or suffering would ever return him to humanity. Not more than a week after she had been served the divorce papers and Nathan had moved out, Elise would have a devastating miscarriage. Sometime later, an unintentional overdose of sleeping pills would take her life. In times of true duress, Nathan would still think of her fondly, but only because the thought of her seemed to comfort and sedate him, not because he earnestly missed her.

Elise reached out to him with her hand as if to say she had heard his agony and had come to deliver him salvation. Her fingertips touched the window's glass from the outside, and Nathan tried to phase his hand through the barrier to accept her offer. Elise watched him struggling, pushing his hands on different areas of the window as if there was some invisible hole in the wall between them, and he only needed to locate it to survive. Eventually, Elise showed mercy. She slid her right hand through the window effortlessly and placed it lovingly on Nathan's cheek. For a third and final time, his relief was short-lived. She snapped her hand from his cheek to the back of his head, grabbed a thick and sturdy tuft of hair, and drove his head into the window from the opposite side, partially caving in the front of his skull and splintering the window with two sickening twin cracks. She paused and then drove his head into the window again. And a third time. And in a grande finale, she shattered the window and pulled him through, held him by the back of the head so he could view the people and the city street from above one last time, and then she dropped him into the waiting maw below.

After Nathan Suthering had landed on the sidewalk, he was reduced to pulp and bone for all the passersby to see. A final humiliation, to have it revealed in an outrageous spectacle that he was no god, that he was flesh just like everyone else. When the police entered his thirtieth-story high-rise, they found no darkness within. All they saw was a broken window, a hammer in his bedroom that had been used to shatter the glass, and the spot where Nathan Suthering threw himself onto the asphalt below. The one nagging feature the police could not explain, however, was the state of the body on its arrival to earth. Mr. Suthering's flesh had been seared and charcoaled almost beyond recognition. Yet, there was no sign of a fire in his apartment, nor on the city street that he fell onto. No scientific explanation was ever given for this phenomenon, but Mr. Suthering did not have anyone who cared enough to posthumously investigate the mystery on his behalf, either.

After curtain call, Nathan did manage to retain a minor thread of infamy. Not as a demigod of wealth and power, but instead as the legend of "The Meteor Man" - a nameless individual who seemingly plummeted to earth from an impossible height in the outer atmosphere, incinerating any and all trace of who he once was - and that legend still lives on.

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

I was a fairly lonely child, I wouldn't go as far as to say my parents neglected or didn't love me, but their exhausting work schedules limited the time they could spend with me, even when they had a slightly less busy day, we would only have time for a quick chat and a family meal.

Of course, there were some upsides, every day, they would leave me some cash on the kitchen table so I can buy whatever I want when I get back from school.

Honestly, they've always left far too much money for me and didn't care if I spend it all, so I'd buy random things to pass the time, I couldn't even count how many times I just bought a huge mozzarella pizza out of sheer boredom, then just eat a slice and leave it be.

On paper, a rich kid which has the home for himself sounds great, but in reality, the feeling of loneliness was overwhelming, even though I desperately needed a friend or ar least someone to talk to, that was nearly impossible for me to achieve at the time, because of my lack of social interactions, I became almost incapable of forming any connections with other people.

The only meaningful connection I had, aside from my parents, was with my neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, they would occasionally invite me over for some lemonade or would bring me over some cake, although they usually didn't have time for anything more than that, after all, they had two very young daughters they had to take care of, so they obviously didn't have much time to waste.

Even though I was already 12 years old, I never had a friend, but that changed when I found my best and only friend poking out from the grass in my backyard.

It was just a boring summer day, I left the house just for a moment to throw out the trash, only moments before coming back inside I heard a unintelligible whisper.

I turned around, trying to focus on my surroundings, then I heard a another whisper, this time however I clearly understood it, the soft voice said "Sorry for disturbing you, can we talk?"

I scratched my head in confusion, again, I scanned my surroundings, but I saw no one.

"I see you're confused, to be fair, hearing a random voice and not seeing where it's coming from isn't too common, so let me give you a hint, look at the grass behind you, I'm right next to the tree right now, I'll try and wave at you!" the whispering continued.

I immediately looked at the area near the tree in our backyard, the only thing I saw was a lone yellow flower, but as my eyes focused on the flower, I realized that it was wobbling left and right, that was highly unusual considering there was no strong wind.

I walked closer to the flower and then I heard the voice again, this time it was noticeably louder than before.

"Hello, friend! Let me make a quick introduction, you aren't crazy, a flower is indeed talking to you, I don't have a mouth, so I have to communicate telepathically with you, obviously, that means I'm not an ordinary plant, but I probably look like the average dandelion to you, so feel free to call me Dandy!" the flower explained, its voice was oddly calming.

"H-hi, I'm Robert." I stuttered.

"This is probably too much for you to handle all at once, it's all right though, it's not like you meet a talking flower every day, right?" Dandy said while wobbling slowly.

"Right" I quickly answered.

"I will be honest, the reason why I'm talking to you today is because I have to ask you for a favor, you don't have to help me, but listen to what I have to say at least!" the flower said and immediately stopped wobbling, I imagined it was its way of showing how serious it is.

"Sure, tell me." I said while crouching right next to the flower.

"Well you see, I am an exceedingly rare flower, so rare, that I doubt there's more of my kind out there, I have some very useful abilities, yet it's difficult for me to care for myself on my own, if I don't get the required food and water in the next couple of months, I will wither away and eventually die, however if I do get everything that's required, I will evolve and I will finally become strong enough to exit this restricting soil." Dandy explained.

"So what do I have to do?" I asked immediately, intrigued by his story.

"Could you get me a glass of water?" Dandy asked.

I was surprised by how simple the request was so I immediately got up and went back inside to grab a large glass of cold water, I brought it to Dandy.

"You could just pour it into the soil, but let me show you a cool trick instead, just leave the glass of water right next to me." Dandy commanded.

I did as he said.

In only seconds a dark green vine sprouted from the ground, it was just barely long enough to get to the bottom of the glass, in seconds it burrowed into the glass and sucked the water out of it, as soon as the glass was empty, the vine retreated into the ground below Dandy.

"Oh that hit the spot, thank you!" Dandy wobbled, seemingly satisfied.

"You're welcome, I guess." I said while rubbing the back of my head.

"As a token of gratitude, I will tell you how some of my abilities work, you see, I can see visions of the future, they're not always easy to decipher, but usually I can understand what they mean, the one I had recently is about you, so please take my warning seriously, when washing the dishes later tonight, please wear your father's leather gloves." as soon as he finished talking, Dandy stopped wobbling.

"Sure, thank you." I replied, not fully believing what he said.

"I see you're not fully convinced yet, so look at this!" Dandy said cheerfully.

Seconds after he finished talking he was gone, it looked like he disappeared when I blinked.

Before I could even say anything, I heard his voice once again "As you can see, I can turn invisible too, so why not believe my visions of the future, surely a plant that can turn invisible wouldn't lie to you about seeing the future, right?"

"Um, yeah, right." I hesitated with my response.

Dandy reappeared and continued talking "It doesn't matter if you believe me or not, wearing a pair of leather gloves later tonight won't do you any harm anyway." Dandy remarked.

"I won't take much more of your time today, so go back inside and grab something to eat, although if you need someone to talk to, I'll be here, not like I can go anywhere!" Dandy said and giggled.

"Okay" I quickly replied, still dazed by how unusual this situation was.

"Oh, I almost forgot, please don't tell anyone else about me, I trust you, but other people might not be kind to me." Dandy said, for the first time I could feel nervousness in his voice.

I waved goodbye, Dandy wobbled once again, although this time he wobbled forward like a gentleman tipping his hat, after that I went back inside.

Hours passed, after I was done eating the sandwiches my mom left me, I got ready to do the dishes, but then I remembered Dandy's warning, I was very sceptical about it, but I still wondered what would happen if he was right and I didn't bother to heed his warning, so I quickly took my dad's leather gloves out of the drawer and wore them, even though they weren't the perfect fit, I still wanted to do as Dandy suggested just in case.

I started washing the dishes, only minutes passed and a large glass mug shattered in my hands, shards of glass fell in the sink, but I was uninjured thanks to the gloves which were now slightly ripped.

My scepticism immediately disappeared, there was absolutely no way this could've been a coincidence.

I finished the dishes and since it was already late at night, I went to bed.

When I woke up I talked to my parents before they went to work, I didn't even mention Dandy, mainly because I didn't want to betray him, but also because I didn't want my parents to think I was slowly going insane in solitude.

Talking to Dandy every day and occasionally doing some favors for him became a common occurrence, we would talk about many different topics, I would tell him about the movies and tv shows that I liked to watch or the video games I loved wasting hours of my life on, he was a great listener and seemed to be genuinely intrigued by my hobbies, he even told me that he'd enjoy watching Star Wars with me once he fully evolves. Every week he'd ask for a small favor, which I would gladly fulfill.

Some favors were as simple as bringing him a glass of water, others were buying a bag of fertilizer for him and then pouring it all next to him, he thanked me every time.

As strange as it sounds, talking with a flower became a normal part of my daily schedule, he became my only and best friend, spending time with him slowly made the feeling of loneliness disappear.

As our mutual trust grew, so did Dandy, every week he grew a bit larger, at first he was looked like a tiny dandelion, but now he resembled a large yellow rose.

A couple of months passed, my parents went to work as usual, as soon as they were gone I rushed to meet up with Dandy just like I usually would.

I ran towards the friendly flower, yet what I found made me stop in my tracks, instead of the vibrant yellow rose, I saw a bent and withering dark green flower, its petals were so dry that I wouldn't be surprised if it turned to be dead if it didn't talk to me as soon as I approached it.

"Hello, friend." Dandy said, his usually cheerful and energetic voice was now replaced with a raspy mutter.

I was too shocked to even think of what to say.

"Unfortunately, I have some very bad news, I saw a grim future in my visions, I appreciate your kindness and how willing you were to help me evolve, but in the end, the horror I gazed upon in these visions made me sick, so sick that you're efforts might've been in vain, I doubt that I will recover, but I promise you that nothing unfortunate will happen to you if you heed my warning once again." Dandy said, somberness was present in his voice.

"What visions, what are you talking about?" I asked, confused and scared.

"Please, listen to me carefully, tonight a mysterious abductor will kidnap children in your neighborhood, he will do unmentionable acts to the poor children, yet my vision is faulty and incomplete, so I have no way of knowing who that person actually is and which children he will abduct, yet I know one fact, your house appeared multiple times in my visions, so you might be his target." Dandy ended his explanation, almost choking on his words.

I sat on the grass and stared at the ground in shock as multiple horrible thoughts put pressure on my mind.

"Rest assured, I will do whatever I can to protect you, but you have to follow my instructions closely, do you trust me?" Dandy asked.

"Of course." I swiftly answered.

"Good, I'm glad." Dandy replied with noticable relief in his shaky voice.

"Please, just pull off one of my petals and consume it, that's everything you have to do, I promise you will avoid a grisly fate if you do as I requested." Dandy pleaded.

I had no reason to distrust him, this wouldn't be the only time his warnings put me out of harms way, so I agreed to do it.

Before taking one of his petals, I asked "This won't hurt you, right?"

Dandy instantly replied "Not at all, to me this would be the same as a human losing a hair or two."

Satisfied with the explanation, I quickly plucked out a petal and swallowed it.

"Congratulations, you may share some of my abilities now." Dandy told me with a hint of happiness in his frail voice.

"Really?" I asked, even more confused than before.

"Well, when you go to sleep tonight, I will make you completely invisible, even if you're indeed the mysterious abductor's target, he won't be able to notice you." Dandy explained.

"Thank you." I replied, instantly feeling relief.

Once the fear for my life subsided, I remembered how frail Dandy looked.

"What about you, will you be alright?" I asked, genuinely concerned.

"Let's just worry about you for now, tomorrow you can get me some high phosphorus fertilizer, that should hopefully help me recover." Dandy reassured me.

I nodded and thanked him.

"You should really go to your house now, get something to eat and spend some time doing whatever you enjoy, then go to bed and leave everything else to me." Dandy offered his advice one more time.

"Don't worry, I'll do exactly as you recommended!" I replied, placing my full trust in my friend.

I waved goodbye, even though sick and tired, Dandy had enough strength left to slowly wobble, it looked like he was wishing me good luck.

I went back to my house and tried occupying my mind by watching some anime, as the night was approaching, I became more and more nervous, a feeling of intense exhaustion hit me even though it wasn't even 10pm yet, I felt sleepier than ever before, so I shuffled to my bed, using all my energy to not fall unconscious, as soon as I was an inch away from my bed, I fell on top of it and was sound asleep in only seconds.

That night, I had a dream, I was sitting in my living room and watching Star Wars, I heard Dandy's voice, it was full of energy, with obvious glee in his voice, he said "Thank you!"

I turned to my left and saw Dandy sitting right next to me, I froze in my seat as I gazed upon his new appearance, he now had a body that looked like a human sculpture that was made out of hundreds or even thousands of vines, he had large arms and legs which were covered in leaves and moss, his large head looked like a venus fly trap, except he also had eyes, his eyes were disturbingly human, each eye had a different color and they looked like tiny black and brown dots in his enormous yellow head, as he looked at me, I could've sworn that he smiled at me with a big toothy grin.

I woke up in cold sweat, I was extremely groggy, it was the kind of feeling I had only if I oversleep, I immediately noticed the window in my room was open, I thought that was impossible, because the mix of nervousness and paranoia yesterday made me lock every window and door in my house before I went to sleep, nonetheless, nothing seemed to be wrong with me, except my socks which were unusually dirty and wet, I had no injuries though, so I knew Dandy's plan worked.

I looked at the clock and realized it was already 2pm, I exited my room and was surprised to see my parents sitting in the living room, they were supposed to be at work at that time.

I was happy to see them, yet they looked distraught, the way they greeted me was extremely depressing, it was like something else was on their mind.

I immediately asked what's wrong and they told me that our neighbors daughters, which were only 1 and 3 years old, were missing.

My blood ran cold as I realized another one of Dandy's visions came true.

My parents continued, explaining that the police are conducting an investigation, considering how young the children are, what happened was surely an abduction.

I wondered if I would've had the same fate if I didn't follow Dandy's advice, I wanted to show him my gratitude by buying him the most expensive fertilizer I could.

I asked my parents if I could go outside for a short walk to clear my head, they agreed so I hastily left my house.

I gazed upon the area where Dandy was, yet this time I saw nothing except for the grass and the tree next to it.

I ran up to the spot fearing that my friend withered away while I was asleep.

I fell to my knees, desperately searching for Dandy, there was no sign of him.

I tried digging through the soil with my bare hands, frantically searching for him.

I didn't find him, but underneath the dirt, I felt something firm.

I continued digging through the dirt, I grabbed some kind of orb shaped object with both of my hands and pulled it out, as soon as it plopped out of the ground, I dropped it and almost started vomiting.

It was a small human skull, worst of all I felt more objects in the soil while digging, so I immediately knew there was more bones buried in the same spot.

As I was screaming for my parents and running back inside, the pieces of the puzzle started connecting in my head, I now understood that my so called best friend finally evolved just like he always wanted to.

Maya left work late and had to walk home from the office to her apartment building. It wasn't far, but the cold night air gave her chills.

She huddled her jacket closer to her body and picked up her pace.

All Maya had to do was cross a small bridge. She heard the rumors about the surrounding area but didn't buy into ghost stories.

That was until tonight.

She could sense that someone was pursuing her. Whatever or whoever it was, she could feel their breath on the back of her neck. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood up on end.

Covering her nape, she looked over her shoulder to see nothing there.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she faced forward and was face to face with a woman in a bridal gown.

"Do you have the time?" She asked.

Her face was covered, hidden from Maya's view.

"Excuse me?" Maya replied.

She looked at the woman's attire, confused.

"You see... I'm running late, and my groom will be worried if I don't show up," she explained, seeing Maya's confusion.

Maya looked down at her watch. She read the time aloud, "9:00 P.M."

"Ah, thank you," the woman in the bridal gown walked past her, disappearing out of sight, her dress flowing elegantly behind her.

Why was she not traveling by vehicle?

Shrugging her shoulders, Maya finally reached her apartment building, called it a night, and slept. The following day at work, Maya asked her coworker Drew about the bridge nearby.

"A bridge? You mean Lover's Bridge, the one that the public has blocked off!?" he exclaimed, surprised.

She didn't remember seeing any barriers or signs.

"Blocked off, but... I walked across it with no problem," said Maya, confused.

Another coworker, Carey, interjected, overhearing their conversation, and added, "Years ago, they blocked it off because a bride hung herself off the side. She was running late to her wedding, and her groom left her because he thought she had stood him up."

A bride? Could it have been the woman in the wedding dress she had met who asked her for the time?

"You didn't see a ghost, did you?" Drew questioned uneasily.

Maya gulped, picking at the skin around her nails nervously.

"Is there something bad going to happen if I did?" she answered.

Carey frowned, sitting upright in her chair.

"The rumor says that if you meet the dead bride's ghost on the bridge and she asks you for the time, your reply is the time you will die," she told Maya, who paled, looking down at her hands.

They had to be joking with her.

Weren't they?

"Has it happened before?" Maya asked.

Drew shrugged. "There have been many disappearances happening near there. Along with a few suicides," he mumbled the last part, hoping Maya wouldn't hear him.

"Oh..." she paused, looking at her coworkers with a frown.

9:00 P.M.

It was the time she told the bride and the end of her life. Maya didn't know when or where she would die, just that it could be any day now.

I woke up to a strange stillness.

Usually, the first thing I feel is her breathing. Even in sleep, our bodies move together, a synchronized rhythm of inhales and exhales. But this time, something was off. There was no rise, no fall. Just an eerie stillness.

My mind was sluggish, as if it was trying to catch up with reality. I reached over, instinctively, to shake her awake with our arm. She always hates when I jostle her, but it usually works. This time, though, her body was limp, cold. I jerked my hand back as if I’d touched something forbidden.

“Jenna?” My voice cracked. No response. She always responds, even when she's annoyed. I try again, this time louder, panic seeping in. “Jenna, wake up. Come on.”

Nothing.

I feel the icy creep of dread start from the base of my spine and spread outward. I can’t breathe. No, no, no—this isn’t happening. I push against her side, harder now. Her head lolls awkwardly. Our heart is racing, but half of it feels still—cold, lifeless, failing me.

My twin is dead.

I’m trapped against a corpse.

The air suddenly feels heavy, thick like I’m drowning. I try to pull away, to roll off the bed, but I can’t. We’re stuck together—literally, figuratively. Her weight drags at me, dead and heavy. My own chest tightens. Our heart… our heart… how long do I have? How long before it stops working for me too?

I’m already sweating, panic crawling over my skin like a thousand spiders. I reach for my phone, fumbling with trembling hands. I dial 911, stuttering through an explanation to the operator. I don’t even know what I’m saying—just that she’s dead, and I’m not, but I’m going to be. I feel it.

“We’re sending an ambulance. Stay calm.”

Stay calm? How am I supposed to stay calm when half of me is dead?

Minutes feel like hours as I sit there, trapped against her body. Her face is slack, eyes half open, staring at nothing. I can feel her decay beginning, a faint smell I can’t ignore. My body is still functioning—barely—but I feel this creeping wrongness deep inside, like our shared organs are failing, shutting down one by one. My breath is shallow, too fast. I can’t tell if it’s panic or if our lungs are starting to give up.

I don’t want to die.

I don’t want to die like this—next to her, part of her, but alone.

The paramedics burst in, their faces grim when they see us. One of them places a hand on my shoulder, trying to offer reassurance, but I see it in their eyes. They know. I’m a dead girl walking.

"We'll try to help," one says, but I hear the doubt.

They don’t have time to separate us. There’s no time for anything.

I close my eyes, trying not to think about the fact that soon, I’ll be as cold as she is.

And there’s nothing I can do.

I never should have entered that antique store, and I definitely shouldn’t have bought that mask. Gannon’s is known for buying and selling rare and unique antiques, and I wanted to impress my friends with a unique Halloween costume this year, so I thought the perfect solution would be to get my hands on a genuine antique costume, one of those strange, ultra creepy ones from the 1800’s or earlier. Sure, it would cost me, but can you really put a price on standing out?

The bell over the door jingled dully as I opened the door and walked in. The proprietor, and gray, bent over man with a thick, bushy beard and thick, round rimmed spectacles who was ninety if he was a day casually acknowledged me and went back to the ancient book he was examining.

The store wasn’t big, but it had space, only every last bit of that space was filled with relics of bygone eras. Not the usual furniture, silverware, and paintings of your typical antique shop. No. Everything here had a story, and as such, everything here commanded a premium price.

There was an old cavalry saber that was known to have killed no less than seven men in the Civil War. It even still had flecks of blood from its victims spattered along the blade and hilt. There was an old rope noose that had supposedly been used to hang a witch during the Salem Witch Trials. There was an ancient tome with strange symbols on the cover that once belonged to a European court wizard. There was even a hat that once belonged to a certain H. H. Holmes. The stories attached to each item were historical, mystical, and often macabre. And I loved it.

I didn’t believe in magic or mysticism, angels and demons, or anything else beyond what science could explain. That didn’t mean that I wasn’t fascinated by stories involving them though. How much more interesting would the world be if the supernatural actually did exist? It was a tantalizing proposition, and it’s why I had to buy it as soon as I saw it.

It was a wolf mask. Not a mask made to look like a wolf, but a mask made out of the skin and fur of a wolf’s head and neck. It was a masterful work of preservation and artistry that looked as alive on display that day as the creature itself must have looked in life.

I picked it up carefully, turning it over and around in my hand so I could see it from every angle. The work was beyond fine. I couldn’t even see the seams and threads that held it together. Not a single hair seemed to be missing from the thick, gray fur. The teeth were real, and firmly fixed into the snout. I assumed they were so well-done because the original jaws had been used to form the snarling mouth. The eyes were glass, and far too lifelike for such an aged item. Perfect replicas of thin glass set in the eye sockets.

I had to have it.

I checked the story card next to the original display. The price was outrageous, but I didn’t care. Not only was the mask perfect, but the supposed history couldn’t have been more ideal for the season.

It read simply: Enchanted mask made from the preserved skin of a Loup Garou slain in Burgundy, France in 1137 AD. Do not wear at night.

“Oh hohohoho,” I grunted excitedly. “I have plans for you!”

I brought the mask and story card to the checkout. Old man Gannon checked the item, and me with more scrutiny than I was really comfortable with before speaking. “Heed the warning boy,” he said sternly. “It wouldn’t do for you to tempt fate.”

I chuckled, ignoring the fact that he called me “boy”. He was probably the oldest man in town, so everyone was “boy” or “girl” to him. “You don’t have to worry about me,” I assured him. “You got any more documentation that goes with this? If I’m going to fork over two-thousand dollars for a mask, I want as much provenance as I can get.”

Old man Gannon grunted derisively. “Of course I have documents that go with it. A fair few actually. Be sure that you read them and take proper precautions.”

“Of course,” I replied seriously, lying through my teeth. The supernatural is not real after all. It’s a myth, legend, just stories. What this mask was, to me, was the foundation of the absolute best Halloween costume I had ever concocted. Sure, a werewolf costume wouldn’t be especially unique, but with that mask, it would be the most frighteningly real one our town had ever seen.

The old man went into the back room and quickly returned with a binder filled with documents in protectors, and a small leatherbound journal. “These are the provenance,” he declared. “The journal is of particular interest as it belonged to a previous owner of the mask, a Mr. Archibald Wembly of London, wrote it in the years Fifteen-Twelve through Fifteen-Fourteen. He went mad after wearing the mask and killed two people before he was cut down in the street. Witnesses swore that he looked more animal than man before he died. The police report is document one-hundred-twenty-three.”

I set the mask on the counter and quickly leafed through the documents. There were originals, and English translations for each. “All this and you’re only charging two-thousand dollars?” I asked incredulously. “Such a unique relic with this much provenance together . . . it has to be worth more.”

Old man Gannon nodded his head. “Yes. Yes it is,” he confirmed. “I actually paid more for it myself, but . . .” he trailed off. “Something about that particular item unsettles me. I wish to be rid of it sooner rather than later, so I’m taking a loss for my own peace of mind.”

I didn’t question it. If this old man was willing to let his superstitions be my gain, I was perfectly fine with it. I paid for the mask and happily took it home.

Looking back, I should never have been so sure of myself. Nor so proud. Nor so certain about how the world works. The events that followed changed my perspective of the nature of reality itself, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go back to how I was.

In my defense, and also to remove any possibility that I can claim ignorance if I get desperate enough, I need to confess that I did read the provenance documents right away. I didn’t read them to get any warnings to heed, or as some kind of user manual. I read them to learn the history of my beautiful, terrifyingly creepy wolf mask. Having the story at the tip of my tongue top tell at will would truly be the icing on what I knew would be a most impressive, and frightening cake, or, rather, costume.

The earliest documents were all about the supposed Loup Garou that was terrorizing the Burgundian countryside, and the hunt to put an end to the gruesome string of murders it was blamed for. Document twenty was a notice celebrating that the foul beast had finally been killed and skinned by a visiting huntsman who only asked to be allowed to keep the skin and take it back to him home as his reward. The local ruler, only too happy to get off so cheaply, permitted it.

The huntsman wrote that he brought the hide to a supposed witch named Lucia, who lived alone on a mountain named Muzsla in modern day Slovakia. He paid her handsomely with instructions to use the hide to create an item of power. One that would make him strong.

Apparently, she obliged, making the wolf mask, and he was happy, but it came with a strict set of rules. 1. Never wear the mask at night. 2. Never wear the mask on the day or night of the full moon. 3. Never wear the mask during the autumnal equinox. 4. Always invoke the name of Christ before donning the mask.

The man must have been wildly superstitious, because he followed the rules religiously. The following documents are filled with fanciful tales of the huntsman performing mighty deeds that led to him earning a minor lordship before retiring to administer his land holdings and eventually dying of old age.

What followed after was one document after another that spoke of the mask passing to a new owner who either did not read, or chose not to follow the rules, and how each one ultimately went mad, committing a varying number of murders, and being either killed during the apprehension, or executed for their crimes. It gained a reputation as a cursed item that turned men into mindless beasts and drove them to kill and even cannibalize their victims.

“Holy crap!” I exclaimed as I finished reading the last page in the binder. “This is even better than I thought! I wonder what that Wembly guy wrote in his diary!”

It was getting late, so I decided to put off reading the diary for another day. I picked up my mask and looked it over, admiring it for both its craftsmanship and its history. “You just might be the coolest thing I’ll ever own,” I said to it as I caressed its cheek.

I looked into the glass eyes, and maybe it was a trick of the light, or maybe it was the lateness of the hour playing tricks with my mind, but I could have sworn those eyes, those glass eyes, looked back at me.

****

I awoke the next morning to my girlfriend letting herself into my apartment. Her key clicked in the lock, and the door squeaked noisily as she opened it.

“Wake up sleepyhead!” she called.

I sat up and groaned in response as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. I checked the clock on my nightstand, saw the time, and got annoyed. “It’s seven a.m. on a Saturday!”

“We have plan’s remember?” she called out. “We’re supposed to . . . what is this?” she asked. Her tone changed from businesslike to pure excitement.

I stepped out of my bedroom clad in nothing but my night pants. She was excitedly holding up the wolf mask and admiring it. “It’s a cursed wolf mask,” I replied with a yawn. “It’s the centerpiece of my Halloween costume this year.”

“It’s looks so real,” she said admiringly, then her expression darkened and she put the mask down on the table. “Did you say ‘cursed’?” she sharply inquired.

“Yeah,” I yawned again. “It’s almost a thousand years old. The documents it came with say that a bunch of its previous owners went psycho and started killing people.”

“And you bought it?” she practically shrieked. “And you’re going to wear it?”

I filled the coffee maker and turned it on. “Don’t tell me you believe in magic, voodoo, curses, and all that nonsense,” I replied tiredly.

She took pause at that. I knew her answer, it was a major point of agreement between us. What science can’t explain either isn’t real, or just hasn’t been properly explained yet. Nothing is supernatural.

She finally replied. It’s just . . .” she paused. “If a bunch of people who owned it really did turn into psycho killers, there’s gotta be something there.”

I poured a cup of black coffee from the still brewing pot and took a sip. It was too hot but I didn’t care. “Sure there is,” I replied. “Social contagion. People believe it’s cursed, so they respond as though it’s cursed. It’s nothing special.”

It must have made sense to her, because he whole attitude changed again. “Have you tried it on yet?” she asked with a slight smile, her fear replaced with the admiration and curiosity she had when she first laid eyes on the mask.

It struck me that I hadn’t, so I picked it up, looked my girlfriend in the eyes, said “Jesus Christ” in a mocking tone, and put it on. It felt . . . perfect, as though it were made just for me. It slipped over my head easily and seemed to snug down to a perfect form fit. It had no odor, and I could see clearly with a full field of view through the glass eyes. “Not until just now,” I replied teasingly.

“EEEEK!” she shrieked.

“What?” I asked, alarmed, turning my head rapidly to see what had so alarmed her.

“The mouth moved when you talked!” she squealed. “It moved, and it moved in a perfect match for your words!”

I cocked my head to the side and looked at her quizzically. “For real?” I asked. It’s moving with my mouth?”

“Yes!’ she said excitedly. “Go see in the mirror!”

I did. I spoke. “Abracadabra, hocus pokus, jiggedy jokeus!” I said to my reflection.

Sure enough, the mouth moved in a lupine imitation of my own mouth movements. The movement were so well synced that I could swear I even saw the lips move although I knew it to be impossible. I took the mask off and admired it with the fattest grin of all time on my face.

“That’s amazing!” I exclaimed. “That old witch was a real master! I didn’t know people even knew how to make a mask’s mouth move in the twelfth century!?

“I know right?” My girlfriend, Tiffany said with as much excitement as I felt. “You’re going to have an amazing Halloween costume this year!”

I removed the mask, smiled at her, an nodded my head in affirmation.

“Just one thing,” she said with a hint of confusion. “What’s with that thing you said before you put the mask on?”

It took me a moment to remember what she was talking about. “Oh!” I snapped my fingers as I remembered. “There was a silly little list of rules, I was mocking them.” I grabbed the folder of provenance and flipped to the page with the rules on it. “See?” I said, pointing at the small passage. “Four ridiculous rules.”

Tiffany read them quickly and looked at me with a touch of confusion. “People actually believed this crap?” she said incredulously.

“I know, right?” I laughed.

She laughed with me for a bit, then stopped suddenly and glared at me. “Wait a minute,” she said sternly. “How much did you pay for this mask anyway?”

*****

The next few days were perfectly ordinary until the seventeenth. That was the day I finished assembling my costume, and one of two full moons in a row this year. I remember bringing home a pair of retro ripped jeans to go with the red plaid flannel shirt, theater prop quality werewolf gloves, complete with a set of long claws tipping the fingers, and other clothing reminiscent of an 80’s era movie werewolf.

The sun had set hours earlier. I obtained the pants shopping with Tiffany after our dinner date, and I was absolutely thrilled. I couldn’t wait to try it all on and see how it went together.

It was glorious. I donned the outfit, then slowly, almost ritualistically lowered the mask over my head to complete the costume.

It was like magic in the mirror. I looked myself over, and I loved what I saw. I looked like something out of Teen Wolf, only better. Sure, I could have achieved something very much like it far more cheaply. I could have just gone to Spirit Halloween, bought a costume or a rubber mask, and went to Walmart for finishing touches and adjustments, and done a satisfactory job for under $200, but that’s not what I wanted. I wanted the rizz. I wanted to stand out among all the other costumed partygoers at the fraternity Halloween party. This costume absolutely did it, and I couldn’t have been happier.

In my ecstasy, I noticed a . . . feeling running through my body, as though there was a kind of . . . energy coursing through me. It wasn’t as simple as “a burning in my blood” or “my nerves were on fire”. No, it was a feeling of power, as though I was still myself, but also something . . . more.

I felt as though I could toss four men over my shoulders and run a marathon. I felt as though I could get in a bar fight and kick every ass in the place. I felt . . . godly.

I removed the mask after a few minutes and inspected my outfit without it. I felt normal again, and, somehow, it felt wrong. I felt like my ordinary self was somehow no longer enough. I felt incomplete, like I removed a piece of myself when I removed the mask.

“Stop being ridiculous,” I told my reflection. “You’re letting myth and superstition influence you. You’re better than that!”

And yet, I felt like I was lying to myself. Right there, staring at my reflection, I felt like the man looking back at me wasn’t really me, like something unknowable was missing. I looked at my reflection and it felt as though I was looking at someone else, someone I didn’t really know, and who could never truly know me in return.

I shook my head to clear the strange thoughts and center myself again. “Pictures!” I reminded myself. “Tiffany wanted pictures so she could put together something complementary.”

I took out my phone and held it up to the mirror to take a picture, and paused. I couldn’t send her a picture like this. My costume was incomplete. I needed to wear the mask or else my costume wasn’t really my costume, and how could she possibly match her costume to mine if I sent her an incomplete photo?

I picked up the mask to put it on and paused. I paused to look at it, to admire it. I looked into its lifelike glass eyes. I stroked its fur as though it were a living thing. “You’re mine,” I told it in a low, almost silent voice. “You’re mine, and I am your master!”

I continued to stare into those perfectly crafted glass eyes, losing myself in them, and wanting nothing in the world so much as I wanted to put that mask on and forget myself. Slowly, almost robotically, I raised it up and gently lowered it over my head.

I felt a rush of euphoria, like what I felt earlier only a hundred times more potent. I took my phone in hand, opened the camera app, raised it, and snapped a single picture of myself in the mirror.

I opened text messaging, selected Tiffany, attached the message, and typed the following text: “It’s complete, and now I’m complete.”

I hit send. I looked into the mirror and met my own gaze staring back at me through those glass eyes that had no business looking as real and alive as they did, and then the world went blank.

*****

I awoke the next day with no idea where I was. I opened my eyes only to be greeted by the rising sun in the middle of a forest.

A forest?

There was a forest outside of town, but it wasn’t exactly a short walk if you catch my drift.

It was easily a half an hour’s drive once you got out of town, and not exactly the kind of thing you just get up and walk to like you’re taking the dog out to the local community park.

I woke up there, and not on the edge either, but well inside the borders, and I was covered in a red, sticky substance that could only be blood, and my stomach hurt like I had gotten drunk and did my best to eat my own body weight at the local Asian buffet.

“What the . . .” I trailed off as I looked at my hands and arms and was taken aback by the dried red and brown goop covering them. I looked down at myself and saw that I was still in my costume, and my clothing was utterly ruined, covered in a deep red liquid that was surely blood.

I realized that I was still wearing the mask, and I ripped it off of my head in a panic. My breath came in great heaves, uncontrollable, and my head began to swim as I hyperventilated.

I closed my eyes and forced myself to calm down. I made myself breathe slower, and slower, and slower still until I finally brought it down to normal. I focused on my heart rate, and gradually brought it down with a blend of deep breathing and mind clearing.

Once I had myself physically under control, I looked at myself again.

How did I get covered in such a disgustingly massive amount of blood? Why did my stomach hurt so much? How did the wolf mask manage to stay clean when the rest of me was drenched in filth? And why did I-

My stomach finally gave up and rebelled. I dropped the wolf mask and fell to my knees retching and vomiting a copious amount of stomach contents. I vomited even as I found myself losing my breath and desperately wanting to breathe. I vomited even as my lack of breath began to make my head swim. I vomited even as my vision blurred and blackened at the edges.

Then I was able to breathe again. I took in great, gasping gulps of air. I I heaved and panted as I sought to restore my oxygen supply.

Then I vomited again.

If possible, I can say that the second round was worse than the third. It didn’t hit me so continuously as to cut me off from breathing completely like the first round did, but it did let me get just enough breath to barely subsist before striking again until I thought I would surely pass out, and then it subsided just long enough to tease me again before taking over and nearly choking me to death over and over and over again until I wished that I could just die and get it over with,

When I was finally finished, my stomach felt better, but there was glistening pile of partially digested stomach contents all over the ground in front of me. I wish I could say that I knew what I was looking at, but it was all so thoroughly masticated that I couldn’t hope pick one bit from another. All I knew was that none of it looked cooked, and I didn’t see anything that could pass for a vegetable anywhere in the nasty mix.

My stomach felt better though.

I picked up my mask, chose a random direction, and began to walk. I must have chosen well, because after only two hours, I came across a road.

I’m not ignorant. I’ve driven in and out of town plenty of times. I know my way around in town and around the outskirts of my hometown. That’s why I knew that I needed to go left once I reached this road if I wanted to get home. How long would it take? Fucked if I know. All that mattered was I was going the right direction, and the rest would fall into place one way or another.

And fall into place it did. Less than an hour of walking later, A random pickup truck pulled over. The driver listened to my story, and told me to hop in the bed of his truck and he’d take me into town. I did it gratefully, and he was as good as his word, better even. He dropped me off outside my apartment building, told me to stay off the drugs, and went on his merry way.

I went inside, took the elevator to my floor, opened my door without needing to use my key, which was also weird since I never, ever, EVER left my apartment without locking it, and immediately rushed to the shower so I could get clean and feel human again.

I was brushing my teeth for the third time when I heard my phone ringing. It was on the floor, pushed up against the wall under the sink. Why? I don’t know. But I found it, pulled it out, and answered the call.

“Where have you been?” Tiffany practically shrieked in my ear. I’ve been calling and texting all night and I haven’t heard a word from you! If you didn’t pick up the phone this time I was going to call the cops to make sure you weren’t dead!”

On the one hand, it felt surreal being yelled at so mundanely after the freaky mystery I woke up to. On the other, what in the ever-living hell was going on?

I let my girlfriend yell for awhile until she was all shouted out. Then I responded. “I don’t know where I was last night,” I told her in a shaky voice. “One minute I was home, the next I was waking up in the middle of nowhere covered in blood.”

This set off another wave of panicked screeching that eventually settled down into sobbing and expressions of gratitude that I was alright. She told me she was coming right over and hung up before I could protest.

I had a very, very bad feeling about her coming over.

*****

It literally took all day to get Tiffany settled down and comfortable with the fact that that, in spite of everything, I was alright. I didn’t tell her about how my body had violently purged my stomach of an inhuman amount of raw flesh shortly after waking up. I was already washed up, and my bloody costume was in the wash getting as clean as I could hope for it to be.

It was actually the laundry that got her settled down. She volunteered to take my costume out of the dryer, and was absolutely delighted to see that I had added to it by dying in a bunch of red and brown staining. “It’s actually looks like you ripped something apart and ate it!” she said excitedly. “You’re so good at making Halloween costumes!”

“Yeah . . .” I said slowly before trailing off. “I modified it . . .”

She didn’t give me a chance to finish my words or my thoughts before she jumped me. Perhaps if she hadn’t been so excited and relieved that I was safe and healthy, things would have turned out differently. Perhaps if our intimate life wasn’t so . . . frequent and vigorous, everything would have turned out differently.

As it was, I succumbed to her passion, and we fell asleep in each other’s arms for an afternoon nap.

*****

I awoke before Tiffany did, and I went to the living room to examine the mask. I felt scared holding it. It felt wrong to put my hands upon that artifact, as though I was touching a power I could not hope to control or comprehend.

I turned it over, and over, and over again, examining it to the finest detail.

Why did this mask, out of everything I wore last night, not have a single drop of blood on it? Why was the last thing I could remember putting it on and taking a selfie?

That thought triggered something in me, and I took out my phone. I didn’t have it with me in the forest, and I couldn’t remember checking the picture I took or sending it to Tiffany.

I opened the photos and looked at the last picture I took.

I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe a photo of myself mid-metamorphosis. Mayne I thought I’d catch myself becoming something other than, well, me. What I actually saw was me, in my costume, with my phone in my hand.

I looked at the picture again, not really believing that it could be so mundane, and I thought I could see something . . . different in those lifelike glass eyes, I though that maybe, just maybe there was a hint of something in there that was not only me. But no. It couldn’t be. The supernatural isn’t real after all. It’s all hokum. Bunk. Small-minded garbage that enlightened people like me didn’t believe in.

The sun had set. It wasn’t down for long, but it was the second day of the rarest kind of blue moon event, the kind where the full moon happens two days in a row. I looked into the eyes of the mask, this perfect, masterfully crafted mask, lifted it up, and lowered it onto my head.

*****

I woke up the next morning, the nineteenth of October, a mere week ago to the most horrifying sight of my life.

I awoke on the floor of my own apartment, but once again, I was covered in blood and filth.

“How?” I screamed in horror, not understanding where the ungodly mess had come from.

My stomach was killing me. I rushed to my bathroom and barely made it to the toilet before my stomach decided to evacuate its contents, then and keep evacuating itself even when there was nothing but water and bile left to push out. It went on, and on, and on, until I wished I would just die rather than endure another moment of such violent illness.

I flushed the toilet whenever I had the presence of mind to do so without checking to see what had come out of me. I had seen what came out the day before, and I didn’t want to see it again. Perhaps that’s why I failed to recognize any of the bits and parts, the solid matter mixed in with the wretched fluids that erupted from my stomach and out of my mouth.

Regardless, I was glued to the toilet until my stomach finally settled down after who-knows how long. Then I stripped my bloody clothing and took a shower so hot I felt like it might burn the skin from my bones, and I was okay with that.

I felt dirty inside and out. It was wrong. Wrong in every way. Down to my soul if I had believed it at the time, I felt wrong, dirty, and thoroughly corrupted.

I was in the shower for an hour, lost in feelings rather than thought. Wondering what had happened and how I managed to wind up covered in blood again in my own apartment. It was only when I finally shut off the water and was halfway through drying off that it hit me.

Tiffany!”

I screamed, and I ran to my bedroom.

I burst into my bedroom, and was greeted by the most horrific mess I could possibly imagine. The entire room was splattered with blood and viscera. Not a surface was spared as at least some red drops or other . . . scraps was on every surface, every knick-knack, every everything in the room

My screams only got louder and more insistent as I scanned the room and found the head of Tifany, my beautiful Tiffany, beloved girlfriend of three years, on a pillow, fully detached from her body, lifeless eyes staring off into the void. I hurled myself to it, reaching desperately, not willing to believe in what I was seeing.

I picked it up and stared into her sightless eyes, and burst into tears. “Tiffany,” I sobbed. “How? Why?”

I looked around and took the horrific scene in. I recognized the various parts of my beloved scattered around the room. Legs and arms tossed about, bones scattered all over, looking like they had been gnawed upon by a great beast. And not one of her internal organs to be seen.

I remembered how upset my stomach was when I woke up, and how distended it appeared before I threw up the contents in a prolonged, and violent fit. How much of her had I simply flushed away, not knowing what I was doing because I refused to just open my eyes as I vomited up my sick?

I dropped Tiffany’s head back onto my bed and scrambled to the living room. I picked up the diary of Archibald Wembly and read it thoroughly. Much of it was a repeat of what I had already read before in the other provenance, until I got to the end. Here is what is read:

I should have listened to the rules. I should have learned from the mistakes of others. I didn’t, and now I am paying the price for my foolishness. The mask is gone, but I can feel it’s influence on me even as I write these words.  I blacked out again last night, and when I awoke this morning, my family was dead, ripped apart from some foul beast. Every last one of them. My wife Abigail, and the children George, Franklin, Erin, and Caleb. All of them were torn apart. Only I was spared, and I was covered in such an amount of blood and gore that it could only have come from many animals, of a family of people. I ignored the rules. I wore the mask at night. I wore it on the full moon. It amused me to do so, and I did it without once invoking the name of Christ for protection.

I was a fool, and my family has paid the price for my pride and lack of faith. The mask is gone, but I can still feel it within me somehow, as though it has become a part of me. I do not know what the future will bring, but I fear it will be more bloodshed, and it will be me in some beastly form, rending apart my fellow man in bestial glee.

I only hope that someone stops me before I go too far.

God help me and spare the innocent.

I put the diary down and sat back stunned, then it dawned on me: Where was the wolf mask?

I tore my apartment searching for it, I really did, but I could not find it. Still, I can feel its presence, like it’s lost, but also not. It’s like it’s here with me even though I cannot see it.

Today is only five days until Halloween. The sun has set, and I feel . . . strong, stronger than I have any right to feel. My dead girlfriend remains rotting in my bedroom, and it smells horrible. The neighbors are sure to complain soon.

I don’t understand what’s going on, but I do know this: I never should have bought that mask, and once I bought it, I never should have broken the rules. How was I supposed to know it was a real cursed object? There’s no science that can explain curses, real, magical curses. Magic isn’t real, right?

Who am I kidding. I believe in magic . . . now. But I came to believe too late. Too late to save my beloved Tiffany, and too late to save myself.

I need to flee. I need to get away from here, as soon as possible. I can feel the beast inside of me, and it wants to get out. I need to get as far away from people as possible, to disappear and never be seen again.

But I’m hungry, and there’s a great nightclub not far from here, and the night is young.

Perhaps I’ll stop in for a bite to eat before I begin my journey.

I am Detective Samara Holt, and what you are about to read is everything I remember from the strangest case I’ve ever worked: the disappearances of Occoquan, Virginia.

Being a detective, I’ve always found an interest in true crime. Disappearances, murder mysteries, cold cases… all of it activates that part of my brain that desperately seeks out answers. But if there’s one case that’s always piqued my interest the most… it’s the case of Occoquan, Virginia. By all accounts, Occoquan was a normal little region. Not much happened there in terms of crime, and its main drawing point was the large Occoquan river that ran through the area. For years, Occoquan was a popular and peaceful place to live as houses were built on the riverfront and overviewed the gorgeous, lively water and lush forests. But that peacefulness and normality couldn’t last forever. 

The Crane family built their own mansion on the waterfront and owned acres of land in the 60s. They lived in their Victorian-style mansion for about five solid years… until their youngest daughter, Amy, went missing. She was last seen swimming in the river with her sister near the dock. The account from her sister, Carla, was that Amy was in the water and having fun, then she looked at the dock and her smile faded. Carla blinked… and Amy seemingly ceased to exist in that very moment. The Crane children (Carla and her two older brothers Jeremy and Hector) were said to have gone mad the year following Amy’s sudden disappearance, so much so that Johnathan and Elizabeth Crane were forced to seclude their children from the outside world. Eye witness accounts attest to seeing Carla run into the nearby woods in 1967 only to never return to the Crane household. Two years later, Elizabeth Crane died of mysterious causes and Johnathan Crane lived alone until 1971. In the wake of his death, there have been no signs of Jeremy or Hector Crane. Seemingly just gone, as if they never even existed.

For years, the Crane household stood over the edge of the Occoquan river… and that household is seemingly the harbinger of the region’s strange activity. My first job as detective was in ‘97, hired by the mother of Hugo Barnes. I even remember the strangeness of my first assigned job being a missing child report—shouldn’t that have gone to someone with more experience? But I still took the job with grace and speed. I was hopeful about the case and hauled my ass down to Hugo’s mother, Janice. As soon as I drove into Occoquan though, I realized why I was dumped with this assignment… the city was filled to the brim with missing child posters. It was simply another job from this place the others didn’t want to take up. It was practically a ghost town; there were buildings, businesses, and houses, but rarely ever a soul in sight. I drove down the road to Janice Barnes’ house, a practically deserted street that looked straight out of some horror film. The sky was a deep navy blue with the sun setting behind the trees in the distance, dense forests enveloping both sides of the route, and a single half-working streetlight down the road illuminating the low-hanging fog with a flickering blue-ish fluorescent light. The streetlight was covered in varying posters all pleading for help in finding some poor parents’ child. I swerved into Janice’s driveway and hopped out of my vehicle. The air was dense with the smell of damp leaves… and as still and quiet as a predator waiting to ambush.

I knocked on Janice’s door, and you could hear it echo for miles. As I waited for her to answer, I observed the surrounding area. But one particular thing was hard not to notice… up on the hillside, towering over everything else and seemingly illuminated by the now rising moon, overlooked the Crane Mansion. Its twisted and oblique, curving and jagged shapes pierced through the moonlight. Even then, I could feel just how evil that house was, its presence looming and oppressive. Not long after my knock, Janice creaked open her door and invited me in. She was a frail, middle-aged woman with the voice of a chain smoker. 

“Just in here,” she croaked as she guided me to Hugo’s room. “I need you to explain this to me.”

Inside his bedroom, she shivered in her robe and hair curlers. “He screamed… God, he screamed for me. But when I ran in here…” She then shoved Hugo’s bed away from the wall, and beneath it were claw marks dug into the hardwood floor. Starting from the foot of the bed… and ending at the corner of the wall. “Gone… just… gone. Where’d he go?” she cried out as a tear rolled down her powdered cheek. 

The case of Hugo Barnes was the first sign for me to investigate further in Occoquan. How can a child just disappear into nothingness from the safety of his own home like that? Luckily, my superiors felt the same and left me with all the missing child reports of Occoquan, Virginia. Case after case, I’d speak to mothers and/or fathers who recounted their children seemingly vanishing into thin air without a trace.

Marnie Hughes was the next major case I took. Her family moved to Occoquan in ‘98 just down the street from the Crane Mansion. Marnie was just a normal 15-year-old girl. She loved her family; she had plenty of friends at her relatively small school and did well in her classes. But out of nowhere, she developed some form of epilepsy halfway through her first semester. She began to suffer from what her doctors described as “unpredictable full-body seizures” that they blamed for the sudden onset of “unusual schizophrenia”. Marnie would suddenly fall into bouts of spasms and afterwards claimed that “the thing in the walls” was trying to ferry her away. She was seen by doctors who prescribed her antipsychotics for her hallucinations. Marnie suffered for weeks, and her parents mentally degraded along with her. CPS and the police were called to a horrifying scene on November 2nd, 1998. When entering the house, they found Marnie’s parents trying to cook her alive in the oven, claiming that ‘the devil’ wanted their daughter, so they tried to send her to God before the devil could take her. Needless to say, they were arrested on account of attempted first degree murder and Marnie was admitted into an institution for mentally troubled children. This institution is where I come into play… as only a week after her admittance, she escaped into the Occoquan woods. We spent weeks searching for her out in those woods, but we never found her. She was another child who vanished into thin air.

The events of that case will haunt me for as long as they rot inside my mind. The first thing I feel I need to speak on was ‘the tape’... a recording of Marnie’s first and only therapy session at the institution. I’ll do my best to transcribe what was said.

Dr. Burkes: “So, where do we feel comfortable beginning?”

Marnie: “... here… when I moved here.”

Dr. Burkes: “What about here? Was the move stressful? I can only imagine that it was.”

Marnie: “yeah… but… that wasn’t the problem.”

Dr. Burkes: “So, what is, Marnie? Was it kids at school or your par-”

Marnie: “It… it is the problem.”

Dr. Burkes: “... It?”

Marnie: “god… you can’t see it either. I’m fucking going crazy here! It’s been here the whole time!”

Dr. Burkes: “Marnie, you’ve got to work with me here or else we’ll never get anywhere. Are you seeing things again? Like hallucinations?”

Marnie: “You can call it a hallucination… you can call it whatever you want like my other doctors… but that’s not going to stop the fact that it’s in here... with us.”

Dr. Burkes: “You need to be taking your meds, Marnie. They are supposed to help with your symptoms.”

Marnie: “You… are… not listening to me.”

At this point in the tape, Marnie is audibly frustrated. She’s sobbing into her hands as if totally defeated. Her psychiatrist clicks her pen and lets out a sigh.

Dr. Burkes: “Okay… okay. Let’s discuss this then. If you’re taking your medication, and this isn’t a hallucination… reason with me. Talking through it will help us both understand what you’re dealing with. I truly do want to help you, Marnie. I’m sincerely sorry for not believing you, tell me everything.”

Marnie: “... I saw it… I saw it a few days after… we moved in. In the woods… by the river…”

Dr. Burkes: “It’s okay to cry, Marnie. No need to stop yourself.”

Marnie: “I didn’t pay it much mind; I thought it was one of the neighbors from the mansion. But… I learned no one lived there… and I still kept seeing it for weeks. It watched me from the woods. And then it called my name.”

Dr. Burkes: “... The Crane Mansion, right?”

Marnie: “It… knew my name. I couldn’t sleep… it was always watching… always. I could feel it peer in through my window… it never just observed… it wanted… it… desired.”

Dr. Burkes: “Don’t take me wrong, but… I feel as though what you’re experiencing… is a manifestation of your fear. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that what you’re experiencing isn’t real or isn’t tangible. But I’m saying that if we can address and figure out this fear, whatever you’re seeing may leave you alone.”

Marnie: “... Dr. Celine Burkes… maiden name Tilman.”

Dr. Burkes: “... How do you know that?”

Marnie: “You went to George Mason University and you lived in Virginia your whole life. You moved to Occoquan six years ago and you had a miscarriage when you were 19.”

Dr. Burkes: “Marnie! Marnie, stop!”

Marnie: “Your father died of cancer when you were seven and your mother raised you alone since. She’s currently in the hospital due to complications from smoking and you fear that you’re to blame for not getting her into rehab an-”

Dr. Burkes jumps from her chair at this point, knocking it over I presume.

Dr. Burkes: “Marnie! Stop this! How? How do you know this?”

Marnie: “It’s in the room… with us.”

Dr. Burkes presumably picks her chair up and sits back down. She laughs out loud to herself, most likely in disbelief at the situation.

Dr. Burkes: “What… is It, Marnie?”

Marnie: “Its name… is Sweet Tooth. It loves to eat sweet things.”

Dr. Burkes: “Where is it? Where in the room is it?”

Marnie: “... … …”

Dr. Burkes: “Marnie, where… is it?”

Marnie: “It’s… standing right next to you.”

At this point in the tape… everything goes quiet for a solid five seconds. Dr. Burkes then all of a sudden gasps but doesn’t move from her chair. The fear in her voice as she closed out the tape sent chills down my spine when I heard it.

Dr. Burkes: “... … … I can feel it breathing down my neck.”

The tape abruptly cuts after Burkes’ confession. Not long after this tape, Marnie was last seen running into the woods. Dr. Burkes also became catatonic and was institutionalized, believing that her imaginary friend named Sweet Tooth wanted her to die so they could be friends forever.

I joined in on the search parties that scoured the woods for Marnie Hughes, hoping to find her and the only lead I had to the disappearances of Occoquan’s children… Sweet Tooth. I had a group of other detectives working with me on this case, and the police force finally decided to look into this seriously for the first time in years since it’s the only time any suspect was even so much as mentioned. The first few days of the search were mostly uneventful. The most notable thing was the search dogs continuously leading us up barren and empty trees and to the river. More members of the police force joined in on the searches as some other children disappeared into the woods during our case, and quite a number of civilians helped us out as well. A part of this case that really stuck out to me was when I mapped where each missing child was last seen. Not only did all of them go missing in the woods (including Hugo Barnes whose house was sequestered in the forest), they formed a perfect triangle around the Crane Mansion.

But there was one notable early search. A few colleagues and I headed out in the woods by the Crane Mansion. It was pitch black, dense fog permeated every corner of the forest, and aside from us… there wasn’t a sound filling the air. No crickets, no frogs, not a single coo from an owl. Silence… intermingled with the occasional search dog and the brushing of dead leaves on the forest floor. Our flashlights barely helped as they seemingly never actually breached the fog for more than five inches in front of us. 

About an hour into the woods, I was startled by an officer yelling, “Hey! I think I finally got something!”. 

The rush over to him was filled with a fear that can only be described as bricks crushing my lungs. Was it Marnie? Was it… her corpse? Those questions filtered through my mind, leaving me with nothing but dread where my stomach should’ve been. All of that only to find a bundle of sticks, leaves and rocks. They were snapped and tied together in a strange formation that resembled some kind of rune. I’ll insert a quick drawing of what I remember it looking like, as the original pictures we took are tucked away in evidence. Rune

Right by it though, there were three piles of rocks that seemed to form some triangular formation around the make-shift figure. We took pictures for evidence, but we didn’t really find anything else that night. It seems so strange to me now how casual we were about finding the sticks and rocks… because from there on out they became a staple of every search. We were bound to find at least a handful of those sticks… all accompanied by rock piles forming a triangle around them. 

My next event of note was about three weeks after our first search. We trampled through the damp woods, this time during the evening. It was strange being out in those woods and actually being able to hear and see the wildlife. Crows called, moths parked on the bark of trees, and the occasional swan could be heard out on the nearby river. I remember having found a trail and following it with a few colleagues and a search dog. The trail was increasingly hard to follow and seemed to twist and turn through the forest at random. Eventually we stumbled upon a strange sight. Dolls… strewn throughout the trees. They were all clearly decaying, having been exposed to the forces of nature for who knows how long. We followed the rotting dolls until they led us into a nook in the path which took us up to a hidden area that was built within the Crane estate. What we found was unbelievably strange. Past the rusted gate of this area was a small gravesite. It didn’t belong to the city, and it was never documented as having been owned or made by the Cranes. Stranger still… the headstones listed people yet to die. It was right around this discovery when a colleague noted something… eerie. 

Silence…

No more birds, no more insects, even the sounds of our feet on leaves seemed muffled. We took pictures and quickly left. We traveled back up the trail to meet with the other officers and detectives, but our search dog stopped in her tracks about halfway through. I remember her owner, Search and Rescue Officer Marks, tugging on her leash to get her to move, but no response. She stared out into the dense forest, alerted and entranced by something. We waited for her to ease up and come along but her tail was firmly tucked between her legs and the hair on her back was puffed up like a porcupine. Something we couldn’t see was spooking her. As Marks went to tug her away and up the path again, she let out the lowest and most bone chilling growl I’ve ever heard come out of a dog. Not wanting to fuck around and find out, I started up the path again. I must’ve scared the dog because she startled and snapped out of whatever state she was in and followed us.

The chills that ran throughout my body were enough to make me haul ass back up that trail, and as I looked back at my colleagues… I glimpsed something out in the woods. It looked like a flowy, stained, white dress meandering behind a tree. Instinct kicked in ignoring my previous fear and I booked it into the woods without a second thought. I rushed toward the tree where I swore I just saw a girl… and nothing. My colleagues ran up behind me with the exception of the dog and Marks, the dog standing alert and terrified at the edge of the path. Before I could say anything, an officer bent down and picked something off of the ground. A picture… a picture that will be seared into my memory until the day I die. A pale corpse… clearly waterlogged and rotting away… in a white, flowy dress… Marnie.

The following days were much the same as they had been… no new clues, no hints, only more disappearances. That was until the Jordan family case, which began to set a new precedent for things to come. The Jordans were a relatively average family who lived within the more urban parts of Occoquan. By all accounts, they were normal. So, no one had any suspicion to believe that they’d murder and cannibalize their own children, then ritualistically kill themselves by hanging in their front yard tree… swinging side by side with the strewn corpses of their half-eaten children Micah and Candice Jordan. This case is of interest because of one singular thing found at the crime scene… Micah’s diary… which detailed his parents meeting a ‘Neighbor’ named Sweet Tooth. This then became a trend, seemingly random couples in Occoquan dying in murder/suicides… and if they were unlucky enough to have children… cannibalization. 

It was a Friday when I had my own run-in with… this Sweet Tooth. My house had been silent that evening as I went over details of the crime scenes. Each one followed the same pattern… the couple would meet a new neighbor named Sweet Tooth. He’d integrate himself into the family and become acquainted with them. In all the diaries, phone texts, saved calls, notes etc. the couples seemed to be convinced of the unimportance of physical life. Each family brainwashed by this ‘Sweet Tooth’, convinced to give up their “mortal forms” and “free” their souls to some god in the afterlife. 

It must’ve been about an hour, as the sun began to set, the night washing over the woods around my house in a pitch, murky blackness. I finished combing over the diaries and notes and drawings and photos which really began to stick with me. This field of work truly does take its toll on you, especially after having to dive headfirst into cases like this… it just becomes overwhelming and emotionally exhausting. I needed to call my mother, reading about these kinds of incidents really fucked with me. Something came over me, the urge to tell her how much I loved her. I was on the call for all of five minutes when something caught my eye out in my backyard… a white, flowy dress. I apologized to my mother for leaving the call so quick and hung up. Bursting out of my house with my Magnum and flashlight, I wandered around my yard. Silence… pure and utter silence. Meandering in the darkness of my yard, I could feel the blood drain from my face. A giggle echoed through the eerily silent woods and I scanned the imposing tree line. Nothing looked out of place but that feeling of dread struck me deep in the chest until I felt like I simply just couldn’t breathe anymore.

I scanned through the tree line thoroughly, increasingly frustrated by whatever taunted me. A solid thirty seconds must’ve passed before I decided to give up my pathetic and terrified search and head back to my house, but something horrid stopped me in my tracks. Lurking there… at the window by my desk… was a young boy, maybe 12, with a brunette bowl cut and a garishly colored turtleneck… Hugo Barnes. I approached the window as he glided out of sight… and in the dark hallway, a tall figure left my room and headed out my front door. I busted inside and did a full military squad inspection of my house… not a soul in sight. I looked at my desk where Hugo was… and it took a solid minute for me to realize what I was seeing. My papers drawn across my desk with the names of the murder/suicide families written across my map… a triangular shape with the Crane Mansion waiting in the middle of the formation. Something lingered in the air, it was no longer my home but an unwelcoming conjuring of fear. An urge itched within my mind; I needed to investigate the remnants of the Crane Mansion. I went into my room to grab my coat, and that’s when I noticed the tape sitting in the middle of my bed. I picked it up and let curiosity indulge itself, sliding it into the player.

Dr. Burkes: “Marnie!”

Marnie: “It’s… speaking… it’s speaking to you.”

Dr. Burkes audibly jumped up from her chair, sending it crashing as Marnie yelped.

Dr. Burkes: “Marnie! What is it? What is it? Tell it to leave me alone! I can feel it breathing on me! Make it stop!”

Dr. Burkes was clearly in hysterics, she was screaming and crying, backing away from her tape recorder.

Dr. Burkes: “Make it leave me alone, Marnie! What the hell is it saying?”

Marnie: “It’s saying…”

Sweet Tooth: “You’re so sweet, Samara!”

The mention of my name felt like a fist pummeling my gut. I got in my car, and I don’t think I’ve speeded so fast in my life. Red lights didn’t matter to me. I needed to get down to the station and find this heathen. Me and quite a few officers made haste toward the Crane Mansion. The drive down the twisted roads felt like an unforgiving eternity, marked by posters taunting me. Pulling onto the decrepit street, here it stood, its jagged and vicious architecture peering down on all of Occoquan. The windows hauntingly appeared like malicious eyes enveloped in the blackness of the night. The mansion wasn’t locked, and its massive doors creaked open like the moaning souls of the damned. Walking in, the air felt so thick you could cut it, and the floorboards creaked as if in pain with every step. 

The house reeked with the stench of copper, rotting fish, and the odor of trash left out to sit in the hot sun for days. No one seemed to have moved in after the Cranes. All of their items and furniture sat in the house, rotting away like the forgotten relics they were. Me and two of the four officers headed down into the basement after clearing the first floor, the other two officers made their way upstairs. But it wasn’t long until me and my colleagues came across the waterlogged, decomposing corpse of Marnie Hughes in the basement. We tried contacting the two who went upstairs but our walkies hissed with a vicious static. One of my two officers went up to find them as me and the other officer searched the remaining basement. 

We found a cellar that was boarded up by the Cranes after they built the house. Despite the evident corpse, the cellar was where the stench seemed to really be emanating from. It was almost like burnt hair permeating every inch of my nostrils. My futile attempts to open the cellar ceased quickly as I found myself the only one working on it. My eyes fixed on the other officer; a short man called Perez. Even within the overpowering darkness, I could see that his eyes were wide, and his gun drawn… both in the direction of the corner of the basement. I caught on and glanced over. Standing in and facing the corner, enveloped by but significantly darker than the darkness itself, stood an almost indescribable figure. It must’ve been at least seven and a half feet in height, as its head was cocked to the side, too tall for the basement. The sound of dripping water now flooded my ears as my eyes adjusted to the amorphous *thing* standing before us. It shivered in the corner as a noise emanated from it. “Breathing” I guess is how I would describe the rustic sound it made. Yet as soon as I lifted my flashlight… nothing… what was once there now ceased to exist.

Just then, a commotion was heard upstairs. Perez and I ran past where the corpse of Marnie Hughes should’ve been lying but wasn’t anymore and trudged up the basement steps in a panic. The other three officers practically came tumbling down the second story. What we heard of their testaments, I still don’t want to believe. The older female officer, Matthews, opened a closet door in one of the childrens’ rooms. And following a stench coming from the crawlspace in the lower corner of the closet, she opened it. The Crane Mansion has since been gutted from the inside out… after Matthews uncovered the darkest secret of Occoquan. Inside the walls, floors, roofs, ceilings, and yards of that evil house… the bones and rotting remains of hundreds of missing children laid. The Crane household was demolished not long after, and the remains of those poor souls were put to rest at once. The only thing remaining of the mansion is the cellar… I don’t know whether they couldn’t open it, or merely didn’t wanna see what horrors it held, but it lays there… haunting the forest where the Crane Mansion once stood.

That brings me to today, I moved away from Occoquan in the year 2000. The knowledge that something incredibly dangerous was out there and I was directly putting myself in its way was overbearing. But the area’s mysteries have always been in the back of mind. What was inside the cellar that the Cranes felt the need to board up so tightly? What was Sweet Tooth? And what did it want with the children and families of Occoquan? But I still fear that whatever Sweet Tooth was, it’s still out there. The corpse of Marnie Hughes still remains unfound. There’s been an influx of missing children’s cases not only where I’m currently situated, but throughout all of the Mid-Atlantic USA. Be careful. 

I jolted awake to loud banging on my front door, followed by the frantic barking of my two dogs, Barkley and Shiloh, their paws pounding against the floor as they leaped off the bed. They raced toward the front door, barking in a frenzy that sent my heart racing.

“Barkley, Shiloh! Come here!” I called, but my voice trembled, swallowed by the rising tension. Their raucous chorus continued, then Barkley’s growl cut through the noise—a low, menacing sound. I crept toward the door, pulse quickening as I peered through the side window. My stomach dropped at the sight of a man in black, standing eerily still, his back turned toward me. A cold shiver snaked down my spine, and I instinctively backed away, dread pooling in the pit of my stomach.

Suddenly, I awoke with a gasp, my heart still hammering. The fairy lights strung along my walls cast an unsettling glow, flickering erratically and creating monstrous shadows that danced across the room, warping it into a haunted labyrinth. Confused, I blinked—my bed was pressed against the wall, a disorienting change from its usual position in the center of the room. Just then, a fleeting shadow darted across the periphery of my vision, a glimpse of something sinister lurking just beyond my perception. Panic surged within me, and I screamed into the stillness, my voice echoing back.

I woke again, this time to the sound of my horror podcast playing softly in the background. The room felt achingly normal, the soft glow of the lights casting familiar shadows. My dogs lay peacefully beside me, but the unease clung to the air like a heavy fog. “Fuck... A dream within a dream...” I muttered, trying to shake off the creeping fear.

Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I ordered Alexa to stop the horror podcast that was playing softly from the bedside table; her mechanical voice provided a momentary distraction. Barkley trailed behind me as I padded to the bathroom, splashing cold water on my face. The chill momentarily snapped me back to reality, but my hands trembled, remnants of terror gnawing at me.

After drying off, I returned to the bedroom, but froze in horror. A man stood on my bed, his silhouette twisted against the twinkling lights, a sinister smile stretching across his face. My body went rigid, the scream clawing its way up my throat, but no sound emerged. I screamed again, and this time, I jolted awake once more.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I fumbled for my phone, fingers trembling as I dialed Ivan’s number. He answered on the second ring, voice thick with sleep. I struggled to speak through my sobs, begging him to come over. He groaned but promised to be there in twenty minutes.

As I waited, I wrapped my arms around both dogs, seeking their warmth against the creeping chill that settled in my bones. A little over twenty minutes later, a soft knock echoed through the apartment. Peeking through the window, I spotted Ivan, a shadowy figure in the night. He smiled sleepily and waved. I let him in and threw my arms around him, sobbing again as the dogs barked excitedly.

Once they calmed, I recounted my strange nightmares. Ivan stood in the kitchen, listening intently, when suddenly a shadow slipped behind him, gliding silently past. It drifted toward the front door, an unsettling presence that seemed to suck the warmth from the room. My breath caught in my throat.

“You saw him?” I gasped, voice shaking. He nodded, confusion flickering across his features. “Am I still dreaming?” His grin widened unnaturally, almost mocking, and a wave of nausea washed over me.

I screamed awake yet again. “This isn’t happening! This can’t be real!” Desperation clawed at me as I slapped my cheeks, seeking proof of my wakefulness. The stinging sensation felt real enough. Glancing at the alarm clock, I saw it was 2 a.m., just a few hours since I had fallen asleep. I remembered reading somewhere that you can't tell time in your dreams, so I clung to that small hope.

Looking down, I found only Barkley at my feet. Shiloh often nestled beneath the covers, so I groped around the bed, my heart racing as I realized she was nowhere to be found. Just then, a chilling sight caught my eye—Shiloh being dragged into the other room by a long, slender hand, the door clicking shut behind them.

“No!” I screamed, my voice echoing through the empty space as I rushed into the other room. It stood eerily vacant, void of any sign of struggle. I checked the bathroom—nothing but silence.

Awake again, I flung the covers aside, frantically searching for Shiloh. I found her curled up at my feet and yanked her close, sobbing into her fur, seeking comfort from her warmth.

Outside, a raucous commotion erupted, laughter and music bleeding into the quiet of my apartment. I crept to the window, peering through the curtain. A crowd gathered, reveling in chaotic celebration, but my dogs remained unnaturally still, their usual alertness replaced by an unsettling calm. I looked back out just in time to see a figure leap off the third-story balcony head first, vanishing from view. The sickening crack of bones splintered the air.

“No, no, no... I’m still dreaming,” I muttered, heart pounding as I paced the room, desperation gnawing at the edges of my sanity. “How do I wake myself up?” I collapsed onto my bed, pulling both dogs close, hoping their warmth would anchor me to reality. Maybe if I fell asleep again, I would awaken in the real world.

The next thing I knew, I was blinking against the harsh light streaming through the windows. I glanced at the alarm clock: 7:45 a.m. “Dammit! I’m late for work!” Panic surged as I scrambled out of bed, clothes strewn haphazardly in my rush. I dressed in a daze, remnants of my nightmarish visions clinging to me like a shadow.

After gathering both dogs for their morning walk, I dialed my boss, voice shaky as I explained my terrible night and my late arrival. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I promised, the words feeling heavy in my throat.

Once back inside, I quickly fed Barkley and Shiloh, their eager tails wagging momentarily distracting me from the unease still simmering beneath the surface. I said my hurried goodbyes, hoping the fresh air would clear my mind.

On the drive to work, I replayed the horrors of the night before, trying to stitch together the fragmented memories of terrifying dreams. The thought made my hands tremble on the steering wheel, the unease creeping back in like an unwelcome guest. Seeking solace, I called my sister, her voice a soothing balm. I recounted the surreal events, the chilling figures, and the dread that clung to me like a second skin.

“Listen,” she said, her tone firm yet gentle, “You’re awake now. You’re safe. Just breathe, okay?” Her reassurance was a fragile thread, but I clung to it as I navigated through the morning traffic, the world outside feeling all too real yet strangely distant.

As I pulled into the parking lot at work, a fragile sense of relief washed over me. “It was just a string of bad dreams. You’re fine now,” I whispered, trying to quell the unease that lingered at the edges of my mind.

But as I approached the entrance, reality began to warp and twist, the building melting around me like a cartoon forgotten under a relentless sun. The walls shimmered and dripped, colors swirling into grotesque shapes. Panic surged within me, and I screamed, the sound echoing into the void. “No! Not again!”

And then, with a jarring snap, I woke up in my bed, heart racing, the clock glaring at me in the dim light: 2 a.m.

Beginning • Previous

I was soaring high above the world. The sun’s golden warmth bathed me, and the cool breeze filled my senses. Beneath me, the sea stretched out like an endless sheet of rippling blue.

The last time I’d flown this high was when I nearly died. I had been no more than half a year old then. Reckless, curious, every bit as mischievous as a kitten should be. I had snuck aboard a fisherman’s boat, thinking I could catch fresh fish for myself.

What a sight in my eyes! The fishermen were hauling creatures of such size and quantity that it left me in awe. Some of the fish were so massive that I just couldn't believe my eyes.

Until that point, fish had only ever been served in bits, neatly mushed in my bowl. I wasn’t ready for the sheer presence of a full-grown tuna, thrashing on the deck. One powerful smack from its tail, and I was flung overboard, plummeting into the icy water.

No one saw me fall; after all, no one had known I was there to begin with. I sank deeper and deeper into the cold, dark water, the burn in my lungs growing, desperate for air. Water began to creep into my nose, and I could feel the panic rising. I thought it was the end.

But then, out of nowhere, maybe by some miraculous intervention of the divine, I was suddenly plucked from the water and lifted high into the air. I was saved from a terrible end.

The boat became a distant speck, shrinking beneath me as I was carried up, higher and higher into the sky. I was upside down, hanging my tail which was in the grip of a gannet’s beak. It had mistaken me for a meal.

But this time it wasn't that moment. This was different. There was no gannet now. I was alone. Weightless. Suspended between life and whatever lay beyond. I came to a conclusion that seemed absurd and yet inescapable: I must be dead.

When I looked up, I saw far above me a realm of limitless wonder. An infinite sea of stars and swirling nebulae. All waiting to be explored. I wanted to reach for it, to go into that unknown, to escape the gravity of the world I had left behind.

But something stopped me. I pushed upward, trying to break free, only to feel an invisible force pushing back. It wasn’t violent, though. It was soft, like a hand on my shoulder, coaxing me down. The wind itself seemed to whisper, “Not your time.”

As I looked down, the anchored ships below appeared no larger than toy boats bobbing on the waters. They were scattered along the fringes of Floating City. Each one was a world into itself, home to thousands. NOAH 1, the largest of them all, was my world.

My home.

My sweet, sweet home.

I swooped lower, drawn by the sight of three familiar figures. There, on the promenade deck, stood Joe and Anne Kelping with their mother. Anne spotted me first. She glanced up, her face brightening as a smile spread across her lips. She waved at me. Noticing her gaze, Joe followed suit.

“Page! Get down from there, you silly cat!” he shouted, laughter in his voice.

But the invisible hand steering me wasn’t leading there. No, it pushed me further from my home, closer to Floating City, where a column of thick, black smoke spiraled upward from a street.

Then, as if seized by an invisible force, I spiraled downward toward the blackened wreckage. Through the swirling curtains of smoke, silhouettes of men and women appeared, gathering around what was left of the apothecary. They began combing through the debris, searching for survivors. A few worked in tandem, passing buckets of water, putting out the lingering flames.

"Out of my way!" a voice roared from within the crowd. The people split in two like a wave parting as a tall, broad figure barreled toward the ruins, shouting Alan’s name. I knew the voice. Gunther!

“I’ve got someone!” came the cry of a man as he dragged a beam off a crushed body. I inched closer, dread building up in me. Then, the world seemed to crumble around me… Alan. Her eyes were closed, her chest still, as though life had already abandoned her.

The man crouched beside her, fingers gliding over her neck in search of a pulse. There was none. Gunther rushed over, panic in his eyes, and with the other man’s help, lifted her from the debris-strewn ground. Together, they moved her, awkwardly, like carrying a fragile thing that might break further, and laid her on the cracked sidewalk.

Gunther lowered himself, shaking her shoulder, whispering her name. She stayed still, unresponsive. He cursed under his breath, then inhaled deeply to pull her back from the void with his own breath. The other man, hands shaking, pressed his palms to her chest.

I hope to God they weren't too late. Come on, Alan! Wake up!

As they worked furiously to revive her, my ears caught a low, persistent scraping, like claws burrowing through debris. I turned just in time to see it: a burnt hand with two fingers severed. Flesh clung to it in ragged strips, like melted wax, exposing the glint of bone beneath scorched tendons.

“Another survivor!” someone shouted, brushing aside the rubble to free the outstretched hand. But as soon as the injured figure emerged, the hand shot up, fingers closing around his throat like iron.

He tore himself free and stumbled back just as the figure rose. It was the masked stranger…only now, his face was unrecognizable. Burnt beyond repair, the flesh had melted away. The skull beneath was exposed and ashen, eyes like hollow pits of nothingness.

Horrified, the rescuer turned and fled. The masked stranger, now a hollow shell, crumbled to the ground, his life slipping away in a shuddering breath. But even as his body stilled, something slithered out from his open mouth. A half-formed, oily skeleton with some rotten gray flesh hanging on its face. It writhed on the ground, dragging itself forward with skeletal arms, pulling its broken body forward in a desperate, searching crawl.

I trailed the thing, my instincts screaming of the evil it carried. What was it after? My soul grew sick as it slithered toward Alan, still unconscious, her life hanging by a thread as she was being resuscitated. It wanted her. It wanted to claim her body as its own.

I shot forward, placing myself between the thing and Alan, hissing fiercely, my fangs gleaming, back arched in defiance. My tail bristled, claws unsheathed, ready to tear into it before it could reach her. I wouldn’t let it have her.

“Page! Dear God, I thought you were a goner,” Lee's voice floated from behind me, but I couldn’t wrench my eyes away from the oily, skeletal thing in front of me.

“The kick that guy gave me hurt like hell,” he went on, almost laughing. “And somehow, I think I just bruised my leg from the blast—” His voice cut off, mid-sentence.

"Wha... what in the hell is that?" he whispered, horror creeping into his words.

I caught a glimpse of Lee stiffening, crouching low, muscles taut like a predator on the verge of pouncing. His tail flicked up, hackles raised, a guttural growl escaping his bared teeth. His eyes were locked onto the creature, pure menace in his glare.

“That thing came out of the masked stranger,” I said, struggling to steady my voice. “It’s after Alan. It wants to take her over.”

Lee sprang forward, jaws wide, intent on sinking his sharp teeth into the monstrosity. But he passed through its form as though it was made of smoke. He hit the ground hard. He rose, shaken, eyes wide, ears pricked upward, lost in a daze of confusion and disbelief.

The thing hissed. It slithered forward, but I struck first. I tore a chunk of its decayed, oily flesh from its skeletal cheek, the rancid stench clinging to my claws. It flinched, lifting a gnarled hand to swipe at me, but I was faster, ducking out of reach just as its bony fingers swatted empty space.

I vaulted onto its back, my claws raking wildly at its skull as it dragged itself, inch by inch, toward Alan. Just as it reached her, preparing to slip into her open mouth the moment Gunther lifted his head up for another breath, Alan's eyes flew open.

The entity threw its head back, releasing a jagged, ear-splitting screech before flinging me off and snaking away. None of the humans seemed to notice the skeletal form creeping under their noses, hunting for a host to inhabit. It vanished into the smoke, burrowing deep within the rubble, but I could still hear its shrill cry, like the sound of rusted metal grinding against itself.

Alan gasped, like someone surfacing from the deep. Her face was streaked with blood and ash. She slowly pushed herself up, then stood, wincing as her injured leg throbbed with pain. The right leg of her trouser was burnt away, exposing her calf–raw, blistered, and bright red.

Gunther’s voice cracked with relief. “Thank God! I thought I’d lost you for good.”

“The cats…” Alan rasped, barely audible. “Page... and there was another one.” Her eyes searched through the haze and scattered debris, calling my name.

I’m here! I’m right here! But my voice was like the wind in a vacuum. She couldn’t hear or see me.

“They can’t see you, can they?” Lee said, watching the humans comb through the debris. Then his eyes flicked to me, and his expression faltered. “You... you look different. You're silver! What the hell is that about?”

“Because I’m dead.” I looked down at my legs and paws, noticing the faint silvery glow they were radiating.

“I'm dead. You’re not dead,” another voice broke through. “Well, not yet.”

I spun around, startled, to see Wynn standing there. His fur shimmered with golden dust, his jaw and head intact, glowing with the light of those on the brink of transcendence. I’d seen that same glow before—around Joe and Anne on that fateful night.

“What makes you say that?” I asked the rat.

“Like what Lee said, you're glowing silver, but it won't last,” Wynn replied. “The explosion may not have killed you, but the force was enough to have separated your body and spirit, and you're still clinging to life here.”

“So, I’m not dead, just… dying somewhere in there,” I said, my voice strangely distant as I pointed at the heaps of rubble. I felt hope and helplessness. Could I really find myself in time? How much was left?

“There’s time. You can still save yourself. Find your body and return to it.”

“So, what the hell are we waiting for?” Lee barked, dropping low as his nose swept across the debris.

Then, a boy who had joined the crowd searching for survivors shouted triumphantly, hoisting something from the ruins. It was a cat, its fur matted with ash, eyes wide and bewildered. It wriggled out of the boy’s arms.

“Ziggy!” I yelled, my legs carrying me toward him through the swirling smoke. He was dazed but kicking, shaking off the dust in fits and starts, like a machine sputtering back to life.

But just as I was about to reach him, I stopped dead. There, sprawled in the rubble a few yards from me, was a shape too familiar to be anyone else.

Dread gnawed at me. The body was mine. There I lay, my ruddy fur caked with soot and blood, motionless. No breath, no rise and fall of my chest. But faintly—barely—a flicker of life lingered, slipping away like a dream dissolving at dawn.

Lee rushed to the body, his nose grazing the fur. He whimpered.

Ziggy also hurried over to the body, his eyes wide and mouth hanging open. He stared at me, then at the still body in front of him. Confusion and horror flashed across his face.

“Hurry!” Wynn's voice cracked with fear. I turned to follow his gaze, and there it was—black smoke spiraling toward us like a storm. Then, the smoke peeled back, waning as an oily skeletal creature slithered forward, creeping closer to my body.

I broke into a desperate sprint. Lee snarled, teeth flashing in a furious snarl. Ziggy hissed, leaping with claws outstretched, but as his swipe cut through the creature, his claws met only air. The thing screeched, mocking him, its form passing through Ziggy like mist.

Shutting my eyes and summoning every ounce of strength, I stretched my limbs as I flew through the air. I raced toward the only thing that mattered—to reclaim my body.

“I found him!” Gunther shouted, breaking through the smoke. He knelt down, his hands trembling as he lifted the limp body from the ground, cradling it as though it were fragile glass.

He leaned in. His ear hovered near the face, his brow furrowed. “He’s not breathing!” He moved quickly, placing a hand on the chest, blowing air into the mouth and nose.

Desperately, I scanned for any sign of the entity, but it had disappeared. To where? Where did it go?

The golden glow around Wynn paled, his hand shook as he pointed to the cat in Gunther’s arms and said the words I didn't want to hear, “You’re too late.”

The thing woke up, hissing, while Gunther’s tears mingled with laughter, overwhelmed by joyous relief.

No, no, no… it couldn't be! It wasn’t me in that body. I was still separated.

I could do nothing but watch, helpless, as Alan took the false Page from Gunther and hugged it tightly in her arms. She clung to it, her face pressed against its neck. A surge of emotion overwhelmed me. Words couldn’t capture the storm raging within me.

The anger inside me burned hotter than anything I’d ever experienced. Fiercer, more violent, like a firestorm waiting to tear the world apart. If I could have breathed fire in that moment, I would have engulfed the world in flames.

Gunther suggested they take that imposter and Ziggy to the vet in New Shire, where most of the city's stray dogs and cats, even some brave rats, tend to wander and lounge.

No matter how angry and shocked I was, I watched, helpless, as they walked off with that imposter wearing my face and with Ziggy, hissing in protest in Gunther’s arms.

Lee, in his futile panic, barked after them, his words clear only to us: “Stop! No! That’s not what you think it is! There's a monster in that cat!” But to them, it was just noise, nothing more than meaningless growls and barks of an agitated dog.

Gunther waved him off dismissively with a scowl. “Go away! I said, go, boy! Damn dog!”

I watched them hail a rickshaw and climb into the passenger seat, the sinking realization hitting me. This was it. This was the end. I was beyond saving. Trapped, with no way out of this predicament. I was doomed to be stuck between life and death, wandering as a phantom for eternity.

“What was that thing?” I asked, spinning back to face Wynn. “Why did it try to possess Alan? And then it took over my body!”

“A wraith,” Wynn said, his voice grave. It’s not exactly evil, but it’s not a friendly spirit either. That one belonged to the masked stranger. It has unfinished business in this world, and it won’t move on until it’s done.”

“What kind of business could it have?”

“I think you already know the answer to that,” he said with a pointed look. “Now, what were you and the human doing, snooping around in the apothecary?”

My thoughts raced as I tried to remember what I’d seen…

“The black stones!” I exclaimed. “Alan had pocketed them. The wraith must be after those devices, perhaps to send a message from wherever the stranger had come.”

Lee returned to us, panting heavily, having chased the rickshaw as far as he could before fatigue forced him to turn back.

“Damn it! I tried, Page,” he gasped, nearly in tears. “I did everything I could! Is it really too late? Isn’t there anything we can do?”

“There is something,” Wynn replied calmly. “There’s still a way, but you'll have to hurry. If you don't return to your body before sunrise tomorrow, then you're truly trapped between two worlds.”

We both turned to him, hope burgeoning.

“What is it?” I demanded.

“Save my brother, Flynn.”

“Flynn?” I hissed. “What does he have to do with any of this?”

“He’s a healer. He can help you.”

Lee frowned, glancing at the wreckage around us. “That is, if he’s still alive…”

“He’s alive!” said Wynn, his whiskers twitching with certainty. “I can sense him.”

We followed the rat as he scampered over the hills of rubble—bricks and twisted metal still warm from the flames. His sleek body vanished into a narrow gap. Lee stopped short, unable to squeeze through, but I easily slipped past the jagged edges.

Wynn’s glow lit the dark path until we stumbled upon a fallen beam. Flynn was there, trapped, half-buried under the weight. He wasn’t moving. But as Wynn approached, his light swept over Flynn’s face, stirring him back to life. Slowly, Flynn lifted his head. He blinked, groaned, and met his brother’s gaze.

“Wynn! You’re still here,” he breathed, his body sagging with relief. “We should hurry home. Mother must be beside herself. Help me move this beam off of me.”

Wynn looked at him and gave a slow shake of his head, his expression sad but serene. “I can't go back with you, Flynn. There's somewhere else I need to be.”

“Somewhere else?” Flynn frowned. “What are you talking about? Where could you possibly—”

“You know where I have to go.”

A look of dawning realization crossed Flynn’s face. “No. No, this isn't... you can’t be serious. This better not be one of your games, right? Tell me it's not.”

Wynn’s voice softened. “I wish it was.”

“So, you’re really—”

“Yeah, I am.”

Flynn's breath hitched. “But Wynn…”

Wynn’s form shimmered, becoming translucent, the light dimming. “I’ve done what I came here for: to find you. But there’s one last thing I need you to do.”

Flynn swallowed, his voice quivering. “Anything. What is it?”

Wynn vanished, his form dissolving into the air, but his voice lingered like a whisper carried in the wind, “Help the cat.”

Lee’s barking rang out in the distance, growing closer and more frantic. A young voice followed, breathless with worry. “What’s wrong, boy? Did you find someone? Is there someone stuck down there?”

Suddenly, the dazzling light of day burst into my vision, momentarily blinding me as the debris was cleared from above.

The boy let out a cry of disgust. “Ugh, you had me dig through all this for a rat?”

Lee whirled around, barking happily, his excitement infectious in the bright sunlight.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

"Kat, take the controls!" I say, unbuckling my harness.

Her eyes snap to me, wide with disbelief. "You’re kidding, right? You want to leave me in charge, now?"

"No joke. You’ve got this," I tell her, locking eyes. "You're the best copilot I know. I trust you."

She scoffs, but I can see the flicker of resolve behind the doubt. "Fine! But next time, I’m picking the song we play on takeoff. No more Scorpions!"

I flash her a grin despite the situation. "Deal. If we survive this, I'll let you choose the whole goddamn playlist."

"I’ll hold you to it," she mutters, taking hold of the yoke.

I grab the emergency ax from the side compartment—a sturdy, dented old thing that’s seen more action than it probably should have.

Time to go play action hero.

I yank the cockpit door open, and the cold air hits me like a slap.

The flickering emergency lights cast everything in a hellish red glow, shadows leaping and twisting like they're alive. The smell hits me next—a nauseating mix of burnt metal and charred flesh.

I push deeper into the cabin, gripping the ax so tight my knuckles ache.

"Gonzo! Sami!" I shout, but my voice sounds warped, like it's being stretched and pulled apart.

Ahead, I see him. Gonzo's pinned against the bulkhead by one of those scavengers, but this one’s a mess—badly burned, parts of its exoskeleton melted and fused. It's phasing in and out of the plane's wall, its limbs flickering like a strobe light as it struggles to maintain form.

Gonzo grits his teeth, trying to push it off, but the thing's got him good. One of its jagged limbs presses dangerously close to his throat.

"Get the hell off him!" I charge forward, swinging the ax at the creature's midsection.

But as I bring the ax down, time glitches. One second I'm mid-swing, the next I'm stumbling forward, my balance thrown off as the scavenger phases out. The blade passes through empty air, and I overextend, slipping on a slick of something—blood? oil?—on the floor.

I hit the deck hard, the ax skittering out of my grasp.

"Not now," I groan, pushing myself up. But my limbs feel heavy, like they're moving through syrup.

The scavenger turns its head toward me, its glowing eyes narrowing. It hisses—a grating, metallic sound that sets my teeth on edge—and then lunges. Before I can react, it's on me, one of its limbs pinning my shoulder to the floor. The weight is crushing, and I can feel the heat radiating off its scorched body.

"Cap!" Gonzo roars, struggling to his feet.

I try to wrestle free, but the creature's too strong. Its other limbs are flailing, glitching in and out of solidity, making it impossible to predict where it’ll strike next.

Then, through the chaos, I hear a shout.

"Hey! Over here!"

It's Sami.

She's standing a few feet away, holding a portable emergency transponder and fiddling with the settings. "Come on, come on," she whispers urgently.

"Sami, what’re you doing?" I shout.

"Cover your ears!"

The scavenger’s head snaps toward Sami, its glowing eyes narrowing, and I can feel the pressure on my shoulder ease up just a fraction as its attention shifts. I grit my teeth, trying to pull myself free, but before I can move, the thing lets out a distorted screech and launches itself at her.

With a defiant scowl, she twists the dial all the way to max and slams the emergency transponder onto the deck. A piercing, high-frequency sonic blast erupts from the device, the sound waves rippling through the air in strange, warping pulses. Even the time glitches seem to stutter, as if the blast is punching holes through the distorted fabric around us.

The sonic wave slams into the scavenger hard. It staggers, limbs flailing as the sound disrupts whatever twisted physics keep it together.

The scavenger screeches—a hideous, metallic shriek like nails dragged across sheet metal mixed with the scream of a dying animal. It’s glitching harder now, its jagged limbs spasming, flickering between solid and translucent, but it’s still coming. Whatever that sonic blast did, it only pissed it off.

It launches itself toward Sami, skittering on all fours, moving faster than anything that broken and half-melted should. Sparks fly as its claws scrape across the metal floor, leaving jagged scars in its wake.

“SAMI, MOVE!” I shout, scrambling to get back on my feet.

Sami stumbles backward, but it’s clear she won’t outrun the thing. Before she can even react, the scavenger rears back one of its limbs, ready to impale her. Then Gonzo comes in like a linebacker, barreling forward with a fire extinguisher the size of a small child.

“Get away from her, you piece of shit!” he bellows.

The scavenger doesn’t stand a chance—Gonzo swings the extinguisher like a war hammer, smashing it right into the side of the creature’s twisted skull. There’s a loud crunch as exoskeleton and metal plating buckle under the force of the blow, sending it sprawling across the floor.

But Gonzo isn’t done—he keeps swinging the extinguisher like a man possessed, raining down blow after blow.

But it's not enough. The scavenger whips around, swiping at Gonzo with one of its jagged limbs. He barely dodges, the claw slicing through the air inches from his face.

"Cap, little help here!" Gonzo shouts, bracing himself for another swing.

I scramble across the floor, my heart jackhammering in my chest, and snatch up the ax. The scavenger is twitching like a half-broken video game enemy. Gonzo wrestles with it, his fire extinguisher dented from the pounding, but the thing’s still kicking—literally. One of its jagged limbs swipes again, nearly gutting him like a fish.

"Eat this, fucker!" I growl under my breath, gripping the ax tighter.

With a swift step forward, I bring the blade down—right at the joint where the scavenger’s front limb meets its shoulder. The ax bites deep, metal and flesh shearing with a sickening crunch. Sparks fly, the limb falling away with a wet thunk onto the deck, twitching uselessly like a severed lizard’s tail.

But it’s not down for good—it starts crawling toward me, dragging its mangled body along the floor like some nightmare spider that doesn’t know when to quit.

Then I see it.

The bulkhead on the port side—it’s rippling, the metal undulating like the surface of disturbed water. The rippling spreads outward in concentric circles, the metal flexing like it’s being pulled from somewhere deep inside. I get an idea.

“Kat!” I bark into the comm. “I need you to pull a hard starboard yaw. Now!”

Kat’s voice comes back, steady as ever. “Copy that, boss. Hang on to something.”

Thunderchild groans, metal protesting under the sudden change in direction. The plane tilts sharply, gravity sliding everything not bolted down toward the port side. The scavenger loses its grip, claws scraping across the deck in a desperate attempt to hang on, but the shift in momentum sends it skittering sideways.

The thing hits the bulkhead with a sickening thunk. For a split second, it twitches there, half-phased into the wall, limbs flickering between solid and liquid-like states, as if it's trying to claw its way back into the plane. But the rippling bulkhead pulls it in like a drain swallowing water.

Then, with a wicked slurp, it tumbles through the wall, sucked out of the cabin like a fly through a screen door.

The metal flexes one last time, then snaps back into place, solid and still like nothing ever happened.

I stumble forward, steadying myself on the bulkhead as Thunderchild evens out, the sudden shift in gravity leaving my knees feeling like jelly. I glance toward the port window, just in time to catch the scavenger tumbling through the air as it spirals toward the glowing edge of the exit point.

The thing hits the shimmering boundary hard. And I mean hard.

There’s no explosion, no dramatic implosion—just a bright flash of light, like a spark being snuffed out. The scavenger burns up instantly, consumed by the swirling edge of the anomaly.

I sag against the bulkhead, sucking in huge gulps of air. My chest feels tight, and every muscle in my body aches like I just ran a marathon through a war zone. The ax dangles loosely from my hand, the blade slick with weird fluids I don’t want to think about.

I glance at Gonzo, who’s leaning against the wall, catching his breath. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand, leaving a streak of dark grime across his face.

“You good?” I ask, still panting.

He gives me a half-hearted grin. “Still in one piece. Not sure how, but I’ll take it.”

I move to Sami, who’s slumped on the deck, clutching her knees. Her breathing is fast and shallow, her hands trembling. Her wide eyes meet mine.

“You okay, Sami?”

She nods, though the movement’s shaky. “I think… yeah. That thing almost…” She trails off, unable to finish the thought.

I crouch next to her. “You did good, kid.”

She offers a weak smile, though it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

Gonzo reaches down and offers her a hand. “Come on, Sami. Let’s get you off the floor before something else shows up.”

Sami grabs his hand, and he hoists her to her feet with a grunt. She wobbles for a second, but steadies herself against him.

I glance around the cabin, making sure the nightmare is really over. The floor’s a mess—scratched metal, globs of… whatever the hell those things were made of, and streaks of smoke from the fire suppressant foam—but it’s quiet now.

The intercom crackles, and Kat’s voice cuts. "Jax, get your butt back up here. We're coming up to the other side of the exit point fast."

“Copy that,” I say, turning back to Gonzo and Sami. “Get yourselves settled. We’re almost through.”

The narrow corridor tilts slightly under my feet. I shove the cockpit door open and slide into my seat next to Kat, strapping in as Thunderchild bucks again.

“Miss me?” I ask, a little out of breath.

“Always,” Kat says dryly.

“Status?” I ask, scanning the console.

“We’re lined up,” Kat replies. “But the turbulence is getting worse. I can’t promise this’ll be a smooth ride.”

I glance out the windshield. The swirling, glowing edge of the exit point is dead ahead, growing larger and more intense with every second. The air around it crackles, distorting the space in front of us like a heat mirage. It’s like staring into the eye of a storm, but instead of wind and rain, it’s twisting space and time.

I grip the yoke. The turbulence rattles the airframe, shaking us so hard my teeth feel like they might vibrate out of my skull, but it’s steady chaos—controlled, even. I’ll take it.

The glowing threshold looms ahead—just seconds away now. It’s beautiful in a way that’s hard to describe, like a crack in reality spilling light and energy in every direction. It flickers and shifts, as if daring us to take the plunge.

"Alright, Kat," I say, steady but grim. "Let’s bring this bird home."

She gives me a sharp nod, all business. "Holding course. Five seconds."

The nose of the plane dips ever so slightly as Thunderchild surges forward.

WHAM.

Everything twists. My vision tunnels, warping inward, like someone yanked the universe through a straw. There’s no sound, no sensation—just a moment of pure, disorienting silence. I swear I can feel my atoms separating, scattering into a billion pieces, only to slam back together all at once, like some cruel cosmic prank.

Then—BOOM—reality snaps back into place.

The cockpit lights flicker. My stomach lurches, my ears pop, and the familiar howl of wind and engines fills the air again. The smell of ozone lingers, but the oppressive, alien tang that’s haunted us is gone. I glance at the instruments. They’re still twitchy, but—God help me—they’re showing normal readings. Altimeter: 22,000 feet. Airspeed: 250 knots. And the compass? It’s pointing north.

Outside the cockpit, the storm rages—angry clouds swirling like a boiling pot, flashes of lightning tearing through the sky. But these are real storm clouds. Familiar. Predictable.

"Gonzo? Sami? You guys alright back there?"

There’s a moment of static, then Gonzo’s gravelly voice rumbles through the speaker. "Still kicking, Cap. Could use a stiff drink and a nap, though."

Sami’s voice follows, shaky but intact. "I’m… here. We’re back, right? For real?"

"For real," I say, leaning back in my seat. "Sit tight, both of you. We're not out of this storm yet.”

“Confirming coordinates,” Kat says, fingers flying over the navigation panel. A few tense seconds pass before she looks up, a small, relieved smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Latitude 27.9731°N, Longitude 83.0106°W. Right over the Gulf, about sixty miles southwest of Tampa. We’re back in our universe.”

"Sami," I call over the intercom, "what’s the status of the storm?"

There’s a brief pause, then her voice crackles back through the speakers. "Uh... hang on, Captain, pulling up the data now."

I hear her tapping on her tablet, scrolling through the raw feeds, cross-referencing atmospheric readings. "Okay... so... I’ve got... Ya Allah." Her voice falters.

I exchange a glance with Kat. "What you got, Sami?"

"Captain, it’s not good," she says. "The storm hasn’t weakened. At all."

I clench my jaw. "Come again?"

"You heard me. It’s... it’s grown." Her voice wavers, but she pushes on. "The eye is over thirty miles wide now, and wind speeds are clocking in at over 200 knots. We’re talking way beyond a Category 5—this thing’s in a class all by itself. And... It's accelerating. If it makes landfall—"

I pull up the storm's radar image on the main display, showing the eye of the monster. Tampa, Sarasota, Fort Myers… They’re all directly in its path. And it’s moving faster than anything I’ve seen before—barreling towards the coast like it’s got a personal vendetta.

"It’ll wipe out the coast," Kat finishes grimly, her hands frozen on the controls.

"How much time do we have?" I ask.

Sami taps furiously on her keyboard. "It’s covering ground at almost 25 miles an hour... It’ll hit the coast in under an hour."

"It’s a goddamn city killer…" I mutter, staring out the windshield at the swirling blackness.

Kat flicks the comm switch. "MacDill Tower, this is NOAA 43, callsign Thunderchild. Do you read?"

Nothing but static.

She tries again. "MacDill Tower, this is NOAA 43. We have critical storm data. Do you copy?"

More static, followed by a brief, garbled voice—like someone trying to speak underwater. Kat frowns, adjusting the frequency, but it’s no use.

"Damn it," she mutters, slamming a fist against the console. "Comms are fried."

I grab the headset, cycling through every emergency channel I know. "Coast Guard,anyone, this is NOAA 43. Come in. We have an emergency. Repeat—hurricane data critical to evacuation efforts. Does anyone read me?"

I turn back toward the intercom. "Gonzo, any luck with the backup system?"

"Working on it, Cap," Gonzo’s gravelly voice comes through. "The storm scrambled half the circuits on this bird.”

Gonzo’s voice crackles over the intercom again. "Alright, Cap, I think I got something. Patching through the backup system now, but it’s weird—ain’t any of our usual frequencies."

"Weird how?" I ask, already not liking where this is going.

There’s a pause, followed by some frantic tapping on his end. "It’s... encrypted. Military-grade encryption. I have no idea how we even latched onto this. You want me to connect, or we ignoring this weird-ass signal and focusing on not dying?"

"Military?" Kat mutters, half to herself. "What would they be doing on a storm frequency?"

I shrug. "We’re running out of time, and no one else is picking up. Patch it through, Gonzo."

A beat of silence, and then the headset comes to life with a sharp click—like someone on the other end just flipped a switch.

"Unidentified aircraft, this is Reaper Corps," a voice says, cold and clipped. "Identify yourself and state your mission. Over."

I hit the transmit button. "This is NOAA 43, callsign Thunderchild. We’re currently en route from an atmospheric recon mission inside the hurricane southwest of Tampa. We’ve got critical data regarding the storm’s behavior. Repeat—critical storm data. Do you copy?"

The voice on the other end comes back instantly, no hesitation. "We copy, Thunderchild. What’s your current position?"

I glance at the nav panel. "Holding steady at 22,000 feet, sixty miles offshore, bearing northeast toward Tampa. We’ve encountered significant anomalies within the storm system. It’s not behaving like anything on record."

There’s a brief pause—too brief, like whoever’s on the other end already expected us to say this. "Understood, Thunderchild. Transmit all storm data immediately. Include details regarding any... unusual phenomena you may have encountered… inside the storm. Over."

Kat shoots me a sharp glance. "They know?"

"They know," I mutter, heart pounding.

I hit the button again. "Reaper Corps, what’s your affiliation? Are you with NOAA? Coast Guard? Air Force?"

Another brief pause. "Thunderchild, our designation is classified. You are instructed to send all data now."

"Negative, Reaper Corps," I reply, sitting up straighter. "People need to be evacuated. If you want our data, we need confirmation you’re working with the agencies coordinating the response."

There’s a brief silence—just long enough to make me sweat. Then the voice returns, calm and professional but with a dangerous edge.

"You’re speaking with the United States Strategic Command, Thunderchild. We need your full sensor logs, all data on the anomaly, and any information you’ve gathered from... the alternate space."

I pause, gripping the yoke a little too tight. “Strategic Command?” I repeat, glancing at Kat. Her expression darkens. This doesn’t sit right, not one bit. STRATCOM deals with nuclear deterrence, cyber warfare, and global missile defense—not hurricanes.

Kat leans closer, whispering, “Jax… this doesn’t feel right. Why would STRATCOM care about a storm?”

I click the radio again. "Reaper Corps, we have critical weather data that needs to go directly to NOAA for immediate evacuation orders. If people aren’t warned in time—"

The voice cuts me off, cold and firm. "Thunderchild, listen to me carefully. Evacuation isn’t enough. This storm is different—it will grow, and it won’t stop. You’ve seen what’s inside. This isn’t just weather. Your data is critical to neutralizing it and preventing mass casualties."

I look into Kat’s deep blue eyes. Her expression is a storm of doubt, anger, and fear. "Neutralizing it?" she whispers, incredulous. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Reaper Corps," I say slowly into the radio, "you’re telling me you think you can stop this storm? How exactly do you plan to do that?"

There’s a brief pause—just long enough for the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. When the voice returns, it’s flatter, colder, as if the mask of professionalism is slipping. "That information is beyond your clearance, Thunderchild. This is not a negotiation. Send the data now."

Kat slams her hand on the console, frustration bubbling to the surface. "Dammit, Jax, they’re jerking us around! We need to send this to NOAA, not some black-ops spook playing God with the weather!"

Every instinct I have is screaming to cut this transmission and make contact with NOAA or the Coast Guard—anyone with a straightforward mission to save lives. But if what they’re saying is true… if the storm really can’t be stopped by traditional means...

"Reaper Corps," I say cautiously, "I’ll send you the data. But I’m also sending a copy to NOAA for evacuation coordination. People on the ground need time to get out of the way."

The radio crackles with a tense silence before the voice returns, clipped but grudging.

"Thunderchild, understood. Send the data to NOAA—but ensure we receive an unaltered copy first. Time is critical. We need that information now to mitigate the... threat."

Kat’s voice is a low hiss next to me. "This stinks, Jax. Don’t do it. We can't trust these guys."

Gonzo’s voice crackles over the intercom. "Cap, I don’t like this either, but what if they’re right? What if this thing’s beyond NOAA’s pay grade? We saw what’s inside that storm—it’s not normal. They could be our only shot."

I close my eyes for half a second, weighing the options.

I click the mic. "If I send this data, you’d better stop that storm. If you screw this up, we’ll have blood on our hands."

"We understand the stakes, Captain," the voice responds, calm and clipped. "Send the data now… please."

I lock eyes with Kat. She’s furious but nods, her fingers flying over the console. "Sending," she mutters bitterly.

The data streams out, the upload bar creeping forward. I watch it with a sinking heart. The second it completes, the radio crackles one last time. "We have the data.”

After several minutes, the voice comes back on. “Thunderchild, stand by for new coordinates," Reaper Corps says, the static on the line barely masking the urgency in his voice. "Proceed to latitude 28.5000° N, longitude 84.5000° W. Maintain a holding pattern at 25,000 feet. Acknowledge."

I glance at Kat, who raises an eyebrow. "That's over a hundred miles from the storm's eye," she says quietly.

I key the mic. "Reaper Command, Thunderchild copies new coordinates. Proceeding to the designated location. What's the situation? Over."

There's a brief pause before the voice returns, colder than before. "Just follow your orders, Thunderchild. For what comes next… You don’t want to be anywhere near the storm. Trust me. Reaper Corps out."

Part 5

In a little village, tucked away from the rest of the world, lived Nils, a doll maker. His home is up on a hill, completely isolated from everyone else. He creates dolls for those who have lost their friends and loved ones—an empty husk without a soul.

There is a rumor that Nils once brought his wife to be back to life. Since he had dabbled in black magic, he broke the rules that were once taught to him by his master.

When Nils brought her back to life, she was no longer herself. She had harmed many people, and thus, he had to end her life a second time. Not wanting his apprentice to make the same mistake, he hid away the patchwork book in the drawer of his home.

When Nils' apprentice took over for him since he was now retired, Nils warned Otto never to touch the patchwork book tucked away in his home's locked drawer.

Since that book held dark magic, Nils once used it selfishly. He instructed Otto to use the guidebook to create lifeless dolls to resemble someone's deceased family member or friend.

"It's nothing but bad luck." Nils warned his apprentice, "and it will bring nothing but tragedy," he added, settling down to rest.

Otto heeded his warning, only making dolls within reason and never bringing a person back to life.

That was until the person he secretly loved in an accident that took his life. He rushed to that small house on the hill where Nils lived without thinking. Otto opened the locked drawer, which he was told not to take—an old patchwork book.

Opening up the book, it explains how to bring someone back to life.

They would no longer be human and would become living dolls. There would be grave consequences associated with their reincarnation.

Pushing consequences aside, Otto got to work on bringing Kurt back to the living. Gathering some of the materials was difficult, but he acquired them with some persuasion.

Worried about his apprentice, Nils decided to check up on him. After all, the young man did lose the person he cared about.

When he opened the door to Otto's workshop, he was not ready for what he was about to see. The scene before him was just like himself those years ago.

His apprentice touched Kurt's face affectionately, the person who was supposed to be dead. Who should have stayed dead?

Kurt's crimson eyes opened, and he looked around.

"What have you done?!" Nils panicked, backing up to go out the door. His blood ran cold. Otto's emerald eyes were soon on him. "What have I done? Oh...only bringing my friend back to me, and wouldn't you know you're just in time for dinner. Isn't he Kurt?".

Kurt's eyes were soon on the retired doll maker, who was frozen. Why wasn't he turning on Otto? When he had brought back his wife in the past, she had turned on him, and he had to end her by watching her die a second time.

"It's time to eat."

The door to Otto's workshop closed, drowning out any screams that threatened to escape. Up on a hill isolated from the rest of the village, a doll maker will make any doll you ask, whether it be a family member or a friend. He'll even bring them back to life.

However, there will be consequences if you don't follow the instructions.

Just remember one important thing. It would be best if you always have plenty of flesh.

I have a strange fear. You’ll probably laugh when I tell you what it is, but you might feel differently after I tell you why I have it.

I suffer from cucurbitophobia: the fear of pumpkins.

Fears as specific and irrational as that usually begin in childhood, and sometimes for no reason at all. But let me assure you, I have a very good reason to fear them.

I sit here now, typing this story as the living remainder of a set of twins. My name is Kalem, and I’ll tell you the tragic story of my brother, and the horror of what happened in the years since his untimely death.

It happened when we were young, only eleven years old. We were an odd pair to see - we had the misfortune of being born with curious cow’s licks of hair on top of our heads that would put Alfalfa from The Little Rascals to shame. Our mother (much to our chagrin) called us her “little pumpkins”, on account of our hair looking like little curled stalks. Our round little bellies didn’t exactly help either.

I was the calmer of us both, being reserved where my brother Kiefer was wild. He was the one who blurted out the answers in class and couldn’t sit still. The risk-taker, the stuntman, the show-off. It usually fell to me as the older and wiser sibling to watch out for him, though I was only a few minutes older.

We were walking home one blustery autumn evening, the trees ablaze with gold and orange as we huddled up from the chill of a cloudless dusk. Piles of leaves had been swept from the paths in the fear that they’d make an ice rink of the paths should it rain. The piles didn’t last long as kids kicked them about and jumped into them for fun.

Kiefer of course couldn’t resist, running headlong into the first pile he saw.

It happened so fast. Upsettingly fast, as death always does; without warning and without any power on my part to stop it. The swish of the leaves were punctuated with a crack, and autumns earthen gown was daubed in red.

A rock. Just a poorly-placed rock, probably put their as a joke by someone who didn’t realise that it would change someone’s life forever.

The leaves came to rest and I still hadn’t moved. A freezing breeze blew enough aside for me to see what remained of my twin’s head.

Pumpkin seeds.

It was a curious thought. I could only guess why the words popped into my head back then, but I know now that the smashed pumpkins on the doorsteps of that street seemed to mock my brother’s remains. How the skull fragments and loose brain matter did indeed seem to resemble the inside of a pumpkin.

I shook but not from the cold, and I suppose the sight of me collapsed and shivering got enough attention for an ambulance to be called.

I honestly don’t recall what followed. It was a whirlwind of tears, condolences, and the gnawing fear that I would be punished for failing to protect my little brother.

Punishment came in the form of never being called my mother’s little pumpkin again. I was glad of it; the word itself and the season it was associated with forever haunted me from that day on. But I never thought I would miss the affection of the nickname.

At some point I shaved my hair, all the better to get rid of that “stalk” of mine. I couldn’t bring myself to eat in the months after either, but that was okay. The thinner I got, the further away I could get from resembling my twin as he was when he passed, and further away from looking like the pumpkins that served as an annual reminder of that horrible day.

Every time I saw pumpkins, even in the form of decorations, I would lose it. I would hyperventilate, feel so nauseous I could vomit, and I was flooded with adrenaline and an utterly implacable panic to do something to save my brother that I consciously knew had been gone for years.

People noticed, and laughed behind my back at my reactions. Word had inevitably spread of what happened, and I reckon that people’s pity was the only thing that saved me from the more mean-spirited pranks.

For years, I went on as that weird skinny bald kid that was afraid of pumpkins.

I began to go off the beaten path whenever I could in the run-up to autumn, taking long routes home in a bid to avoid any places where people might have hung up halloween decorations.

It was during one such walk that the true horror of my story takes place.

It was early June; nowhere near Halloween, but my walks through the back roads and wooded trails of my home town had become a habit, and a great sanctuary throughout the hardest years of my life.

It was a gray day, heavy and humid. Bugs clung to my sweat-covered skin, the dead heat brought me to panting as woods turned blue as dusk set in. Just as I was planning to make my way back to my car, I saw a light in the woods. Not other walkers; the lights flickered, and were lined up invitingly.

Was it some sort of gathering? Candles used in a ritual or campsite?

I moved closer, pushing my way through bramble and nettles as I moved away from the path. A final push through the branches brought me right in front of the lights, and my breath caught in my throat.

Pumpkins. Tiny green pumpkins, each with a little candle placed neatly inside. The faces on each one were expertly carved despite the small size, eerily child-like with large eyes and tiny teeth.

One, two, three…

I already knew how many. Somehow I knew. The number sickened me as I counted; four, five, six…

Don’t let it be true. Let this be some weird dream. Don’t let this be real as I’m standing here shivering in the middle of nowhere about to throw up with fear as I’m counting nine, ten… eleven pumpkins.

My sweat in the summer heat turned to ice as I counted a baby pumpkin for every year my brother lived for. A chill breeze that had no place blowing in summer whipped past me, instantly extinguishing the candles. I was left there, shivering and panting in the dim blue of dusk.

No one was around for miles. No one to make their way out here, placing each pumpkin, lovingly carving them and lighting each candle… the scene was simply wrong.

I felt watched despite the isolation. So when the bushes nearby rustled, my heart almost stopped dead. I barely mustered the will to turn my head enough to see. More rustling.

It has to be a badger, a fox, a roaming dog, it can’t be anything else.

But it was.

A spindly hand reached forth, fingers tiny but sharp as needles, clawing the rest of its sickening form forth from the bush. Nails encrusted with dirt, as if it dragged itself from the ground.

A bulbous head leered at me from the dark, smile visible only as a leering void in the murky white outline of the thing’s face. It was barely visible in what remained of dusk’s light, but I could see enough to send my heart pounding. Its head shook gently in a mockery of infantile tremors, and I could feel its eyes regard me with inhuman malice.

The candle flames erupted anew, casting the creature into light.

Its face was like a blank mask of skin, with eyes and a mouth carved into it with the same tools and skill as that of the pumpkins. Hairless and childlike, it crawled forward, smiling at me with fangs that were just a crude sheet of tooth, seemingly left in its gums as an afterthought by whatever it was had carved its face.

From its head protruded a bony spur, curved and twisting from an inflamed scalp like the stalk of a-

Pumpkin.

All reason left me as I sprinted from the woods. Blindly I ran through the dark, heedless of the thorns and nettles stinging at my skin.

The pumpkin-thing trailed after me somehow, crying one minute and giggling the next in a foul approximation of a baby’s voice. I didn’t dare look behind me to see how close it got to me, or what unsettling way its tiny body would have to move in order to keep up with me.

Gasping for air and half-mad with fear, I made it to my car and sped back to the lights of town. I hoped against hope that I could get away before it could make it to my car… hoped that it wouldn’t be clinging underneath or behind it…

It took me the better part of an hour to stop shaking enough to step out of the car.

Nothing ever clung to my car, and I never had any trouble as long as I remained away from those woods. But that was only the first chase.

The next would come months later, on none other than Halloween night.

I had, by some miracle, made some friends. I suppose that in a strange way, that experience in the woods had inoculated me to pumpkins in general. After all, how could your average Halloween decoration compare to that thing in the woods?

My new friends were chill, into the same things I was into, pretty much everything I could want from the friends I never had from my years spent isolating. I even opened up to them about what happened to me, and my not-so-irrational fear, which they understood without judgement and with boundless support.

And so when I was ultimately invited to a Halloween party, I felt brave enough to accept; with the promise of enough alcohol to loosen me up should the abundant decorations become a bit much for me.

On the night, it wasn't actually that bad. I was nervous, as much about the inevitable pumpkin decorations as I was about being out of my social comfort zone. As I got talking to my new friends, mingling with people and having some drinks, I began to have fun. I even got pretty drunk - I didn’t have enough experience with these settings to know my limits. I began to let loose and forget about everything.

Until I saw him.

I felt eyes on me through the crowds of costumed party-goers. Instinctively I looked, and almost dropped my drink.

A pale, smiling face. Dirt. Leering smile. Powdery green leaves growing from his head, crowning a sharp bony spur from a hairless scalp. A round head. A pumpkin head. With a hole in it.

It was coming towards me. Please let it be a costume. Please why can’t anyone see it isn’t? Why can’t anyone see the-

-hole in its head gnawed by slugs, juices leaking from it, seeds visible just like the brains and fragments of-

I ran before anyone could ask me what I was staring at.

I stumbled out the back door, into a dark lane between houses. I had to lean over a bin to throw up my drinks before I could gather the breath to run.

That’s when I saw the pumpkin.

Placed down behind the bin, where no one would see it. Immaculately carved, candle lit, a smile all for my eyes only. The door opened behind me, and I bolted before I could see if it was the pumpkin thing.

I don’t recall the rest of the night. I reckon my intoxication might be what saved me.

I awoke in a hospital, head pounding and mouth dry. I had been found passed out on a street corner nearby, having tripped while running and hitting my head on a doorstep. Any fear I felt from the night before was replaced with shame and guilt from how I acted in front of my friends, and from what my mother would think knowing I nearly shared the same fate as my brother.

After my second brush with death and the pumpkin thing, I decided to take some time to look after myself. I became a homebody, doing lots of self-care and getting to know my mind and body. I made peace with a lot of things in that time; my guilt, my fears, all that I had lost due to them.

My friends regularly came to visit, and for a time, things were looking up.

Until one evening, I heard a bang downstairs as I was heading to bed.

Gently I crept downstairs, wary of turning the lights on for fear of giving my position away to any intruders.

A warm light shone through the crack of the kitchen door. I hadn’t left any lights on.

I pushed the door open as silently as I could.

In that instant, all the fears of my past that I thought I had gained some mastery over flooded through me. My heart hammered in my chest, and my throat tightened so much that I couldn’t swallow what little spit was left in my now-dry mouth.

On my kitchen table, sat a pumpkin, rotten and sagging. Patches of white mould lined the stubborn smile that clung to it’s mushy mouth, and fat slugs oozed across what remained of its scalp. A candle burned inside, bright still but flickering as the flame sizzled the dripping mush of the pumpkins fetid flesh.

A footstep slapped against the floor behind me, preceded by the smell of decay - as I knew it surely would the moment I laid eyes upon the pumpkin.

This time, I was ready.

I turned in time to take the thing head on. A frail and rotten form fell onto me, feebly whipping fingers of root and bone at my face. I shielded myself, but the old nails and thorny roots that made up its hands bit deep despite how feeble the creature seemed.

Panting for breath as adrenaline flooded my blood, a stinking pile of the things flesh sloughed off, right into my gasping mouth. I coughed and retched, but it was too late - I had swallowed in my panic.

Rage gripped me, replacing my disgust as I prepared to my mount my own assault.

I could see glimpses of it between my arms - a rotten, shrunken thing, wrinkled by age and decay, barely able to see me at all. Halloween had long since passed, and soon it seemed, so would this thing.

I would see to that myself.

I seized it, struggling with the last reserves of its mad strength, and wrestled it to the ground.

I gripped the bony spur protruding from its scalp, and time seemed to stop.

I looked down upon the thing, upon this creature that had haunted me for months, this creature that stood for all that haunted me for my entire life. The guilt, the shame, the fear, lost time and lost experiences.

All that I had confronted since my brushes with death, came to stand before me and test me as I held the creatures life in my hands. I would not be found wanting.

With a roar of thoughtless emotion, I slammed the creatures head into the floor.

A sickening thud marked the first impact of many. Over and over again I slammed the rotten mess into the ground, releasing decades of bottled emotion. Catharsis with each crack, release with each repeated blow.

Soon only fetid juices, smashed slugs and pumpkin seeds were all that remained of the creature.

The sight did not upset me. It did not bring back haunting memories, did not bring back the guilt or the shame or the fear. They were just pumpkin seeds. Seeds from a smashed pumpkin.

The following June, I planted those same seeds. I felt they were symbolic; I would take something that had caused me so much anguish, and turn them into a force of creation. I would nurture my own pumpkins, in my own soil, where I could make peace with them and my past in my own space.

What grew from them were just ordinary pumpkins, thankfully.

I’ve attended a lot of therapy, and I’m making great progress. I’m even starting to enjoy Halloween now.

I even grew my hair out again, stupid little cow’s lick and all - it doesn’t look quite so stupid on my adult head, and I kept the weight off too which helps.

One morning however, I was combing my hair, keeping that tuft of hair in check. My comb caught on something.

I struggled to push the comb through, but the knot of hair was too thick. Frustrated, I wrangled the hair in the mirror to see what the obstruction was.

I parted my hair… and saw a bony spur jutting from my scalp, twisted and sharp.

My heart pounded, fear gripping me as my mind raced. How can this be? How can this be happening after everything was done with?

Then I remembered - the final attack. The chunk of rotting flesh that fell into my mouth… the chunk I swallowed.

The slugs… The seeds…

I was worried about the pumpkin patch, but I should have worried about my own body. Nausea overcame me as I thought of all these months having gone by, with whatever remained of that thing slowly gestating inside me in ways that made no sense at all.

I vomited as everything hit me, rendering all my growth and progress for naught.

Gasping, I stared in dumb shock at what lay in the sink.

Bright orange juices mixed with my own bile. Bright orange juices, bile… and pumpkin seeds.

Beginning • Previous

The Ross house appears to be in perfect order. So, it surprises Alvaro—or, rather, disgusts her— when three brown cockroaches clamber out of a sink hole in the first-floor bathroom. Such pests are, of course, common in houses. They are not, however, common in the affluent community of San Julian.

She dries her wet hands with a towel. Upon closer inspection, she discovers maggots writhing in the cloth. With utter disgust she throws it down and clasps her hands together, rubbing them furiously. In hopes of scalding that creeping sensation off of her skin, she rinses them again in hot water. Alvaro rushes out the bathroom door and slams it shut behind her. She leans against it and slides down to the floor, checking the front and back of her hands. They’re clean. And yet she still feels the maggots on her skin.

This has been one of the most exhausting days of her career. All she wants is to march back into the dining room, drag Jorge away kicking and screaming, and run from this god-forsaken house as soon as humanly possible.

Elise!

The voice is faint, distant, but unrecognizably his.

“Jorge?” She follows, but no one dwells in the hallway. All is still and silent. Then she notices something in the corner of her sight. A single door, slowly creaking open on its own.

Elise…

The hollow voice echoes from behind the door, crying for help from some cavernous void.

Elise!

Alvaro peers into the room and finds no sign of her partner. A dizzying apprehension fills her stomach. Every single item in the room - the bookshelves that line the wall, the glass corner hutches, and each and every antique trinket that sits upon them – seems to watch her every move. Sitting perfectly still, silently mocking her. Something writhes above. In exasperation, she draws her gun and points it towards the direction of the movement. Her jaw drops. Long, ravenous, centipedes squirm among the shelves.

Her stomach churns as the details of Mrs. Ross’s story flood through her mind. A ridiculous fantasy, all of it. She reminds herself of its impossibility, repeating over and over like a soothing mantra. The silence is torn by the dancing claws of the centipedes, clattering away as they descend the bookshelves.

Alvaro shakes her head with eyes closed.

They’re not real.

When she opens them, the centipedes remain intact on the wall.

Hallucinations. Just a hallucination.

She jumps at the shrill whine of the black corded phone on the desk beside her. It is joined by its friend in the dining room, disharmoniously screeching into her ears in unison. Ring after ring after ring, yet no one answers. Unable to bear it any longer, she swipes the phone from its hook.

“Who’s this?”

“You’re asking me?” A man raises his voice, bellowing in frustration. “I should be asking you! Who am I speaking to?”

“Elise Alvaro, criminal investigator. Now who’s this?”

“Criminal investigator? Did something happen to my dad?” the caller begs, his breathing rushed and shallow. “I’m Joseph Ross’s son, Dan.”

“No, we’re not here about your father; it’s your mother.”

“She’s not my mother! I’ve been trying to reach my dad for days, but she won’t let me talk to him.”

“According to Mrs. Ross, your father’s upstairs in bed.”

“Maybe you can get me on the phone with him, Detective; that old witch won’t let me.”

“I see. That is very strange.”

“Yeah, well, things have been rather strange lately.”

“And what kind of strange things have you noticed?”

“The last time I spoke with my dad was about two weeks ago. He told me that he wasn’t feeling well—maybe it was the flu or something.”

That churning sensation in her stomach reaches a fever pitch. She senses what’s to come. Nonetheless, she presses on for more details.

“Did he tell you what symptoms he had?”

“He said he was feverish. He felt a lot of pain in his stomach; there was some swelling.”

Her fingers whiten as they clutch the phone in a death grip. The symptoms perfectly match those of the previous victims. She flashes back to the bloated, insect-eaten bodies of Darling Ross’s past husbands, and suspects that Joseph Ross might have met the same end. “I’ll check on your father and call you right back,” she promises the desperate son.

“Thank you very much! Could you, please?” He lets out a loud sigh of relief that breaks her heart.

“Yeah, I’ll help. Give me your number—wait a second.”

Alvaro sorts through the cluttered desk in search of a pen and paper and pauses abruptly. Her eyes widen as she sees a love letter, neatly written by Mrs. Ross and addressed to a man named Earl. Through kind and enticing words, Darling outlines her plan to leave Mr. Ross. It is not the only one; she finds at least thirty in a pile. Some are addressed to different men.

Looks like Mrs. Ross is looking for new husbands. New victims, with new bank accounts to suck dry.

She quickly jots down Dan’s number on a notepad and hangs up. Bracing herself for the worst, she takes a deep breath and climbs up the stairs. A thick, pungent odor thickens in the air as she ascends the staircase. Alvaro winces and shields her mouth and nose, trying not to throw up into her hand. After ten years in the force, she can handle a gruesome spectacle. Through desensitization and routine, she’s developed an iron lining in her stomach.

Nothing, however, can prepare her for the sight of Joseph Ross’s corpse. Maggots pour from his mouth like rice boiling out of a pot. A swarm of flies encircle his lifeless body, as though they are a congregation taking communion. One by one, the buttons on his pajamas pop off. His swollen belly continues to expand with its skin thinning to the texture of paper. As his outer flesh shrivels and stretches to the breaking point, one single fly lands atop his belly button. Then his stomach ruptures completely.

Alvaro raises her arms over her head as cockroaches and beetles rain down upon her. She stumbles out of the room and bolts towards the staircase. In a frenzy she tries to slap them off her arms, legs, neck, and hair. They dig and claw at every inch of her body, crawling under her shirt and up her pant legs.

The flies buzz around her.

You should run! Run! Momma’s coming!

She swats them away from her face and runs into the dining room. She scans the room, but Cabrera and Mrs. Ross are gone. His smartphone lies abandoned on the table. The chair that Cabrera had sat on as he lovingly munched away at cinnamon buns lies overturned in the empty room. The only sign of his presence is a trail of blood leading up to the wall. Sharp, piercing dejection overcomes Alvaro as the inevitable hits her. Her partner is dead.

She picks up Cabrera’s phone and pockets it. “Jorge! Mrs. Ross!” No response but the shrill ringing of the corded phone on the wall. She picks it up.

“Did you see my dad? Is he okay?” Dan asks.

“I’m sorry, but your father...”

“I knew it,” his voice cracks. “Momma got to him.”

“Momma? You mean, Mrs. Ross. I thought you said she wasn’t your mother.”

“No, she isn’t my mother... she’s my Momma,” The voice morphs into something nameless and inhuman. The last word rings out in a low, croaking growl. The caller chuckles, “Momma’s going to get you, Elise, and I bet you taste good, too.”

A thick, snaking tongue seeps out through the speaker, sliding across her cheek. “You’d taste sweeter if you had more of Momma’s buns. I’m going to make you mine.”

Alvaro throws the phone away in revulsion.

It dangles from left to right on its cord.

The viscous lump of flesh squirms towards her and splits down the middle into two wetter and fatter counterparts. One whips itself around her ankle while the other ensnares her neck. She collapses to the floor, kicking to free herself from its slimy, repulsive grip. With both hands, she clasps and pulls at the tongue that wraps around her neck. With every desperate attempt to wrench it from her neck, its grip only strengthens; tightening, and slowly squeezing every breath of air from her windpipe.

Near the point of blacking out, and despite an enveloping powerlessness, she spots something shiny on the floor in the far-left corner.

A fork!

With all the remaining strength she can muster, Alvaro makes a grab for it and plunges the fork into the center of the tongue. She sucks in a lungful of air as it releases her. The tongue creature slithers, writhing away in pain with the fork stuck in its side. She pulls out her gun, aims carefully, and shoots. The bullet strikes the twisting monstrosity that constricts her ankle.

It recoils. A ghastly, hideous shriek fills the room. Blood sputters out from the phone like a malfunctioning water fountain.

Alvaro runs out the door, not daring to look back.

She limps toward the car, her ankle throbbing with each step. Yet she grits her teeth and fights through the pain. Escape is the only thing that matters, with or without her partner.

She gets into the car and calls for back up before the engine roars into gear.

“I’ll come back, Jorge! I swear.”

Her heart pounds as she ponders Cabrera’s fate in the Ross house. She pulls out of the driveway and slams on the gas, speeding off into the pitch black of the night. The car’s headlights barely light the dirt road in front of her.

Darkness envelopes her from all directions. Alvaro flails blindly until she spots a sole speck of light in the distance. In desperation she chases it. As it grows nearer, that sick, dizzying feeling returns to her stomach. Towering in front of her, with its light shining like scalding flames, is the Ross house.

“No, no, no!” She gasps, setting the car in reverse and taking off again. Minutes pass at the speed of hours as she drives aimlessly down the road, in what feels like a ceaseless, torturous loop. She passes another house and pulls up to the drive away. Her stomach drops when she sees the Ross house, yet again.

“Fuck!” she screams and steps on the gas.

She lets out a thin sigh of reprieve as it shrinks away in the rearview mirror. That relief is short-lived, however, as the car crawls to a slug’s pace. The engine lets out a hoarse roar, like labored breathing. Then it sputters before finally dying, taking the battery with it. The car’s headlights black out, leaving her completely blind to that which surrounds her.

With her blood-stained fingers, she grabs Cabrera’s phone and clumsily looks for its flashlight. Instead, she recoils as Darling Ross’ interview resounds through the speakers of Cabrera’s phone.

It stuns her with its volume. The file is crystal clear. So sharp in its volume that it’s almost as if Darling is sitting next to her in the passenger seat. Right where Cabrera would have sat.

Robbie deserved what he got for being a thorn in my side. There’s something I didn’t tell you before. Somehow, he found my home number, and he would call me up and make threats. He’d say, ‘I’m gonna get you for what you did.’

‘I didn’t do any wrong,’ I’d say to him, ‘I didn’t kill your mom or your brother.’ He didn’t believe me of course. I mean, I guess, he wasn’t completely wrong. But something had to be done. He needed to shut up.

Alvaro finds the flashlight app and gets out of the car, scanning her surroundings with shaking hands. There is nothing. Nothing at all but the long stretch of dirt road ahead and the tall, gangly trees around her. Or does she see a faraway light? Small and rectangular, like one of those large adobe houses along the landscape.

Robbie wasn’t a good human being, much less a good husband. Oh, poor Ethel. Poor, dumb Ethel. She just had no idea. He’d have a thing going on with younger women working under him. Secretaries, assistants, and interns. Even the nanny…Ethel caught them once right beside their daughter’s crib.

A shadow runs past the spotlight, giggling. Then another. Footsteps run across the car roof. Startled, the phone slips from her hand. Panting and hyperventilating, she pulls out the gun from her holster. The giggling swirls around her as hands bang on the windows, leaving the frosty imprints of children. Panic seizes her. There is no one to shoot. She holds onto the grip handle as the car starts to rock from side to side, growing more violent.

My little girls won’t hurt you. They just like to have fun. They just need someone to play with. It can get lonely for them here.

The rocking stops so abruptly it heaves Alvaro forward. Her head cracks the front window. Fighting off unconsciousness, she fumbles for the phone with one hand to the floor, reaching under the passenger seat. With a searing agony convulsing through her skull, she picks herself up, only to see two little girls squatting on the hood of the car. White, glowing eyes peer through long strands of black hair. They cock their heads to the side and giggle, but their pale, blue lips do not smile.

Where were we? Ah, yes, Robbie. A man with no self-respect, living in sin against his own body, and with any woman he could find. He just couldn’t keep his –pardon my language—pathetic dick in his pants. He’d take them out for dinner and a rendezvous at a swanky hotel. On his final night, he took some pretty, young number to the Gold Lion Hotel—the fanciest, ritziest spot in the city.

They had a nice restaurant inside. Oh, my, Robbie ate well. Prime beef topped with 24-karat gold flakes and a side of portabella mushroom and caviar. And the sinful lovers downed their meal with a ‘chateau de vin rouge.’

After dinner, Robbie went up to his hotel room. Drunk and as horny as a dog in heat. I was the fly on the wall. I watched them undress as they sucked each other’s faces.

Instinctively, Alvaro points the gun at them. Her finger on the trigger.

She pulls.

Click. Nothing.

The girls giggle and disappear like wisps of smoke blowing away in the wind.

“Oh, fuck,” Alvaro breathes. She leans forward, peering into the darkness before her, waiting for them to return.

Out of the dark, long strands of black hair shoot towards her, wrapping themselves around the car, and pulling it forward. Without hesitation, she sets the car in reverse and slams on the gas. The tires squeal like screeching pigs. To her horror, hair slithers through the cracks of the front window and whips around her neck, cruelly squeezing as she gasps for air. With her foot desperately pounding the gas pedal, she rips it away and gasps. She wiggles herself free and crawls out of the car, stumbling onto the ground.

She scrambles to her feet and runs, adrenaline coursing through her veins. The phone barely lights the path ahead of her.

Momma paid him a quick visit.

Robbie believed he was a real sex machine. And he thought that his cock was God’s gift to women!

I’m reminded of a passage I once read: there is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.

So, when Robbie reached the summit of all pleasures…

Alvaro stops and falls to her knees, breathless. Tears flow down her cheeks. Hope seems as distant as the glowing, rectangular light on the horizon. She doesn’t want to fight it anymore. Whatever ‘it’ is. This is her fate. Darkness swallows her whole as the phone’s light drowns out.

Well, Momma made him cum maggots. Maggots…

The words resound through the desolate valley, as Alvaro gazes at her own aghast reflection, inverted in the red abyss of Momma’s gaze.

XXXXX

Sunrise has always been Darling’s favorite part of the day. An occasion so calm that she prefers to enjoy its tranquility in solitude, without interruption. It has always been a morning ritual, her special moment to herself. Once upon a time, in the earlier days of their seven years of marriage, Joe blessed her by waking up too. But that could only last for so long. To her dismay, this peaceful morning routine soon gave way to incessant demands for her to cook his breakfast.

“I’m awake and starving, honey,” he’d say. “Aren’t you going to start cooking yet?”

“How about another minute, dear,” she’d say. “I just want to admire the view a little longer.”

“The sun rises, the sun sets, there’s nothing new to admire!”

After endless badgering, she begrudgingly tore herself away from the window and started on his breakfast.

But not this time.

Now, until she unites with her new beau—his name she has forgotten—she will have her mornings to herself.

She fixes herself a cup of tea in the kitchen and heads to the dining room, where she is greeted by a revolting, bloody mess. The daunting task of cleaning is too much to deal with right now.

“Later,” she mutters to herself.

She finishes off the last piece of cinnamon bun that one of the detectives had left last night. It certainly is one of the best she has ever made. Perhaps, even, the best. And the bitter garnish of the detective’s blood, drizzled lightly over the buttercream spread makes it all the more delectable.

She sips her chai green as light from the morning sun spills into the kitchen. A peal of her daughters’ laughter uplifts her spirit. Two tender, young apparitions dance around the detectives’ car.

The beauty of these vibrant green hills, decorated with other white adobe houses that sparkle like pearls, never grows tiresome. It always takes her breath away.

When Ray had awoken, he found himself in a damp, bleak, and suffocating room. A dim blinking light was the only thing that illuminated the room.

Taking in a deep breath and exhaling, Ray covered a hand over his nose, gagging. The smell of decay, blood, and mildew invaded his nostrils.

Where was he?

Ray squinted, letting his eyes adjust to the room. The dim light barely lit up anything, making it hard for him to determine his surroundings.

Ray looked around from his place on the floor, feeling the smooth texture of wood with some parts where the boards were missing. His hand bumped into something and looking down, Ray held in the urge to scream as he bit his bottom lip. What he was looking at was a human skull.

Ray could see more than just the skull. More bones were littered around where he sat, and old reddish-brown stains were on the walls and under the piles of bones.

Then he saw something move. A sudden chill ran down his spine. Standing in the center was a figure rocking back and forth.

How long had they been there, and why hadn't they said anything? Ray went to open his mouth to speak, but something told him not to. He pulled himself to his feet, keeping an eye on the figure.

Ray used the wall to guide himself to what he believed was a door. His foot accidentally kicked one of the many bones on the ground, causing the figure to turn its attention to him.

It turned its head from side to side, listening and sniffing the air. Could the figure not see him? Exhaling a sigh of relief, he waited, not wanting to draw it closer to him.

Ray was now at the door, his hand almost touching the handle, when he heard shuffling approaching him.

He froze, turning his head to where the source was coming from. The figure was now closer. Why? He thought it could not see him.

Ray could now see more of the figure's features.

Its skin was ashy and sunken, clinging to the bone. Its limbs were twisted and bent. The figure dragged its feet across the floor, lifting its head to look at Ray with eyeless sockets.

Its mouth opened and closed, exposing a mouth full of black crooked teeth. Ray's chest panicked as this creature was now in front of him. The creature tilted its head to the side. It knew precisely where Ray was.

He stepped back, causing the creature to sneer and bear its teeth. Its eyeless sockets locked on Ray as it advanced onto him. Ray tripped over one of the many piles of bones in the room.

It pinned him down, wasting no time in sinking rotten teeth into Ray's flesh. It bit and tore into his flesh and bone. The creature gulped down his blood with a smile on its face. Ray's vision blurred as he began to lose consciousness.

He would become nothing but a pile of bones, another mere collection of this creature that lurks in the darkness.

As the last leaves surrendered to the crisp November air, Hazel retreated to her secluded Airbnb, nestled deep on the mountains of Gatlinburg. She kissed her husbands cheek before he pulled out of the long gravel driveway. She was writing a screenplay and wanted some much needed peace and quiet to finish up her latest project and make her deadline. She made sure there would be no distractions this weekend. No cars, no neighbors, no phone calls. "It's just what I need," she told her husband. He was to swing by in a couple of days and retrieve her. She was definitely in no rush to get back to her hectic life in Nashville.

Hazel felt anything but focused. However, the vibrant oranges and reds of the foliage seemed to taunt her. They reminded her of a warmth that was soon to disappear. She had always cherished the solitude the mountains provided, a refuge from the chaos of her normal city life. But this time, it felt different; an unsettling chill lingered in the air, as if nature itself sensed impending doom.

Later that afternoon, as the sun hung low in the sky, Hazel wandered out and decided to lie in a worn-out rope hammock strung between two ancient oaks. Wrapped in a thick wool blanket, she felt momentarily at peace, watching as the sky transformed into a canvas of twilight hues. But as the sun dipped below the horizon, an unnatural stillness enveloped the area.

Night fell quickly, and with it came an icy wind that crept through the trees, biting at Hazels exposed skin. She tightened the blanket around herself, but the cold penetrated deeper. The temperature plummeted rapidly, and the once comforting hammock began to feel like a trap. Hazel started towards the door of the cabin. It had a keypad on the lock, but she had left the code on a stickynote in her purse. "F*ck", she said in a snarl. She proceeded to try the other doors and windows frantically to no avail.

Hazel tried to convince herself that she could endure the chill, that she just needed to wait for dawn to arrive, bringing with it the warmth of the autumn sun. She headed back to the hammock. There was no need to worry. Her blanket was thick and woolen, surely there was no need to rack up large incidentals by busting out a window to get in. She hastily tucked herself in and drifted off to sleep.

As the hours passed, her thoughts grew muddled. She could hear the faint whispers of the wind, carrying voices that seemed to echo her own fears. Shadows danced in the corners of her vision, flickering like the dying embers of a forgotten fire. She struggled to focus, the cold gnawing at her senses. Panic surged within her as she realized how hard she was shaking, but the path back to the cabin was eerily dark and seemed so far away, and she was losing the strength to move.

With every passing minute, the cold seeped deeper into her bones, and she felt herself slipping away. Memories of warmth and hope, faded into the icy grip of the night. The hammock, once a haven, became a sinister cocoon, wrapping her tighter in its frigid embrace. Hazel closed her eyes, surrendering to the darkness. The whispers grew louder, mimicking a chorus of lost souls who had succumbed long ago to the mountains cruel embrace.

In her final moments, she saw the silhouette of a woman standing at the edge of the trees, watching her with hollow eyes. Fear surged through her, but she couldn’t muster the strength to scream. Instead, she felt a profound sense of isolation, as if the world had forgotten her. The woman stepped closer, and she realized it was not a stranger but a reflection of herself—lost, frozen, and alone. Delirious.

As dawn broke, the sun cast a pale light over the trees, illuminating the empty hammock swaying gently in the cold breeze. Hazel was gone, her body nothing but a mere shell, frozen in time, a tragic reminder of the danger lurking in the allure of nature and solitude. The mountains stood silent, having claimed yet another soul, as the cycle of life and death continued in Appalachias' timeless embrace.

Mel would go to his family's vacation house by the lake during the fall. It was a peaceful community with retired inhabitants. He arrived just as the sun rose over the tree line, having made the late-night drive to avoid traffic. Turning the car into the driveway, he parked it and turned it off.

Mel opened the car door, taking a moment to stretch out. Going to the back of the car, he opened the boot, gathered his bags, and took them inside. His parents had left a note on the counter. Walking over, he glanced at the note briefly.

The note stated that the pantry and fridge were restocked.

If the power were to go out, use the generator in the basement. What confused Mel was a scribble at the bottom left by his sibling, leaving a warning.

Whatever IT says, and no matter what IT does, DO NOT let it in.

Was this a joke since it was close to Halloween?

It was customary for them to play jokes on each other around this time of year. For now, he shrugged and unpacked. When he finished, Mel was ready for lunch, so he made himself a meal.

While sitting there, though out of the corner of his eyes, he could have sworn that he saw something move outside.

Was it an animal?

The neighbors have pets. It could also be some of the local wildlife. His dad has reported seeing deer in the area.

Though it certainly did not seem animal-shaped.

After finishing his lunch, Mel cleaned up. He then took his dishes to the kitchen, rinsed them off, and put them into the dishwasher to be washed later.

Placing a hand over his mouth, he yawned, looking at the grandfather clock in the kitchen. Should he go for a walk or lay down for a nap? Mel figured staying inside with whatever was looming outside would be best.

On his way through the house, he checked the windows, pulled the curtains closed, checked the doors, and closed the sliding door shades.

Stepping back from the sliding glass door, Mel could have sworn that there was a slight tapping against the glass. He decided it was just the shades moving from being closed and went to the bedroom.

Before long, he was fast asleep. After some time, the sun had gone down considerably, so Mel opened his eyes.

Getting up from his bed, he reached over and clicked on the lamp on the bedside table. He took a moment to rub the sleep from his eyes before he stood up. Upon entering the living room, the automatic lights lit his way, but he stopped halfway when he noticed a silhouette outside the sliding glass door.

A pair of hands and a face pressed itself to the glass, staring inside.

Mel was thankful he had closed the blinds. Taking a deep breath, he stepped back slowly, only to see the figure's head jerk in his direction.

"I can hear you in there. Won't you let me in?"

He kept quiet, not answering.

"I know you're in there! Why won't you speak to me?!"

Mel heard scratching on the glass as if it were trying to make its way inside.

Should he call the police? What exactly would they even do?

IT banged on the sliding glass door, and the whole thing ratified and shook.

"LET me in..."

"Let ME...in,"

"LET ME IN!"

Retreating to the primary bedroom, he crawled under the bed. Mel pulled out his cell phone, tapping 911 onto the screen.

Waiting for someone to pick up, the glass shattering made him jump. He lost his grip on his phone and dropped it. Mel could only watch as it bounced and slid from under the bed. Going to reach for it, he quickly retracted his hand upon hearing footsteps as if someone were dragging their feet.

"Hello, 911; what is your emergency?" a man's voice spoke from Mel's discarded phone, which was out of reach.

The man repeated himself and sighed, clearly annoyed. He then mumbled about prank callers and how this happened every year.

His heart felt like it jumped into his throat, making it hard to swallow as those footsteps were now in the primary bedroom with him.

Staying still, Mel heard the bed creak as if someone or something was crawling across it. Holding his breath, he wished it would just go away.

Slowly, the side of the comforter rose.

It first lowered its long black hair, and then its face appeared. Its features contorted with a matching twisted and upturned smile.

"Why wouldn't you let me in?" it hissed angrily.

Mel screamed, fainting from shock. He did not know how long he had been out and awoke when his sister Wynn called out for him. Opening his eyes from his place under the bed, he saw that it was now daylight. Had IT left him alone?

Crawling out from under the bed, he went to the living room, where his sister was cleaning up the shards scattered on the carpet from the broken sliding glass door. Wynn looked at him over her shoulder as he approached.

"There you are, Mel! I tried calling your cellphone, but you did not pick up."

"Sorry, sis," Mel apologized.

"Say, um... Wynn, about that warning you left with the note on the counter," he inquired.

Wynn was silent for a moment before frowning.

"Oh, that? When I was here a few weeks ago, I thought... I saw," she shook her head before asking, "What happened to the door?"

He wanted to tell her what she had warned him about was real. Knowing Wynn, she would brush it off, saying Mel was trying to prank her since they did every Halloween, but not this year. Whatever was outside, desperately wanting in and had gotten in, left Mel alive.

Next time, he may not be so lucky.

Beginning • Previous

I watched the old bitch die. My husband, too. Both needed to know they couldn’t treat me that way; they needed to know that I had enough. I saw their deaths through Momma’s eyes. Her eyes were everywhere, watching every little thing those little rats said taking account of every single thing they did. 

Do you think I’m cruel, Detective? I am not a hateful woman. People made me this way. Clara. My dead ex-husbands. Old bitch Gina and her bastard sons. Oh, her especially. She was eviler than the Devil himself.

She had made it quite clear she despised me and hated the thought that my blood—inferior in her eyes—would mix with hers. You see, it was she who killed the baby inside me. And she…tortured my two little girls. While I was imprisoned in the family’s secret cell, she forced them into servitude. She made them clip her toenails. Worse yet, they were forced to eat them if they so much as protested.

And she starved them. They went on for days without food except for the nails she’d forced them to chew on. One day, she felt generous. She fed them pastries baked with chocolate, cinnamon, and a healthy dose of thallium sulfate. As my girls foamed at the mouth and choked on their vomit, the old bitch sat back and enjoyed a vanilla ice cream. And my dearest Connie did nothing to save them. Like a good, dutiful son he followed his mother’s orders to bury them in the garden.

Momma’s anger grew. I could hear Connie and his mother chat with party guests, laughing away in the dining room without a care in the world. Like nothing had changed. It was so easy for them to forget about me, and my little girls. Just as they had forgotten about Blanche. So, there I sat, trapped inside those walls. Condemned to a lonely grave, with a corpse as my only friend.

Momma would’ve slaughtered them, right there and then in the dining room. But no, no, no! I didn’t want her to chomp off their heads; or eat their guts and lick their bones clean. I wanted them to feel a slow, painful burn that’d eat them inside out. Right until the moment that they exploded, I wanted them to feel everything.

They would taste Momma’s magic. And I would be the fly on the wall to witness it.

Connie was the first to go. It started off as a cold. He called in sick at work when a fever broke. He was experiencing intense pain in his stomach. Incredible pain that left him bedridden. His abdomen swelled up like a purple air balloon. His hag of a mother found him cold, dead, and bloated as a beached whale. Then, in anguish over the death of her first-born son, she threw herself onto him with arms around his swollen gut. But the pressure caused this huge explosion, showering beetles and cockroaches everywhere as the bitch flew to the wall.

She was next. Like Connie, she developed a fever and pain all over her body. She thought a glass of wine and a warm bath would soothe her.

After days of trying to reach her, Robbie drove up and found her in the bathtub with a glass of red wine in her hand. She’d been in the water for so long, some of the skin had stuck to the tub. And, when he tried to pull her out, her bloated and bruised corpse erupted inside the tub. Nothing left but her fingers on the tile floor, and the cockroaches that had filled up her gut. I was saved. Momma had freed me.

XXXXX

Cabrera slips a hand into his jacket and pulls out the 99mm pistol from its holster. He flicks the safety off and points the weapon at the old woman.

Darling shakes her head. “I wouldn’t do that, Detective."

“You poisoned me.”

“Poisoned? I did no such thing, Detective.”

“Are you a witch, Mrs. Ross? What did you do to my partner and I?!” He screams, his voice shaking.

“Please, calm down and put that gun away before you kill me, or yourself.”

“No! What the fuck did you DO?!”

“Please sit down.” Darling responds with an icy calm. “You’re such a good listener. I’ve been dying for someone to listen to me.”

He pulls the trigger.

Not a bullet fired. As useless as an empty cap gun.

He pulls again. Still nothing.

He checks the gun’s chambers. Every single one is loaded. His lips quiver, and as he looks up, he finds himself lost inside Darling’s pitch-black gaze. All resistance bends to her will as he is lured in, deeper and deeper and deeper. Every muscle in his body limps and slackens. His firm grip around the pistol loosens, and it drops like dead weight onto the table. He screams from within, but his mouth ceases all motion.

Cabrera falls back against the wall and shrinks down to the floor like a frightened, shivering hamster. Then, with vile serenity, Darling’s cold, looming shadow sips the warmth from his body.

“What’s got you in such a sour mood, Brandon? It’s payday!” my veteran colleague Vinson asked as the rusty freight elevator noisily rattled its way up towards the penthouse suite.

For the past year or two – I’m honestly not sure how long it’s been, actually – I’ve been under contract for an otherworldly masked Lord who calls himself Ignazio di Incognauta. He’s not a demon, exactly. He’s closer to Fae, I think, but I don’t fully understand what he is. I never sought him out. He came to me. I asked him how he even knew who I was, and he slapped me across the face for my insolence.

I still signed up though. That’s how desperate I was. He doesn’t waste his time offering deals to people who can say no.

He sends me and the rest of my crew out on what I can best describe as odd jobs. Half the time – hell, most of the time – I’m not even sure exactly what it is we’re doing. Most of the crew have been around longer than I have, and some of them aren’t human, but they all seem to have a better idea of what’s going on than me.

Our foreman Vothstag is technically the one in charge, but he’s not all there in the head; the top of his cranium’s been removed and a good chunk of his brain’s been scooped out. He mostly just barks guttural nonsense that none of us really understand, but somehow compels us to do what we’re supposed to, even when we don’t know what that is. He’s a hulking hunchback with an overgrown beard who usually wears an elk skull to cover up the hole in his head. If he was ever human, I don’t think he is now.

Vinson is our de facto leader, however, since he’s more or less a normal guy that we can relate to. Aside from Vothstag, he’s been working for Ignazio the longest. I won’t bother describing what he looks like, since the rest of us wear gas masks on duty. They’re partially to protect us from environmental and workplace hazards, partially to conceal our identities, but mainly to bring us more easily under Ignazio’s control.

That was why were all wearing our masks on the elevator, incidentally. We were on our way to see the big boss, and our contracts made it very clear we were never to remove our masks in his presence.  

“Come on, Vinson. You know meetings with Iggy never go well,” I replied bluntly.

“Oh, it’s just bluster. You know that. He’s got to put the fear of God into us,” Vinson claimed. “If he wasn’t actually satisfied with our performance, we wouldn’t still be here.”

“No, Brandon’s right. Iggy wouldn’t have called all ten of us in just to hand us our scrip and call us lazy arses,” Loewald chimed in.

“There’s nine of us, now,” Klaus reminded him grimly.

“Right, sorry. Hard to keep track some days,” Loewald admitted. “Regardless; something’s up, and the odds are pretty slim it will be something we like.”

I cringed as Vothstag shouted some of his garbled nonsense back towards Loewald.

“Yes, I know we’re not being paid to have fun, but –”

“We’re not being paid at all!” Klaus interrupted. “None of us are getting any real money until our contracts are up, and have any of you actually known anyone who made it to the end of their contract?” 

He recoiled as Vothstag spun around and began roaring at him, hot spittle flying out from beneath his mask of carved bone as he furiously waved his fist in his face.

“He’s right, Klaus. You’re being paranoid,” Vinson said in an eerily calm tone. “I’ve served out multiple contracts, and I’ve got the silver to prove it.”

He confidently reached into his pocket and held a troy-ounce coin of Seelie Silver between his fingers. Fish and Chips, the pair of three-foot-tall… somethings that work for us immediately crowded around him and began eyeing it greedily.

“That’s right boys, take a gander. That’s powerful magic right there, and you’ll get one of these for every moon you’ve worked at the end of your contracts,” he reminded us before quickly pocketing the coin away again. “Unless, of course, you do something to get your contract prematurely terminated; then you’ll have nothing to show for it but a fistful of expired scrip! So keep your heads down, mouths shut, and your eyes on the prize. You’ll have pockets jangling full of coins soon enough.”

As discreetly as I could, I slipped my hands into my pockets and rubbed my one Seelie coin for good luck. None of them knew I had it, because I didn’t want to explain how I got it, but that little bit of fortune it brought me had almost been enough to let me escape once.

If I could just muster up the skill to make the best use of my luck, it would be enough to get me out for good one day.

The freight elevator finally came to a stop, and the doors creaked open to reveal the spacious and sumptuous penthouse of our employer. Portraits, animal heads, shields, weapons, and most of all masquerade masks covered nearly every square inch of the walls. Amidst the suits of armour and porcelain vases, there were dozens of priceless ornaments strewn throughout the room. They were incredibly tempting to steal, which was their whole point. Stealing from the boss was a violation of your contract, and you did not want to break your contract.  

The wide windows on the far wall offered a panoramic view of our decaying company town, nestled in a valley between sharp crimson mountains beneath a xanthous sky twinkling with a thousand black stars. You may have heard of such a place before, it has many names, but I will speak none of them here. 

Ignazio was sitting on a reclining couch in front of the fireplace, some paperwork left out on the coffee table and a featureless mask like a silver spiderweb clutched in his hand. Ignazio himself always wore the top half of a golden Oni mask, which in and of itself wasn’t unusual for our company, but the odd thing was that several portraits in the penthouse showed that it had once been a full mask.

I’ve always wondered what happened to the bottom half.  

Aside from that, Ignazio wasn’t too unusual looking. He was tall, skinny, and swarthy with a pronounced chin, tousled dark brown hair and always dressed in doublets of silk and velvet like he was performing Shakespeare or something.

Vothstag went into the room first, with Vinson almost, but not quite, at his side. Fish and Chips scamped after them, followed by Loewald, Klaus, and myself.

The last two members of our crew are called Hamm and Gristle, and they’re the two I know the least about. They keep to themselves, and I don’t think I’ve ever even seen them with their masks off. I have seen them without gloves on though, and both of their hands are white with pink-tinged fingers. I have no idea what that means, but for some reason, I always found it oddly unsettling.

The only thing I know for sure about them is that they’re the only survivors of another crew that tried to run out on their contract, and I know better than to ask for details about that.

“Gentlemen, Gentlemen, right on time,” Ignazio greeted us as he waved us over. He positioned himself on his couch to make it impossible for any of us to sit beside him, and none of us dared to take a seat at any of the clawfooted armchairs that were meant for guests with much higher stations in life. “I’ve got this moon’s scrip books all stamped and approved. You’ll notice they’re a bit light, seeing as how you were slightly behind quota on this assignment.”

None of us objected, and none of us were particularly surprised. I was grateful that the mask hid my expression, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one. I still had to make an effort to mind my body language though. Being so accustomed to his employees and compatriots wearing masks, Ignazio was quite astute to body language.

Vinson accepted the stack of nine booklets and nodded gratefully.

“We appreciate your leniency, my lord, and look forward to earning back our privileges on our next assignment,” he said.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Ignazio grinned as he took a sip from his crystal chalice. He set it down on the coffee table and picked up a dossier. “Halloween is fast approaching, and that means we need costumes and candy. Costumes we have in abundance, obviously, but candy’s one vice I don’t usually keep well stocked.”

“So we’re actually stealing candy from babies on our next job?” Klaus asked.

“Nothing so quotidian,” Ignazio sneered. “Remind me; have any of you met Icky before?”

The name meant nothing to me, but I glanced from side to side to see if anyone else reacted to it. I could have sworn I saw Hamm and Gristle perk their heads up slightly.

“She’s that Clown woman, right? The one in charge of that god-awful circus?” Vinson asked.

“I beg your pardon? It’s an enchanted Circus that travels the worlds and offers sanctuary to paranormal vagabonds in need,” Ignazio claimed half-heartedly. “And I might be able to pawn a few of you off on them if it comes to that, so be careful you don’t fall any further behind on your quotas. But you’re right; she is a Clown, with a capital C, and Clowns love candy. She’ll be attending my All Hallows’ Ball this year, and I don’t want her to feel excluded, so we’ll need some real top-shelf candy on offer.”

“Ah… we’re still waiting for the other shoe to drop here, boss,” Vinson confessed as most of us shared nervous glances with one another. “You want us to get candy? Fancy candy? I… I don’t get it. What’s the catch?”   

“Oh god, we’re not taking it from babies: we’re serving the babies with it!” Loewald balked in horror.

“No, but thank you for that highball to make the actual assignment seem more reasonable,” Ignazio said. “No, I’m sending you all down to the Taproots of the World Tree to collect some of the crystalized sap there.”

“The… The Taproots of the World Tree?” Vinson repeated softly. “The physical manifestation of the metaphysical network that binds all the worlds and planes of Creation, gnawed at by the Naught Things trying to break their way into reality? You’re sending us down there… for sweets?”

“Icky swears that Yggdrasil syrup pairs beautifully with French Toast,” he replied blithely. “This is an especially dangerous assignment, so I want you all to read that dossier in full. Emrys has been charting and forging new pathways through the planes from his spire in Adderwood, so thanks to him your trip down at least will be relatively easy.”

“Just… just there and back, right?” Vinson asked desperately, his voice wavering. “Just a handful of the stuff to wow Icky, and we’re done, right?”

A sadistic smirk slowly spread across Ignazio’s face before he told us how much crystalized sap we would need to retrieve.

***

“You mine sixteen tons, what do you get? Another day older, and deeper in debt,” Loebald sang as he chipped away at the pulsing amber crystal emerging from the leviathan root.

The World Tree was cosmically colossal, though it’s meaningless to describe its size since I can only describe the parts of it that exist in three dimensions. The twin trunks of the tree snaked around each other like a double helix, each alight with an ever-shifting astral aura that perpetually waxed and waned in synchronicity with its twin. From its crown sprung a seemingly infinite mass of fractally dividing branches, shimmering with countless spherical ‘leaves’ which I knew to be individual universes. The base of the tree spawned an equally infinite mass of sprawling taproots, anchoring it in place and drawing precious sustenance from the edges of reality.  

As dangerous as it was to be there, it was nonetheless a sublime experience. You think that looking upon all of existence like that would fill you with Lovecraftian madness at your own insignificance, but it was far more transcendental than that. On some fundamental level, I recognized that tree. It was Yggdrasil. It was the Biblical tree of Good and Evil. It was the Two Trees of Valinor. That tree was meant to be there, and so was everything inside of it. Sure, it was functionally infinite and everything in it was finite, but the tree wasn’t merely massive; it was intricate. In the grand scheme of things, nothing inside of it was superfluous. Everything, no matter its scale, was part of the ultimate design of the tree. You and I may not be any more important than anyone or anything else, but if we weren’t important, we wouldn’t be here.

I’m not entirely sure if any of my coworkers felt the same way though.

“Saint Peter don’t you call me, ’cause I can’t go,” Loebald continued to sing, only to be interrupted by Vothstag’s irate howling, his eyes burning like coals as he dared him to finish the chorus.

Loebald bowed his head contritely as he awkwardly cleared his throat. When Vothstag was satisfied he had been cowed into silence, he turned around to resume his work.

“’Cause I owe my soul to the company store,” I finished for him, not too loudly, but loud enough that everyone heard me.

Vothstag immediately came charging at me, roaring in fury, but I didn’t flinch. I just let him chew me out for about a minute until I heard something that I was pretty sure was a question.

“That’s ridiculous. You’re making more noise than either of us,” I countered. “And wasting more time. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.”

Vothstag sneered at me, but since I had resumed my task, his job as taskmaster was complete, and he left to attend to other matters.

“What the hell are you doing, pushing your luck like that, Brandon?” Vinson whispered.

“He was out of line. Even chain gangs are allowed to sing,” I explained. “Besides, I’m right, aren’t I? If we attract any unwanted attention, it will be because of him.”

“This isn’t the place to cause trouble!” he hissed. “Fill the carts as fast as you can so we can get out of here!”

When we arrived at the Taproots, we saw that we weren’t the first beings to try to mine this deposit of sap. Someone, likely some clan of Unseelie Fae, had established a fairly complex operation with rails and hand carts. As convenient as this was for us, it did of course pose the uncomfortable question of why the site had been completely abandoned when it was obviously far from depleted.

Me, Vinson, Loebald, and Klaus were chipping away at the crystal sap, tossing what we could into a nearby trolley cart. When it was full, Hamm and Gristle would haul it off so that Fish and Chips could scoop it into twenty-kilogram bags, which Hamm and Gristle would then stack and secure onto skids.

And as always, Vothstag supervised.

“Sixteen bleedin’ tons of this bilge,” Vinson muttered as he took a swing at it with his pickaxe. “And he’s got the nerve to tell us it’s just an appetizer for a party guest. What do you suppose they’re going to do with it all.”

“Refine it into proper syrup, I imagine,” Loewald replied. “Make it into sweets and sodas, or just drizzle some of it straight onto flapjacks. Either way, they’ll make a killing. Sixteen tons will probably sell for millions.”

“Why though? Is it just exotic sugar?” I asked.

“What do you think?” Loewald asked rhetorically, gesturing at the source. “For reality benders, anything from the edges of reality is potent stuff. They put a lump of this in their morning coffee, and the Veil will seem as weak to them as it is here. There’s no telling what havoc they’ll get up to, so you better hope we’re not around to see.”

“Now you’re just being ridiculous. Clowns don’t drink coffee,” Vinson joked.

I was about to ask him how he would know, when Vothstag put his hand on my shoulder and spun me around. Hamm and Gristle had returned with the empty cart, but only Gristle was getting ready to pull the full one. Vothstag spewed some of his usual gibberish, gesturing at me and then towards Hamm’s empty space at the cart.

“Because I sang one line? Seriously?” I asked. I was about to throw Loewald under the bus for singing in the first place, but Vothstag was already roaring incomprehensibly. “Alright, alright. I’ll pull the damn cart.”

I handed my pickaxe over to Hamm, who instantly began swinging at the sap with manic enthusiasm. Gristle gave me a slight nod of condolence before Vothstag yoked me up to the cart like an ox and then sent us on our way with an angry shout.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how come Hamm deserves a break and you don’t?” I asked Gristle as we made our way down the track, the dinging of our colleague’s pickaxes slowly fading into the background.

Gristle looked over his shoulder to confirm the Vothstag was well out of earshot, and then turned his head towards mine.

“Vinson’s wrong, you know,” he said in a soft, conspiratorial whisper.

“Ah… I’m story?” I asked.

“About Clowns and coffee,” he clarified. “Icky drinks coffee. I’ve seen her do it. She takes it with double cream and sugar to keep it Clown Kosher, of course. She’s a little too classy to indulge in stereotypical candy binges, but she’s still got a sweet tooth like the rest of us.”

“…Us?” I asked uneasily.

Gristle nodded, lifting up his gas mask by the filter and revealing his face to me for the first time. His poreless skin was a lustrous white, but his lips, nose, and the space around his eyes were all pitch black, and the eyes themselves sparkled with the light of a thousand dying stars. His mouth was spread into an unnaturally wide smile, revealing that his teeth were not only perfect but shiny to the point that I could see myself in them.

And I looked terrified.

“Loewald was right though, about what this stuff will do to us,” he went on. “Once everything’s fully loaded, Hamm and I are going to take a mouthful each and then take the whole haul for ourselves. We’ll stash some of it away somewhere safe, then use the rest to buy our way back into the Circus. The only problem is getting there. That’s where you come in.”

“What are you on about? How can I possibly help you get back to your Circus?” I asked.

“With that Seelie coin you got in your pocket,” he said, lowering his voice so that I only barely heard him. “These carts weren’t meant to be powered manually, you know. They run on Faerie magic, and that coin’s got enough that we can drive all sixteen tons of our loot to anywhere in the worlds we want.”

I briefly considered denying that I even had the coin, but if he was determined, he could find and take it easily enough, so there really wasn’t any point.

“Ignoring for the moment how you even know I have that, why not ask Vinson?” I suggested. “He’s got way more Seelie Silver than I do.”

“He doesn’t want out. You do,” Gristle responded. “You tried to escape once, and I know you’re just itching for a chance to try again.”

“But… Ignazio knows what you are, doesn’t he? He wouldn’t have let you around the sap if he wasn’t prepared for you to try to take some,” I said.

“He doesn’t know Hamm and I can take our masks off without his say-so,” Gristle explained. “We’ve been living off meagre rations of powdered milk to keep us in line, but we were able to get a hold of a bottle of the fresh stuff and chugged it before we came here. Ignazio and Vothstag have no power over us right now.”

“… I’m sorry, milk?” I asked confused.

“Not important at the moment. Are you in or not?” he asked.

I considered his proposition for a moment, deciding on one final question before answering.    

“Why not just take the coin from me?”

“Because I’m a nice guy,” he said with a sickeningly wide grin. “And… stealing Seelie Silver tends not to end well. I don’t need an answer now. The load’s not full yet. Think about it, and when the time comes, do whatever you’ve got to do.”

He pulled his mask back down, and we finished hauling the cart over to Fish and Chips in silence.

He wasn’t wrong about me wanting to escape, but my plan had always been to quietly sneak off and be long gone before anyone noticed. A fight between Vothstag and a pair of superpowered Clowns followed by a daring getaway on an Unseelie mining cart was a bit riskier than anything I had envisioned. But at the same time, this was an unprecedented opportunity that would likely never come again.  From the Taproots of the World Tree, I could go literally anywhere, and never have to worry about Ignazio or his minions tracking me down.

All it would cost me was the single coin I had to my name.

I hauled the cart with Gristle for the rest of the shift. Eventually, we had a train of sixteen pallets, each loaded with fifty twenty-kilogram sacks of crystalized sap.

“That’s it then. Order’s full,” Vinson declared as he walked the length of the train, testing the chains to make sure the cargo was fully secured. “All of you hop in the front and let’s get the hell out of here.”

Vothstag roared in disagreement, standing between us and the cart and making a vaguely groping gesture.

“Right, right. Contraband check,” Vinson nodded with a weary sigh as he outstretched his arms. “Nothing too invasive now, you hear? If this stuff was inside of us, you’d already know it.”

Vothstag didn’t acknowledge his comment, but proceeded to pat him down and empty his pockets.

Hamm and Gristle each gave me a knowing look. If I did nothing, Vothstag would find my coin and it would all be over for me anyway. I nodded my assent, and braced myself for the worse.

With a single swift motion, Hamm and Gristle each pulled their masks off, and the visages of the two monstrous Clowns were enough to throw all of us into immediate pandemonium. Hamm’s hair, eyes, lips and nose were all a fiery red, and I saw now that the tips of their ears had a pink tinge, just like their fingers. The instant their masks were off, they wasted no time shovelling a handful of crystal sap into their mouths.

Vothstag howled and charged straight at them, and everyone else scattered as quickly as they could to avoid being bulldozed by the massive deer man. Hamm and Gristle stood their ground, each of them grabbing ahold of one of his antlers. Despite his size and speed, Vothstag was brought to a dead stop.

He snorted and bellowed as he tried to force himself forward, but he was completely unable to overpower the two Clowns. Hamm and Gristle exchanged sinister smiles and began to spin Vothstag around and around. Within seconds his feet were off the ground, and with each rotation, he gained more and more momentum until his attackers finally let go of his antlers and sent him flying into the distance.

“The rest of you, stay out of our way!” Gristle shouted as he marched towards the front cart, grabbing me by the scruff of my jacket and pulling me along with him.

“Wait, why? Why can’t they come? Why can’t we all go?” I protested.

“We don’t know what half these freaks are and we don’t trust them,” he said as he tossed me onto the cart. “Now drive. Go straight until I say otherwise.”

I looked out at my confused and frightened companions, and took a bit of solace in the fact that they weren’t entirely certain if I had betrayed them or if I was just being kidnapped. I hesitated for a moment, but Hamm’s sharp talons digging into my shoulder were enough to press me into action.

With my coin of Seelie Silver clutched in my right palm, I grabbed a firm hold of the driving shaft and pushed the train forward. It accelerated at a remarkable pace, and before I knew it, we were speeding away from our work site and towards freedom.

“It’s working. It’s actually working,” Gristle laughed in relief.

“Even Vothstag can’t run this fast!” Hamm declared triumphantly. “The whole haul is ours! We’re rich! We’re free!”

I wanted to celebrate with them. I really did. But deep down inside I knew we weren’t out of the woods yet.

“You guys read that dossier Iggy gave us, right?” I asked. “The Naught Things that gnaw the Taproots are attracted to ontological anchors – anything that’s more real than its surroundings. If you guys are reality benders, and you just ate a massive power-up, doesn’t that make you the realest things here?”

“Isn’t that cute? He thinks he knows more about ontodynamics than us because he read a dossier,” Hamm scoffed.

“This isn’t our first time on the fringes of the unreal, boy!” Gristle replied. “You just drive this train, and let us worry about –”

Without warning, the Taproot split open ahead of us into a fuming, festering chasm. The ground quake was enough to completely derail the train, and I ducked and rolled while I had the chance.

When I came out of the roll, I looked up to see a titanic, disfigured, and disembodied head rising out of the chasm. The size and proportions of the entity fluctuated wildly, as if I was only looking at the three-dimensional facets of it like the World Tree itself. It was encrusted with some kind of dark barnacles, and anything that wasn’t its face was covered in thousands of squirming and feathery tentacles of every conceivable length. It had no nose, but several mouths which chanted backwards-sounding words in synchronicity with each other, dropping rotting black teeth every time they opened and closed. 

There were six randomly spaced and variously sized eyeballs darting around independently of each other, each glowing with a sickly yellow light. I was paralyzed in fear, terrified that the Naught Thing would see me, but all six of its eyes soon locked onto Hamm and Gristle.

As it slowly ascended upwards like a hot air balloon, a pair of flickering tongues shot out of two of its mouths with predatory intent. The Clowns were scooped up like flies, screaming as they were whisked back into the Naught Thing’s cavernous maws. I don’t know much about Clowns or what they’re capable of, only that Hamm and Gristle never got a chance to test their mettle against this behemoth. A few chomps of its black teeth, and it was all over.

I sat there in silence, watching as the Naught Thing continued to drift away, never daring to assume that it had forgotten about me.

“Brandon!” I heard a voice call from the distance.

I was finally able to pull my eyes off the Naught Thing, and when I looked down the track, I saw the rest of my crew hurrying towards me.

Which included a very angry Vothstag.

Grabbing me by the jacket and lifting me off the ground, he roared furiously in my face, demanding answers.

“Easy, Vothstag, easy!” Vinson insisted. “They just grabbed the kid. It wasn’t his idea.”

Vothstag growled skeptically, eyeing the toppled train beside us. He knew it could have only been driven like that by Seelie magic, and I still had my lucky coin clutched tightly in my right hand.

“…Hamm must have picked my pocket when he was working alongside us,” Vinson suggested.

I knew he didn’t really think that. He knew exactly how many coins he had, and he knew he wasn’t missing any. I don’t know why he covered for me, but I owe him big.

“Serves him right, too. Bloody idiot,” he said with a sad shake of his head as he surveyed the wreckage. “Let this be a lesson for all of you if you ever think about stealing my Seelie Silver! That’s right, Fish and Chips, I’m looking at you!”

Vothstag howled again, clearly unconvinced.

“They took me as a driver so that they could stay focused on defending the train!” I claimed. “If I hadn’t jumped when I did, they may have stood a chance against that giant floating head! I saved our haul!”

Vothstag snorted in contempt, but set me back on my feet. I don’t think he believed me, really, but he knew that Ignazio wouldn’t hold him blameless in this little debacle either, so it was in all of our best interests not to cast aspersions on one another’s stories.

“Listen up, everybody! We’re two men down and we’ve got to get this rig back on the track before some other unspeakable abomination comes along, so get moving!” Vinson ordered.

For once, Vothstag was doing most of the work, using his might to set the carts back on the tracks, while the rest of us just picked up any sacks of sap that had come loose.

“What a bloody joke,” Loewald grumbled as he threw a sack onto a cart. “Down from nine to seven, any of us could still die at any minute, and for what? We mined sixteen tons, and what do we get?”

“Another day older,” I agreed, throwing another sack next to his. “But some days, that’s enough.”

 Link: https://www.wattpad.com/1178433331-the-incident-s-at-paradise-bay/page/8

I didn't expect my camping trip to be the nightmare that it was. My high school friend Mark and I have had this tradition of hiking up and camping at Mount Alto in our old hometown since we both turned eighteen. It was a bit of a hassle to plan it every year now that we were adults and had to work around our jobs, but we always pulled it off. We both thought this visit was the most needed out of all of them though.

Three months ago, Mark's mother succumbed to the cancer that was eating away at her pancreas, and just a few weeks ago my live-in girlfriend Andrea and I decided not only did our ship sail, but it crashed on the rocks. I moved back home with my dad as it was Andrea's apartment I was staying in, and Mark also moved back in with his father in his time of grief, since he was an only child and there was no one else to be around him.

It had been a while since our last discussion about it, but we were finally able to pack all of our camping gear into Mark's truck and head down the old dirt road that led to the mountain. I can still feel the refreshing breeze of the hot summer air on my face as we rolled down the windows and Mark lowered the volume of the 90s grunge rock music blaring from the truck radio to flash me a grin.

"We made it, just a few more minutes and we'll be at Camp Shangri-la. You did remember to bring toilet paper this time, right?" He chuckled, his southern accent adding to the light-heartedness of the moment as he jokingly slapped my thigh. I let out a groan and shot him a playful smirk in return, tired of hearing the same old joke.

"Four years ago, man, four years. You're not going to let me live down the whole poison ivy incident, huh?" I jokingly echoed his playful pat on the leg. "I'll make you a deal, buddy. I'll hide the toilet paper this time. That way, you can experience what it's like to have a swollen, blistering, asscrack."

We both shared a laugh and carried on with our banter, but my thoughts kept drifting back to the recent turmoil between my girlfriend and me. It had only been a few weeks since everything happened, and I knew that healing would take time. The wound in my heart was still fresh, and the shock of it all lingered in my mind. We had been inseparable, crazy about each other. Six years back, we were just two carefree youngsters who crossed paths at a dive bar during a friend's gig. A few coffee dates later, and sparks flew between us. She was the one person who truly got me, and we had a seamless companionship. But when an unexpected pregnancy led to a heartbreaking miscarriage, everything changed. Grief wedged its way between us, causing a gradual drift. I couldn't pinpoint blame on either of us, but the shared loss acted as a silent barrier, pushing us apart.

I glanced over at Mark, his gaze fixed on the rough dirt road ahead as we ascended the familiar hill. His thoughts, however, seemed to have drifted back to the music playing on the radio, evidenced by his off-key singing. As I observed him, I couldn't help but admire his ability to push aside any emotional turmoil, even if it was just for a weekend. The pain of losing a girlfriend paled in comparison to the devastating loss of his mother, who had been a beacon of love and support not just for him, but for all his friends who visited their home. I remember a time from our childhood when we were both twelve years old and faced a bully at school; while my parents were unable to intervene due to work commitments, Mark's mother fearlessly confronted the issue with the school administration on our behalf.

However, fate was cruel, and within a short period after being diagnosed with cancer, she succumbed to the illness, leaving a void in their family that could never be filled. The cancer had snatched away a truly remarkable soul. As I dwelled on these memories, lost in my thoughts, I suddenly realized that Mark had brought the truck to a stop, silencing the engine.

"We've arrived, dude," he exclaimed, his grin spreading from ear to ear. Tossing his sandy blonde locks back from his face, he retrieved some of the smaller camping bags from the backseat. I gazed out the window, unfastening my seatbelt, feeling a wave of peace wash over me as I took in the forested area on my right. This was our sanctuary, our escape from the world. Stepping out of the car, I planted a foot on the pine cone and bark-strewn ground, immediately greeted by the symphony of birdsong and the sweet scent of nature. A sense of serenity enveloped me as I surveyed the woods that now surrounded us. Over by the flatbed of the truck, I could hear Mark grunting as he struggled with our larger bags, tossing them to the ground. I glanced back at him, seeing him haul out the massive bag containing our tent.

"Hey, Mark, I'm gonna take a little walk around here while we're here and take a leak. I'll lend a hand in a bit," I called out, already making my way towards a tree to do so.

"Sure thing" I heard Mark call out as I strode down the gentle slope into the forest. "Take it all in and let it all out," he added with a chuckle, amused by his own words. I couldn't help but grin at his usual antics, shaking my head as I continued, enjoying the crackling of twigs and pine needles under my boots. Reaching the base of the hill, I sought out a tree away from our campsite and began to relieve myself. Suddenly, a sound pricked my ears, a faint gasping coming from the nearby creek. It sounded like something struggling to catch their breath but trying to remain silent. Hastily finishing up, I zipped up my pants and cautiously made my way toward the source of the noise.

I could sense that the sound was coming from behind a large rock near the creek bed. However, as I approached, the noise surprisingly grew fainter instead of louder. Upon closer inspection, I discovered the tragic scene before me - a young fawn, mutilated and gasping for air. The deer's wide eyes held a look of fear and desperation as it struggled for breath. The lower half of its body was completely missing, with its entrails scattered on the ground and attracting flies. The remaining top half of the fawn bore small, bloody circular wounds that seemed to be from some sort of sharp object. Feeling overwhelmed and unsure of what to do, I called out for Mark. Even though I couldn't tear my eyes away from the horrific sight, I could hear the sound of Mark racing down the hill towards me.

"What the fuck?" Mark exclaimed as he stood beside me, his voice trembling as he gazed at the gruesome sight before us.

"What should we do?" I struggled to articulate, a wave of nausea washing over me as I observed the unfortunate creature. Mark scanned the area and located a hefty rock, lifting it above his head.

"We need to end its suffering," he gruffly declared, "you might want to turn away." I averted my gaze from the injured animal for the first time, and the sound of the rock Mark wielded striking the deer echoed through the air, putting an end to its agony.

"Jesus!" Mark's exclamation startled me, prompting me to gaze back at the gruesome sight. Instead of a deer's head, all that remained was a flattened mass of flesh, teeth, and brains, with bright purple wriggling worms squirming within the brain tissue. These chubby purple creatures were nestled in the brain matter of the once-vibrant animal, moving their hairy, gelatinous bodies in a dance like they were at a party or in the throes of merriment.

"What in the hell are those?" I shouted, taken aback by the unnerving sight of the worms. Mark stood there, wide-eyed, shaking his head in disbelief.

"I don't know. Perhaps some kind of parasite? I've heard that deer can contract a parasite that devours their brain, causing them to behave strangely," Mark mused. I turned away, unable to stomach the grotesque scene, and vomited, but Mark continued to talk as if oblivious to my distress. "As for what may have happened, it could have been wolves. Not a bear, though. We don't have those in this area," he remarked, finally noticing my vomiting and offering a comforting pat on the back. "I've made some progress with setting up the tent. Why don't you take a walk and gather firewood while I finish up? It might help you get some fresh air."

I nodded, still hunched over and wiping away the drool from my mouth. "Yeah, sure," I managed to say through a few more coughs. After ensuring that nothing else was going to come out of my stomach, I forced myself to move away. The nauseating sensation continued to permeate my body, my face flushing with heat and my stomach threatening to empty itself again. My arms felt heavy, and I had to will my legs to keep moving. It was like wading through thick water.

I couldn't deny Mark's suggestion about those strange purple worms, but they were unlike anything I had ever encountered before. My knowledge of parasites was limited, but it just felt unnatural for something so repulsive and hairy to exist. Mark, being a veterinarian's assistant, had a good understanding of animals.

I recall visiting the clinic one day to have a lunch break with Mark. He introduced me to the doctor he had been assisting, and as soon as Mark spotted me, he hurriedly led me past the waiting room filled with people and their sick pets. We entered the doctor's office, where he introduced us to Doctor Albright. While Doctor Albright seemed friendly enough, the sight of a jar on his desk containing a dog's heart infested with heartworms was quite unsettling. I understood the concept of showcasing the reason behind the work being done, but the display had a disturbing quality that reminded me of scenes from a horror movie. Despite this, the shocking sight of the infected heart paled in comparison to the unsettling creature Mark and I had just witnessed emerging from the deer's head.

My thoughts were abruptly interrupted as I stumbled, my foot catching on a tree root along the edge of the creek. I tumbled to the ground, my head striking a rock. A flash of white light enveloped my vision, prompting me to shut my eyes against the pulsating pain. Tentatively reaching up to touch the point of impact on my forehead, I felt the dampness of a trickle of blood – just what I needed. Opening my eyes, I discovered that I hadn't collided with a rock, but rather a metal surface. Before me lay a sizable square concrete foundation encasing a large metal circular lid, reminiscent of a manhole cover, complete with handles on the sides.

"What in the fuck?" I muttered aloud, struggling to stand up after the impact that left me disoriented. Bending down, I peered closer at the curious vent opening. Between the handles, which appeared designed for accessing whatever was concealed beneath, was a string of numbers and letters: '17439-HP10-4A'. Instead of clarifying its purpose, this alphanumeric sequence only piqued my interest further, compelling me to reach for one of the handles.

"Are you alright?" Mark's concerned voice behind me interrupted my contemplation, causing me to turn and motion him over.

"Come take a look at this, I found something," I called back, gesturing towards the mysterious lid. As Mark approached and observed the unusual opening, a look of bewilderment crossed his face.

"I don't know what it is, but I have a feeling whatever is below is just waiting for us to dive in on an adventure," I said with a touch of cheesy excitement. Mark chuckled and playfully rolled his eyes, motioning to grab the handle on the opposite side of me. Without hesitation, I reached out for the handle on my side as we both silently counted down from three, preparing to lift.

The lid was incredibly heavy, causing us to strain and grunt as we attempted to budge the metal covering. I felt a trickle of sweat mix with the blood from the small cut above my eyebrow, but the adrenaline kept me pushing forward. As we continued to heave the weighty object, it eventually gave way and lifted, leaving Mark and me holding it just a few inches above the opening.

With a final effort, we carefully shifted the cover to the side of the ground, revealing the hidden depths beneath. Peering into the darkness, we both felt a surge of curiosity and anticipation.

In front of us, a gaping hole revealed a stainless steel staircase descending into darkness. The pitch-black surroundings made it difficult to make out many details, but the sunlight above hinted at an arching passageway just past the stairs leading further underground. I caught Mark's eyes, and he returned the silent exchange before gesturing for me to go first.

Turning to my pocket, I pulled out my cellphone and turned on the flashlight, disregarding the lack of service bars on my home screen. Stepping onto the metal staircase, each clang resonated loudly as I descended, Mark's steady steps echoing mine a few paces behind. His phone illuminated the space above my head as we ventured downward.

As I neared the bottom, my light swept over the doorless, expansive hallway, revealing only mundane concrete walls with a peculiar touch of black paint on either side of the entrance. The markings read "SITE 17439-HP10-4A-A1," leaving us to wonder what awaited beyond.

I glanced back at Mark, who had his light fixed on the same lettering, shaking his head in bewilderment like me. Moving down the hallway, the feeble glow from my phone revealed a plain wooden door at the far end, adorned with a glass panel window that hinted at an office beyond, though visibility was scarce. My hand reached for the doorknob just as Mark's voice gave me pause.

"Wait." I turned to find him standing behind me, the brightness of his phone obscuring his features. "Maybe we should reconsider. This seems more heavy than we thought," he hesitated, "like it could involve some shady government stuff. I don't want to get mixed up in legal trouble."

I scoffed, "Seriously? We've come this far, and besides, look inside." Gesturing with my phone towards the window, I continued, "It's just as dark in there as it is out here." I turned the knob, feeling the door unlatch from the concrete wall. "This place is deserted. No one knows we're here in the middle of nowhere in buttfuck Georgia, exploring some mysterious underground bunker," I declared, already stepping through the doorway.

Surveying the room, the once typical reception area now appeared desolate, as if hastily vacated. The sizable white desk, hosting two now-disconnected computers, had its drawers forcibly yanked open, eerily empty. The towers of the machines had been stripped bare, bereft of their hardware, leaving only hollow shells behind. A noticeable absence of grime on the walls hinted at where frames once held portraits or artworks now absent. Dark hallways stretched into the underground facility from each side, the darkness impenetrable from our vantage point.

Adjacent to one corridor lay three overturned filing cabinets. Intrigued, I cautiously advanced further into the room, and my steps echoed in the unsettling silence. A damp squelch underfoot drew my attention downwards, and pointing my phone to the floor with my light, I discovered a small pool of a peculiar, gel-like substance. As I tried to lift my foot, the liquid resisted, its surface teeming with tiny, shifting bubbles. Examining my boot, I noticed a similar layer coating the sole, mirroring the bubbling activity beneath. Alerting Mark to the unusual sight, I directed his attention to the odd liquid clinging to my boot, seeking his thoughts.

"What's your take on this?" I asked, prompting him to abandon the filing cabinets he was standing over and scrutinize the mysterious substance. His response was punctuated by a contemplative hum, suggesting deep thought.

"I don't know. It seems to look like the mucus left by a snail, but I can't be certain. Better not touch it," Mark cautioned, his eyes scanning the room for clues. "I spotted something similar on one of the filing cabinets, but I sure as hell didn't touch it."

Directing my phone's light towards the cabinets he mentioned, I asked, "Did you find anything in there?"

"No," he replied tersely. "There wasn't a single file folder inside. What's even more peculiar is how spotless this place appears, despite its emptiness."

Mark's observation was astute; the reception area, apart from the strange liquid I had encountered, was unusually clean for an abandoned location. There wasn't any dust, as if it had only been empty a short time, but suddenly a noise emanated from one of the hallways, jolting us from our thoughts. The sound of someone struggling for breath and grunting in pain reverberated through the silent air, prompting Mark to cast me an alarmed glance.

"Someone is still here" Mark exclaimed urgently. Before I had a chance to reply, he sprinted down the hallway in the direction of the distressing sounds. I followed suit, trying to keep pace with him, but he had a significant advantage in speed, being a track team member back in school.

"Mark, hold on!" I shouted, struggling to close the gap between us, but his agility outmatched mine, compounded by his initial head start.

"Someone is injured, Luke!" he called out as he neared the corner where the cries echoed from. Determined to catch up, I pushed myself harder, yet I couldn't reach him in speed.

As I approached, my heart sank at the sight before me. Mark had reached the hallway's corner just as a figure pounced on him from the darkness. He staggered backward, pinned against the wall by the assailant. Drawing closer, I discerned the figure latched onto Mark was a man. His khaki pants were drenched in the strange liquid I had encountered, bubbles forming amidst the dampness. His torn lab coat, covered with vomit, revealed the familiar purple worms from those on the deer we saw earlier.

With a desperate gaze, the man peered up at Mark through shattered eyeglasses, one eye infested with wriggling worms protruding from his pupil, waving left and right trying to reach out to Mark.

"Please..." the stranger pleaded with Mark, who attempted to pull away from his grip. "We were mistaken. It cannot die. It refuses to let us die" His voice was chilling, a cacophony of two distinct tones speaking simultaneously. One voice filled with anguish, the other eerily serene. With each word he spoke, more of those grotesque worms spilled out of his mouth and onto Mark's waist. Mark managed to deliver a knee to the man's chest, dislodging his grip, before bolting back in the direction we had come from, grasping my arm in the process.

"GO!" Mark bellowed, his voice cutting through the air like a knife. Without hesitation, I pivoted on my heels and sprinted after him, my heart pounding in my chest. Behind us, the man's desperate gasps and moans echoed down the corridor. I glanced back to see the man on his knees, retching up a grotesque mass of worms onto the floor. Tears streamed down his face as he whispered apologies into the darkness, his voice raw with desperation, and those same dual voices.

There was no time for sympathy as I turned my attention back to Mark, my muscles straining as I pushed myself to keep pace. Just as I thought we might escape, a door swung open with a deafening crash, slamming into my face with brutal force. Agony exploded through my skull as I stumbled backward and crashed to the ground just as everything around me went dark.

As my eyes fluttered open, I was met with a wave of excruciating pain that threatened to consume me. My head pounded relentlessly, my ears rang with a deafening sound. Blood dripped down my face, mingling with my tears as I lay on my back, disoriented and lost.

The surrounding chaos blurred into indiscernible shapes and shadows, but the agonizing cries of wounded animals echoed through the darkness. Staring at the ceiling I could tell I was no longer in the hallway, but in a different room. With a heavy groan, I mustered all of my strength to roll onto my side, only to discover my cell phone lying next to me, its flashlight casting a glow.

Barely able to lift myself to my knees, I grasped the phone and brought it closer to my face. Through the haze, I saw a message displayed on the screen - a cryptic warning was left in the body of a text from myself with no recipient.

"Sorry about knocking you out, "but there's no time. It's loose, and they're coming. Find the key in your pocket, take a left, and head for the stairs. I'm already gone, you won't find me. Tell them what you saw."

As the gravity of the situation sunk in, I realized that I needed to hurry. I groaned more as I pulled myself to my feet. Shining my phone ahead of me to get an understanding of where I was. In front of me was a large metal table, littered with broken vials and scattered papers covered in some kind of chemical. To the left of the table were large kennels stacked on top of each other; I walked over to them and was startled to see the animals that were inside. In one was a brown falcon lying on its side and flailing its wing and legs; those hairy purple worms were covering its body, digging in and back out of holes covering its body, its flailing wing had several of them nestled in between its feathers, some of them were flying off with every flap.

In another kennel was a small bulldog, dripping out of the mouth with worms; it lunged towards the door of the kennel, barking at me, trying to break free. Another kennel had another baby deer that was constantly screaming; both its eyes were gone, and in its place were just mounds of wriggling, purple, hairy worms. I stepped backward away from the horrible site, backing into the table, my hand bracing on one of the wet pieces of paper on the table. I moved my light over it and could make some of it out, but the chemical poured over it made it difficult to read.

**The study of (illegible) infestations has taken a terrifying turn as we observe the takeover of hosts by these new entities that grant them incredible strength, dexterity, and unyielding resistance to conventional forms of (illegible). As the impending threat of human testing looms, ethical concerns abound as we witness the monstrous transformation of subjects into seemingly unkillable beings.

Methods: Subjects were exposed to parasitic infestation through controlled ingestion of contaminated food sources. Observations were made over an extended period to assess the progression of the infestation and its effects on host physiology.

Results: The parasitic infestation led to a nightmarish transformation in hosts, as they exhibited unprecedented muscle growth, enhanced dexterity, and an alarming increase in cell growth that rendered them impervious to traditional methods of treatment. Subjects displayed a terrifying hostility towards researchers and demonstrated a chilling ability to survive lethal doses of eradication attempts.

Discussion: The findings of this study reveal a sinister power within the parasitic entities that take control of hosts, granting them superhuman (illegible) and an unnerving resilience to harm. The ethical implications of continuing such experiments on human subjects are deeply troubling, as the potential consequences of unleashing these monstrous capabilities are beyond comprehension.

Conclusion: The parasitic infestation has unleashed a (illegible) within our research facility, as hosts are transformed into terrifying beings with incomprehensible strength, dexterity, and invulnerability. The looming specter of human testing raises grave concerns about the ethical boundaries we are willing to cross in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. As a researcher haunted by the horrors I have witnessed, I fear the horrors that may be unleashed if we continue down this treacherous path.**

I dropped the soggy paper back down on the table, inclining that whoever had written this report may be the person who dragged me into this room. I started towards the open doorway of the room, even more eager than before to leave. I stood in the hallway and recognized the staircase leading up the phone message must have been referring to 50 or so yards to my left, but a wet growling noise to my right caught my attention. Turning around, my heart froze at the sight of a large, humanoid creature clinging to the side of the wall on all fours.

The purple-skinned humanoid creature loomed before me, its lab coat and khakis in shreds and tatters. Its broken frame eyeglasses were askew on its large, yellow, predatory eyes that seemed to pierce through my very soul with a malevolent glow. Its muscular arms and legs were elongated and sinewy, with patches of dark hairs erupting from its sickly violet skin. The creature's bald head was adorned with a writhing mass of long, purple, worm-like tendrils that cascaded down its spine, wriggling and squirming in a grotesque display.

And from its twisted, contorted mouth hung the gruesome visage of my friend Mark's decapitated head, blood still oozing from the severed neck, the lifeless eyes staring blankly ahead. The creature stood there in eerie silence, a nightmarish amalgamation of horror and desolation, its presence sending chills down my spine as I struggled to comprehend the unimaginable sight before me. It opened its mouth and let out another wet growl, dropping Mark's head to the ground in the process. I was no longer frozen in place, it seemed as if my body moved on its own as I turned around and began racing for the staircase.

I could hear the creature behind me running along the walls in hot pursuit of me. Every fiber of my body screamed in pain as I struggled to run across the concrete ground, hearing the beast pounce from wall to wall in its attempt to catch me, bellowing out an unearthly scream in its frustration.

My legs seemed to find new strength while I ran up the cold staircase, and I propelled my whole body up into the double door covering that was at the very end of the staircase. Standing once again in the woods of Mount Alto, I looked around for something to keep the doors closed and quickly found a heavy tree branch just lying a few feet away from me. Hurriedly, I grabbed it, dragged it back to the doorway, and wedged it under the handle of the doors just as the creature threw itself into them, causing the doors to budge slightly and the branch to crack a little.

I turned away and started running along the creek bed, seeing the familiar hill Mark parked on just up ahead. My lungs felt like they were about to explode from the amount I was exerting myself as I passed the metal covering Mark and I used to enter the underground lab, but I couldn't slow down, not even as I passed the fawn we saw earlier, trying to push itself up on its remaining two legs despite not having a lower body or head.

I fell to my hands and knees, hearing the roar of the creature in the distance as I climbed the hill without falling, standing up, and throwing myself into Mark's truck once I made it to the top. I cussed as my nervous hands struggled to turn the key in the ignition, but settled myself once I heard the truck pur to life. As quickly as I could I made a sharp U-turn and began speeding off back to town on the bumpy dirt road that got us here. Along the way, I could hear helicopters above tearing through the sky, but I felt comfortable that they couldn't see the truck through the canopy of trees.

That was three days ago. Despite seeing several strange armored jeeps heading in the direction of Mount Alto, and occasionally seeing helicopters flying overhead in town, there has been complete media silence. I haven't been able to sleep, and I'm afraid of leaving my home. I don't know what was going on in that bunker, but whatever they were working on, is out now.

One night, Brett and Ruby were driving home from visiting her parents' house that weekend since it had been her mother's birthday.

As they cruised down the long, dark highway, they chatted back and forth, exchanging stories.

"Did you know that there is an urban legend about this highway?" Ruby told her husband, "They say a long time ago, a little girl went missing from her home, was kidnapped by a local, and never returned."

"It's just an urban legend," Brett told her. Maybe the old folk made it up to get kids home before dark."

"Well, I think it's true," Ruby pouted.

The radio, playing soft music in the background, faded and blared crackling static. "What's wrong with the radio?" Ruby sighed, trying to find a station that would come through.

"It's probably just electrical interference," Brett rationalized.

It did not take too long for the radio to return to normal, but on the right side of the highway, a small girl was waving at them to pull over.

"What's a kid doing out this late?" Ruby questioned.

"Should we give her a ride?" replied Brett.

"Yeah, we should, especially since it's so late," she agreed with her husband as he slowed down the car. Yet, something about this did not sit right with him, even though he had decided to stop.

Ruby pressed a button, and the window rolled down as the little girl walked over. "Hey, sweetie, do you need a ride home?" she asked.

"Yes! That would be nice if you could. "I stayed outside for too long, and my mom is probably apprehensive about me," replied the girl with grey eyes and red hair.

The girl got into the backseat, sitting in the middle.

"So, what's your name, kiddo?" Brett asked, looking at the small girl in his rearview mirror.

"Katrina," the red-haired girl replied.

The girl then began pointing at different back roads that Ruby did not know existed, and she grew up in this area. The last one they turned down was a long dirt road overgrown with nature.

There, at the end, was an old, dilapidated cabin.

Concerned, Ruby turned to ask Katrina if she was sure this was right. Since it was dark, the roads may have looked different. Only to see that the small girl was no longer there.

"Huh?!"

"What is it, Ruby?" her husband asked, noticing her confusion. She looked into the rearview mirror to see why she had been so bewildered.

The back seat was now empty where Katrina had been.

"You know, I think that urban legend was true after all," said Ruby, her voice low. "Maybe...we should call the cops and have them search the area where we picked her up."

Brett looked at the dilapidated cabin before unlocking his phone to make a call. There were flashing red and blue lights on the highway. The man and woman stood talking to an officer as the area where they picked up Katrina was searched and dug up.

"We found something!"

Brett and Ruby felt their blood run cold. After all these years, an urban legend had become a missing person's case. Just how many people had driven past Katrina without stopping? Deep down, they wondered if the young girl had still been alive back then, with people continuing to drive by without batting an eye.

"You know you two are lucky." the officer told them.

"What do you mean?" Ruby asked, tilting her head.

"Well," the officer sighed, "Not to scare you folks, but usually, in this area, a lot of car accidents happen, and the damndest thing is they would always be pointing in this direction." he motioned to the scene behind him. Brett looked at his wife, the color draining from his face, and she touched his shoulder.

If they hadn't stopped for Katrina, they would have pointed in the same direction as where the team was digging.

"People can be so stupid," Carl said, his face illuminated by the soft glow of his phone.

The kids were upstairs, and we were just starting to unwind. What that meant was we were fooling around on our phones in the dimly lit living room. The worn leather couch creaked as I shifted, hoping the children were finally asleep. It had been a long day, filled with the usual chaos of raising three kids in a small house.

Carl, my husband of twelve years, continued, his face etched with the familiar lines of stress that had become more pronounced in recent months. "My cousin copied this post to his Facebook feed: 'Don't forget tomorrow starts the new Facebook rule where they can use your photos. I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my photos, information, messages.' People really think this works. They believe copying and pasting this text will somehow opt them out of a TOS."

I glanced at Carl, noting how he lived for getting upset at what he saw as his family members' gullibility. "The most baffling thing is who originally makes these and what do they get out of it?" he asked, really on a tear now.

"Do you remember chain letters?" I replied, not understanding why he even still visited Facebook. All I could figure was that he got a dopamine hit from getting irritated. "You know, 'Send a copy of this to ten people you know or else something bad is going to happen to you'? I think someone just gets a kick out of making people do things and wasting their time. They want to see how far they can get the letter to travel or how many people they can get to participate."

Carl nodded, considering my words. "I think we're being too logical about this," he said after a moment. "Is it possible that some people think they have the power to bestow luck onto another person? Maybe it's kind of like 'Ringu', right? Do they think they have the psychic powers of Sadako?"

I couldn't help but smile. Trust Carl to direct the conversation to his favorite subject, J-Horror. "Make a copy of the tape within seven days, pass it on to someone else and it breaks the curse, at least for you," I said, reciting the plot to a movie he made me watch countless times.

Suddenly, a loud bang echoed through the house, followed by a piercing scream. Carl bolted upright, his phone clattering to the hardwood floor.

"What was that?" he barked, his eyes wide with alarm.

"I don't know," I said, my heart racing. "I thought they were going to bed."

Carl stood up, his fists clenched at his sides. "I can't stand this. They always do this kind of shit. This has to stop tonight."

Carl is usually calm, but sometimes things rub him the wrong way, and his temper flares. Tonight was one of those times. As he stormed up the carpeted stairs, each step a thunderous stomp, I couldn't help but remember the gentle man I'd fallen in love with. The man who would spend hours playing make-believe with the kids, his laughter echoing through the house. That man seemed to be appearing less and less these days. Perhaps it was his 60-hour a week job, maybe he spent too much time looking at social media. Whatever the cause, this last month is the most stressed I’d ever seen him. 

I followed him up to the kids' room, my mind racing. We live in a modest two-bedroom house, its walls adorned with family photos and children's artwork. Our three kids share one room, which often makes bedtime a challenge. The oldest is Charlotte is twelve, Abby is our middle child at ten, and our youngest is Conner at eight years old.

At the top of the stairs, Carl took a sharp right, his shoulder brushing against the pale yellow wall we hadn't been able to repaint in years. He violently yanked open the door, slamming it into the wall with a resounding thud. A framed picture of the kids at the beach rattled precariously - a memento from our last family vacation three years ago.

The scene inside the room was surreal. The three children sat in a circle on the plush blue carpet, illuminated by the soft glow of an astronaut-shaped night light. Charlotte had her back to us, her shoulders hunched. Conner's face was pale, his freckles standing out starkly against his skin. He looked deathly afraid, his wide eyes darting between his sisters and us.

"You're supposed to be asleep. What are you three doing?" Carl shouted, his voice bouncing off the walls covered in glow-in-the-dark star stickers.

Conner pointed trembling fingers in the direction of the two girls. "A-Abby jinxed Charlotte," he stammered. "They said the same thing at the same time."

"Now she can't talk till somebody says her name," said Abby calmly, as she turned to face us. Whatever had Conner on edge didn't seem to affect her. There was something unsettling about Abby's composure, a glint in her eye that I'd never noticed before.

I didn't think Carl could look any angrier until that moment. His face turned a deep shade of red, and if it were possible for steam to expel from his ears, it would be happening. I could see the vein in his temple throbbing, a sure sign that he was about to explode.

"I wish you would just do what I ask," Carl barked, his voice rising. "We told you three to go to bed, and you're up here playing games."

Charlotte laid her head in her hands, her curls falling forward to hide her face. Conner looked even more frightened than before, but it wasn't because of Carl's shouting. Those two didn't seem to notice his rant. Abby lowered her head, her small fingers fidgeting with the hem of her pajama top. She was the only one who appeared to be listening.

"I am so tired of repeating myself over and over. You are the worst kids ever. Now please, do what I say, just this once."

I watched Abby carefully and noticed her lips move slightly, barely audibly mouthing those last three words along with Carl. He did say that phrase to the kids quite often. A chill ran down my spine as I realized how much our family dynamics had changed. When had our home become filled with so much tension and anger?

Abby then looked Carl right in the eyes, her gaze unnervingly steady for a child her age. She softly retorted, "Jinx."

Carl's hands flew to his mouth, his eyes growing wide with shock and confusion. He turned to me, his gaze pleading. Slowly, he lowered his hands to reveal smooth, unbroken skin where his mouth should have been. At the same time, Charlotte turned around, and I gasped as I saw that she too was missing her mouth. 

I stood frozen, trying to process what I was seeing. Every child knows the jinx game - the silly rule that if you say the same thing at the same time, you can't speak until someone says your name. But this... this was different. This was impossible.

As the reality of the situation sank in, a mixture of emotions washed over me. Fear, seeing my husband and daughter's faces smooth where their mouths should be. Confusion, as my mind struggled to rationalize what couldn't be real. And strangely, a hint of relief.

The only thing I knew for certain was that none of us were in a hurry to say Carl's name.

I love being a teacher. Waking up every morning and seeing all my students is the highlight of my days. Each student is very different from one another, and I'm not going to lie, there are certain students I do favor over the others. I have one student with whom I bond the most. She always arrives to class on time and looks very put together. She doesn't wear baggy hoodies and pajamas like the other kids. Her hair always falls perfectly with her curls neatly tamed. She always says thank you and tells me to have a good day at the end of each class. Heather is just a role model student. Every teacher wishes for students like her.

Today I went to the teacher's lounge like every other day to eat lunch. I switched who I sat with very frequently because they all tend to get boring fast. Today I sat with Mrs. Crow, a young, newer teacher. She began talking to me about how she's engaged and showing me pictures of her fiancé. 

"Are you seeing anyone," she asked

"No.” I responded not trying to entertain this conversation.

She leans towards me touching my shoulder. “Don’t worry, I'm sure you'll meet someone soon. When you know, you know, or at least that's what happened with my boyfriend, I mean fiance.” she said, letting out an obnoxious laugh.

“Have you been in any recent relationships? Sorry I'm just so nosey! Just excited to get to know my new co-workers.” she said while playfully punching my shoulder.

“I was married, but things didn't end very well after she cheated on me.” I responded, unsure why I told her that.

“Oh my god. I'm so sorry!” she responds while covering her mouth with her hands.

After she let me get a few words in she continued talking about herself. I sat there pretending to listen while reminiscing about my past relationship while it's now on my mind. I started to feel myself getting angry, then I remembered some coping techniques I learned from my support group. I got up and walked away trying to contain myself from saying something I'll regret. 

After school a few students stayed to make up a quiz. I always bring snacks and drinks for the students, I find it helps them do better. After about 30 minutes, there was only one student left.

"Are you sure you don't want some soda? It's the last one left." I asked while reaching for the sprite.

"I guess it won't hurt," she responded.

I cracked open the soda and slipped a pill in there while she was too focused to notice. I hand her the soda and she continues working.

"Already I'm all done.”

I grabbed her quiz while I asked “ You were absent Tuesday, right?” She nods her head yes.

I walk towards my desk pretending to look for the graded quizzes.

"It looks like I left them in my car. I could give it to you if you don't mind walking there with me?"

"Sure. I've got nowhere else to be." She exclaimed.

We step out of the classroom and start heading towards the side door. I look down at her, and see the top of her head with her bunny hair clips, barely reaching my shoulders. She's so cute and small, I just wanna pick her up. We finally reach my car and I unlock the door. I open the door and “accidentally” drop my keys.

"They're right on the seat If you want to start looking for your quiz," I stated while bending down to grab the keys.

As she reaches into the car I push her as hard as I can. Her backpack flips over her head forcing her into my car. Am I really doing this right now? At school? I slammed the door and drove away as quickly as possible. She started to yell and bange on the windows. Thank god for my investment into tinted windows. She started reaching up towards me and covering my eyes. I grabbed my coffee mug and hit her in the head. I didn't want to hurt her, but she left me no choice. After about 10 minutes of me fighting with her while trying to drive at the same time, she finally collapsed onto her side.

I pull into my garage and think about how to get her inside. I guess I could just carry her. She's small, right? I step inside to make sure there's no one home.

"Hello?" I asked

"Hey, how was work?" my sister responded.

"Really good," I responded, not trying to show my panic.

"I've just got a lot of work to do. I'll be downstairs."

“Do you have your group meeting tonight?” she asked

“No, tomorrow morning I think.” I responded while trying to sit Heather up.

I finally get a good grip on her and slowly carry her through the garage door and down the basement stairs. I’ve done something similar to this before, but I still couldn't help stressing. My sister never comes down here because this is technically my part of the house. I pay for the basement, and she knows I don't like when people mess with my stuff. I always lock the door and she just never bothers me. It's kind of an unspoken agreement we have.

I gently place Heather on the floor. She's so pretty when she's sleeping. I go into my workshop and grab an old chain and lock I've had. I don't want to do this Heather, but I have to, at least until I can explain what she's done wrong. I sit on the couch and accidentally doze off.

I finally wake up after about what felt like 5 hours and look over to the floor, she's still lying there. I checked my phone and it's been almost an hour. When will she wake up? She's been passed out for over two hours now. I didn't think it’d last this long. My stress has been getting in the way of my excitement, but I'm eager now. I can't wait to see her journey. The basement of my house isn’t very nice, but I hope she won't mind. I have a special surprise for her. There's one other room down here and I've spent almost a whole year renovating. I didn't know I'd be getting it ready for her at first, but as time went on I realized how perfect she'd be to bring to Father Michael. I tore out the wooden panel walls and painted them pink. All girls like pink. I hope she likes it. I remember this one shirt that Heather would wear often. It was skin-tight with a little bunny on the right side. Sometimes when she’d stretch in class her shirt would roll up and I could see her belly piercing poking out. I bought her a bunny stuffed animal because of this shirt. I hope she likes that too. I lay on the couch impatiently, thinking about how excited she's gonna be for my surprise. As I'm laying there I hear a quiet sound. 

“Hello.”

This didn't sound like Heather. Heather had a loud strong voice. My heart started to beat uncontrollably fast. What should I say? Do I sit up? Do I go up to her? I started to panic. I have to respond soon. I got up and stood behind the couch. I wanted to go to her. Tell her everythings gonna be okay. Once she sees her surprise I know she's going to be thankful. 

“Hey Heather?” That's all that I could say. What am I doing? Why did I only say that? She responded very quickly asking where we were. I didn't know what to tell her. Her new home? 

She started freaking out and kicking her leg, realizing she's chained. Ugh. I hate this part. Last time I made the mistake of bringing someone a little younger, she wasn't as mature. When I brought her here she had whined and cried for hours, I hope Heather isn't like that. 

“It's okay. I've got a surprise for you!” I unchain her leg and guide her to her new bedroom. 

“Do you like it?

She never responded.

“You don't like it.” I said, trying not to show my frustration.

“No I don't. I'm not staying here. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you and why you brought me here!” she yelled 

I don't like being yelled at. She should know that, no one does. Father Michael says that no woman should raise their voice at a man, and that they must be punished to learn.

I push her onto the bed and tie her arms and legs to the end of the bed posts.

“Look Heather. I don't want to do this, but people need to be punished so they can learn to never do that again.” “You understand that right? I would never want to intentionally hurt you if I didn't have to. It's Father Michaels rules. You'll understand when you meet him”.

She started to yell, which just made me more angry. I cover her mouth so she can't make any noise. I started thinking about how unloyal and sneaky she was, which made me act on my anger. I go into my bathroom and grab a pair of scissors. I slowly cut into her toe nail. I started pushing closer and closer to her skin, trying to take up the whole nail. She started moving her legs. She was resisting. The only good thing I could think about when having a younger girl is that she was smaller. Easier to tame.

After only successfully ripping off three toe nails I stopped. I put the, now chipped nail polish toenails into my pocket. I'm never going to really see her feet, so I don't mind damaging them.

“Now, do you understand why you can't be rude? People have feelings, and you hurt mine.” 

She nodded in agreement.

I sat in the chair in front of her bed. I just wanted to watch her. I didn't like watching her struggle, but I liked seeing how much she was going to change tomorrow. I decided I'm going to take her to michaels tomorrow. Last time I brought the other girl, Beth, but he didn't like her. I hope he likes Heather as much as I do.

“You better get some sleep. Tommorrows a big day.” I told her. I watched her as she fell asleep. She looks so peaceful.

I wake up from the sun shining through the corner of my window. I look at Heather. She's awake. I check my phone and it's 9:30 am. I better start getting her ready. I opened the closet and grabbed the nicely hung outfit and placed it on the bed. A flowy white dress with a pair of red flats.

“I'm gonna untie you now , but you must behave. You know how I feel about being disrespected.” I slowly untie the knots I made at the top of the head board. Once I'm done she sits up. She hasn't looked at me since last night. 

“Now I'm going to turn around while you put this on, ok? I asked

She nods yes while staring at the floor. 

After about 5 minutes I heard a whisper. “It's on.” 

I said out loud the only thing that had come to my mind. “Woah.” 

I grab Heather's wrist and start heading up the stairs, turning the corner to see if my sister's car is here, it's not.  Heather hasn’t said anything in awhile, I hope she's not sad. I lead her into the car and wrap rope around her and the seat just to be safe. I put tape over her mouth and got into the driver's seat. The drive to see Father Micheals group is around 25 minutes. On the way we pass through the desert and closer to the mountains. Heather remained calm. As we finally arrive I pull into Michaels driveway. I get out of the car and open Heather's door. Before I could even get her untied I turned around and saw Michael standing right behind me. 

“You startled me Father Michael.”

“ How have you been John, I missed you!” He says to me.

“Good, happy to be back.”

“Well look at that, she's gorgeous!” He says well, patting me on my back.

“The groups all inside, eager to start.” He exclaimed.

He reaches into the car and starts stroking her hair. I'm happy he likes her. We pick her up and bring her into the back room. The back room is a big open space that Father Michael has dedicated to our group meetings. Along the walls are pictures of our family, all 63 of us. It's kind of crazy to think that this started with just 12 of us, now our families grown. We place her in the middle of the room. The other members are all here and ready to begin.

“Now if everyone could thank John for bringing this lovely lady,” Father Michael states while clapping. He's such a good guy. He makes me feel proud of myself, I can tell he really cares about us. 

Everyone is looking around on the edge of their seats antsy to begin. I look at Heather and I can tell she's starting to freak out. Her hands are fidgeting behind her back trying to release herself.

“Now as you all know we've had 10 new members join this past month. This is their first times at a ceremony, so we're going to take things slowly.” Says father Michael.

Heather starts freaking out more and manages to roll over. This interrupts Father Michael and makes him angry. He walks towards her and stomps on her hand while telling her to be quiet. He picks her up and puts her back sitting up in the seat. He grabs her face and rips the tape off, allowing her to speak. She sits there quietly with tears running down her eyes.

“Now Heather, why don't you tell everyone why you're here.”

“I-I-I don’t know.” She stutters.

“Come on now, That's not true. John told me about your friend Alex.” Father Michael states while walking in a circle around her.

“My boyfriend?” she asks.

“Ah so you do know why you're here?” 

“N-n–no-o.” She says while sobbing

“We know what you did. John, why don't you go and explain to the group how it happened this time.”

I never got to share a story before. Most of the other members work in very different environments so they tend to have more run-ins with situations like this. I stood up and turned to the group, “ I caught Heather being unfaithful to her boyfriend.” I could see everyone's faces mixed with anger and excitement.

“Now do you know how hurtful that is? How would you like it if someone cheated on you?!” Michael asked while his voice got increasingly louder.

Heather remained silent.

“You know I was cheated on after 5 years of marriage while having 2 kids.” 

I love when Michael tells this story.

“Do you think that's fair?! DO YOU?!”

“No, But I-.” Heather started to say with tears rolling down her face before being interrupted by Father Michael.

I hate to see Heather upset, but he's right. I was cheated on three years ago, and it was awful. Women really can't just be loyal can they? Not even for family? It's honestly disgusting.

“Now although you’ve made a mistake, we're giving you another chance.”

“You get to be our wife.” Michael said as all of us started clapping and cheering. 

I'm happy this is working out. Last time when I brought Beth there had been a mix up. I'm friends with her father and had walked in on them kissing. I knew that wasn't right because he was married. When I brought her here and explained it to Father Michael he got very angry with me. He told me that this time it wasn’t the girls fault. It was too late though. I felt bad, but how was I supposed to know? He made an exception and we had trained her to be the perfect wife. She was doing great at first, but then things took a turn… We let her use the bathroom alone after 3 months of earning our trust and she had slit her wrists. We were all very sad because this was our second wife we had lost. We've been sharing one wife with all of us, but now that we have new members we decided we needed someone else. 

I reached my hand in my pocket and started playing with her toenails from the night before. “Heather dont worry. This isn't your fault that you were born this way, but we’re here to help you now.”

Father Michael grabs her chair and drags her into a connected room. We all form a line and get ready to take our turns. It's finally my turn and I walk up holding a surprise behind my back. 

“I brought you a stuffed animal bunny. I remembered how you liked them.”

"Oh, hey! "There you are," Vala called out to Nico. He turned directly toward where her voice was coming from and greeted his classmate, who invited him to shop in a local plaza.

"I thought you would not show up," said Vala.

"I made you a promise," he reminded her.

" Of course you did it! You were never the type to want to be in crowded places."

Nico and Vala were always there for each other, proving their friendship was genuine.

She took him by the hand and smiled.

"Let's have fun! There are several shops in the plaza."

"No matter what you choose, it will be fine," he assured her.

"Oh, it will," Vala grinned, gripping his hand.

Somehow, her saying that in such a way made him feel uneasy, but he pushed it aside, allowing Vala to lead him around after walking around and stopping at various shops. They came to the last shop Vala wanted to enter, but she stopped in front of the door, holding Nico by the hand.

"Is something wrong?" He asked with concern.

"No, it's nothing," Vala said as she picked at her nails before locking eyes with Nico. "Do you want to go inside?" she asked.

Do not go inside! You will see something horrible.

He shook his head. Was he hearing things?

Vala opened the door, leading Nico inside, who followed her against his better judgment. Once inside, he found it peculiar that the check-out counter had a thick layer of dust, except for a few papers and a smeared handprint, as if someone had tried to grasp the counter but dragged their hand across the top.

Someone had beaten up the register and left the drawer open. The curtains appeared tattered and dark, with spider webs covering them.

Above them, the light fixture was hanging loose. The wallpaper peeled off the walls, curling under itself, and they saw the floor covered in dirt and debris with drag marks where someone had missed their footing.

"What kind of store was this?" Nico questioned aloud.

"It's one of a kind. It's a place where people you trust take you to die," Vala replied.

"Vala, that isn't funny," he scolded, feeling uneasy.

"Do you want to see what's in the back?" she asked, motioning to a wooden door hanging on its hinges.

No, please, you can't look.

Nico shook his head. There was that voice again, and it sounded just like Vala.

"C'mon, don't tell me you're scared," Vala teased.

"O-of course not," Nico retorted with a huff.

Opening the wooden door, they walked into the back of the shop. Nico lost sight of Vala as they walked in total darkness. He tried calling out to her but received no answer. Nico turned back, returning the way he came, when something red glistened on the floor.

He took out his cell phone and used the flashlight to follow the red-glistening trail. Getting closer, he covered his nose with his free hand, gagging at the smell. It was coming from what looked like an old freezer.

It had to be spoiled meat or something.

Nico's gut told him not to open it, but his curiosity got the better.

Moving his hand from his nose, he lifted the lid, only to be hit with the odor of death. Shining his light inside, he felt his stomach lurch into his throat. Inside were the messy remains of Vala, whom he had promised to see today. The very person he had been walking around with, or had he?

Moving to the corner of the room, he emptied his stomach. Coughing, he used the sleeve of his jacket to wipe his mouth.

"I told you not to look! Why? WHY DIDN'T YOU LISTEN?!" her voice yelled at him, and the freezer door slammed shut, beginning to rock across the floor.

Taking that as his cue to leave, Nico ran from the back of the shop to the front, opening the door to the outside. He did not stop running until he got to the plaza's centerpiece before looking back. Earlier, he had not realized that the shop he had just left had police caution tape covering it, and the windows were all boarded up.

"Excuse me, young man. Are you a student?" a deep male voice asked from behind Nico, sending shivers down his spine. He looked over his shoulder at the individual behind him.

The man, dressed in dark clothing with a hat pulled down to cover the top half of his face, approached Nico from behind, asking in a deep male voice, "Excuse me, young man. Are you a student?" Nico noticed scratch marks on his right cheek as if someone had dug their nails into him.

Was this the man who took Vala away? Taking a step back, he distanced himself from him. Nico heard the man chuckle, pulling some rope from his hoodie pocket. "Oh, please run. It's always much more fun when you do," he smirked while chasing after Nico as he ran.

Somehow, he felt he would not be going home tonight.

My suspicions of infidelity first started when Steph was spending way too much time on her phone. She's never been very tech-dependent so it was odd when her phone glued itself to her palm. She would smile whenever her phone vibrated, giggle after reading her new message, and text back excitedly all while the look of love marked her face. I recognized that look all too well. It was the look she'd had for me all those years ago when we first started dating.

While I was sure of my wife's infidelity, I needed to validate my suspicions.

I snuck up behind her and watched as her fingers danced across the keypad, but when the chatlog came into view, my heart dropped.

Her phone buzzed and an image pixelated on the screen. I fully expected a nude or something, but it was a photo of a man, only the man was not whole. He was severed into many different pieces. His limbs decorated a hard concrete floor, his head pressed up against the ground, and his torso slit wide open exposing a hollow chest cavity. I almost swore under my breath but remained composed. Steph giggled at the image and began crafting a reply.

'Cute. I love how you left the eyes in the head this time.' She clicked the send button, biting her thumb in anticipation of a reply. Three sequentially blinking dots appeared on the bottom of the screen, the message lit up her phone.

'I was saving them for you 😏'' The reply read flirtatiously. Steph repositioned herself in giddy excitement and hurriedly crafted a reply.

'You mean it!' When can I come down?' She wrote in joyously. My heart must've been banging against my chest at this point because Steph swiveled her head in my direction, pressing the phone to her person.

"What are you doing?" She said in angry annoyance. I had so many questions festering on the end of my tongue, but my mind sputtered still trying to come to terms with my wife's horrific messages. I just stood there frozen like some shock-stricken fool. Steph, however, filled the empty air with a violent reprimand.

"How dare you violate my personal space! You're an inconsiderate asshole! I can't believe you!" She spat out in fury. Her open palm smacked across my cheek, snapping me out of my bewilderment. When my eyes refocused on Steph, I saw a bloodthirsty rage stewing behind her pupils. I tried to say something, anything, but what can you say when your wife is texting with Jeffery Duhmer?

"Fuck you, Ryan!" She hissed and retreated into our bedroom, slamming the door behind her. I slumped down on the couch, contemplating what I'd just seen. Steph's never been a violent person, but here I was clutching my cheek while she was laughing at a murder scene on her phone.

Night had fallen and Steph never came out of the bedroom. That whole time I weighed my options. 'Should I call the police? Should I pack my shit and leave? Do I gather more evidence and get her admitted into some psych ward?' The choice may seem easy from the outside looking in, but it wasn't easy for me. I wanted to give Steph the benefit of the doubt, but to do that I needed to know the truth.

I slowly creaked the bedroom door open and saw a figure sleeping soundly under the covers. On the nightstand rested Steph's phone. I cautiously entered the room, doing my best not to wake my sleeping wife. Luckily, Steph's always been a heavy sleeper.

When the phone lit up the dark room, Steph stirred but quickly regained her restful slumber. I immediately opened her messages and almost dropped the phone. The gory messages were sent under the name ''👹''. Never in my life had an emoji filled me with so much dread.

I needed to know who this monster was, so I texted from Steph's phone, hoping to get a reply.

'Who is this?' My message said. I clicked the send button, gripping the phone with a newfound determination. I know, I know. Not a very inventive message to send when trying to get information out of your wife's lover, but what can I say, I was in a delusional state; anyone would be if they found themselves in such a situation. Not a second later, the phone buzzed.

'Who is this?' The new message read. The person on the other line seemed to be mocking me, but that thought was swallowed when I noticed the number directly under the demon emoji. The messages were coming directly from Steph's phone, she was messaging herself. I replayed the memory from earlier in the day, and vividly remember the three sequentially blinking dots at the bottom of the screen as someone else crafted a message from the other end. Steph's fingers, however, remained still.

'This doesn't make any sense.' I thought to myself, but my blood ran cold as the three dots once again danced at the bottom of the chatlog. The phone buzzed and a sentence appeared on the screen.

'Are you scared?'

"What the hell?" I said as a cold chill ran down my spine. Suddenly the figure under the covers began flailing wildly. The quick movement startled me so much that it made me drop the phone, and the device tumbled under the bed.

"Steph?" I called out apprehensively at the figure under the sheets, but there was no response, only more frantic thrashing.

"Honey? Are you okay?" I said with a quivering lip. I grasped the edge of the blanket and yanked it off my wife, but when the figure came into view, Steph was nowhere to be found, but a familiar face did greet me with a smile. It was the fragmented man from the gory images on Steph's phone. The severed limbs moved around disgustingly, the torso was just as empty, and the head smiled from ear to ear, almost thankful for its sorry state.

"W-what is this?" The only words that came to my mind. Out of nowhere a demonic cackle came from the underside of my bed, witchy and demented the laugh caused my skin to break out in goosebumps. I instantly took a step back, but a hand darted out from under the bed frame and grasped my ankle. In the dark, the hand looked gnarled but I noticed a familiar wedding ring on one of the fingers. Steph's head crested from the darkness and her eyes twisted upward in my direction.

"I told you to mind your own business." She said in a screechy, gritted tone. She bared her teeth which were now filed down to a point. With her shark-like smile, she cut into the flesh on my leg. I winced in pain. Instinct took over and I kicked her in the face. Steph retreated under the bed. Her witchy laugh regained its full voice.

"You shouldn't have done that." She said with a twisted tone.

"Steph, what's going on?" I said desperate for answers. Steph didn't answer my question and only returned a statement that made my confusion grow.

"He's coming for you." She said in an icy monotone voice.

"Who's coming? Steph talk to me." I begged.

'He?' I thought to myself. suddenly the severed man on the bed reentered my thoughts. I panned my gaze back over to the fragmented figure to find its head now on its side, looking directly at me. His eerie smile was just as wide, his limbs just as mangled. Despite his appearance, the man didn't seem like a threat. One of his severed arms began to lift itself off the bed, index finger extended, pointing to the bedroom door. My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach as the floorboards creaked in that direction. A tall goat-like figure now stood in the doorway.

Its legs were furry and hooved, its torso strangely human, and its hands monstrously clawed, but I knew its face. Its face matched the demon emoji on my wife's phone, ''👹'', though the creature before me was less cartoony and more gut-wrenching. I started to hyperventilate and back away till my rear met the wall behind me. A grin inched across the creature's face. It was finding pleasure in my terror.

Steph crawled out from under the bed, glancing at me. She twisted her head and made her way to the creature awaiting her arrival. There was a glimmer of lust in the beast's blackened eyes as Steph crawled over with animalistic dexterity. When she reached its legs she wrapped herself around one of them, caressing it as if it were her saving grace.

The creature returned his gaze to me and gave a chuckle that tipped off the octave scale. He reached two hands to my wife's face and pulled her up by the underside of her chin. Without breaking its connection with me, it parted my wife's lips with a slimy kiss. Its fork tongue worked its way down Steph's throat, and a lump was clearly visible from the outside of her neck as it probed deep into her chest cavity. As it came back out, the smacking of saliva filled the air, and tendrils of spit clung to Steph's face. With the same love-filled stare she'd been giving her phone, she gazed into the monster's eyes.

"You're such a tease." Steph giggled as she caressed the beast's cheek. Through a strange tongue and in a deep voice the monster ignored Steph and spoke directly at me.

"Ego tecum agam postea."

When the creature saw that I didn't understand, it turned to Steph expecting her to translate. Steph rolled her eyes but relented.

"He says he'll be back for you." She gave me a dismissive glance and returned her eyes to the monster. The beast grinned and flung my wife over his shoulder, Steph giggled in excitement, and they both disappeared into the dark hallway.

I was left there in shock, but as the shock began to melt away I felt the overwhelming need to cry. Tears streamed down my face, but I was unsure what emotion I was feeling. Was it fear or sadness, I didn't know. I had almost forgotten about the severed man on my bed, but my attention quickly returned to him as his mangled body began seizing. I watched as the man's eyes rolled to the back of his head and foam spilled out of his mouth. As fast as it all started, the man was still.

I cautiously approached expecting the man to lunge as I neared, but as I looked at his face, the color had drained from his head. I was sure he wasn't coming back this time.

Morning came and I was still in my bedroom, afraid to leave in fear of the beast coming for me, but eventually I gained the courage and searched the house. Everything seemed normal for the most part, except for one thing. In all of our photos that decorated the house, Steph had disappeared. It was only me. I checked her closet and everything was missing. Her contact on my phone had even vanished. The more I searched the more I realized Steph's existence had been wiped from reality. But the one thing I wished had disappeared still lay in my bed, the severed man. I thought about calling the police, but how was I supposed to explain a chopped-up body in my bedroom? Was I supposed to blame it on my wife, who seemed to no longer exist? Would I tell them that a devilish monster was their true suspect? No. No one would believe me. I decided to wrap him up in a rug and bury him in the backyard. When he was planted in the soil I placed a little tree on top of the grave, hoping it would dissuade anyone from digging there.

As impossible as it seems I tried to forget about the whole ordeal. I guess it was a trauma response, trying to deny that it all happened, but earlier this morning I received a message from an unknown number that shoved the bad memories back into my throat.

"I'll be there soon 👹" The message said. I'm on edge all the time now. Every strange sound causes me to panic. I'm scared to check any message that comes into my phone. I've been hearing the clattering of hooved feet on my floorboards. It's toying with me, I know it. I need help. I'm scared shitless. What the hell do I do?

[Master link to other parts, as they become available in series section]

I decided to get into genealogy when the rest of my family did.

It started with my mother. She had always been curious about her origins, being adopted and never knowing much about her biological parents. One day, she bought herself a DNA test kit, hoping to find family ties we didn’t know existed. I remember watching her as she carefully packed away the sample, excitement bubbling under her usual calm exterior. For her, this was more than just a hobby—it was about answering questions she’d carried with her all her life.

When the results came back, they gave her something she hadn’t known she was missing—a sense of comfort, of belonging. She’d always been grateful for her adoptive parents. They gave her a comfortable, happy childhood, and she’d never felt unloved. But there was something about connecting the dots of your lineage that had its own kind of satisfaction. Knowing who you came from, what they were like, it anchored her in a way I hadn’t expected.

My life wasn’t quite the same mystery. I knew both of my biological parents, and we had a pretty clear understanding of our family tree, or so I thought. But something about the way my mother lit up, piecing together fragments of her past, made me wonder if there was more to uncover. Curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to give it a shot as well.

I managed to convince my brother to join me in the genealogy deep dive, though he wasn’t exactly thrilled about it. He had this weird thing about sending his DNA to a lab, muttering about how it was going to end up in some database, sold to the highest bidder. I remember him going on about giant companies selling his genetic information for “God knows what.” He joked about waking up one day to find some creepy clone of him wandering around.

I, on the other hand, couldn’t care less. I mean, sure, privacy is important, but I figured we had bigger problems in the world than worrying about some lab tech messing with my DNA. It’s not like it’s tied to my Social Security number or anything... right?

Months passed without much thought. My mother continued to obsess over her family tree, filling out branches that had been blank for decades. It became a project for her—a way to honor the past she hadn’t been able to touch before. Meanwhile, my brother and I let the whole thing fade into the background. 

Then, one morning, an email from the genealogy site hit my inbox. My results were ready. I logged in, not really expecting anything out of the ordinary, but curiosity pushed me through the sign-in process. 

As expected, the usual suspects showed up. My brother, of course, despite all his paranoia. My parents, my aunts, uncles, grandparents—a handful of cousins I barely kept in touch with. Some of the profiles had been filled in by other users on the site. My mother, naturally, seemed to have gotten everyone roped into her genealogy obsession. 

There were also a few distant relatives I didn’t recognize. Some names had a faint, familiar ring to them, but most were complete strangers. Still, nothing shocking. What caught my eye, though, were the names under my mother's biological family—the ones we had never known about before. My biological grandparents were listed there, confirmed by the DNA match, but both had passed away several years ago. 

I wasn’t sure why, but seeing their names, people I’d never met yet shared a connection with, felt strange. Like suddenly there was a gap in my life that I hadn’t known existed.

While scrolling through the matches, one name caught my eye—a second cousin on my mother’s side named Roger. I didn’t recognize it, but that wasn’t surprising since this whole branch of the family was still a mystery to us. For anyone unfamiliar with genealogy, a second cousin is the grandchild of a grand uncle or aunt, so Roger would have been connected to my mother’s biological family—people we had never known about until recently.

His profile wasn’t fully filled out, which was odd considering most people on the site at least had basic information like birth years or locations. But one thing stood out clearly: Roger was alone. His side of the family tree had no other surviving members, just a series of names that faded into the past, marked with dates of death. All the other relatives on my mother’s biological side were deceased.

It was unsettling to see that out of an entire branch of the family, this one person was all that was left. My mother had gone into this journey hoping to connect with relatives she had never known, and now it seemed that there wasn’t much family left to meet. So much for her dream of reuniting with long-lost relatives. 

But at least she was happy, knowing where she came from, even if the connections she had hoped for were more distant than she imagined. Roger, though—a lone name among the dead—lingered in my mind. Something about it stuck with me.

Roger and I were on the same level of descendants, meaning he was probably around my age. It felt strange to think that I might have a second cousin out there who I’d never met, someone who shared a bloodline with me but was, in every other sense, a stranger. 

Curiosity got the better of me, and I figured I’d reach out. According to his profile, Roger hadn’t logged in for a few years, but I thought it was worth a shot anyway. Maybe he didn’t know about the new matches, or maybe he’d just lost interest in genealogy over time.

I spent a while crafting a message. I didn’t want to come off as too pushy or make it weird. I explained my mother’s situation—that she had been adopted and, after finding her biological family, had convinced the rest of us to join her on this website. I mentioned that we were probably second cousins, and though we’d never met, it might be fun to chat about shared interests, work, and other small talk. You know, family stuff. Even if we had never crossed paths before, we were connected by blood, and that had to count for something.

To make things easier, I included my personal email in case he didn’t want to bother logging back into the site. Maybe he didn’t even use it anymore, I thought, so this might give him a simpler way to respond. 

After one last read-through, I hit send and felt a little spark of excitement. Maybe this was the beginning of something interesting, a chance to connect with someone who shared a part of the family history I didn’t even know existed until recently. I wasn’t expecting too much, but still, it felt like a step forward.

Then… silence. 

Months passed, and I never heard anything back from Roger. At first, I figured he was just busy or didn’t check the site anymore. After all, his profile had been inactive for years when I found it. Over time, I paid it little mind, brushing it off as just another dead end in the process. I had done my part, and if he wanted to get in touch, he would.

Just like Roger, our family’s interest in the genealogy website faded over time. What had started as a fun dive into the unknown slowly fizzled out once we’d learned what could be gleaned from it. It had its moment, but like most fads, it didn’t last, and eventually, we all stopped logging in. The family tree was built, the questions were answered, and that was that.

By the time April came around, spring was in full swing. My mother, always the social butterfly, decided it was time for a big family get-together. Not just our immediate family either—she convinced my father to host a gathering for our aunts, uncles, cousins, the whole extended clan. It had been a while since we’d all come together, and she was determined to make it happen.

My parents still lived on the same 10-acre plot of land in the country, the house my brother and I had grown up in. Nothing much had changed over the years. My father still had his barn, which was more of a storage space for his collection of tools and machinery than anything else. The tractor he hadn’t touched in years still sat there, gathering dust but somehow still a point of pride for him.

My mother kept herself busy with her garden, which was in full bloom by spring, and a small pen of three chickens that she used for eggs. It wasn’t a farm, exactly, but it kept her occupied and content. Every time I visited, she made sure to give me a tour of her plants and the chickens, like it was the first time I’d seen them.

I lived about 40 minutes away, closer to civilization and closer to work. The drive was easy enough, and I made it regularly, but the place always felt like a snapshot of my childhood—a place where everything stayed the same, even though life had moved on. Going back for family gatherings always stirred up a mix of nostalgia and distance, but this time, with the whole family expected to be there, it promised to be a bigger affair than usual.

I arrived a little later than planned, pulling up to my parents' house to find dozens of cars already lined up along the gravel driveway and the grass on the side of the road. It looked like I was one of the last to show up, but that wasn’t too surprising—I had hit some traffic on the way over. The house felt just as familiar as ever, but with all the cars and people milling about, it seemed more alive than usual.

Out back, my dad had set up tables and chairs near my mom’s garden and the chicken pen. He’d even dragged out a couple of old fold-out tables, their legs wobbling slightly on the uneven ground. People were already seated, chatting in little groups, their voices carrying across the yard in a constant hum of conversation. The smell of grilled meat wafted through the air, and for a moment, I was reminded of summer cookouts from my childhood.

My mom spotted me almost as soon as I stepped out of the car. She made a beeline toward me, a wide smile on her face, and pulled me into one of her trademark hugs—the kind that was warm and a little too tight but always made you feel like you were home. She kissed me on the cheek, patting my arm like she hadn’t seen me in years. 

“I’m so glad you made it!” she said, her voice filled with excitement. “Everyone’s here!”

My dad followed behind her, more reserved but just as happy to see me. He extended his hand for a handshake, his grip firm as always, but before I could pull away, he pulled me into a quick hug, clapping me on the back. “Good to see you, son,” he said, his voice steady, as if he hadn’t been waiting all day for me to show up. But I knew he had.

I made my way through the backyard, mingling with family as I went. My aunts and uncles were scattered around, laughing and catching up like it hadn’t been months since the last time we all got together. They welcomed me into their conversations, asking about work, life, and when I was going to “settle down.” The usual stuff.

Then there were my cousins, people I used to hang out with all the time as a kid but barely saw anymore. Back then, we spent our summers running wild on this very property, playing tag in the fields and building makeshift forts out of old wood my dad had stored in the barn. But now, with work and life taking over, we rarely had the chance to connect. Still, seeing them brought back those memories, and for a while, it felt like old times as we shared stories and laughed about things that seemed so far away from the present.

The truth was, these big family gatherings felt a little distant to me now. The only people I really kept in touch with were my parents and my brother. Life had gotten busy, and the ties that used to feel strong had loosened over time. I wasn’t sure when it had happened, but at some point, I’d just drifted from everyone else. The big cousin group I used to hang out with? We’d barely exchanged more than pleasantries at these events anymore. 

Not long after I arrived, my brother showed up with his family in tow. His two boys, my nephews, spotted me as soon as they hopped out of the car. They ran over with the kind of boundless energy only kids seem to have, giving me quick, enthusiastic hugs before darting off to join the other kids running around in the yard.

“Good to see you, man,” my brother said, walking up with his wife by his side. We hugged briefly, and then fell into the usual conversation. 

We found a spot by the grill, where the scent of sizzling burgers filled the air. With our drinks in hand, we started catching up. I told him about my job—how I’d been stuck in spreadsheets all day long, losing myself in numbers and data. It wasn’t the most exciting gig, but it paid the bills. He gave me a sympathetic nod but didn’t seem too surprised. He knew my work had taken over most of my time.

He told me about his sales job, how the company was doing well and how he’d been hitting his targets consistently. “Pays the bills, keeps the kids fed,” he said with a grin. “Not much more you can ask for these days, right?”

Our conversation drifted toward nostalgia, as it often did when we had a rare moment to talk without distractions. We reminisced about the days when we used to play Dungeons and Dragons together—late nights rolling dice around the kitchen table, getting lost in imaginary worlds. And, of course, we talked about the time we spent in our old World of Warcraft guild, raiding dungeons and staying up way too late on school nights. For a moment, we both wished we could go back to those simpler times, when the biggest worries we had were gear drops and dungeon bosses. 

“Man, those were the days,” he said, shaking his head with a smile. “No real responsibilities. Just games and good times.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, staring out at the field where the kids were playing. “Sometimes I wish we could hit pause and go back, even just for a little while.”

He smiled at that, but then he glanced over at his wife, who was chatting with our mom, and at his kids, who were laughing with the others. “Yeah, but… I wouldn’t trade this for the world,” he said softly, nodding toward them. “As much as I miss those days, I’m thankful for what I’ve got now.”

I smiled, understanding. Life had changed, and while things were more complicated now, there was beauty in it too. Maybe I didn’t have kids of my own, but I could see the fulfillment my brother had in his. It made me wonder if there was a part of my life I was missing.

A little while later, my mother pulled me aside, her face lit up with the same excitement she always had when she wanted to show me something new. "Come on, I have to show you the apiary!" she said, her voice bubbling with enthusiasm. I couldn’t help but smile—my mom never did anything halfway.

We walked across the yard, past her blooming garden, to a small corner of the property where she had set up a few beehives. "Italian honey bees," she announced proudly. "They’re the best for pollinating gardens. Did you know they can visit up to 5,000 flowers in a single day?" She was on a roll, rattling off facts about how these bees were more docile than other types and how fast they were producing honey. She even started embellishing a little, as she often did when she was really into something. "You know, bees communicate by dancing. It’s called the waggle dance! They can tell each other exactly where to find flowers with that."

I nodded along, throwing in the occasional, "That’s great, Mom," or "Wow, really?" But honestly, I was only halfway paying attention. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and instinctively, I pulled it out to check. I saw an email notification pop up on the screen.

"Sorry, Mom, just a second," I said, holding up a hand. "I just need to make sure it’s not something important for work."

She gave me a quick, understanding nod, though I could tell she was eager to keep talking about her bees. As she continued discussing how the bees were already working her garden, I glanced down at my phone and opened the email, apologizing quietly again for the interruption.

It wasn’t a work email. The sender’s address was just a string of random numbers and letters, almost like someone had smashed their hands on a keyboard. The domain it came from was just as nonsensical. No subject line, nothing to give away what it was about—just the cold, empty blank of an anonymous message. 

What really caught my attention, though, were the attachments. Against my better judgment, I tapped on the first one.

It was a picture of me, taken just moments earlier. I was standing by my car, the same car that was now parked in my parents’ driveway. My heart skipped a beat. I quickly swiped to the next image—another picture of me, this time greeting my parents in the backyard. The next one was of me crouching down to hug my nephews, their faces blurred as they darted away to play with the other kids. Then, another. This one showed me standing by the grill, talking with my brother, our drinks in hand, mid-conversation.

Every photo was taken from a distance, but it was clear that whoever had snapped them had been watching. I kept scrolling, my fingers shaking slightly as each new image brought a fresh wave of dread. How long had someone been out there? How had they known I was here today?

I felt the blood drain from my face, and my stomach churned as I flipped through the pictures. A part of me wanted to believe it was some sick joke, but the pit in my gut told me otherwise. This wasn’t a prank. Someone had been watching me, and they wanted me to know it.

"Hey, is everything okay?" my mother asked, her voice snapping me back to the present. I must have looked pale as a ghost because her eyes were filled with concern. I tried to respond, but I couldn’t find the words. I just stood there, staring at the screen, dumbstruck.

Was this a joke?

A sudden, piercing scream cut through the chatter, freezing everyone in place. It came from near the chicken coop. My aunt. Her voice was shrill, full of panic, and within seconds, all heads turned in that direction.

I followed the others, my legs moving on instinct as I shoved my phone into my pocket. People were already gathering around the small pen, my mom pushing through the crowd, her face contorted with worry.

Then I saw it.

All three of the chickens were sprawled in the straw, their bodies still, their feathers matted with blood. Each of their throats had been cleanly slit, their bodies limp, blood soaking into the straw below them. The air seemed to hang heavy with the coppery scent of death. My mother gasped, bringing a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide in shock. She had loved those chickens—fussed over them like they were her pets. Now, they lay butchered in their pen, their tiny lives snuffed out in the most violent way.

My mind raced, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. I could hear my aunts and cousins murmuring in confusion, some of them crying, others backing away from the grim sight. My father was already inspecting the coop, looking for signs of what could’ve done this. But no fox or raccoon would’ve left them like this—this was deliberate. Someone had done this.

I felt a sinking weight settle in my stomach. It wasn’t just the dead chickens that disturbed me—it was the timing. I had just received those photos, moments before this happened.

I fumbled for my phone, my fingers clumsy as I pulled it back out, praying that what I had seen wasn’t real. But as I looked down, my heart skipped a beat.

The email was still there, staring back at me. Below the string of random numbers and letters, in the body of the message, were five simple words:

"It’s nice to see family."

I stood there, feeling the world tilt around me, trying to piece everything together.

The yard erupted into chaos. My aunts and uncles scrambled to usher the children inside, doing their best to shield them from the grisly sight. Some of the kids were confused, asking questions in nervous tones, while others started crying once they realized something was wrong. The adults tried to keep it together, voices hushed but frantic as they worked to keep the panic from spreading. 

My mother was beside herself, tears streaming down her face as she stood frozen, staring at the covered chicken pen in disbelief. "Who would do this?" she kept asking, her voice shaky and broken. "Why would anyone do this?"

I put an arm around her, trying to calm her down, but her hands were trembling too much to even hold onto me. "Mom, it’s okay," I whispered, though I wasn’t even sure I believed that myself. "We’ll figure it out. Dad’s handling it."

Meanwhile, my father had grabbed a tarp from his garage and draped it over the chicken pen, hiding the grisly scene. He worked quickly, his face grim and determined. I could tell he was upset, but he wasn’t letting it show—not yet, not in front of everyone. For now, the goal was to keep the peace and let people get back to the gathering without worrying about what had just happened. At least until they left.

But I couldn’t let it go. I had to tell them what I knew. 

Once most of the kids were inside and the commotion had died down a bit, I pulled my parents and my brother aside, away from the others. I hesitated for a moment, trying to find the right words. Then, without saying anything, I showed them my phone, flipping it open to the email with the photos. The pictures of me arriving. The pictures of me greeting my parents. The pictures of me playing with my nephews, laughing with my brother. I watched as their faces turned pale, the realization sinking in.

“I think whoever sent these took the pictures from over there.” I pointed off the property, toward the treeline that lined the back of my parents’ land. There was something dark and ominous about it now. “I didn’t notice anything at first, but the angle… it has to be from that direction.”

They were silent, eyes flicking between me and the treeline. 

“There’s something else,” I continued, my voice lower, almost hesitant to say it out loud. “You remember Roger, the second cousin I found on the genealogy website? I reached out to him months ago... but I never heard back. He’s the only living relative on Mom’s biological side. It could be a coincidence, but I don’t think so.”

My mother wiped her tears, confused. "What are you saying?"

I took a deep breath. “I’m saying... unless someone in our family decided to play a sick joke, which doesn’t make sense—none of us would do something like this—then... it might be Roger. He’s the only one we don’t know.” 

My brother shook his head slowly, the disbelief clear on his face. “This doesn’t make sense. Why would he do something like this? I mean, he didn’t even respond to you.”

“I don’t know,” I said, swallowing hard, the words catching in my throat. “But whoever sent this knows us. They’ve been watching.” 

We all stood there in heavy silence, the weight of the situation settling over us like a dark cloud.

My mother looked like she might collapse, her face pale and her hands trembling as she stared at the email on my phone. She had gone quiet, processing what I had just said about Roger, about the photos, about everything. My father, seeing the state she was in, didn’t waste any time. He immediately pulled out his phone and started dialing the police, his jaw clenched tight. He walked a few steps away as he spoke to the dispatcher, explaining that something strange was going on, that someone had been watching us.

I turned to my brother, but before I could say anything, he was already shaking his head. “I knew this was a bad idea,” he muttered, his voice tight with frustration. “I told you I didn’t trust that genealogy site. Putting our DNA, our family out there... it’s like handing over your entire life to strangers.”

His words hit me like a slap, and I could feel the frustration bubbling up inside me. “You think I wanted this?” I snapped, trying to keep my voice down but failing. “How was I supposed to predict this? I was just trying to help Mom find her family—none of us thought it would lead to this.”

He was angry, and so was I, but before we could say anything else, he turned away from me and started gathering his family. “I’m taking them home,” he said, his voice colder than I’d heard in a long time. “This is too much for my kids. They didn’t see the chickens, and I’m not letting them get dragged into this mess or questioned by the police. Call us if you need anything, but we’re leaving.”

My mother looked at him, panic flickering in her eyes. “Please, don’t go,” she said, her voice shaky. “We’re all scared, but we need to stick together.”

“I get that, Mom,” he said, softening for a moment as he put a hand on her shoulder. “But I’ve got to think about them,” he added, nodding toward his wife and kids, who were already heading to the car. “This is just... it’s too much.”

My father had finished his call with the police, and he walked over just in time to hear my brother say he was leaving. “You don’t have to go,” he said, his voice firm but pleading. “We can handle this together.”

But my brother was already set. “No, Dad. I’m sorry, but I can’t risk this with my family.”

I stood there, watching helplessly as my brother ushered his wife and kids into the car. He gave me a quick, curt nod before sliding into the driver’s seat and starting the engine. Without another word, they pulled away, the car kicking up dust as they disappeared down the long driveway. 

The silence after they left was deafening. My parents stood there, looking smaller somehow, like the weight of everything was finally sinking in. We were left to face whatever this was, and I wasn’t sure how to make sense of any of it.

The police arrived about twenty minutes later, their flashing lights cutting through the fading daylight as they pulled up to the house. Two officers stepped out of their car, their expressions serious as they made their way over to us. My father met them first, shaking their hands and leading them toward the chicken coop. The rest of us hovered nearby, waiting for some sort of direction, but it was clear that none of us knew what to expect.

They moved methodically, walking around the coop and the perimeter of the yard, looking for any sign of an intruder. They checked the treeline where I thought the photos had been taken, but after a while, they came back empty-handed. “No footprints, no sign of anyone,” one of the officers said, glancing at his partner. “If someone was out here, they didn’t leave much behind.”

Frustration welled up inside me. Whoever did this had to have been watching us—they had taken photos, they had killed the chickens, but there was nothing to go on. It felt like a dead end.

I pulled out my phone again, showing the officers the email I had received. “This is what I got,” I said, handing it over. “The sender’s address is just a random string of letters and numbers, and it came with these photos. They were taken right here, today, while we were all outside.” I scrolled through the pictures, one by one, letting the officers see each one.

The officers exchanged a look before turning back to me. “And you said this started after you reached out to a relative on a genealogy website?” one of them asked.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Months ago. His name is Roger—he’s the only living relative on my mom’s biological side. I never heard back from him, though, and now... this.” I gestured to the phone and then the coop, feeling helpless.

The officers took down everything I told them, writing notes and asking follow-up questions about the email and the website. “We’ll try to trace the email and see where it leads,” one of them said. “It might take some time, but we’ll do what we can.”

They moved on to questioning the rest of my family, going through each relative, asking if anyone had seen anything unusual that day. But it was the same story from everyone—no one had noticed anything out of the ordinary. The only thing that had drawn attention was the scream from my aunt when she discovered the chickens.

I could see the officers getting frustrated too. It was like the intruder had left no trace, no sign they had even been there, apart from the pictures and the blood-soaked straw beneath the tarp-covered coop.

As they wrapped up their questioning, I felt a gnawing sense of unease settle deeper in my gut. Whoever did this had been watching us—watching me. And now, we had no idea who it was or when they might come back.

The aunt who had screamed was my father’s sister, my mother's sister in law, the same one who had helped my mother incubate and hatch those chickens just a few months earlier. They’d worked together to raise them, nurturing them like pets. For my mom, losing them like this wasn’t just an act of cruelty—it was personal. She stood by the coop, still visibly shaken, leaning on my dad for support as the police finished up.

Most of the family had already left by the time the sun started dipping below the horizon. My brother had been gone for a while, and now my aunts, uncles, and cousins were beginning to trickle out one by one, all of them casting nervous glances toward the treeline as they made their way to their cars. I lingered, wanting to stay behind to help and make sure everything was in order before I left.

After the police had taken their final notes and left the scene, it was just me, my parents, and the empty yard. My father and I set about cleaning up the mess. We wrapped the remains of the chickens carefully, trying to be as respectful as possible, though it felt like a grim task. My mother watched from a distance, still in shock, her eyes hollow as she stared at the pen that now stood lifeless.

Once the chickens were taken care of, I spent the next hour or so trying to reassure her, telling her over and over again that everything would be alright. “The police are on it, Mom,” I said, rubbing her back as we sat on the porch. “They’ll find whoever did this. It’ll be okay.”

She nodded, but I could tell she wasn’t convinced. And truth be told, neither was I. The words I was saying felt empty, hollow. How could I reassure her when I was terrified myself? My stomach was twisted in knots, my mind racing with every worst-case scenario. Whoever had done this had been close—watching us, taking pictures, waiting for the right moment. And the police hadn’t found anything, no sign of them. It felt like we were just waiting for the next move, blind to where it might come from.

But I couldn’t let my mom see how scared I was. So, I stayed as long as I could, sticking close to her and doing my best to offer comfort, even if it was only surface-level. When it was finally time to go, I hugged her tight, promising to check in tomorrow and reminding her to lock the doors. I got into my car and drove away, glancing nervously in the rearview mirror, half-expecting to see someone lurking in the shadows. 

The entire drive home, my heart pounded in my chest, and the email’s words echoed in my head: It’s nice to see family.

Even though I had tried to reassure her, I was scared to my core. Every word of comfort I’d offered my mom felt like a lie, a desperate attempt to mask the growing dread that was gnawing at me. As I drove home, the familiar winding country road seemed darker than usual, the trees on either side casting long shadows across the pavement. My mind kept replaying the events of the day—the dead chickens, the photos, that chilling email. I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was still watching, lurking just out of sight.

About halfway home, my phone buzzed again, jolting me from my thoughts. I instinctively reached for it, my hand trembling as I unlocked the screen. My breath caught in my throat when I saw the notification.

Another email.

Like the first one, the sender was a string of random characters, impossible to trace. My pulse quickened, and my stomach churned as I stared at the message.

Drive safe.

That was all it said. Two words, but they were enough to send a cold wave of terror washing over me. My heart pounded in my chest as I looked up from the screen, scanning the empty road ahead. My headlights cut through the darkness, but everything beyond that was shrouded in shadow.

Whoever had sent the email—whoever had killed those chickens, taken those pictures—they were still watching. They knew where I was, what I was doing, and now, they were reaching out again, reminding me that I wasn’t alone. 

I swallowed hard, my hands tightening on the steering wheel as I glanced nervously in the rearview mirror. I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, no cars trailing behind me, no figures hiding in the trees. But it didn’t matter. The feeling of being watched clung to me, suffocating in its intensity.

My mind raced. Had they followed me from my parents’ house? Were they out there now, just beyond the reach of my headlights, waiting for the next moment to strike? My stomach twisted with fear, and I found myself driving faster, desperate to reach the safety of home.

I wanted to pull over, to stop and catch my breath, but the thought of being stranded out here, alone on the dark road, was worse. I kept driving, every sense on high alert, my heart thudding in my ears. I needed to get home. I needed to be somewhere safe, somewhere with locked doors and walls between me and whoever this was.

As I neared the edge of town, the lights of civilization finally flickered on the horizon, but the fear didn’t ease. Not really. The message haunted me. Drive safe. It wasn’t a threat, but it was worse somehow—it was a reminder that they were always there, always watching, and that no matter where I went, I wasn’t beyond their reach.

I pulled into my driveway, parking quickly and rushing inside, locking the door behind me the second I stepped through. I leaned against it, breathing hard, my mind still reeling. I checked the windows, turned on every light, but no amount of reassurance could stop the cold knot of fear tightening in my chest.

I glanced at my phone one last time, the screen still glowing with the words that had shaken me to my core. Drive safe.

For the first time, I realized that safety was no longer something I could take for granted. Not anymore. Whoever this was—they weren’t done. And I had no idea what they were planning next.

It was the beginning of fall, and Mar's friends always suggested going to amusement parks. Dread Fair was full of rides, games, and minor attractions. Though she did not want to go, she rarely saw her companions these days.

Mar agreed to meet them, but something seemed off about the park upon her arrival. It was in a sorry state; the rides were rusty and worn. The game stalls were abandoned, and the prizes hanging showed signs of deterioration and discoloration.

Taking out her phone, she sent a text message to the group chat.

Where are you?

We are here.

If you are, then where are you?

We have always been here. Or have you already forgotten?

Mar looked over her shoulder and paled as three silhouettes closed in on her from the distance. The figures swayed as they walked. She watched as pieces of them began falling off their bodies, hitting the ground with a sick thud.

Why were they in such a horrible state? She didn't remember them looking like this, and no matter how many times she opened and closed them, their bodies were still walking corpses.

Then, it came to her as if in slow motion.

Mar should have gone to that haunted attraction with them. At least then, she would not have had to live with the fact that her friends were no longer with her.

That was right, her friends were dead.

On that night, there was a wanted serial killer on the loose who had been hiding in the haunted house, lying in wait for victims to come inside. Her friends were his unlucky victims that day.

Mar wished she could have seen them one last time before their murder.

Mar wishes she had suffered the same fate. Her friends were here now, though; the best thing she could do was join them. It took a lot of courage to come back here, and she spent much time thinking about how she would do this.

Mar had finally settled on a way and made peace with her family.

Looking at them, she smiled and closed her eyes. Mar felt almost weightless, as if she could fly. Mar walked up to them, tears in the corners of her eyes. Grasping a bony hand in hers, she looked at each of them. "I'm sorry that I made you wait," she apologized.

"So what should we do first?" Mar asked as she walked with the three of them; she looked over her shoulder at a dangling figure from a nearby tree. Mar knew precisely who it was; she didn't need to ask.

All that mattered right now was that she was finally with her friends.

A few months later, a search team went to Dread Fair Amusement Park. This was the last place anyone had thought to look for a missing person. Considering the time, they may have been looking for a body instead.

They were right to think so and were very close to finding Mar.

Or at least what's left.

So very close.