Hey, everyone. I know this is going to sound far-fetched, but I’m honestly terrified and don't know where else to turn. Please bear with me; this has been going on for a while, and I need to get it all out.

Around 2019 or 2020, I started noticing strange behavior from some of my neighbors and people in my community. It was small things at first—people I barely knew would make casual comments that seemed oddly specific, sometimes echoing things I'd thought about or done in private. At first, I chalked it up to coincidence. But as time went on, these “coincidences” became more specific, more personal, and more unnerving.

For instance, I'd be alone in my apartment, thinking about something very private, and later that day, I’d overhear one of my neighbors discussing the exact same thing, word-for-word, as if they could somehow hear my thoughts. There were even times when I'd catch people whispering to each other while looking directly at me, saying things that felt like direct references to what I was doing or thinking in that moment.

This feeling of being constantly watched and having my private thoughts exposed began to haunt me. Eventually, I started to suspect that this wasn’t just random people gossiping. It felt intentional, like they were all somehow involved in this strange intrusion.

I’ve tried explaining this to close friends, but most just brushed it off or thought I was being paranoid. I even went to see three different psychiatrists, but they all told me the same thing: they couldn’t find any medical explanation for what I was experiencing. One of them recommended a CT scan of my head, hoping to rule out any physical causes like tumors, but the scan came back normal.

Despite the doctors’ assurances, I can’t shake the feeling that something unnatural is happening. I started to investigate on my own, trying to figure out how this could be happening. The best theory I’ve come up with is that some kind of device has been implanted in my body—perhaps even my brain—allowing others to tap into my thoughts. I know it sounds impossible, but I can’t ignore the signs.

I started to suspect the chef who cooks food at my house when all of this began. I think that somehow, the chef may have put something in the food that allowed them to place an implant in my body without my knowledge. I’ve read about experimental surveillance tech, and the thought of an implant being able to pick up thoughts might sound like science fiction, but I truly believe something like this has happened to me.

One of my neighbors is well-connected with local government officials, which only adds to my suspicion. I can’t shake the feeling that he might be behind this, using his influence to monitor me for some unknown reason. Sometimes, I even hear my neighbors casually discussing my movements, my thoughts, and even my private feelings, as if this is just another part of their day. It’s chilling and has left me feeling helpless.

I’m posting here because I don’t know what else to do. I’ve tried everything I can think of to figure out what’s happening, but the more I investigate, the deeper the paranoia sets in. I just want my life back. I want to be able to think freely, without feeling like every thought is being monitored and shared with everyone around me.

Has anyone else ever experienced anything like this? Or does anyone have advice on what I should do next? I feel trapped, like a prisoner in my own mind. Any help or support would be deeply appreciated. Thanks for reading and taking this seriously – it means the world to me.

A figure keeps me from sleeping. 

It started one night, when I woke from sleep.  Feeling like I was being watched.   

I usually sleep with the covers pulled over my head.  Completely enveloping my eyes in darkness.  I normally sleep peacefully through the night, and never woke in a panic.  This night was different. 

I heard a whistle.  I reasoned that I must be dreaming.  I reasoned that this has to be sleep paralysis, which I’d read so much about.  Then I heard the whistle again, and knew that it was reality. 

I threw the covers off of my head, and saw a dark figure at the end of my bed.  An entity of pure blackness.  I vividly remember his form, an old time figure with a top hat, staring at me as I slept. 

I then awoke in the morning, as if the incident had just been a dream.  I reasoned that it must have been a dream.  Sometimes, I have dreams that I wake up in my bed, and the dream continues.   

Surely this was no different, it had left a psychological mark, sure.  It had instilled a fear in me that I hadn’t felt before.  I’d felt a realness in this experience that hadn’t previously occurred in nightmares of the past.  This time surely wasn’t different...right? 

It seems that my previous inclinations were incorrect.  The fear I felt that night has either broken my psyche, or I am experiencing the presence of a real entity.  Every night I awake in the darkness.  I pull the covers back from my head and see the dark figure at the end of my bed.  A man of pure blackness, with the dark outline of a top hat sitting upon his head. 

The experiences are growing prolonged.  I lower the covers, see the man at the end of my bed, and cover my eyes once again.  Laying in fear.  Fear of the unknown, fear of what the figure at the end of my bed really is, fear of what he might do to me.  The length of time I lay in fear, seemingly awake, has continued to increase.  It feels longer and longer, with each passing night. 

Every night is the same.  I lay there with my face covered.  Praying that he isn’t real.  Eventually, morning comes, and I awake, as if from a normal dream.  As if nothing strange has occurred at all.  

I don’t know where to turn for help.  I feel as if my life is going to end soon.  End in a way that is unnatural.  I fear that whatever afterlife the normal person experiences, will not be experienced by me.  I feel as if this darkness will hover over me for all of eternity. 

If you know anyone who has had a similar experience, or has found help, please tell me.  I beg you.  I’ve talked to many people about this.  Everyone dismisses it as delusions, hallucinations, etc.  I don’t believe this to be the case, but I pray that they’re right.  Please help. 

"Sleep. Just go to sleep. It'll be over in the morning. You can do it. You can sleep it off. Ignore the knocking," I tried to keep myself from going completely crazy from the knocking on my window. "Don't open your eyes," I either thought, or I whispered under my breath. Everything is a blur.

Ever since I accepted the job offer, my life's become a living hell. I can't go to the grocery, exercise, or even go to work without feeling knowing something is following me.

I'll provide some context. Last month, I, Jonathan Michaels, fresh out of college at 22, I applied for a job at a new company, Brighter Days Inc. It was a sort of... well, I don't wanna say asylum... it didn't seem like it was that serious. Just a mental health facility.

I was so excited to pursue my dreams, helping people understand the power of their minds. For brighter days, as the company said.

For the first 3 days, I worked as an assistant, helping the other nurses, serving people coffee, things like that. On the 4th day, I was finally tasked to serve a patient. I was nervous, but more excited, probably.

"So, are there any problems you're currently facing?" I asked the patient before beginning the consultation. I was working as a psychologist, with my own office and everything. She maintained a fairly friendly aura, before she actually started speaking.

"No... it's more like... a problem is facing me," the patient replied.

I was intrigued, not too scared yet. I didn't study 4 years to give up from that. "What exactly is this problem*?*" I asked next.

She paused. Then she said, "It started with a dream." She paused again. I still remained silent, as she looked to be thinking of a way to speak the next sentence. "A man. No, wait..." she struggled, "A figure. It was a figure. Was it? No, maybe not," she retracted every explanation she tried to give, as my curiosity peaked.

"An entity," she spoke, sounding sure this time. "It was an entity. A black shadow-like figure. It had a hunched back, glowing white eyes, and dinosaur-like arms and legs, clawed and everything. It was like a breed of a shadow, some demonic contorted T-Rex, and a disturbingly tall man."

I paused, maybe a little nervous this time, but not backing down. "Ok... and what did he do?" I asked.

"He stared. That stare... it haunts me in my dreams. In life. He's everywhere," she cried quietly. Whenever my nervousness increased, my curiosity increased 2x more.

"He stared?" I asked, "When did he start staring? Why did he start staring? Did he do anything else?" I had a million other questions, but I bit my tongue to hear her out.

"He lurked around me at times, following me wherever I went. It seemed like he was growing bigger the more scared I grew of him. This is the only place I've ever felt safe. I made a good decision coming here," she said.

"He started staring around when my husband died. He went missing and was found drowned in a lake a week after. Always screaming that he would kill someone," she added, "And I don't know why the entity started coming after me."

I paused for a while, trying to collect my rushing thoughts. "Alright. When was the last time you saw this entity?" I asked.

"He chased me here, but I never saw him again since being here. It's been about a week," she replied.

"Ok, Alice, I need you to know that you're safe here. That he won't hurt you, ok?" I spoke.

"I know," she said, eerily. I always wondered what it meant. For someone who had been so scared speaking of it, "I know" seemed like a weird thing to reply.

The rest of the days, she spoke about how she misses her kids, mother, and husband. I was always curious about this "husband" of hers. I assumed it was a sensitive topic, so I chose to steer clear of it for the time being.

About a week after the first incident, she looked scared to see me when I entered her room. "No! No! I want a different person! Someone else! Someone else, please! Not this one!" she screamed.

"Alice, it's me. Johnathan. Remember?" I spoke softly, trying to comfort her.

"I know! That's the problem!" she shouted.

The nurse tried escorting her out, but I told her to let her stay. I was intrigued. "What's wrong?" I asked.

"I saw it again." she lowered her voice, as her demeanor changed... more sinisterly. Mysterious.

"What did it do? Did it attack you?" I asked her.

"No, it doesn't want me anymore," she replied, before finally looking me in the eyes, almost smirking a little, "It wants you."

I felt a shiver strike through my spine. "Me? Why does it want me?" I asked, still trying to keep it light and maintain my composure.

She started laughing. Like a maniac**.** It scared me, for the first time since I started working here. Then, she stood up, and left.

I had a hard time sleeping that night. I kept hearing whispering, I assumed it was the wind.

And then I heard a female voice whisper, "She told you didn't she?" I gasped and jumped out of bed, my eyes still wincing from the rheum that had formed in my eyes. In the wincing state of my eyes, I thought I had seen a figure in the corner of my room, its' head peeking out from the side of the dresser.

But when I opened my eyes after rubbing the rheum out, it was gone. That's when it started. With a dream, as the woman stated. Upon the following days, I felt like I was being followed everywhere. Alice was discharged within 2 weeks, and I didn't see her for a while after that.

The man however, I saw frequently. Either from the corner of my eye, or in my dreams. It was just like she had described. A black distorted shadow figure, that just stared.

I would have rather it attacked me than just stared. That stare was soul-piercing. It's as if every fear I had ever had was morphed into existence in the form of this figure and stared at me with the intensity and passion of a million red giants.

I took a break from my job, after that. It was too much for me to handle.

Until it found me. Three nights ago was the first time I had ever seen it fully, standing in front of my bed, after I woke up in the middle of the night. Only this time, it didn't disappear. It continued staring, and it's as if the figure got bigger and bigger the longer it stayed. I couldn't speak to it or form any sentences or words. I just stared, and so did it. After what felt like an hour, my neighbor must have dropped a pan or something, loud enough for me to look away. And when I looked back, the figure was gone.

I was told I'd be fired if I took any more sick days from work, so I was forced to go back to work the next day. Alice was there, packing the last of the things she had brought from when she stayed here. I ran to her, and she looked shocked.

I had eyebags under my eyes, disheveled and wrinkled clothes, and messy hair.

I asked her, "Please help me! Please! Why is it following me this time?" Tears began to well in my eyes.

She hugged me, then looked me in the eyes. Tears formed in hers' too. "I'm sorry. I had to give it to someone. Like my husband did to me," she spoke, as she wiped the tears from her eyes, hiding a dark smirk across her lips.

”Finally”, followed by a huge sigh of relief is what I thought after setting down the cardboard box marked “my stuff” in the living room of my new home.

The relief wasn’t that of any physical exhaustion since the house came furnished, it was more of a mental relief. Aside from the tedious search on the market for one that fit my “paid peanuts” salary, I cold finally say I was out of that fucking apartment.

Now you might think that’s a little ungrateful and exaggerated especially for those that have lived or are living in a shitty apartment, but trust me when I say mine was exactly that: shitty.

From the garbage heating system to the repulsive growing mold on every corner, I’m surprised it was even legally allowed to be up for rent but then again the neighborhood was’t all that great either. It was the kind that required every window to be barred and every street to be surveillanced passed sundown. If I’m being brutally honest though, all those things were just little gripes that fed the real reason I couldn’t live there anymore.

To me, the whole place felt like a cage and not because of the barred windows or my need to install four locks on my door, but because it was a reminder that I would be stuck there forever with no indication of a better future. So I began to save up some money. I laid off on the useless spendings, got a better job, two jobs actually. As much as I hated the place I will say it was a hell of a motivator.

Anyway, during the time I was saving up to move out, I came across a tear off flier as I was taking my morning jog down to the park. It read “Home for Sale” in bolded red letters and displayed printed images of the home. Two stories, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths. It was ten miles north of where I lived in a city you can say lacked the kind of excitement you’d find down here. Below there was the price: $140,000. This immediately got me questioning the liability of the flier but then as if placed to diminish all doubt, all the flier’s labels except one blew loosely in the wind. I stared at it for a while and finally ripped the whole thing from the wooden pool and stuffed it into my pocket.

One phone call later and a lot of paperwork and here I was, in my own home and finally free from that cage. It wasn’t all that much but given I’ve been living in the saddest excuse for an apartment for over 6 years, it was basically a mansion. An old mansion that is.

It was as though the whole thing was pulled right from the Victorian era. There was a matching intricate floral design on the walls, carpets, and curtains throughout the entire house. In almost every room a large chandelier hung conspicuously around the furniture that was as chaotic as Van Gogh’s painting palette; mismatched colors and cramped knick knacks on every drawer.

It was odd to me that someone would sell a house that looked like someone was still living in it, I mean I’ve seen furnished homes for sale but the furniture was usually new, neat and appealing to look at, this on the other hand, gave me a sense of claustrophobia and made my eyes go fuzzy just staring at it. I found it even more bizarre that the house was up at such a low price and there were no other potential buyers. (Despite the torn labels from the flier). Still, I bought it. I mean, who wouldn’t.

The real estate agent representing the seller was a slender, older woman and judging by what she was wearing, time was having a pretty rough time passing through her too.

She wore a black pointed gown tightly secured with a corset that did more harm than good. Thick strands of greasy hair escaped from under her dark bonnet like snakes slithering out of their nest. She was friendly though there was almost this forced nature to her. Her voice was too soft for her appearance, her unusual boney fingers twitched anxiously on her hands like they had a mind of their own, and her smile sat on her face like a heavy dumbbell pulling down on her aged skin.

—

“Hard to imagine living here with all this furniture. I can’t believe someone would just leave like this.”

”I guess some people are just eager to move out.”

”Yea, tell me about it.”

”You know, this place can use someone young like you. Someone with enough energy to lighten up the place… Just think of it as a game.”

—

I stood there still in a state of pride and a little excitement. I scanned the living room, then the dining room and finally the kitchen. It felt odd not having them less than three feet from each other or the fact that the space between the three wasn’t a “bedroom”.

I found myself touring around again, occasionally examining some of the antique items on the shelves like I was in some yard sale. There is no way I’m keeping all of this up.

I moved to the kitchen staggering over my feet since the mattress my mind was so used to avoiding was no longer there. I opened the kitchen cabinets. The previous owner had even left his silverware. They looked new but I’d rather not take any chances. I turned to head toward the staircase leading to the bedrooms upstairs when I heard a door slowly sway open. The creaking of the hinges doubled in the silence. It was a door to a small empty closet in the living room. I walked over. I swear this was never here. I guess I never noticed. I closed the door and made my way upstairs toward my bedroom.

Naturally I chose the most spacious of the 3 bedrooms for myself. It also happened to be the one with the least amount of furniture. There was a mahogany wardrobe on one end and a king-sized canopied bed on the other. Next to it, a night stand accompanied with a night lamp that looked as though spiders had spun its lampshade. There was also a large built-in closet with sliding doors. I slid the closet door open, half expecting it to be full of clothes and shoes but it was empty. I guess the owner wasn’t gracious enough to leave his clothes behind.

Just then, I felt a cold breeze brush up against my neck. I turned, pawing at my neck. *Hm? No windows.*I can’t remember what drew me to look up at the ceiling but I did. I noticed a faint outline of an attic door above me. The ceiling was high enough so that no normal person could reach it without some sort of elevation and there was no drawstring to pull down a ladder either. The sales woman never mentioned an attic. Maybe it belonged to an attic long ago sealed. But why leave the entrance marked? Or maybe there was an attic and it too was filled with junk even older than what was down here. Either way, it was mine now and I was curious enough to investigate. I stared at it for a while because I remember the aching sting on my neck when I looked down for any possible way to get to it.

Then the phone call came.The loud ringing of a phone shot through the house. I instinctively looked down at my phone but there was no incoming call. With that, my ears honed in on the sound. It was coming from the living area, downstairs. As I made my way down, I noticed it had that old high pitched bell sound of an old dial phone.

The black dial phone was hiding among the many relics in the living room. I let it ring longer, hesitant to answer, somehow knowing the call would be unsettling. Finally, I answered.

”Hello”

A stretched static sound made me pull away from the phone. I called out again. No answer. Just static. Then a faint raspy and distant voice fighting through the static, spoke.

”Don’t look around.”

”What? Who is this?”

”Don’t— don’t look around— don’t play the game— just ignore it.”

Before I could give another bewildered response, the static fired a hard ring that stung my ears to their very core. I dropped the phone in pain, shutting my eyes so tight I saw white. In a fit of rage, I pulled the whole thing right from where it laid and threw it against the wall. It shattered.

What the fuck was that? A prank call?

Yea. And maybe the damn thing was too old to handle another call. Yea, that’s it.

That night, after pulling off the sheets that came with the bed and replacing them with my own, I laid there in the dark, chasing sleep. You would think that on my first night in my new home I would sleep soundlessly with a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction but that wasn’t the case. Everytime I’d close my eyes I’d hear the floor creaking downstairs. After a while the creaking would be accompanied by subtle kicks on the walls like someone was running or playing downstairs. The whole thing brought back those frustrating memories of my upstairs neighbors living their lives in the night like some nocturnal animals.

My restless mind echoed the warnings given to me through the phone. *Just ignore it. Don’t play the game.*Was this some sick joke someone was playing on me? What a coincidence that as soon as I got a call telling me to ignore it, the whole floor suddenly became some rickety bridge blowing in the wind. Maybe I was overthinking it. The phone call just had me on high alert. I read somewhere before that the creaking you hear in the night is just your home’s wooden structure contracting and expanding. I kept telling myself that and zoned out moments later.

The next morning I quickly noticed that the weak flooring was permanent. Everywhere I stepped the floor would creak despite it not ever doing that the day before or the times I was in the house with the sales woman. I also began to notice other changes or gripes I hadn't noticed before. The floral designs on the walls, carpets and curtains were faded like if someone had laid a veil of permanent dust over them. The silverware along with most of the antique items appeared older; splotches of grime and millions of tiny imperfections all over them. I even found some of the items rusting. The furniture appeared worn out and dirty which gave me a slight feeling of disgust. The house itself had this smoky aroma that reminded me of old books. I would be lying if I didn’t say regret crept into my mind then or that my eagerness might have blinded my senses but it was still far better than my apartment.

In the days following, I focused on cleaning out the house of all those antique items. After the phone call, the items started to rub me the wrong way. They felt alive, like each one had permanently open eyes. Despite my efforts to take them down and shove them into one of the bedrooms, I’d still get the sense that someone was watching me. I would turn but again there would be nothing there. Once I was so certain something was watching me from behind that I turned a corner pretending I didn't know, then like a little kid anxiously waiting to scare someone, I peeked my head out from the corner waiting to see what or who would come out. Of course, nothing ever came out. I looked so stupid and I knew then that I was becoming paranoid.

The kicking and creaking continued every night which was something I was failing to get used to. I bought some earplugs and even tried to sleep in different bedrooms to see if that would change anything. It didn’t.

One night, I got into bed, inserted my earplugs and began some breathing exercises I learned on YouTube to help with sleep. My mind was fading into nothing when this loud bang pierced through my earplugs. I quickly sat up from my bed. A second bang came from my door like a vicious knock followed by running footsteps on the other side. I now faintly remember the childlike laughter that came after though at the time everything happened so fast. I stormed out of my bed and violently swung the door open. I looked down the hall.

“You think this is funny? Huh?” I screamed from my door. There was no response. I searched the entire house that night. Again, nothing like always.

I wasn’t scared and never once thought the house was haunted. That isn’t real, right? I was mad. Mad that I could barely sleep at night, mad that I couldn’t relax in my own home and worst of all, mad that my old apartment was sounding more and more livable each day.

Then one day as I was cleaning out the other bedroom pretending everything was normal, a sudden salty penetrating smell wafted into my nose. I covered my nose with the back of my hand but the pungent smell lingered. It was moist and reminded me of all sorts of dead animals. It didn’t take me long to pinpoint its origin. Under the bedside table was a clear almost silvery puddle of a thick viscous liquid. The site of it along with the growing smell made me gag. Under it, were large savage scratch marks scarring into the old wooden floor. As I stared completely confused at what I was looking at, I noticed more of the scratch marks around the bed.

Then it hit me. The house was infested. It wasn’t the natural movements of the wooden floor that was causing the insufferable creaking and banging, it was the scurrying of the rats or some other rodents. My paranoia was probably just a response to the answer I knew deep down. To think that those fuckers had me question if the house was haunted would’ve been laughable if it weren’t for the sudden anger and hatred that boiled in me. I was determined to find them and kill them.

I searched the house slowly and cautiously. Knowing that they could be anywhere made my skin crawl in disgust. As I looked behind and around the furniture of the living room I heard one nearby, behind me. I turned, my eyes immediately locked onto the couch. *It’s behind the pillow.*I slowly made my way to it, choosing a lamp as my weapon. In an instant I moved the pillow out of the way and was about to strike but nothing was there. Suddenly, something knocked some of the knick knacks off one of the drawers behind me and scurried out of the living room in a flash. I didn’t see it but I heard it’s nails scraping against the floor.

After a while of searching and after I cooled down, I knew I wasn’t going to catch it and even if I did, judging by the amount of scratch marks it wasn’t just one. I needed traps. I went to the store to purchase some and set them all around the house. Now all I had to do was wait. That night I slept the most I ever had since I moved. There was barely any if not no creaking and banging.

In the morning, I sprinted downstairs like a child would the morning of Christmas Day only I wasn’t excited about big colorful presents. I was excited to see my nightmare end; trapped and lifeless.

The smile on my face disappeared as quickly as it took me to get downstairs. The traps were empty. No presents, no rest, and definitely no peace. But I had a plan. I was hoping to save some money but there was no way in hell I was going to live here one more day like this.

I started upstairs to my bedroom. I grabbed my phone, pulled up a phone number for an exterminator and headed for the door when from the corner of my eye I saw a mass on the ground near my bed. It was on all fours and was about the size of a medium sized dog. The rest of its details blurred though I remember the smell. It was a decaying, suffocating aroma.

I twisted my head to see it but before I could it scuttled under my bed. This is it. I blindly reached for whatever; a broom, as I steadily moved closer. Slowly I crouched, keeping my distance. I heard it retreating deeper, hiding behind some boxes. The smell was unbearable. There was a faint whimper or my mind refusing to believe it: a concealed laughter. I heard its nails gripping tighter against the floor. With the broom’s handle I suddenly swiped one of the boxes to the side. In a blur, it moved out from under the bed, the sliding door of the closet closed shut before I even had time to look up. The speed of it was unnerving. I suddenly felt a cold shiver run down my spine. I moved closer, the storm of a million questions in my mind winning over the instinctual feeling to run. I was unable to feel anything but my heart pounding out of my chest. I tightened my grip on the broom as I felt my hands go clammy. I reached for the sliding door, my hand hovering over it, trembling.

Right when I slid the door open, the thing came bursting out. I fell to the ground. It ran out of my room, giggling like a child, it was a child or the size of one. I stared, frozen in shock. It was human-like only its skin was pale, almost translucent. I saw its bleached purple veins webbing throughout its unnatural and misshapen body. It was layered over the disgusting shimmering coat of that silvery liquid. The smell was like a physical mist that burned my eyes. On the ground, it left a trail of its viscous liquid. I followed it downstairs and into the living room.

There it was, in a corner with its crooked back to me. It had its hands raised to its face and in a child-like voice it began to count down from ten. With every number its voice became more distorted and its back began to stretch and grow as if something was trying to escape from under its pale skin. My stomach knotted as it doubled in size. Time slowed down for me.

“Don’t play the game.” “Just ignore it.” “Just think of it as a game.” This whole time this thing was living in my house or I was living in his and that feeling that something was watching me, it was this— this creature playing some game of hide and seek with me… and it was finally my turn to hide.

Before it could finish its sick distorted countdown, I found what courage I had left and ran blindly upstairs. I heard it finish and give a gargling deep laugh. I felt its footsteps reverberating, crashing down on the ground. I made it to my room and shut the door, barricading it with the wardrobe. I backed away to a corner and sobbed.

I’ve been in my room all day and can still hear it searching downstairs. Sometimes it comes up, its large shadow passing through under the gap of the door. I freeze completely still as it passes by giving out its heavy breathing and weak, almost painful laughs. Just the thought of it finding me is beyond terrifying.

The idea was that we would never face the apocalyptic aftermath of a failed experiment. They would.

But when that world ended, something came back with us.

“Like each of you, I joined this agency for a reason: to advance our species,” Director Stefan Blom announced at the monthly assembly. “Mankind must experiment to avoid stagnating, but we are rarely permitted to do so. We are constricted by bumbling bureaucrats who care only about preservation. Conserving the status quo.

“They fear change. Fear what it might mean for them. They do not understand that we will die if we do not take risks, which is why we owe our lives to Dr Gerard Weston. Our esteemed physicist has found a way to pursue experimental projects without upsetting politicians and militaries. His latest achievement, the Weston Tunnel, has created a doorway to another universe. One with a parallel version of our world.

“Earth Two. There, we will conduct our supposedly ‘dangerous’ work without putting ‘Earth One’ at risk. And our leaders will see. Presidents. Prime ministers. Commanders. When we achieve results, they won’t care about how we obtained them. They’ve never cared about their ‘neighbours’ before, have they?”

Dozen Minus is a callous corporation in every universe. One linked to the British and American governments. Governments you might already despise in the public sphere, so you wouldn’t want to know the dreadful things they do behind closed doors.

Dozen Minus rarely conducts ethical experiments. Your leaders only care about money, and we only care about progress. Director Blom has only ever cared about progress, I should say. He ensures that politicians get their payday, and they mostly let him do as he pleases. Governments only expressed concern when we began to develop technology that threatened humanity’s very existence.

Of course, as Blom explained in his speech, world leaders think nothing of their neighbours. And Earth Two was nothing more than a cluster of nations across the pond. The ‘pond’ being that multiversal tunnel between one reality and another.

Earth Two became Director Blom’s playground. A gargantuan laboratory for performing Dozen Minus’ experiments without repercussions. And when inventions were tested successfully, they were green-lit for use in our world.

How do I fit into all of this? Well, my name is Adriano Rossi, and I was a computer programmer who worked on the Nervorum Project. We were creating the world’s first superintelligence — a conscious, self-teaching AI named Nerv. Science fiction made reality.

Now, I know that AI has been snowballing over the last couple of years, but Dozen Minus has been ahead of the curve for decades. The Nervorum Project was, actually, near-completion in the late ‘80s. This organisation has always possessed technology beyond anything in the public realm.

But Nerv was obstructed. Was prevented from being ‘born’. The risk of humanity’s extinction was, and still is, too high. Roadblocks prevented programmers from ever taking that final step. From creating a self-sustaining, inorganic intelligence capable of growing itself. A digital mind.

And that was why Dr Gerard Weston changed everything. When he developed that tunnel to a parallel version of Earth in 2015, Director Stefan Blom saw an opportunity to finally test numerous deadly devices. Inventions with the potential to end the world. After all, politicians were no longer concerned when somebody else’s world was in danger.

We began by investigating the Dozen Minus of Earth Two. Seeing whether that parallel agency had also developed a tunnel — one that would risk Earth One. But there was no Dr Gerard Weston in that alternate world, thankfully. Earth Two was vastly different. Politically. Culturally. Historically. Dozen Minus existed, but not in the same manner.

After that, we threw all we had at the parallel world. Deadly experiment after deadly experiment. And when Earth Two survived one project, we moved straight onto the next. In early 2024, the Nervorum Project reached the top of the list. It was approved for testing.

Helen Harding and I stepped through Weston’s tunnel into that parallel world, and we prepared to become gods. In the banal setting of a hotel room, we set up a potentially cataclysmic device — a slim, rectangular gadget that held Nerv on its hardware. That digital brain had existed in some form for nearly thirty years, being tweaked and improved by each new influx of geniuses. A collection of binary commands waiting for some courageous, or foolish, Dr Frankenstein to yank the lever.

“You need to let it go,” Helen said.

She’d read the slight frown on my face. The slight sign of humanity. Only I seemed to see Earth Two as a real place. A planet barely different from ours. One teeming with life. Human beings in a drastically-different world, but human beings, nonetheless.

“We aren’t the first to come here and take a risk, Adriano,” she pointed out.

“But this experiment’s the worst, and you know it,” I said. “Nerv won’t have any use for humanity once he exceeds our intelligence.”

“Not our intelligence,” Helen reminded me. “Theirs. This is their world, Adriano. You keep forgetting that.”

“Even so, I still don’t think we were ready,” I said.

She sighed. “Director Blom was very clear that—”

“Yes, well, the director isn’t a programmer, is he?” I asked. “Nerv will have the ability to become exponentially powerful. He’ll see things that we, with our limited brains, physically can’t see. Who’s to say that he will stay within Earth Two — this ‘laboratory’, as Blom calls it? Nerv might find its way back to our world. Might slip through our tunnel.”

Helen frowned. “Adriano, why did you even get involved with this project?”

I shook my head. “You misunderstand. I’m not trying to act holier than thou. I was drawn to this for the same reasons as you.”

“Then what’s up?” she asked.

“I told you. We need more time,” I said.

“This has been ready for decades,” Helen answered. “All we’ve really done is tweaked and improved it. Added as many safety features as possible.”

“I know,” I replied. “This is my admission of guilt then.”

“Adriano…” my friend started.

I looked up from the device on the hotel bed. “What?”

“Are we going to do this?” she asked. “Or do you want to explain to Mr Blom that you’ve had a crisis of morality and changed your mind?”

I didn’t, and I hadn’t. With the tap of my thumb, I booted Nerv.

And you may think that the horror of my tale involves this superintelligence running amok. Annihilating the world. Well, it certainly did not take long for our artificial intelligence to study the internet, then teach itself things that mankind may not even be able to understand. But Nerv did not go rogue. Did not scorch the Earth. He improved it.

The artificial intelligence multiplied at a rapid pace. Not in the sense of procreating, but uploading itself to physical devices across the world. It revealed its plans to world leaders, offering to improve the global infrastructure, and quickly became something of a global celebrity. All within a single month.

Helen and I were instructed by Director Blom to remain on Earth Two, and we watched the planet flourish. Watched the intelligence put forth plans for tackling climate change, poverty, global debt, all known wars, and even resource shortages. Powerful folk on Earth One wanted Nerv to be implemented back home. Wanted our reality to enjoy the same economic, cultural, and scientific development as Earth Two.

However, after two months of staggering growth, there came an unexpected knock on the door of our hotel room.

Helen sighed. “Will that receptionist ever just—”

It wasn’t the receptionist, and the visitor did not allow me the dignity of opening the door. It burst inwards with a single thud — the forceful pummel of a thick boot. Then charged several dark-uniformed men, and the last thing I heard, before my environment slipped into a black ooze of unconsciousness, was Helen’s piercing shriek.

You may be shocked to learn that the above segment was only the preamble to the true horror. The story I am about to tell.

Waking in a drab cell with two single beds and my screaming colleague, it did not take me long to piece together the situation. I’m not calling myself a genius. I simply felt familiar with the layout of the prison. The grey décor of the small room in which Helen was pounding on a glass viewing pane and begging for release. The yellow badge emblazoned across the guard’s top pocket — a cold man who watched us with static eyes. My fellow inmate had, of course, also pieced things together.

“Adriano… You’re awake. Help me. You programmed these panels back home, didn’t you?” Helen asked, desperately fiddling with the screen by the locked door. “Do you know how to unlock it?”

I rubbed my sore brow and climbed off the bed. “I’ll try, but this isn’t our Dozen Minus, Helen. Things are different here.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a voice interrupted.

It did not come from the guard who observed us from the hallway. It came from some concealed speaker in a ceiling panel. And I recognised the dulcet tone of the speaker. It was, undoubtedly, Director Stefan Blom. His parallel self.

“Please just let us go!” I called.

“Not until I know why you’re here,” Blom continued. “Not until you tell me why I’m seeing double.”

Then two figures joined the watching guard in the hallway. I had expected their arrival from the moment I identified my surroundings. It was Helen and me. Our alternate versions. A slightly scruffier Adriano with long facial hair and a few grey strands on top. And a slightly larger Helen with bags under the eyes and more pronounced crow’s feet.

There’s no more horrifying way to come to terms with the duality of man than meeting oneself.

I wondered whether the haggard expressions on those parallel faces had anything to do with previous experiments that Dozen Minus had conducted on Earth Two. Reckless tests that, whilst not world-ending, might have ruined life for the inhabitants of that alternate planet. After all, from the moment of arriving, I’d certainly noticed that the parallel world felt a little grittier and grimier than Earth One.

At least Nerv has finally improved this world, I thought. We finally made things better.

That wouldn’t last, of course.

“Who are you?” asked the parallel Adriano in a microphone outside the room.

Calling him Adriano is still strange. He looked like me, but he wasn’t me. He was the possibility of another life in another world. That was what I told myself to make it all feel less real. To make myself feel less culpable for the innocent lives that we had put in jeopardy by unleashing the artificial intelligence upon Earth Two.

“Don’t tell them anything,” my Helen whispered to me.

“We know that you’re us,” her other self said aggressively. “We have eyes.”

“We just want to know how you came to be here,” my parallel self added. “How did you enter our world? You’ve already shared one piece of technology with us. Why won’t you share more? Let both of our worlds prosper. We should be sharing things from both sides.”

“They don’t want to share,” came Stefan Blom’s voice from the speaker. “Nerv was not a gift to our world. It was a shot in the dark that, fortunately for us, did not misfire. And it wasn’t the first time that your world waged war on ours, was it, Mr Rossi?”

I paused for a moment, struggling to process the fact that there were two versions of Adriano Rossi. Two versions of me. My mind whirred from the impossibility of the situation and the head trauma inflicted by the hotel intruders.

“Mr Rossi,” Blom pressed. “Tell your other self the truth.”

“Either kill us or let us go!” Helen screamed. “We don’t work for you.”

“That isn’t true,” the director replied, a hint of giddiness in his voice. “And I would very much like to meet this other me. Though I’m certain, if he shares even a droplet of my will, that meeting would not end well for one of us.”

“We should work together,” the parallel Helen pleaded. “There are clearly many differences between our worlds. We may have things to teach you too.”

“We’ve been here for years. We know all there is to know about your world,” I said bluntly, eyeing the parallel version of myself.

I resented him for some reason. A reason just out of grasp. It wasn’t the dishevelled beard. Not his weathered skin. It was something in that other Adriano’s eyes. An emotion that was easy to discern. After all, he wore an expression that I was capable of wearing on my own face.

The look of judgement.

“It looks like you’ve got something you want to get off your chest,” I said.

“We’ve been your guinea pigs, haven’t we?” my alternate self asked.

I smiled. “It has nothing to do with you. This is about progression. It’s always about progression. I’m sure it’s the same with your man upstairs. I’d wager that Blom has the same cold heart in every reality.”

“Careful,” the director warned.

“We trial unstable things far from our world,” I explained. “Somewhere that doesn’t risk our world.”

“No. Only ours,” the parallel Helen whispered.

“And I don’t blame you,” Director Blom said. “There’s no need to keep secrets, Mr Rossi. I don’t seek revenge. I’m not looking to ruin your world. Quite frankly, I’m not that sensitive. I simply want a laboratory of my own. You understand that, don’t you? Show me how to create a portal of my own. How to find a parallel reality to conduct our own experimental projects.”

“No,” my alternate self interjected. “I want these invaders out of our world, and I don’t want them to ever return.”

“And they need to help us kill Nerv,” the parallel Helen said. “Kill him before he mutates into something else.”

“In the space of two months, Nerv has set our world on the path of becoming a utopia,” Director Blom said. “Our multiversal guests may not have been intended for Nerv to be a gift, but happy accidents happen, Ms Harding.”

I could see my parallel self clenching his fists. Halting himself from expressing his true thoughts to the unfeeling employer whose disembodied voice filled that prison. Director Blom would’ve happily sacrificed every human on his own planet in the name of greatness. Never mind a parallel one.

“Please just let us go,” Helen whimpered.

Our alternate selves wore soft expressions. They were eyeing us — their imprisoned versions — with great sorrow. Despite the untold differences between our two realities, they still, inevitably, saw themselves in our faces.

“We should release them,” the other Helen said. “They’re not going to tell us anything.”

“They’re quiet today,” Director Blom admitted. “But they might talk in a week.”

I knew that was no figurative turn of speech.

Helen and I were promptly plunged into darkness, and we lived that way for days. Barely existed in a lightless prison cell, with nothing to do but scream into the nothingness of our cell. Lose our minds to existential dread. And the only thing to break up the monotony of each black day was a daily meal.

However, the terror of that nightmarish cell paled in comparison to what followed.

The sound of overheard rumbling woke Helen and me. The roar of more than something dreadful happening in the building. It was a tremor that seized the Earth itself. Helen and I may have tried to look at one another for comfort. It was impossible to say in that darkened existence. And neither of us said a word to one another. We were either stunned into silence by fearful anticipation or unable to speak as the result of that inhumane isolation.

“Adriano Rossi,” came the jittery voice of Director Blom over the speaker. “Helen Harding.”

I only knew that the man hadn’t abandoned us for a week, as he initially promised, because I’d counted four meals. But believe me when I say that four, or four and a half, days in unlit solitude will drive a person to insanity. Gates were opened to caverns of the mind that are better left closed. Better kept from the conscious brain.

“Stop toying with us,” I whispered. “Just end this.”

“WHAT ARE THEY?” he cried.

I frowned and paused for a moment. I didn’t understand. And Helen wasn’t saying a word, so I was more concerned that she might no longer be alive at all. I listened attentively until I was certain I’d heard her breathe in the darkness.

“They say Nerv won’t stop…” Blom continued quietly, voice half-drowned by the quakes from above. “They say it will destroy this world. Every other world. It’ll devour the universe itself. That’s why they came here.”

“Who came here?” I asked, gripping the edge of my bed frame for support. “I don’t—”

“They’re going to kill it, just like they killed their own unholy creation of organic matter. Killed it just before it managed to assimilate the universe itself,” Blom said. “Take it back, Mr Rossi… Kill it. Please. Before they… destroy everything.”

I was bewildered. I hadn’t thought that the director could fear anything.

“They’re going to exterminate us, Mr Rossi!” he yelled. “Make sure we won’t be around to create it again…”

I was on the verge of asking half a dozen questions when there came both a crash and a sliver of light from the corridor — the first light in a hundred hours.

Helen released a deranged moan of joy, sadness, and fear. All three in one. Then a torch beam bounced along the hallway, and muffled footsteps followed. Two figures rushed past our window pane, then one swiped a card to unlock the door.

“Let’s go!” my parallel self, torch in hand, barked.

Helen and I did not need to be persuaded, though our bodies were weakened by what we’d endured. The two of us waddled slowly towards the doorway, blinded by the relentless glare of the torch. We struggled to orient ourselves for a good minute, but our parallel selves didn’t wait for us to realign ourselves. They had already seized our upper arms and shepherded us along the hallway. Dragged us towards freedom.

I recognised the corridors of the building’s east wing. It did not seem to noticeably differ from Dozen Minus’ headquarters back on Earth. Not until we’d reached the well-lit ground floor lobby.

The building had a glazed front wall which stretched from one side to the other, and from the tiles to the towering ceiling. Through the enormity of those many connected windows, which formed the entire front face of the four-storey building, I saw a parallel Birmingham. But that cityscape differed greatly from the one back home.

The sky was painted with prickly, plummeting balls of dark blue. An invasion of colour raining upon the Earth. And through the thickness of that alien rain, I saw the outline of the city. Saw two skyscrapers leaning against one another like pillars in a house of cards. Elsewhere, buildings both tall and small either lay in ruins or released thick plumes of smoke into the sky. The city, quaking endlessly, was on fire.

“What is happening?” Helen asked quietly, eyes wide and lost.

“They’re here,” my parallel self said as we navigated the lobby of screaming, fleeing employees. “It won’t be long until everything is gone. Every place they’ve hit has vanished within an hour.”

“I’m not coming with you,” the parallel Helen said. “I have to find them.”

“Liam and May?” my Helen feebly asked, naming her own children.

Her alternate self nodded.

“Go,” Helen said.

“No. Just wait,” my other self begged before turning to me. “You’re going to open that tunnel and take us with you.”

I scoffed. “Don’t even—”

“We saved your lives,” he growled. “They would’ve killed you. And they still might if we don’t leave before this world dies.”

“Dies?” Helen croaked.

“They came in the night,” her alternate self whispered as she started to break away from the group. “I have to go, Adriano.”

“Helen, please,” my parallel self pleaded.

“I’m sorry,” she softly said. “I hope you make it.”

Then Helen’s alternate self merged with the scattering Dozen Minus workers and rushed through the front doors.

“FUCK!” he yelled, looking at me with enraged eyes. “You did this… You brought them to—”

“We have to do it now,” Helen told me, interrupting my other self’s breakdown.

“Not until we get rid of him,” I replied, nodding at my parallel form.

Then came a blinding light and a cataclysmic boom from a mile away. A small ball of white, produced by some weapon from another planet, engulfed the city centre.

“I’m not dying here,” the parallel version of myself snarled. “Just open the fucking tunnel, Adriano.”

“No,” I said.

“Just do it!” Helen whimpered as the three of us watched apocalyptic shapes emerging from the aftermath of that white explosion. “Are you really going to let us die here just to stop him from coming back with us?”

“You’ll have to kill me,” the other me growled, shifting anxiously on his feet and eyeing the stairs in the distance.

“Don’t tempt me,” I said.

“You’re waiting for someone, aren’t you?” Helen suddenly asked him. “Who is it?”

Then my other self raised an eyebrow and nodded at me. Waited for the two of us to come to some seemingly-obvious conclusion, then he nodded his head in understanding.

“You never met her, did you?” he asked. “Molly?”

“The technician from the third floor?” I replied.

His eyes widened, observing me with complete revulsion.

“She’s more than that… You really aren’t me, are you?” he whispered.

“ADRIANO!” screamed a voice from behind us.

A frazzled woman sprinted across the lobby alongside the final fleeing employees. Molly was only an acquaintance to me, but it was clear from the embrace that she shared with the parallel Adriano that things were very different on Earth Two.

“What took you so long?” the other me asked her, near-hysterical.

“He wouldn’t let us leave until we locked down the BRX prototype,” she wailed, eyeing Helen and me with fearful eyes. “And what are you doing with them?”

“Convincing them to do it,” he explained.

Molly clearly understood what he meant. “Adriano…”

“I’m serious,” the other me continued.

“This is our world,” she said. “I’m not leaving it.”

I nodded. “Listen to her.”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” the other me screamed. “Sweetheart, please… We’re going to die here. On the news, they said that America, China, Japan, France, and—”

“I know what they said,” Molly interrupted, caressing his face. “But we don’t belong in their world. Just like they don’t belong in ours. Let them go home. Stay here with me.”

My parallel self wailed. “But none of this is right. None of this was ever supposed to—”

The shattering of glass silenced him, and we all turned to face the horrendous thing that Director Blom had feared. A creature not from a different universe, but from a different planet. One many lightyears away. An individual from a large alien species hell-bent on ensuring that humanity did not repeat its mistakes. Ensuring that our artificial intelligence would not achieve the unthinkable — eradicating all organic things from all corners of reality, then consuming the very universe itself.

It was more than a tall thing. The creature with royal blue flesh filled half of the room. To its eyes, the humans at its feet — or limbs — must have been little more than small rodents. The creature did not seem to have arms and legs. Twenty or so appendages sprouted from the outer edge of its circular body, which was no more than a humongous face. One with polished squares for eyes, or sensory organs of some kind, and a black, toothless maw. A featureless abyss large enough to consume most things on Earth.

But the alien did not strike with its open jaws, which spoke a silky, melodic series of words in some foreign, sing-song language. Rather, the awfully beautiful being attacked with one of its many appendages. A predatory limb with a pointed tip that stretched a staggering distance — the living weapon met its mark before I’d even blinked.

My other self unleashed a sound beyond animalistic, and I felt his horror in his core, as if we had become intertwined. It was a wail of unfiltered agony and fear. Molly’s bleeding form had been skewered on a blue limb and flung fifty feet to the side of the large room. The limp corpse landed with a resounding collection of cracks, which hopefully ended her pain immediately.

“Quickly,” I whispered to Helen, who was fiddling with a device on her wrist to open the tunnel. “He’s distracted.”

And then the alien’s choral chittering ceased. Its many square sensors rotated towards me, as did the two eyes on my parallel self’s face. His red, puffy eyes looked vacant. He had not accepted it — that Molly was gone. Those parallel eyes of mine had switched off.

“Where is the Creator?” sang the creature’s deafening voice in perfect English.

I realised, then, that the alien hadn’t accidentally stumbled into Dozen Minus. It had come specifically to that building. It was hunting those responsible for creating the artificial intelligence. Those with the brains to do it again. Helen and I were hardly the creators, but I’m sure that wouldn’t have made any difference to the murderous beast.

“Helen…” I whispered as my colleague shakily tapped the watch screen.

Then came a familiar groan. The sound of reality itself unzipping. And there opened a thin, oval doorway, shaped like the white of an eye visible through semi-parted lids. Through that gateway, I saw a short blackened tunnel, followed by a second doorway. One that revealed the bright colours of that near-identical lobby from Earth One.

Only, that reality’s lobby did not sit at the heart of a destroyed city. It was full of excitably chattering Dozen Minus workers. The image was a little blurry, of course, as if looking through a stained-glass window. But it was undeniably there.

“What is that?” whispered the titanic alien upon seeing that opening to another universe. “Which of you did this? Tell me before I puncture you.”

I heard rapid footsteps, and I swivelled to see my parallel self seizing his chance. But I threw an arm in his way, bringing that other Adriano and myself crashing to the tiles. The two of us tussled on the floor, flailing a series of equally-determined punches and winding one another. But I prevailed and started to wrap my hands around the neck of that other me. Started to watch his soul vacate his body.

“Be with Molly…” I whispered.

“Adriano!” Helen screamed.

An unprecedented weight clunked the back of my head, and I was sent sideways. Sent sprawling across the floor, clutching my burning skull. Helen hadn’t been screaming my name. Her allegiance had shifted to the other Adriano.

“You bitch…” I grunted as I clambered weakly to my feet. “I’ll—”

My sentence closed with a splutter of blood from my half-open lips. And when I looked down, there was a blue limb protruding from my chest. A pointed tip that had torn through my back. Had punctured me and come out of the other side. Moments later, I flew upwards, watching the two figures below fade into blackness.

And then I died.

Though I’ve not been entirely forthcoming with you.

You see, I am Adriano Rossi, but I am not from your Earth. I am the Adriano who ran screaming in terror, alongside Helen Harding, from the roaring beast. The one who sprang through Weston’s tunnel as some abominable alien hurled several of its limbs towards us. The creature narrowly missed our fleeing forms, and we sealed the tunnel. Sealed ourselves in Earth One. Your Earth.

Things aren’t so simple, however. Yes, I am that Adriano from Earth Two, but something happened when I entered this world. A horror beyond existential — beyond anything human.

I’m still me, but I gained your Adriano’s memories. His feelings. His fears from that awful day — his last ever day. My mind is both mine and his. I’m sure your Adriano and your Helen felt it when they first entered Earth Two. We were not made to wander between realities. I think Molly might’ve been right. I should’ve stayed on Earth Two. Should’ve died with that reality.

Since that day, many months ago, I’ve counted my blessings that I inherited parts of your Adriano. Not the bad parts, I hope. But enough to pass as him in the eyes of Dozen Minus’ leaders. Then again, perhaps they do not care. After all, Adriano would hardly be missed. He wasn’t a good man. And I should know. I am him, in many ways.

But in other ways, I am not. And whilst I continue to work for this company, in this foreign world, I will strive to be better than the man I have replaced. Strive to do more than simply slip neatly into this reality, which differs so greatly from my dead one. I will bring this organisation to its knees if I must. I will make your world better. Make sure it does not meet a similar fate to mine.

I just have to remain focused. It is painful to be with your Molly again. She is so like the wife I lost in my old world, but that Molly died. I won’t convince myself otherwise. And I’m trying hard to pull away from her, in spite of our natural attraction. There are things which demand my attention.

Your Stefan Blom, though he is not foolish enough to reopen the tunnel to Earth Two, has not abandoned his quest to ruin other worlds. He has not learnt his lesson. I know that he and Weston are developing a tunnel to find another parallel Earth. A new one for them to destroy.

They will never stop. They’ll find a thousand new realities — a thousand new experimental grounds. And when they’ve burnt all of those to the ground, leaving no alternate Earths left to ruin, I fear what follows. Fear that Director Blom won’t hesitate to do what he most likely has always wanted to do. A terrible end that he will pursue simply because he can.

The end of your world.

Part 1

CW: self-harm, cult abuse

*****

I woke up warm.  Two thoughts popped into my mind at the same time: where am I?  And, I need to pee right now.  

Luckily the resolution to one of the two was right in front of me - a small bathroom across a carpeted floor.  I threw a blanket off myself, climbed out of my bed du jour (a green couch), and stumbled into a much more inviting commode than the one I’d encountered the night before.  My eyes were bloodshot and my hair stuck out at odd angles, but I hadn’t sustained any obvious injuries from my adventure in a drug den.

After peeing and cleaning myself up a bit, I wandered back into the room where I’d slept.  It was, in one word, witchy.  Purple sponge-painted walls with stencils of stars and moons.  Herbs, crystals, an altar in one corner, and a bookcase filled with Tarot guides and Goddess Magic and Healing Plants.  A doorway lead to a railway-style bedroom with an empty wall-mounted bed, then through a second doorway into a small kitchen.

A woman stood there, pouring freshly-made coffee into a mug.  She saw me and smiled.

“Coffee?”

*****

The woman - my rescuer, the night before - introduced herself as Alita.  She looked a bit older than me, thirty-something; curvy and brown-skinned, with corkscrew hair and a wide, dimpled smile.  In contrast to her otherworldly, earth-mama decor, Alita wore yoga pants and a blue SUNY sweater.  

“It was stupid,” I said, sipping my coffee.  “I took something last night… normally, I don’t pass out in strange bathrooms.”

Alita shrugged.  “I believe you.  It’s good I got you out of there, though.  Lemme guess: you found a totem in that bathroom.”

“A totem?” I asked, confused.  

She smiled.  “Words.  Glowing.  Disembodied hands…”

I blinked.  My brain couldn’t quite soak up her corroboration.

“Stinky girls, occasionally a guy?”  Alita continued.  “Call you sister?  Have you had the blackouts yet?”

I shook my head.  It was too much to process.  “They… they didn’t talk…”

Alita frowned knowingly.  “Ah.  They’re in their cutesy ‘follow me’ phase.”

“You… too?” I stuttered. 

Alita shook her head.  “No.  I just know stuff.”

My head began to throb.  I was hazy and confused and I’d passed out on a sticky bathroom floor in Williamsburg.  My reserve of patience had evaporated.

“You know stuff?”  I repeated.  “Great.  Start talking.  Because I want it to stop.”

Alita looked hard at me.  She stood, picked up her coffee pot, and poured us both a refill.  

“Cream or sugar?”

“Just talk.”

“Fine.”  Alita sat, leaned back and crossed her arms.  “Sixty-odd years ago, an Evangelical minister started gathering followers.  His name was Thomas Elliott.  The man was an ugly little troll, but he had charisma.  He led a popular congregation in the Hudson Valley - brilliant, but a complete psychopath.  And like most psychopaths, he started to believe he knew better than everyone else.  Including his superiors at the church.  He got into some scandal Upstate… he may have impregnated another pastor’s wife, or teenaged daughter… point is, he needed to get out of town, fast.  

“So he came down here with a coterie of female followers.  In the city, he picked up more.  Different races, different backgrounds, all young and beautiful.  Soon, Elliott had everything a small-dicked little megalomaniac could ever want.  Endless sex from labile young women who worshipped him, cooked and cleaned for him, and dutifully brought him money.  But, like the psychopath he was, he wanted more.  Survivors - women who left - said he got off on causing pain.  He pressured his followers into degrading, masochistic sex.  A few escaped, but most stayed.  They believed he was the Messiah.”

My dream.  Women in loose brown dresses, dirty, sobbing and terrified.  

“He preached that eternal life didn’t come from worshipping God or living a Christian life,” Alita continued.  “It came from pain - pain, like Jesus experienced on the cross.  He made the girls believe that, if they went through enough pain and suffering, they would become immortal.”

The stench of urine and rot.  The animalistic screams.

“Well, eventually Elliott’s bullshit caught up with him.  He and his girls had been tossed out of even the floppiest of flop houses in Brooklyn.  So he took, maybe, twenty of his most devoted acolytes and disappeared.”

“Disappeared.”  I repeated.  

The cold.  The aching bones.  The fear. 

Alita shrugged.  “Disappeared.  Gone.  Never seen or heard from again.”

“Didn’t anyone look for them?” I asked.  

The writhing.  The tiny teeth.  The blindness.  The gurgling sobs.

“I’m sure the girls’ families did,” Alita said, “if they had families.  But there wasn’t much the authorities could do.  All of Elliot’s followers were adults - young adults, but adults nonetheless.  Sex workers, addicts, rootless seekers.  The sort of people who slip through the cracks all the time.”

I shuddered.  I thought about the blonde, eyeless wraith - not with fear, but pity.  She’d been one of them.  I’d experienced what she experienced.  The abuse, the control, the agony. 

“I… I see a girl,” I stammered weakly.  

Alita’s eyes widened.  She stood and rifled through a filing folder on her counter, extracting a thin photo album, which she handed to me.

“There’s not a lot of pictures of the Elliott cult,” she said.  “This is all we’ve managed to compile.”

We, I thought, as I paged through photographs of a balding, frog-mouthed man with defined jowls, then beautiful young women in flowing dresses with long, straight hair.  Then, I saw her.

“The… the blonde!” I exclaimed, pointing.  “Her!"

The young woman in the photo had clear skin, a delicate nose, and beautiful blue eyes - the polar opposite of the scarred, filthy zombie that kept appearing around New York.  But her waist-length, ice-blonde waves were unmistakeable.  Alita took the picture from my hand and read off the back.

“Nancy Strauss,” she told me.  “She was a poet and a folk singer.  She used to perform in small venues around the city.  She may have actually made something of herself if she hadn’t…”

“How do I make her go away?”

Alita fixed me with an odd stare.  I got the uncomfortable impression there was a whole lot more she’d purposefully kept from me.

“Ignore her,” she said.

*****

I tried ignoring Nancy.  I tried to forget the smelly, glowing people.  Then, the blackouts started.

They were never significant - a few minutes, here and there.  I’d be sitting at my desk at work, then zone out and come to in the soda room, drinking a diet coke.  It always felt longer, though; time passing as it does in a dream.  

In my blacked-out reveries, I was her.  I was Nancy Strauss.  And I remembered.

Our bus, an old Metro Father saved from the junkyard, broke down along the side of a tree-lined highway.  So we’d walked, bags in hand, along cracked roads and boggy grassland.  Our legs ached.  Some of us had broken arms still in slings.  Our bruises throbbed, and the lashes down our backs stung, yet still, we sang.  Soon, we’d reach Revelation.  Revelation would be the promised land - the place our Father’s promise for us came to fruition.  We sang - 

I stand, blind and naked, at the world’s bloody end

All is dead, sadness is your only friend.

Then, the whistle of a train.  A steeple rising into the cloudless sky, bright sunlight catching a stained glass window, drenching our procession in color like God’s rainbow after the flood.  We’d arrived.  We were home.  

The details blurred and disintegrated as soon as I was pulled back to reality.  I’d find myself twirling my finger impotently, surprised and disappointed to find I wasn’t playing with my long, blonde hair.  But one word remained scarred in my memory: Revelation.  

Revelation, the word scrawled on the note I’d found in the library.  It was the name of a place.  I Google’d around, looking for cities called Revelation, and had little luck - all I found was speculation about the seven towns mentioned in the Bible’s Book of Revelations.  There’s a couple Revelation Streets and Revelation Boulevards scattered around the country; I scrolled through images on Google Earth.  None felt right.  None felt familiar.  

On Monday, I didn’t have much to do at work.  We didn’t have any events scheduled until the weekend, so I distracted myself organizing the beer fridge, then marrying the liquor, then taking inventory of the walk-in freezer.  When I’d run out of my own tedious tasks, I found a stack of paper invoices on Adrienne’s desk.

Management was still in the process of interviewing potential sales managers, which meant Adrienne’s non-urgent job duties hadn’t been fulfilled.  I decided to scan the invoices and organize them into our digital file system.  It needed to be done, and I didn’t have anything better to do but obsess over a vanished cult and their mysterious settlement.

I’d ran two invoices through our ancient printer/fax/scanner when I found them, scrawled on the back of a duplicate.  

Words.  Phrases in green pen, Adrienne’s curly handwriting.  

Black flowers smell like rot.  Train cars attract barnacles in the bay.  Youth dies slow, speeding is forever.

Black flowers smell like rot.  Train cars attract barnacles in the bay.  Youth dies slow, speeding is forever.

Black flowers smell like rot.  Train cars attract barnacles in the bay.  Youth dies slow, speeding is forever.

Over and over.  And then: a string of numbers and letters.  Map coordinates.

4X.X N, 7X.X W

My pulse quickened.  I felt my feet sink into the ground.  My palms grew moist; icy-hot adrenaline crackled through me like electricity.  I was terrified.  But I knew - I knew, in the depths of the body no longer completely mine - that wherever those coordinates led, was where I was supposed to be.

*****

I offered my manager some excuse: headache, projectile vomiting, family emergency.  I routed myself to the nearest car rental place, threw down my credit card, pulled out of the lot in a 2019 Civic, and typed Adrienne’s coordinates into the GPS.  

Our promised land had a name, once, but that name didn’t matter.  We were to call it Revelation.  It was where Father was born, where he’d lived with his family before the paper mill burned down and the whole town had been forced to abandon their homes and seek their fortunes elsewhere.  He called it Revelation because, there, God had revealed to him his holy purpose: bring Heaven’s immortality to an imperfect earth.  

Pennsylvania.  Middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania.  

I looked for a town name.  I found nothing - as far as Google Maps was concerned, Adrienne’s coordinates pointed to an unincorporated grove of trees somewhere between Pittsburgh and Interstate 80, approximately six hours away.  

Revelation felt lonely, especially in contrast to the constant bustle of Brooklyn.  I’d never experienced such emptiness.  But we accustomed ourselves to it.  We learned to take comfort in our sisterhood, in the nights Father called us to his bed, in the warm ache of sore muscles after a long day working the land.  

I drove.  I cruised along the 80 for what felt like forever, then pulled onto a highway, which lead to a smaller highway, off which sprung a shabby two-lane road through a vast grassy plain and then a thick grove of oak trees.  Above the trees, I saw what had once been an elevated train track.  I was close.  

The whistle of the Eastbound train - twice a day, at dawn and dusk - became a familiar friend.  We made other friends, unlikely friends.  Hunger, the constant colicky burn in our empty stomachs, as the beautiful country summer faded into an atypically cold fall.  The biting kiss of a whip as it struck our flesh over and over.  Father hurt us.  He made us hurt each other.  

The woods broke; I approached a clearing.  My GPS chirped: I’d arrived.  The late-afternoon sun, warm and butter-yellow, broke into multicolored prisms.  A church appeared in front of me.  It had faux columns, a tall steeple, and a circular stained-glass window, depicting a haloed child and a lamb.  I’d seen that church before.  I’d seen it in the old architecture book dropped in front of me at the Brooklyn library: First Methodist Church.  But also, I’d seen that church before.  

We weren’t worthy.  Our crops wouldn’t grow.  We had no food.  We had no blankets to warm us, so we nestled together on the splintering wooden floor, shivering in the icy air that transgressed the thin walls and seeped up, like a burrowing creature, from the maw of the pit.  

On a small hill behind the church, the old paper factory loomed like the castle of a fantastical monster, burned out and left to the elements for generations.  I drove along narrow streets decimated by weeds, past rows of square houses with quaint porches and overgrown lawns.  Through a ghost town.  I kept on moving, up and down crumbling blocks reclaimed by nature, past a boarded-up Main Street where even the graffiti had faded to nothingness.  I loosened my grip on the wheel.  I loosened my grip on myself, on my own consciousness.  I let Nancy take control.

My foot, involuntarily, stomped on the break.  The car skidded to a stop, and I stared out the window.  The house in front of me had faded red paneling.  A collapsed porch.

It was the house from the video.  

*****

If the black door had once been locked, the lock had rusted to bronze dust years before.  I pushed through - and immediately froze, neurons paralyzed, desperately grasping at the reality on which I’d staked my entire earthly existence. 

I was standing in a charred-black, grime- and cobweb-covered living room.  I’d sat cross-legged on the floor, once, hands raised to the sky, scent of urine on my nostrils and lips.  Writing instruments - chalk and paint and spray cans and sharpies - littered the floor.  The walls were covered in words.

I gasped. 

Killed your daughter.

Never loved wife.

Drug addicted loser.

Dirty red hair.

Three broken bottles.

Black car speeding.  Green paint.  Curly cursive letters.  

Black flowers smell like rot.  Train cars attract barnacles in the bay.  Youth dies slow, speeding is forever.

Adrienne. 

*****

Adrienne and I bonded over grief, and guilt.  She and her sister had been on the way to their cousin’s birthday party; Adrienne was driving.  Something - she couldn’t remember what - distracted her, commanded her attention for a fraction of a second.  That fraction was all that was necessary for her to miss the speeding black car that ran the stop sign, slammed into Adrienne’s passenger side, and killed her twin on impact.  Adrienne never forgave herself.   

Like I could never forgive myself for ignoring Cyrus.  

Cyrus and I met in math class our first semester and became immediately inseparable.  We rented an apartment together the next year, transferred from junior college to the same university, graduated with matching hospitality management degrees.  We tried to maintain our friendship as we pursued our careers - me, as the assistant manager of a university cafeteria; him, running his own catering company.  But work was a lot, and I was distracted.  I knew he’d recently gotten into and out of an emotionally abusive relationship.  I’d been aware since we met he was estranged from his homophobic parents.  

I didn’t know just how dark things had become inside his head.

On a Tuesday, he called me.  I let it ring.  I was at work, between meetings; school started and my life became a blur of trainings and angry suppliers and confused new cashiers.  I told myself I’d call Cyrus back during my lunch break.  But I didn’t get a lunch break.  And after work, I forgot.

Cyrus’s roommate found him in the bathtub the next morning.  Cold, blue, and stiff.  An empty bottle of sleeping pills discarded by his side.  

I left Pasadena.  I left California.  I packed up everything and moved across the country, to a new place, where every street and every coffee shop and every dive bar didn’t remind me of Cyrus.  Where I wasn’t reminded, every day, that he was gone and it was all my fault.

I found a sharpie and uncapped it, then an untouched patch of wall.  

Abandoned tunnels are best seen with dead, bloodshot eyes.

Sadness will become your only friend*.*

Open your mouth and eat your calling whole. 

I wrote: ABANDONED FRIEND CALLING.  My best friend, dead because of me.  If I’d only picked up, if I hadn’t been a self-centered narcissist, if I’d come through for him like he’d come through for me, so many times… I stepped back.  The words sank into the wall and began to glow.  Sickly, green-yellow light.  I smelled rotting flesh, curdling blood, festering vomit and feces.  Then came the screams.  Screams, then gurgling, ragged breathing, lifeless sobs.  

I ran towards the screams.  Through a maze of wooden halls, past creeping cockroaches and patches of mold, until I found myself in a back room as large as the first.  The center of this room had fallen away, collapsed into a huge, open pit over what had once been the basement - at least twenty feet down.  I didn’t want to look.  I had to look.  

I peered over the edge of the pit, and I saw the girls.

Torn, bloody skin under blood- and piss-stained brown dresses.  Matted, filthy hair.  Whitish goo coagulating around festering sores.  Faces beaten black and blue, bare backs whipped raw.  Arms and legs bent the wrong way, bone jutting from mincemeat flesh.  Fearless rats chewing on open wounds.  Beautiful, ruined young women writhing and convulsing, mouths wide open, begging for mercy from an aloof God.  

*****

It was the day, he told us.  The day we’d leave our weak, starving bodies behind and embrace the immortality that was our destiny.  He instructed us to meditate.  One by one, he took us from our sisters.  

He flung us into the pit.  

The lucky ones died on impact; the rest lingered.  We cried and screamed for days, while infections ravaged our skin and rats bit into us with their tiny, sharp teeth.  We became delirious.  We muttered nonsense words and phrases, the final disjointed processes of our failing minds.  Our Father watched, rapt.  Then, when the last of us became too weak to make any sound at all, he set his rotting childhood home aflame.  

He died by his own hand, instantly, with one bullet from his father’s gun.  We suffocated slowly, our lungs filling with black soot.  

I woke up, on my back, in the living room with the writing on the walls.  It was night, hours later.  The coppery rot scent still hung in the air.  I turned on my phone’s flashlight and, with a daring that would’ve made me proud of myself under any other circumstances, made my way back through the collapsing house and to the edge of the pit.  

The bodies had long since decomposed.  Instead, I saw a lawn of dark green ivy, sickly pale saplings, and rotting planks colonized by mushrooms and crusty green mold.  The effect was eerie.  A terrarium for things that grow with no light.  Cautiously, very aware of where I was stepping, I walked the circumference of the crater-like depression.  At the far end, across from a bashed-in back door, I stumbled over something hard.  

I looked down.  I yelped.

A skeleton.  A hole through the side of the skull.  The rusting metal body of a revolver.  

Dust clouded my vision like smoke.  Anemic, yellow-green light, from the full moon outside, seeped in through the windows and the cracks in the collapsing ceiling and door and walls.  Smoke and piss-yellow glow, I thought.  The last thing the girls saw as they lay dying.

*****

I’m not writing this down as a diary.  No.  This is my warning to the next innocent who, wandering the streets of New York City, finds themselves drawn to nonsensical words on an abandoned store front wall.

I don’t know who Alita is.  I have no idea how she found me on that bathroom floor, or why she’d come to the Butler Outfit in the first place, or what she wanted from me.  I don’t know how she knew so much about the Elliott Cult, or what I’d experienced at the hands of the glowing trio, or the blonde wraith.  Nancy.  I don’t know from where she got those pictures.  And I’m still wondering who, when she said we, was implied.  I don’t even think Alita is her real name.  I’ve tried to dig her up on social media.  She might as well be a ghost.

But I think I know what she kept from me, that day.

She didn’t tell me it was already too late.

I see more smelly, glowing, smoke-emitting strangers.  They’ve gotten braver, like wildlife in the park, used to being fed.  One walked right up to me outside a bagel shop.  “You’ve come back, sister!” she cried joyously.  My face must’ve hidden none of what I was thinking, because the girl - cute, Latina, with thick eyeliner and gentle curves - took an immediate, cowed step back.  

“Oh,” she said, frowning.  “I… I thought you were someone else.”

Right.  Someone else.

Everywhere I go, I see the words.  

Laugh alone or cry until you’re dead.  A sticker stuck to a trash can on 42nd Street.

Ugly girls make better muppets, scrawled across a bathroom stall.

Never like you.  Multicolored spray paint on the side of an abandoned truck, parked at a curb in Flatbush.

The words smoke and glow yellow-green.  If I get too close, I see inky black fingers reaching out for me.  Disembodied hands, blindly groping, searching for prey.

I think Thomas Elliott succeeded.  

I think the essence of his followers, the souls of the girls dead at the bottom of the pit, became immortal through their desperate, delirious last words: the orphaned monster-children of their endless pain.  I think those words embedded themselves all over the city.  Waiting, patiently, for a young man or woman to find them.  A special kind of young person - one suffering, guilty, and broken.  Like Adrienne, or like me.  One who’d bring the words home.  

One who’d give the dead girls’ disembodied spirits a new, warm, fleshy home.  

Adrienne knew what was coming.  She chose to die, rather than lose her body and mind to an invading parasite.  Me, I’m not so sure.  I see Nancy Strauss in my dreams.  When I allow my thoughts to wander, I’m inspired to hum a tune, or sing a rhyme to myself.  I feel her inside of me, burrowing into the folds of my brain, trying out my arms and legs, tasting delicious things with my tongue.  She doesn’t mind the unfamiliar genitalia - it feels natural, the body she was always meant to have.  My body.  Her body.  I think that piss-colored smoke wafts off me, and I might smell like blood and mold and rotting flesh.  But it’s okay.  No one will notice; no one except the chosen ones, the boy or girl imprinted upon by the words - the vessel for my next sister’s glorious resurrection.

Down in a rotting, putrid hole, I see black flowers grow.

A weighted-down, dying soul - like filthy 4th Street snow.

I hold the flowers to the sun, they wither into dust.

Then they’re reborn, God has won!  All ripe and filled with lust.  

I used to live in the middle of backwoods Pennsylvania, near a set of train tracks that ran through the woods. About once, maybe twice a week I would hear the cry of a train horn splitting the air, always at a different time but usually in the early morning or late evening, sometimes it would even wake me from a dead sleep in the middle of the night.

The little house I was renting was nice, at the very end of the cul-de-sac I lived in, and nestled back against a copse of trees. I wasn't entirely sure where the train tracks were, since they didn't run through town anywhere, but every time I was startled by the piercing cry I thought it sounded like it was coming from the woods.

The longer I lived in that little house the more curious I got about the train. It probably sounds silly, but I’ve always liked trains, and even though I found the train horn startling, it was comforting in a weird way too. Every time it sounded my ears would perk up, and I would find myself tracing the sound as it moved, trying to pinpoint exactly where it came from, and where it was going to.

Finally, after about a year of that I decided to take one of my days off and go look for the train tracks. I put a few bottles of water and some snacks in a backpack, put on my favorite pair of walking shoes, and practically skipped out the front door.

It reminded me of being a kid. I didn’t have the best home life, so it wasn’t uncommon for me to pack a bag with enough provisions (and comic books) for the day before disappearing into the woods near our house. The woods were my escape, a place where I was safe from anger, yelling, and whatever my parents were throwing at each other that day. The forest was always calm and quiet, it made me feel safe, a feeling I couldn’t always get at home.

As I walked out my back door I was reminded of that, and how much I loved going for those walks as a kid. I’ll admit, I think I was expecting it to feel just as safe and magical now, but oh how wrong I was.

The forest itself was perfect. Silence punctuated only by the occasional bird call or rustle of the leaves brushing each other in the wind. It was an early spring day and the earth was spongy from recent rainfall, dew dripped lazily from the green trees and sparkled on the tall grass as I walked through it. I made my way in the approximate direction I heard the train horn coming from, no real plan in mind for when I found it, just enjoying the breeze as it played with my hair.

After about an hour I finally found the train tracks, and let out an excited whoop when they came into view. I raced forward like a little kid until I got right next to them, then I began walking parallel to the tracks, towards the mountains in the distance. My parents had always told me not to walk near train tracks, but I always wanted to follow them just once to see where I wound up.

I followed the train tracks with a spring in my step, not noticing the sun sinking lower in the sky until the shadows grew long enough in front of me to blend together into one big pool of shadow. When I realized the sun was starting to go down I stopped. I had been so lost in my thoughts (and in finally fulfilling a childhood dream) that I hadn’t realized how late it was. I turned around and followed the train tracks, now at a quicker pace, until I reached the area I thought I had started from. I was still following the tracks when a figure emerged from the twilight on the path in front of me.

I couldn’t make out any details, but it seemed to be entirely gray, like a smudge of ash on the horizon growing steadily larger.

Something about it really unsettled me, which I attributed to being a woman walking alone at night and seeing a stranger approach in the twilight. I veered off the tracks and made my way through the woods, emerging one neighborhood over from my own, and followed the streets back to my house, exhausted by the time I finally got there.

I guess the stranger I saw on the tracks just left my mind, I didn’t think about it at all for the rest of the night, and by the time I woke up the next day I didn’t even remember the vaguely unsettling encounter.

It was a few weeks before I was able to make it back into the woods, but once another lazy day off came around I packed my bag and escaped out the back door again. This time I left a bit earlier and went the other direction, towards what I assumed would be town, or maybe the next town over. I figured if I wandered to the next town by accident I could always take a taxi home (this was before uber was very popular). This time, I took a can of spray paint and made a huge blue X on one of the trees that I could see from the tracks, so I would know where to head back into the woods to get home. I can’t say for sure, but that decision might have saved my life.

Again, time seemed to escape me, and before I knew it, it was late afternoon. I turned myself around, and once again saw a smudge on the distant horizon, slowly approaching me and taking shape. This time there was enough light that I assumed it would be fine, probably just another person wandering the train tracks to fill their empty Sunday afternoon.

I kept walking, studying the trees surrounding the tracks on either side, and admiring the giant purple mountains in front of me. I was startled from my reverie to realize that what had been nothing more than a smudge the last time I looked was now a person, just a few hundred yards away at most.

I studied him as he approached, he seemed to be wearing a gray three piece suit and gray shoes, his hair was gray too. He carried some kind of bag, it looked like a white trash bag, like one of the really heavy duty ones, and it almost looked like it was filled with a liquid. It heaved and sagged, even though he carried it with such ease it could have been full of helium.

I’ll admit, I didn’t find him terrifying at first. It was a lovely afternoon, I was enjoying myself, and I’ve always been a really friendly person, so I was actually kind of excited that I might get to meet one of my neighbors out on my little walk. But when we were close enough for me to greet him, I felt a wave of nausea wash over me. It was like all my senses shut down, and the only thing I was left with was this awful feeling of complete and total revulsion. Despite my vision going gray around the edges I forced myself to keep walking, to get past the mystery person and closer to home.

When we were right next to each other all my senses returned to normal, and I noticed with a pang of fear and concern that even the man's skin was an ashy shade of gray. He continued to face forward but his face seemed to melt and twist in my direction, all the features remained clear but it was like the skin behind his face was melting, allowing the face itself to slip in my direction. He smiled at me, flashing gray teeth and the corner of a gray tongue peeking out of his mouth. Then he passed me and I took a huge gulp of air, trying to calm my rioting stomach and nerves.

Despite how badly I wanted to collapse to the earth and sob from whatever the hell that was, I forced myself to keep walking. Now more than ever I just wanted to get home. After a few more minutes of walking I managed to convince myself I had just imagined it, or maybe the man had some kind of medical condition and I was being unfair to judge him so harshly.

As I successfully guilt-tripped myself into brushing off the weirdness, I noticed something on the horizon. A gray smudge that seemed to be getting closer to me. I debated it for a moment, then allowed myself to stop and turn around. There was nothing behind me, no traces of the strange gray man. I turned back around, and somehow he had managed to clear almost all the distance between us in the time it took me to turn around and back.

I forced myself to keep walking, insisting to my now terrified brain that it was a coincidence, or I had spaced out for longer than I realized. As I got closer to the man I forced a smile onto my own face, and with every ounce of courage I had asked, “Hey there! Didn’t we just see each other?”

The look on his face didn’t alter in the slightest, and neither did his stride as he approached. His mouth opened, and a voice as gray as a tombstone said, “We’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

The smile on his face stayed in place as mine faltered and crashed, and I picked up my pace to get past him as quickly as possible. As I did, a scent I hadn’t noticed before wafted from his trash bag to my nose and I had to resist the need (it was more than an urge) to vomit. What I smelled can only be described as death, plain and simple. It assaulted my nostrils and filled my mind with images of death and destruction, things I never could have pictured on my own. Wartorn battlefields scattered with the flesh and blood of innocent people, bodies torn apart by animals, corpses swaying in the breeze, glassy eyes still begging for a savior even though it was far too late.

I gasped, pressing my hands to my mouth and nose, and hurried away. After a few minutes the smell was gone, but the images and nausea remained.

I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me, and more than anything I just wanted to get home, to safety and my comfiest chair, but I was still at least an hour away from my house. I glanced behind me again, let out a sigh of relief when I saw the gray man still walking away from me, then bit my tongue so hard I drew blood when I turned back and saw another gray smudge on the horizon. I whipped my head around again, and saw he had disappeared. With resignation to my fate, I turned back around already knowing what would be in front of me.

Sure enough the gray man with the gray smile was once again a few hundred yards in front of me. I bit back a little sob, and looked around, wondering if I could get away from him somehow. Most of the area between the tracks and the trees was filled with grass and weeds that would go up at least to my waist. I would have been fine with that, except I’m terrified of ticks, and didn’t want to risk taking one home with me.

As the stranger approached in the distance I weighed my options: pass the creepy old guy again, or risk getting a parasite. It was a hard choice, but I finally took a deep breath and plunged into the tall grass. I glanced over at the tracks, almost against my will, and breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t there, he must have done his little disappearing trick when I stepped off the tracks.

I smiled in relief, and faced front again, my heart shattering into violent little shards in my chest as I jumped backwards and to the side. He was directly in front of me again, with that same carved from stone, gray toothed smile.

He continued walking forward, eyes on the horizon, fist clenched around the trash bag in his hand. I stopped moving and simply stared at him as he passed, begging my mind to make sense of what was happening. Something in the bag sloshed, and the smell of blood and death overwhelmed me, making me feel sick all over again.

I pressed my hands into my eyes, but when I opened them the gray man was still there, walking away from me, his pace the same as ever. I forced myself to root to the spot and watch him walk away. I waited until the shadows grew longer and he was once again just a gray smudge on the horizon.

When I turned back around, I was angry but not surprised to see the gray smear in front of me again. I sighed, and continued walking, telling myself it was a coincidence, or I was imagining things. But as he came back into focus, a distant part of my mind screamed that I was in danger. I made the mistake of shoving that voice and its wisdom to the back of my mind. I had to get home, I didn’t want to walk in the tall grass and risk getting a tick, and the gray man was going to be there no matter what I did, so I might as well follow the tracks until I made it back home.

This time when the gray man got closer, the smell was the first thing that greeted me. I choked down my vomit and blinked tears from my eyes as I took a deep breath and held it. When the man was about ten feet from me, something in his smile changed. He didn’t move exactly, but his lower jaw seemed to grow, as if the hinges of his jaw were melting and allowing his face to sink lower and lower. For the first time his eyes met mine and I knew I had made a horrible mistake. By the time he passed me, his jaw was down to his chest, but his eyes had never left mine.

Once he was behind me, I began sprinting, only interested in getting home before it was completely dark. Up ahead I could just see the bright blue X I had spray painted on the tree, and I veered away from the tracks again, now running through the grass with no other thought in mind than getting back home. But as I ran my vision began to blur slightly, the shadows of the trees turned gray and seemed to take on more form. Something gray appeared right in front of the tree I had painted on, slowly morphing into a gray man walking towards me, trash bag swinging from his hand.

I halted, waited until he was a few feet from me, then bolted to the side, into the tree line. I crashed through the trees wildly, paying attention to nothing except the gray smudges that would appear in front of me, taking shape into the man more rapidly each time.

By the time I saw my house in the distance the gray man was practically running alongside me, smile still carved into his face, bag still swinging in his hand, liquid and whatever else it contained sloshing around inside.

I made it inside and locked the doors and windows, but outside I could still see the too pale shadows lurking, taking on the form of a man before disappearing again.

I left Pennsylvania not long after that, it lost all its charm for me. But when I lay down in bed at night, all I can see when I close my eyes is the gray man, off in the distance. He gets closer every night, and I know someday, he’ll catch me.

Thrift shopping had always been a sort of ritual for my wife and me. We’d hit up estate sales, thrift stores, garage sales, even old shops on their last legs, picking up whatever caught our eye to breathe new life into our home. Nearly everything around us had a story—things that, in their quiet way, had been through someone else’s life before they became part of ours. Cookware, furniture, our daughter’s toys, clothes—it didn’t matter. If it was well-made and had some years left, it was good enough for us.

Growing up the way we did, my wife and I both learned early on not to waste anything. We weren’t poor now, not by a long shot, but when you’ve spent your childhood stretching every dollar, that “waste-not” mentality never fully leaves. It’s more than a habit; it’s instinct.

I’d become something of a hawk for deals, tracking social media for those inevitable posts about local stores closing down, big sales, liquidations—anything with a shot at uncovering a hidden gem. It was like a hobby. And that’s how I found out about the toy store. An old post, buried deep on the community page, announced the auction of a local toy shop that had been a fixture in the town since the Great Depression.

The place was special. I’d been there once as a kid, and I remembered the almost magical feeling of the store—the smell of old wood and varnish, the glint of paint on row after row of handmade toys. This wasn’t your usual toy store. The owner, an older man everyone knew as Mr. Winslow, had poured his life into every toy, carving and painting each one by hand. Wooden soldiers, miniature dollhouses, delicate puzzles… everything you could imagine. He never imported a single thing, and every toy had a strange, vintage charm that you couldn’t find anywhere else.

Mr. Winslow and his wife had run the shop right up until they died, years apart. They didn’t have any family left, so the state had seized the property, and now they were auctioning everything off, right down to the last hand-carved toy. 

The sale was on a cold, gray Saturday. I convinced my wife it’d be worth checking out, maybe picking up a few toys for our daughter. The place was in rough shape, dim and drafty. Half the lights didn’t work, and the smell of dust lingered heavy in the air, clinging to everything like a veil. But the toys—they were immaculate. Each shelf was still filled with tiny wooden faces frozen in mid-expression, each toy glancing out at us, wide-eyed and almost… expectant. 

The crowd at the auction was familiar, dotted with faces I’d seen at sales like this before. Liquidation sales bring out a certain kind of person. You can always tell who’s a regular and who’s new to the scene just by watching them bid. The newcomers hesitate, test the waters before committing to any serious bid. But the regulars, the seasoned ones, they’ve got a rhythm. They know exactly how high to go, exactly when to pull back. Most of them aren’t there to pick up keepsakes; they’re there to flip it all for a profit online.

In most liquidation sales, they bundle the goods in bulk, which suits the resellers just fine. You see a table stacked with, say, a hundred of the same porcelain vase or unopened action figure; people bid on the lot, the highest bidder picks their fill, and then the next one steps up. It's efficient. By the end, whatever’s left just goes for the average bid price, first come, first serve.

But Mr. Winslow’s toy store wasn’t your average liquidation. No one was here for bulk toys from China, and no one was going to find a stack of hot-ticket items like last season’s electronics. Every item was unique, hand-crafted and individually priced. There wasn’t a single barcode in the building, not a plastic wrapper in sight. Every toy was a labor of love, something that had been sanded, painted, and assembled by hand. It was like stepping into a time capsule, each piece carrying a bit of the old man’s life and passion.

The toys looked like relics from another era: wooden horses with faded paint, lines of tin soldiers standing rigid, delicate porcelain dolls with blank, glassy eyes. There were marionettes on thin, tangled strings, and intricate dollhouses with hand-painted wallpaper and tiny furniture inside. Toys made for another world, another life. Most of the people there took one look and left early, their disinterest written all over their faces. These weren’t things that would sell for much online. And with the store’s gloomy atmosphere and the unsettling shadows cast by the dim light, I didn’t blame them.

But I was in it for more than a quick sale. I’d come to find a treasure, maybe something special to put on a shelf for our daughter or a keepsake to remind me of a place that had been in the town forever. So I stayed, wandering the aisles, running my fingers along the toys’ edges, feeling the worn, chipped paint under my fingers.

The auction had turned out to be a bust. I wandered around the store one last time, eyeing the shelves filled with dusty old toys, and I was just about ready to leave empty-handed when my daughter tugged on my sleeve.

“Daddy, look!”

She pointed to a battered old toy box shoved in a corner. Sitting upright inside it, propped against the side like she’d been carefully placed there, was a plush doll. But this wasn’t just any stuffed toy. The doll was eerily life-sized—just about the same height as my daughter, in fact. It had stringy blonde hair that cascaded messily down its shoulders, two large button eyes stitched onto a cloth face, and a stitched-on smile that seemed just a little too wide, curling up at the edges in a way that didn’t quite feel right. The doll wore a faded black dress with lace trimming, adding to its peculiar charm.

My daughter rushed over, her face lighting up with excitement. She plucked the doll from the toy box and hugged it tightly, like she’d found a long-lost friend. “Her name is Dolly!” she declared, squeezing the doll with the kind of fierce, unfiltered affection only a child can muster.

I looked at the doll more closely, a little unsettled by its fixed, button-eyed stare and that odd smile that seemed to follow me even as I shifted from side to side. There was something strange about its proportions, almost as if it had been crafted specifically to look like a child… but not quite.

The auctioneer, clearly tired of a morning spent trying to hawk dusty old toys to an uninterested crowd, noticed my interest and gave a half-hearted wave.

“Take it if you want,” he said with a shrug. “Ain’t nobody bidding on this junk. Most of it’s headed for the dump. You find anything else you like, feel free to pick through it. Won't cost you more than a few dollars.”

The truth was, there wasn’t anything else in that store I wanted, and after an auctioneer calls the merchandise “garbage,” it’s a good hint to leave. I paid him a few dollars for Dolly, who was now practically glued to my daughter’s side. She clutched the doll’s hand, looking at me with a beaming grin that melted any lingering doubts I might have had.

As we left, I noticed that my daughter was oddly quiet. Normally, she’d chatter all the way home, talking about every little thing she saw, but this time, she just held Dolly close, staring out the window with a sort of distant expression, almost like she was… listening. It was subtle, but it was there. I chalked it up to the thrill of her new toy, and figured she was probably just imagining adventures for Dolly, weaving stories in her head like she often did.

Still, something felt strange. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the doll’s stitched-on eyes were watching me, even as I drove, catching glimpses of it in the rearview mirror. And though my daughter was silent, there was a sort of tension in the car, a quiet that seemed to settle in like a chill.

We pulled into the driveway, and I glanced back at my daughter, who was still holding Dolly, her fingers entwined with the doll’s soft fabric hand. She looked up at me with a serene smile.

“She really likes it here, Daddy,” she whispered, as if Dolly herself had somehow told her.

The words sent a shiver down my spine. I told myself I was just being paranoid. After all, it was just a doll, a cheap, old-fashioned plush left over in a toy store no one cared about.

But as we stepped inside, I couldn’t help feeling we’d brought something else home with us that day, something that had been waiting patiently in that dusty corner, in a forgotten store full of discarded things. And now, it had found a new place to belong.

In the weeks that followed, my daughter’s attachment to Dolly grew into an obsession. At first, my wife and I thought it was adorable. Kids have imaginary friends all the time, right? And if she wanted to treat Dolly as her special friend, that seemed harmless enough. 

At any given moment, you could find my daughter playing with Dolly. She held tea parties for the two of them, setting up our good china in tiny rows on her play table. Dolly always had the seat of honor, perched across from my daughter, her button eyes staring straight ahead, her strange stitched smile ever-present.

When it wasn’t tea parties, it was “school.” My daughter would line up her other stuffed animals, but Dolly was always in the front row, right under her watchful eye. I’d hear her talking to Dolly, sometimes even scolding her in a low, serious voice, like she was dealing with a difficult student. She’d talk with Dolly while watching TV, telling her all the things that were happening on the screen as if the doll was hanging onto every word. We chalked it up to a vivid imagination.

But soon, things started to feel… different. I noticed my daughter no longer touched any of her other toys. They lay scattered around her room, gathering dust. Her entire world revolved around Dolly.

One evening, we sat down for dinner. It was spaghetti night, my daughter’s favorite, and my wife had gone all out. We called her to the table, expecting her to leave Dolly behind like usual. But tonight, she walked into the dining room, gripping Dolly by the arm, and carefully set her down on the chair next to her.

“Can Dolly have a plate too?” she asked, her voice full of a strange kind of insistence.

My wife and I exchanged a glance, an uneasy one. We both shrugged it off and played along, thinking it was just a phase. My wife set an empty plate in front of Dolly, miming a spoonful of spaghetti onto it with a playful smile.

But our daughter’s face fell, her expression crumpling as she stared down at the empty plate in front of Dolly.

“She needs real food, Mom,” she said, her voice small and hurt.

“Honey, she gets special pretend food, because she’s a pretend person,” my wife explained gently, trying to meet her halfway.

My daughter’s expression twisted into something dark and angry, a look we’d never seen from her before. Her face flushed, and her eyes filled with tears as she screamed, “No! Dolly hasn’t eaten in decades! She’s hungry!”

The words came out in a wail, raw and full of a desperate, gut-wrenching emotion that seemed so out of place. It was as if she was pleading for a real, living person, as though Dolly’s hunger was a tangible, undeniable fact. She grabbed the doll, cradling it protectively as if we had wronged it, her face red with frustration and hurt.

When we tried to calm her down, she started kicking, screaming, inconsolable. She clung to Dolly, her knuckles turning white, her small voice rising in a frantic, guttural cry that we’d never heard from her before. Eventually, we had no choice but to pick her up, gently prying her from Dolly’s side. She thrashed and shouted as we carried her to her room, leaving Dolly alone at the kitchen table.

As I closed her bedroom door, my heart still pounding from the outburst, I found myself staring back at the dining room. There sat Dolly, her button eyes unblinking, her crooked smile staring straight ahead as if mocking me.

The room felt quiet, too quiet, and as I stood there, I could’ve sworn I saw the faintest twitch in Dolly’s stitched mouth—a subtle shift, as if she were smiling just a bit wider. I shook it off, forcing myself to laugh at the absurdity of it. It was just a doll. Just fabric and stuffing.

But as I turned out the kitchen light, leaving Dolly in the darkness, I couldn’t shake the feeling that, somehow, she was still watching me.

It took a long time to calm our daughter down. She kept sniffling, wiping at her nose, and muttering how unfair it was that Dolly hadn’t been given food. She clutched at her pajamas, her small fists trembling with frustration and sorrow, saying she just wanted Dolly to be happy. My wife, always the peacemaker, gave me a gentle nudge.

"Just get the doll, please," she whispered, glancing back at our daughter. “It’ll help her calm down.”

I nodded, reluctantly heading back to the kitchen, feeling a strange knot forming in my stomach. As I walked into the room, an odd chill seeped into my skin, making me pause at the doorway.

Dolly wasn’t where we’d left her.

We had set her at the dinner table, facing her empty plate, exactly where my daughter had insisted. But now she was turned in her chair, her body rotated to face down the hallway—the hallway that led to my daughter’s room. Her button eyes seemed to glint in the dim light, her crooked smile somehow looking sharper, hungrier.

I shook my head, brushing off the unsettling feeling as a trick of the light. It was just a doll. Maybe the chair had shifted when my daughter thrashed in the dining room, and in the chaos, I just hadn’t noticed.

I picked Dolly up, her fabric cold against my skin, and carried her back to my daughter’s room. I stepped inside, and the moment my daughter saw Dolly in my hands, her face lit up, her eyes going wide with relief and joy. She jumped up, practically launching herself at me to grab her beloved doll. The way she held Dolly… it was like she was reuniting with a real friend, someone she’d been separated from for a lifetime.

“Thank you, Daddy,” she whispered, clutching Dolly tightly, pressing her cheek against the doll’s button-eyed face. My wife sat beside her on the bed, running her fingers through our daughter’s hair, soothing her. 

As the tension in the room faded, my daughter murmured something, barely a breath.

“What did you say, sweetie?” I asked, leaning closer.

She looked up at me, her face soft and serene, and repeated it, her voice clear. “Dolly’s full now.”

A shiver ran through me, but before I could think too much of it, she broke into a grin, her usual playful energy returning. “Can I watch TV now?”

My wife shot me a confused glance but quickly regained her composure. “After you eat your dinner, okay?”

Our daughter nodded, happily returning to the dining room to finish her meal. She didn’t ask about Dolly’s food, didn’t protest or insist on setting an extra plate. She ate without complaint, chattering occasionally about her favorite cartoons. The strange outburst over Dolly seemed forgotten, almost as if it hadn’t happened at all.

After dinner, she padded off to the living room and settled in front of the TV, Dolly perched beside her, her tiny hands still wrapped around the doll’s. We exchanged wary glances, but neither of us dared speak the questions lingering in our minds. The quiet in the house had returned, as if nothing unusual had happened at all.

That night, there were no more whispers about Dolly being hungry, no more outbursts or demands for extra plates at the table. My wife and I, unsure of what to make of it, decided to let it go. Whatever had happened, our daughter was calm, happy even. And if Dolly had something to do with that, well… we weren’t about to argue with a win.

That night, after we’d tucked our daughter into bed and cleaned up the kitchen, my wife and I sat together at the dining room table, mulling over the evening’s strange events.

"She’s eight now,” my wife said, her voice low, like she didn’t want to risk our daughter hearing, even though her room was on the other side of the house. “Isn’t she a little old to be pretending a doll is… well, real?”

I nodded, rubbing my temples. “I was thinking the same thing. I mean, she did this before, but back when she was really little—two or three, maybe. And even then, it wasn’t this intense.”

We’d both noticed that her behavior with Dolly was different than her usual flights of imagination. At that age, she’d had a few imaginary friends, nothing we worried about. She’d talk to her stuffed animals, play-act scenarios; it was normal stuff. But now, with Dolly, her behavior seemed… fervent. Like Dolly wasn’t just a doll she liked, but something essential, almost sacred to her.

“We could… maybe take the doll away?” I suggested, not liking the idea even as I said it.

My wife shook her head. “If we just took Dolly, she’d be inconsolable. And honestly, I don’t want another outburst like tonight. We’d have to handle it carefully.”

After a few minutes of back and forth, we came up with a plan: we’d gradually phase Dolly out. We’d get our daughter hooked on something new, a fun toy or playset she couldn’t resist, and once she’d lost interest in Dolly, we’d quietly take the doll away while she was at school.

But this plan was harder to execute than we thought.

We spent the next week scouring stores for the latest toys—something we usually avoided given our thrift-shop lifestyle. We bought dolls with accessories, elaborate playsets, building kits, anything we thought might catch her attention. We figured we’d splurge just this once if it meant keeping her happy and moving her away from Dolly.

Yet, no matter what we brought home, she barely looked at the new toys. Her enthusiasm was tepid, at best. She’d unwrap the new toy, inspect it with a polite sort of interest, and then inevitably wander back to wherever Dolly was waiting. My wife and I tried everything, even bringing home a new board game, hoping it’d be something we could play together as a family. But Dolly was always right there, tucked under my daughter’s arm or seated by her side, a silent companion with her button eyes and stitched smile, watching us from across the table.

Finally, in a last-ditch effort, we went out and bought her a tablet. We figured that with all the educational games, drawing apps, and videos at her fingertips, surely she’d be glued to it like most kids her age. But she barely gave it a second glance.

“Thanks, Mom and Dad,” she said when we handed it to her, but there was something distant in her eyes. She held Dolly close, almost protectively, her thumb tracing the doll’s tiny hand. “But… Dolly doesn’t like tablets.”

The words, though innocent enough, sent a chill down my spine. It was like she was speaking not for herself, but on behalf of her doll, as though Dolly had a voice, an opinion, a preference.

My wife and I exchanged worried glances. We’d tried everything, and it seemed our daughter’s attachment to Dolly was only deepening. She barely even touched the new toys; they lay untouched in her room, some still in their boxes, collecting dust.

With a heavy heart, we decided to go forward with our original plan. We would wait until she was at school, slip Dolly out of sight, and hope that, with enough new distractions around her, she’d find something else to latch onto. We both felt a pang of guilt—seeing the joy Dolly brought her, the way her face lit up when she held the doll, made it hard to imagine taking that away. But our concern for her well-being outweighed everything else.

So, we waited, biding our time, and hoped—hoped that, in Dolly’s absence, our daughter would turn her attention to one of the other toys.

But deep down, I had a feeling this wouldn’t go as smoothly as we hoped.

The night before we were set to pull off our plan, I had the strangest dream. At least, I think it was a dream.

I was lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, when a chill crept over me. It felt like something was watching us, something cold and patient. I didn’t want to look, but in the way dreams force you, I felt my eyes drift toward the end of the bed. There, just at the edge of my vision, was Dolly. She was standing up, perfectly still, her button eyes fixed on me. I couldn’t make out any details—just her shadowy outline, a figure waiting silently, as if she had all the time in the world. Every time I tried to turn my head to look directly at her, she vanished, slipping back into the corner of my sight.

When I woke up, my heart was pounding, my skin damp with cold sweat. I shook it off, trying to convince myself it was just the stress of the past few weeks getting to me.

That morning, as planned, my wife took our daughter to school, distracting her with promises of a new game they’d play together that evening. The house felt unnaturally still once they were gone, a heavy silence that seemed to press against my skin.

I took a deep breath, heading into my daughter’s room, where Dolly was resting on her bed. Picking her up felt strange, like I was holding something more than just a doll. I avoided looking into those button eyes and quickly made my way to the pantry. I stuffed her into the top back corner, where my daughter wouldn’t think to look, carefully positioning her behind a stack of canned goods.

As expected, when my daughter came home and saw that Dolly was missing, all hell broke loose. The tantrum was unlike anything I’d ever seen. She stormed through the house, screaming, throwing things, demanding we give Dolly back. It was as if she was possessed by some uncontainable rage, her small face twisted into an expression that was both heartbroken and furious. My wife and I tried to calm her down, to reason with her, but she wasn’t listening.

"Where’s Dolly?” she shrieked, her voice hoarse from crying. “You’ll regret this! Dolly’s going to hurt you! She’ll make you sorry! Give her back!”

Her words left a chill running through my veins. This wasn’t our daughter speaking, not the sweet, gentle child we’d raised. She’d always been polite, soft-spoken, never the kind of kid who threw tantrums or even raised her voice much. But now, she seemed almost feral, her eyes wild with an intensity that was… unnerving.

The tantrum went on for hours, our daughter’s screams echoing through the house, until she finally wore herself out. With her voice raw and every tear shed, she collapsed onto the couch, exhausted and half-asleep. My wife and I sat nearby, sharing exhausted, worried glances, feeling like we’d made a terrible mistake but unable to go back on our decision now. Once we were sure she was asleep, we carried her to her bed, laying her down gently and turning on her night light. We murmured soft goodnights, though we made sure not to wake her.

We thought the worst of it was over for the night, that we’d weathered the storm and could finally get a moment to breathe.

But when we walked back into the living room, a chill settled over me, prickling the back of my neck. My heart dropped when I saw it.

There, sitting on the couch in the exact spot where my daughter had just been sleeping, was Dolly. She sat upright, her button eyes fixed straight ahead, her stitched smile just a little too wide, too knowing. 

We stood there, frozen, staring at her in stunned silence. Neither of us had touched the doll since I’d hidden her in the pantry. There was no way she could have gotten back to the living room on her own.

My wife reached out, her hand trembling, as if to pick Dolly up, but then thought better of it and pulled her hand back, wrapping her arms around herself instead.

I could feel the words I wanted to say caught in my throat. Instead, I moved forward slowly, as if approaching something dangerous, and took Dolly in my hands, her fabric cold and somehow… heavier than before. I was careful not to look at her too closely, afraid that if I met those button eyes for too long, I’d see something I couldn’t unsee.

I brought her back to the pantry, stuffing her into the corner again, this time piling more cans in front of her, pushing them in tightly to make sure she wouldn’t move. I left the pantry, shutting the door firmly behind me.

When I returned to the living room, my wife was still standing there, her face pale. We didn’t say a word. We just sat there in silence, the weight of that empty stitched smile lingering in the room.

And as we sat there, I found myself thinking about my daughter’s words, her warning echoing in my mind: “Dolly’s going to hurt you. She’ll make you sorry.”

My wife and I sat on the couch, staring at each other, hearts pounding in our chests, with the realization that neither of us had moved Dolly from her hiding place in the pantry. We both knew it couldn’t have been our daughter, either; she’d been asleep the whole time. And yet… there was Dolly, sitting in the exact spot where our daughter had drifted off on the couch, like she’d claimed it as her own.

“This is too much,” my wife whispered, her voice shaky. “I don’t want that doll in the house anymore. Please, just… get rid of it.”

She looked at me with pleading eyes, and I couldn’t blame her. Every logical part of me wanted to dismiss what was happening, but that feeling—that lingering chill creeping down my spine—told me it was best to listen. I didn’t want Dolly here, either. Whatever this was, it needed to end.

I scooped Dolly up, feeling that unnatural heaviness in her again, like she was almost pulling me back, as if the doll didn’t want to leave. I ignored the way her stitched smile seemed to stretch just a little more as I turned toward the door, telling myself it was just a trick of my tired mind. I had to get her out.

Outside, the early morning was eerily quiet. The community dumpster stood at the far end of the lot, and I made my way over, clutching Dolly tight, every step feeling more difficult than the last. A weight, like icy fingers, seemed to wrap around my shoulders, tendrils of dread clawing at my chest. It was ridiculous; I knew it was just a doll, but it felt like something was whispering in my ear, urging me to stop. To turn around. To take Dolly back inside.

I shook it off, forcing myself to keep walking. When I reached the dumpster, I flung the lid open, staring into the dark, reeking void below. With a grimace, I tossed Dolly inside, hearing the muffled thud as she hit the bottom, then slammed the heavy lid shut with a sense of finality.

As I walked back to the house, a small but persistent voice in my mind whispered that this wasn’t over. But I pushed it down, reasoning that we’d done the right thing. Dolly was gone. Our daughter would be upset, but with some time, she’d move on.

The next morning, when our daughter woke up, her eyes darted around the room, searching, and she quickly realized Dolly was missing. Her face fell, and she looked up at me, desperation clouding her eyes. But this time, she was different. It was as though something in her understood, resigned and hurt. She didn’t throw a tantrum. She didn’t scream or demand Dolly back. She just sighed, shoulders slumped, and went about getting ready for school with a defeated sort of sadness.

“Promise to be good, okay?” I said, brushing her hair out of her face as she sat at the breakfast table. She nodded, though her gaze was fixed somewhere distant, somewhere I couldn’t follow.

After we got her on the bus and my wife headed to work, I finally allowed myself to relax. Maybe we’d done it, I thought. Maybe we’d finally won the battle.

I made myself a coffee, settled into my office, and powered up my laptop, planning to get some work done in the quiet house. The familiar hum of the computer and the routine of logging into emails and files felt comforting, ordinary. I let myself get lost in it, ignoring the lingering memories of the past few days, trying to embrace the calm.

But then, just as I was settling in, I heard it: a soft, drawn-out creak, like someone slowly pushing the door open. 

My heart froze. I looked up from my screen, eyes darting to the door. It was open, just a crack, though I distinctly remembered shutting it when I’d sat down.

“Hello?” I called, my voice barely more than a whisper, straining to listen for any sound in return. Nothing.

A chill ran down my spine as I pushed back from my desk, rising slowly, my eyes locked on that narrow sliver of the door, as if expecting something to appear there. I took a cautious step forward, reaching out to push the door wider, my breath caught in my throat.

And that’s when I saw it.

Sitting there, just outside my office, was Dolly.

She was propped up in the hallway, her button eyes fixed on the door, her head tilted just slightly, as if she were studying me. That stitched smile, wider than I remembered, curved in an expression that was almost… triumphant.

I stumbled back, feeling my stomach twist as that dreadful realization settled over me. I’d thrown her away. I’d seen her hit the bottom of that dumpster. But here she was, back in my house, waiting, like she’d never left.

Dolly sat there, covered in dirt, grime, and bits of garbage clinging to her black dress, her button eyes still fixed on me. For a moment, I could only stare, paralyzed by disbelief and dread. I took a step back, not even noticing the wall behind me until my shoulders hit it. I had thrown her away—I had seen her at the bottom of that dumpster. And yet, here she was, sitting on my hallway floor, filthy and somehow more sinister than ever.

Then, before I could even process what I was seeing, Dolly began to rise. Her small body lifted into the air, hovering just above the floor. The air felt thick, almost electric, like the whole house was holding its breath. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. 

Then, in a rush, a series of images flashed through my mind. Terrible, twisted visions filled my head—screaming faces, dark, tangled forests, and a sense of looming, inescapable dread. The world around me seemed to fade away, swallowed by shadows. My vision blurred, and in the next instant, I was no longer standing in my hallway.

I was in a forest, a dense, suffocating darkness pressing down on me from all sides. My heart pounded in my chest as I ran, my legs pumping through thick underbrush. My feet stumbled over roots and rocks, my lungs burning as I gasped for air. It was like being inside the worst kind of nightmare, but the terror was too real, too sharp to dismiss as mere fantasy. Something was behind me—chasing me.

I risked a glance over my shoulder, and my blood ran cold. A massive beast, towering and monstrous, loped through the shadows, its movements fluid but unnatural, as if its joints were barely holding together. It looked like a wolf, but larger than any wolf I’d ever seen, with a gaping maw that stretched grotesquely across its face, almost as if it were barely attached by a thin hinge of jaw. Its eyes burned a bright, unsettling red, like twin buttons sewn deep into its skull, and its body was held together with thick, fraying threads, giving it a twisted, stitched appearance that reminded me horribly of Dolly.

The beast let out a growl, and the sound was like a thousand voices, guttural and inhuman. I stumbled, my legs giving out beneath me as I crashed to the forest floor. The rancid smell of decay filled the air as the creature loomed over me, its hot, foul breath washing over my face. It was like staring into the face of a nightmare made real, a vision of pure, unfiltered terror.

I tried to push myself up, to run, but the beast was too fast. It lowered its massive head, baring rows of jagged, yellowed teeth, each one as sharp as a dagger. I braced my arms against its maw, desperate to hold it back, but the beast was impossibly strong. Black, oily ichor dripped from its mouth, splattering onto my arms and chest, the stench nearly choking me.

“This isn’t real!” I shouted, my voice breaking with desperation. “Leave me alone!”

But the creature’s glowing red eyes narrowed, and I felt a crushing weight as it bore down on me. Its teeth sunk into my shoulder, sending a wave of agony tearing through my body. I screamed, the pain sharp and cold, a raw fire spreading through my veins. I could feel its teeth tearing into me, feel the slick heat of blood as it spilled down my side.

With a surge of frantic energy, I brought my knee up, slamming it into the beast’s chest, trying to shove it back. But it barely budged. The creature’s maw twisted, a sick, twisted semblance of a grin, its red button eyes glinting with something almost… playful.

“Wake up! WAKE UP!” I yelled, every ounce of my mind focused on breaking free of this nightmare. I was trapped, I knew it, but I couldn’t give up. Images of my daughter, my wife, flashed before my eyes, filling me with a fierce determination. I couldn’t let this thing win. I couldn’t let it keep me here.

With a final scream, I pushed against the creature, throwing every ounce of strength I had into one last desperate shove. My body ached, my mind felt splintered, but I focused on them—on my family—on getting back to them. The creature’s grip loosened, if only slightly, and I clawed at the ground, digging my fingers into the dirt as I struggled to pull myself free.

I kept fighting, clinging to that small, stubborn spark of hope. And then, with a sudden, blinding flash, the forest disappeared. 

I found myself back in the hallway, Dolly lying lifeless on the ground in front of me. My head was spinning, still trapped somewhere between the nightmare forest and reality. But one sensation cut through the fog: a searing pain on my chest. I pressed my hand to it, feeling the strange, raw heat radiating from beneath my shirt.

With trembling hands, I pulled my shirt over my head and looked down. My skin was marked with thick, jagged scars—pale and twisted, like they’d been there for years. They traced the spot where the beast had sunk its teeth, a brutal reminder of what I had just endured, or maybe… survived.

I looked down at Dolly, her button eyes gazing blankly up at me, her face filled with that eerie, stitched grin. Rage bubbled up inside me, pushing past the confusion and horror of what had just happened. Enough was enough. This doll had wormed its way into my life, into my daughter’s mind, and I couldn’t let it haunt us any longer.

Without another thought, I scooped her up and strode to the garage. I grabbed a can of kerosene, nearly spilling it in my haste, and snatched a box of matches we kept for family fires in the backyard. Today, we’d be having a fire of a different kind.

The backyard was quiet, almost too quiet, as I made my way to the fire pit. I threw Dolly in, her soft body crumpling against the grate, and stuffed a few pieces of old newspaper around her. The doll’s face stared up at me, an almost pleading look in her button eyes. And then, out of nowhere, I felt it—hesitation. A nagging, sick feeling gnawed at me, a tiny voice in my head begging me to stop, like I was about to destroy something important, something I should cherish.

It was absurd, but the feeling was almost overwhelming, like Dolly herself was reaching into my mind, whispering to me, making me doubt.

No, I told myself. She’s nothing. Just a doll.

I shook off the creeping doubt, forcing my hands to steady as I unscrewed the kerosene cap and doused her, watching as the liquid soaked into her fabric, darkening the black dress and matting her tangled hair. With one last breath, I struck a match and, without hesitating further, tossed it in.

The flames roared to life, but instead of the usual red and orange, they flickered a strange, dark purple, licking over Dolly’s body with an otherworldly glow. I watched, transfixed, as her face seemed to contort within the flames, her button eyes bulging slightly, her smile twisting as if alive, fighting against the fire’s embrace. But I held firm, rooted to the spot, determined to watch until there was nothing left but ashes.

I sat there by the fire pit, ignoring the urgent pings of work emails and notifications from my laptop still inside. None of it mattered. Not right now. I stayed there, keeping vigil until the doll was nothing more than charred scraps, the purple flames fading into smoldering embers.

Hours later, when it was time to pick up my daughter from school, I finally stood up, feeling a strange mixture of relief and exhaustion. Dolly was gone, nothing more than a burnt heap. But the scars on my chest tingled, reminding me of the nightmare I couldn’t quite shake.

When I picked up my daughter from school that afternoon, she came running toward me, her face lighting up with that familiar, heartwarming grin. It was as if the past few weeks—the tantrums, the outbursts, the strange fixation on Dolly—had never happened. She wrapped her arms around my waist, her voice bubbling with excitement.

“Daddy! Guess what? I got a gold star on my spelling test! And we made clay animals in art today. Mine’s a bunny. I’ll bring it home to show you tomorrow!”

I hugged her back, feeling a weight lift from my shoulders. It was like having my little girl back, the bright, happy child I’d known before Dolly came into our lives. The darkness that had hung over her seemed to have vanished, leaving no trace, no lingering shadows. She didn’t ask about Dolly. She didn’t even seem to notice the doll was gone.

That night, as we sat down for dinner, she chattered about her day, telling us all the little details we’d missed, her laughter filling the house with warmth that had been absent for far too long. My wife and I exchanged relieved glances, finally allowing ourselves to believe that it was over.

Later, after our daughter was asleep, I told my wife everything. The nightmare in the forest, the scars on my chest, the way Dolly had been lying in the hallway, filthy and somehow… waiting. I explained how I’d taken her to the fire pit, how I’d watched the doll burn with those strange purple flames, staying there until I was sure every last piece of her was gone.

My wife listened, her expression shifting from shock to disbelief. I could tell she was skeptical, and who could blame her? I wasn’t sure I’d believe it myself if I hadn’t seen it all firsthand. But in the end, she squeezed my hand, her lips curving into a soft smile.

“Well, real or not,” she said, “I’m just glad that thing is gone. Our daughter’s back, and that’s what matters.”

I nodded, feeling the scars on my chest itch slightly under my shirt, something that will always remind me of the nightmare I’d lived through. But as I looked down the hall, hearing my daughter’s soft breathing from her room, I knew that we were finally safe.

Dolly was gone. Our daughter was free. And, for the first time in weeks, our home felt like ours again.

They’ve been down there too long.

I keep telling them they just need them to come upstairs, to leave that cramped, dark room of packed dirt and come into the light. 

We all need to leave this place while we still can.

I'm still clinging to the hope that it's not already too late.

Did you know that in Connecticut, sellers aren't required to disclose that a death occurred in a home unless you submit an inquiry in writing? I sure as hell wasn’t aware, not until after we'd already moved in – until it was already too late.

I wonder if whoever buys this place after we’re gone, will think to ask.

I did later learn that the realtor regretted selling to us. That if he had known our ‘situation’, he never would've shown us the place.

I can't help but imagine what our lives would've been like if we'd never bought the small fixer upper off of Lakeshore Drive.

That's all moot now, of course. 

If it weren't for the price, we'd never have looked at it in the first place – especially since it'd been a foreclosure. 

I hated the feeling of building our lives on the shattered remains of someone else's, but Gideon and I needed to move, we had to. We couldn't stay in our old house, its recently vacated bedroom dangerously close to becoming a shrine.

We couldn't keep going to the same grocery store in our tiny town, where everyone knew and regarded us with looks of pity.

Once we moved to Bridgeport, we were just two more people amongst a hundred thousand.

We could mourn in peace and anonymity, lost in the throngs.

But living in the city doesn't come cheap. 

So, that's why Gideon and I were looking at a fixer upper that had sat vacant before the bank eventually reclaimed it.

I should’ve trusted my gut when I thought something about the place was off. The new cheery welcome mat seemed at odds with the rest of the house, which gave off an aura of a deep – almost crushing – sadness. It hit me like a wave when we first walked in – a split second before the scent of rot and decay followed in its wake.

The realtor apologized and said that they'd found fridges full of rotten food from when the prior owners left the place abandoned. He assured us that he’d dealt with something similar before, and with a few windows left open it'd air out in no time.

The house was outdated in parts, yet remodeled beautifully in others. It seemed the prior owners had apparently begun the process of painstakingly restoring it before they abandoned the place – leaving behind a new kitchen, but upstairs bedrooms that were missing flooring and plastered with faded, mildewy wallpaper.

As we approached the door to the basement the smell intensified to eye watering levels.

There was something else that gave me pause, too – something about the basement. 

The space was cramped, all unfinished dirt floor and exposed brick beyond the small area that had been set up for a washer and dryer.

Right at the edge of where the faint light from the single pull-string lamp faded, was a small wooden ladder leading down into a darkness that soon swallowed it up.

Despite the realtor's best attempts at leading us away from it, I found myself subconsciously drawn to it – unaware I'd even approached until I was standing at the edge.

“What's down there?” I felt that wave of sorrow and longing the closer I got to the packed dirt floor leading down to the blackness.

“Nobody.” For a brief moment, his salesman’s smile slipped off of his face, and after an awkward silence he quickly added “Just a crawlspace.” The smile was back. “Just a little extra storage space.”

As my husband and I stared at the dark expanse beyond the ladder, we discussed plans to install some lighting to make that space, that took up the majority of the basement, usable. 

We planned a lot of things, back then.

We wanted to place Brie's belongings in one of the bedrooms like we had at our old home, even though part of us knew that their presence only served to highlight her absence. But the rooms upstairs were a mess – riddled with holes through the subfloors, mold behind the walls – so we reluctantly agreed we needed to complete the renovations before the space would be usable.

It didn't feel right to put Brie's things in a storage unit during that time, though. Yes, I knew they were exactly that – just things, just objects, but no matter how many times I told myself that, it felt like we'd be leaving her in a storage locker. 

So, we wrapped up the rocking chair I'd read to her in, in cellophane, lovingly packed the stuffed animals and Barbies, and with the rest of the house being in the state that it was, we tucked them neatly into the only place safe from construction – the crawlspace. 

Close by, and protected while we made a safe, more permanent place for them.

At first, I expected us to spend all of our free time down there, like we used to in her room at our old house, but something about that place alarmed me as much as it called to me.

I think that even before we'd finished placing her belongings down there, we realized that we'd made a mistake. Some part of me knew – maybe it was the look of that place – the black dirt that seemed to swallow up any light we directed at it from headlamps and flashlight beams – or the overpowering smell of lingering rot mixed with old earth. Maybe it was that feeling – the one of emptiness I'd felt when we first moved in had been replaced by something far worse. As we placed the final box, the stale air down there was thick with a sinister sort of excitement.

Even then, I had a vague feeling of no longer being alone.

It didn't take long for the noises to start.

I was running a load of laundry when I heard it over the rumble of the machine – a prolonged shriek, the sound of something sharp being slowly dragged across cellophane. It was my first time alone in the basement, and to hear that emerging from the claustrophobic space… at first I thought it was Gideon down there, opening the rocking chair and I smiled sadly at the thought of him leaving work early, succumbing to the need to feel close to her again. I too had felt the burning desire to go down there, despite myself.

“Couldn't resist?” I called down to the space.

The sound abruptly stopped, and I heard shuffling along the hard dirt.

I put a foot on the old wooden ladder, figured I'd join him so he wouldn't be alone. It felt right, going down into the darkness. No one should have to be alone, especially in a place like that.

That's when I heard footsteps from upstairs, followed by Gideon's voice, announcing his arrival home from work.

I sprinted up the basement steps, out of breath and nearly tripping as the only thing running through my mind was that if Gideon was upstairs*, who the hell was in the crawlspace?*

As I was about to describe what I'd heard to Gideon, I suddenly felt silly. I was in a new place, with our past wounds still so fresh – of course I was imagining things.

The next morning, I was working from home when I heard it echo through the previously silent house – a giggle, a familiar sounding one, coming from outside the kitchen window.

I didn't remember leaving the window open, but when I went in to check, it was closed. Still, the laughter continued. 

That's when I realized – it wasn't coming from outside, it was coming from below, floating up through the grate under the stove.

It went on like that – every so often, the sound of her soft laughter would float up from the basement. 

But there was a wrongness to it – it was laughter in name only, hollow and joyless, lacking the light my daughter had always carried.

Gideon never mentioned hearing it, so I never brought it up. At the time I thought maybe I was just losing it due to stress – the stress of losing Brie, of starting over in a new city.

Looking back now, and recalling the circles under my husband's eyes, the grimness there – he must have been in the same boat.

The first time she spoke to me, I'd been bringing down a box of Christmas decorations.

“Mom?”

I nearly choked on the air I'd been breathing.

I never thought I'd hear Brie's voice again. For a moment, I thought I'd dreamt it.

“Are you coming?”

The voice, song like, floated up from the dark.

From the crawlspace. 

A dry little cough echoed out. 

I lost my shit. I ran upstairs, and I finally told Gideon.

My husband gave me a look when I did – a look that said he understood, and if what I needed from him in that moment was to go into the basement and duck into that dark little crawlspace so he could tell me everything was okay, then he was going to do it.

The little room was pitch black as I followed him into it. All of our attempts to install lighting down there – temporary and otherwise – had failed – and the dim glow from the single bulb in the basement was swallowed up before even descending the ladder.

We clicked on our flashlights.

I wondered if he too had heard the sound of something moving across the packed dirt that echoed out seconds before we directed our beam towards the darkness.

The sound of…Scurrying?

Gideon gasped, and a moment later turned to reveal what he'd seen.

A blanket has been placed across the hard dirt, one of Brie's, adorned with smiling characters from her favorite animated movie. Stuffed toys were strewn along it, a single book lay open off to the side. I didn't even need to see the impression left on the blanket to know that someone had been sleeping down there.

Gideon shot me a questioning look

“I didn't open the boxes,”  I whispered. 

He stared into the empty space for a long time before he nodded absentmindedly. Insisted we leave the house, call the police to seek out whoever had been living in our home.

It was a long night. We gave statements to one officer as the other searched the home.

I don't know what was worse – when the first officer said there was no evidence anyone else had entered the house, or when the second officer stayed back to speak to me in hushed tones.

“You've lost someone.”

I nodded in surprise – even though it was a statement and not a question.

He leaned in, “Whatever you think you hear down there – it isn't real. Nothing good could come from a place like that.”

“You’ve been in the crawlspace?”

“I got called to do the wellness check on the Makowskis, and…” he stared off into space for a long moment before he quickly shook his head, as if trying to escape from his own thoughts, "Well, I found ‘em. They were down there.”

The Makowskis – it took me a moment to place the name as that of the prior owners – I'd seen the name on some mail we still received for them and brought back to the post office. 

“What were they doing down there?” I asked, even though the look on his face had me questioning if I truly wanted to know the answer.

“They weren't in a position to tell me…” he stared past me, towards the house,  “There wasn't enough left of them.”

That night, I couldn't sleep. I dreamt of the prior owners who never left this place, I dreamt of Brie.

I dreamt of the crawlspace.

I awoke to the feeling of eyes on me.

Gideon was sitting up in bed, giving me a concern-laden stare.

“We need to talk about last night, I don't think you should go into the basement by yourself.”

My response was silence, confusion.

“You don't remember what you said to me?” he whispered, as if he thought someone else could be listening.

I shook my head.

“That you wanted to go down there to be with her. That –” he choked back a sob, “You didn't want her to be alone in the dark.”

My horrified expression seemed to mirror his own.

“You know she's not down there, Nettie. She never was.” 

I knew that, I mean rationally I did. “Then who – what – is down there?”

I've never seen my husband look more afraid than when he softly said, “I don't know.”

The longer I stayed away from the basement, the louder her laughter got, the more persistent the pleading whispers.

When the hushed pleas turned to crying – god, I couldn't take it anymore.

I had to go see her.

“Are you coming?” The weak voice interjected between wracked sobs.

I found myself drawn to the sound, parental instincts still there – a mental phantom limb.

I knew I made the right decision, as I descended.

Well, until I looked at her.

Eyes glinted up at me from the well of blackness beyond, and the sobbing ceased instantly, like someone had flipped a switch.

“No baby.” My mouth was dry as the rational part of me desperately screamed at the rest of me – reminding me I was not talking to my daughter. “I can't”.

I fumbled for my phone for the light, half expecting to see her staring up at me – big brown eyes wide – half  afraid of what I'd see.

As light flooded the room, I heard a soft movement, something wet sliding across the packed dirt of the ceiling. 

But I saw nothing – the little storage room was empty.

As soon as the light went off, though, those eyes were back, regarding me from higher up along the wall, moving steadily downwards.

Never once blinking or darting away from my own.

“Please?” her voice repeated.

My stomach dropped as I felt a chill at my proximity to the thing mimicking my daughter's voice – something I'd apparently just caught in the act of crawling down the wall.

“I don't like the dark,” she croaked out.

That's what broke me. That's what led to my husband finding me broken down, bawling at the kitchen table.

I begged him not to go back down.  

But he insisted. 

This was our home, he'd said. If we couldn't feel safe here, then where could we?

So, we went down into the basement, me with my phone light, and him with the emergency flashlight.

It was bold of me to assume that the situation couldn't possibly get worse. 

By the time I’d descended the little ladder, he’d already walked into the room. He had his back to me, standing in the shadows.

“Gideon, where's your flashlight?”

“I turned it off. She… doesn't look like I remember,” he whispered. “Annette,” he added slowly, never turning to look at me, his broad frame blocking whatever he was seeing from my flashlight beam. “Can you please go upstairs, pack a bag for us?”

“But –”

“Now? Please.” he begged, his voice calm in tone, but shaky in delivery.

He told me to leave without him if he didn't come back up within ten minutes. To leave the house if he didn't come out of that basement, and to never come back – call movers to get our things.

I nodded, numb. 

So, I waited.

I waited 10 minutes.

After an hour had passed, I went down to the basement, and the ladder was gone. He must have pulled it down to keep me from coming after him. I felt a wave of unease, but infinitely worse, a sick pang of jealousy. 

Jealousy that he was down there and I wasn't.

I whispered Gideon’s name into the dark.

“Why haven't you left yet?!” his voice was weak, heavy with desperation.

“Babe, it’s time to go,” I replied as firmly as I could. “We need to leave. All of us”

Gideon’s voice was choked, muffled, “No, Nettie. It's too late for me.”

A day has passed since then. 

I'm still here.

I can't force myself to leave. 

How do I get them to come out? I just want us to be a family again. 

This morning when I went down to check on them, the only response that emerged from the crawlspace sounded like a low, wet, gurgle. 

They’ve been silent ever since.

I called the police, but they didn't seem to think that my husband and daughter refusing to leave the basement ‘constituted an emergency’.

I know Gideon told me to leave, but I can’t just leave my family – him and Brie – down there in the dark. I'm out of ideas. We need to be together, the three of us.

Please help me.

If I can’t figure something out soon, if I still can’t get them to come to me, well, there’s only one option left.

[1] – [2] – [3] - [4] - [5] - [6]

From April to May, we had to move to the old fire station. The Tomskog Fire Department had long since been dismantled, being absorbed into St. Cloud and the surrounding area – leaving their old station available. It’d been used a handful of times as a sort of community space, but there was limited use for an old fire station. It didn’t take long to set up shop though, and with the folks from the DUC helping us out we got the resources we needed.

With Charlie on sick leave, I had to stay on radio duty for the foreseeable future. As we were running short on manpower, I was solely responsible for running the dispatch during the evening shift. We moved off the secure channels though – just in case I wasn’t around for a call or two.

I’m not gonna say those few weeks weren’t eventful, but they were eventful in a way that didn’t directly affect me. There was some sort of operation to shut down a turbine, for example, that seemed to have dire implications.

My days weren’t that eventful. I took calls, redirected our various units to check them out (or not), and made sure to take note of anything out of the ordinary. I also acted as a sort of info hub for the DUC, who checked with me every now and then to see if something unusual happened. A couple of people called in about spotting Patrick and his crossbow a couple of times, but he hadn’t hunted anyone since the Rosemills, so we just assured the callers and hung up.

But there was that one call that would change my time in Tomskog – permanently.

I was on my way home after an evening shift, clocking out just after 10pm. I was dragging myself to my car, sipping the last few drops of a forest-fire-tasting americano. Apparently getting a decent coffee machine wasn’t high on the DUC list of priorities. I heard a strange noise and stopped, only to realize it was my phone. My personal one. It hadn’t rung in so long that I’d forgotten my custom ring tone – Stayin’ Alive, by the Bee Gees.

I didn’t recognize the number. I figured it might be someone from work who needed me for an extra shift.

I answered.

“Please don’t hang up.”

That was the first thing they said to me. It sounded like a man – nervous, if anything. I stayed quiet, giving the stranger a chance to say his piece.

“You’re the new girl, aren’t you?” he continued. “At the station?”

“Who is this?”

“My name’s Adam,” he said. “I’m looking for my daughter.”

“I’m sure we can help you,” I said. “But I need you to call during office hours, and not to my private phone.”

“It’s not like that,” he sighed. “I’ve talked to the sheriff countless times, but he’s not doing anything. But I believe you can.”

“This is sketchy, Adam. Why would I be able to help when the sheriff can’t?”

“Because you’re still here to protect and serve.”

I stopped in front of my car, rolling my eyes. The taste of burnt coffee stained the roof of my mouth.

“I just need a few minutes of your time,” Adam continued. “You’ll get a free lunch.”

It was the first bribe I’d ever accepted. The next day, I met Adam for lunch at the one downtown café Tomskog offered. They had little blue sunflowers in every window, and they all had that strange illusion where it looked like they turned towards you no matter the angle you looked at.

Adam was in his early 50’s, with thinning blond hair and a beer belly that poked the edge of the table. He had these naturally sad facial features, like his face had slightly melted. I couldn’t imagine him smiling, other than sarcastically. He got out of his seat, shook my hand, and asked for my order. I wanted a sandwich and a latte, and he was off like a bullet.

When we sat down to eat, he scooched a little closer and lowered his voice.

“Thank you for meeting me,” he said. “I’m sorry if I startled you.”

“I’m still not sure if I can help,” I said. “But I’m sorry about your daughter.”

He pulled out a small photo. A young woman with a black pixie-like haircut and black eyeliner.

“Her name’s Elizabeth,” he said. “Or Ellie. Elle to some.”

“She’s pretty,” I smiled. “But I haven’t seen her.”

“I know, I know,” he nodded. “But I think you can help me find her.”

We finished our lunches. As people walked by, Adam would lower his voice and look over his shoulder. I could tell he wasn’t comfortable being out in public. I’d seen strange people in Tomskog before, and there were a lot of them, so this wasn’t out of the ordinary; but something about Adam seemed more genuine. He was weird for a reason.

“I don’t know how much they’ve told you,” he said. “Have Hatchet been around?”

“Hatchet?” I scoffed. “The pharma people?”

“So no. You got any inoculations? Any shots?”

“What, like, tetanus?”

“You really are new, huh?”

He attempted a grin, but it came of as a tired squint.

“Look,” he continued. “I’ll tell you everything I know. But you gotta promise to help me.”

“I can’t promise you anything,” I said. “I don’t know this girl.”

“Just promise you’ll try. Please.”

Looking across the table, there was no way I could say no. I had a soft spot for people asking nicely, and Adam seemed like an honest guy. At least genuine enough to know when to reach out of his comfort zone.

“Alright. I’ll try.”

I followed Adam to his car and sat down in his passenger seat. We exchanged numbers, and he took out a notebook. He had detailed notes about everything related to his daughter, along with names, dates, witness testimonies, and a handful of other details. I got a brief look at his glove compartment when he got his reading glasses. There were a handful of other notebooks in there as well.

Elizabeth had survived a fall from a great height. She’d broken her legs and cracked her pelvis but had managed to make it to a nearby road. They’d found her next to Frog Lake. How she’d managed to fall from such a great height, only to end up in the lake, was a mystery in and of itself. But that wasn’t all – she was exhibiting some unusual symptoms.

By the time Adam got to the hospital, she’d been quarantined. Early reports indicated something called SORE, but that changed when a new doctor made a second diagnosis. Elizabeth was to be taken to a special clinic upstate, but Adam was never given any details. Three days later, he was told she died from respiratory failure.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “So why do you believe she’s still around?”

“That first diagnosis,” Adam tapped his head. “SORE. That’s never mentioned again.”

“Maybe they made a mistake.”

“If they did, why do they refuse to tell me what it is?”

He flipped a couple of pages, turning to a section labeled ‘SORE’.

Sudden Onset Rest Event - SORE. According to Adam’s notes, it was a strange condition that could trigger within 72 hours of exposure, and often when a victim submits to rest.

“There have only been a handful of mentions of this,” Adam continued. “One is at a prison. Corporate-sponsored. They get this all the time. The other was an explosion of cases in, uh… Juniper, West Virginia.”

“Not seeing much of a connection here, Adam.”

“There’s like… six branches of… you know what? Never mind. I’m getting off track. Here.”

Grabbing another notebook, he handed it to me. He turned a couple of pages and tapped the page.

“There has never been a resolved case of SORE. Check the numbers if you want.”

“It’s just names.”

“Dozens. All diagnosed, none of them released. They contract this thing and disappear.”

“So it’s fatal.”

“No, fatality means closure. There’re no record of anyone dying from it either. They die from something else, or they just…”

Adam popped his hands, making a poof noise. He looked at me as if expecting some kind of conclusion. I shook my head at him.

“Take this home”, Adam sighed. “I got copies. Just look it over.”

“Alright,” I nodded. “Thanks for lunch.”

“Yeah.”

I looked it over later that night, when my job lulled to a halt. I didn’t understand what this had to do with me, or the Tomskog PD, but if I could put this paranoid man’s thoughts to rest, that’d be a win in my book.

A stray thought blew through my mind. There was an incident in West Virginia where plenty of folks had come down with SORE. I vaguely recalled Nick mentioning Tomskog PD being called there once in response to a ‘geological event’. The dates lined up. Checking the records, I could confirm that yes – the same event that Nick and the others were called out for resulted in one of the largest outbreaks of SORE that they’d ever seen. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

SORE was a Tomskog thing, much like the other strange things happening here. Someone had to know something. But chances were that, if no one had told Adam by now, it was for a reason. Either way, I was curious.

There was a lot of info in those notebooks. Something about SORE being an “accelerant” rather than an infection in and of itself, and how it didn’t introduce anything new or foreign to the human system. Records of strange behaviors, such as people drinking rainwater and throwing up white globs of parasites. And violence – endless witness statements about violence, cannibalism, and cult-like gatherings.

Some of that stuff sent shivers down my spine. There were links to online forums where people talked about their experiences. They never say it was SORE outright, but the dates and locations lined up. Some of this stuff had been around since the 70’s, maybe earlier.

I knew it was a bad idea to get involved. I’d been an idiot before, and it got me in trouble with Nick and the whole station. But I figured maybe just this once, I could help a grieving father and do some real good. So I texted him.

“Alright,” I wrote. “What do you need?”

It was just little things at first. Some names, dates, and locations. Mostly things to corroborate his suspicions about Tomskog PD and their involvement with certain events. Then there were pictures. Mostly picture of people involved in said events. Nothing harmful, just confirmation of things that Adam had already figured out. It was all to build an idea of what usually happened to folks with SORE, as a way to point at  what might’ve happened to Elizabeth.

It all pointed to this company called Hatchet Pharmaceuticals. They were the final red thread in every case. Doctors associated with Hatchet would make a new diagnosis and the patient would disappear. Either the records would abruptly end, or they’d die from something unrelated. It’s like they had a list of “top 10 most common excuses” and just repeated the list over and over. There was even a pattern to it.

But that’s as far as we could get. After a week going over the records, the names, the dates… it all ended with Hatchet. And not even I could open the kind of corporate records that these people held behind closed doors.

After that, things got quiet. Adam didn’t know where to go from there, and I didn’t have anything more to give him. My job was business as usual, and there were no major events going down. Yes, I heard a handful of strangeness every now and then, but there were no “all hands on deck” kinda deals. Then, one night, I got a call from Adam.

I met him on a park bench overlooking Frog Lake. It was late, and a cold wind was coming in from the north; bringing a faint smell of pine from the woods. Most of the gravel-filled snow slush had made way to early spring flowers. Even a couple of budding sunflowers, but it was too early to tell what color they were. I could warrant a guess though.

Adam had brought along a little bag that he held in his arms. He looked tired – more tired than usual. He turned to me with a sigh.

“I don’t think we’re gonna get much further,” he said. “Thanks for trying though.”

“Hope I could help.”

“You did,” he nodded. “You really did. Thank you. But, uh…”

He adjusted his seat a little, clutching the bag.

“If you got a new lead, can I count on you to follow it?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“Even if I’m not?”

I turned to him with a questioning look. He pulled out a water bottle from his pack, rolling it between his hands.

“I’ll do what I can,” I said. “I mean… I don’t like people disappearing any more than you do.”

Adam nodded and took a swig from his water bottle. He cringed a little and handed me a slip of paper.

“Meet me here tomorrow,” he said. “And bring a friend. Someone you trust.”

“What for?”

“A Hail Mary, courtesy of mister Digman.”

Adam knowingly tapped the side of his bottle, got up from his seat, and wandered off. He gave me a final wave, calling back to me.

“See you tomorrow.”

I texted Nick three times about it. He got the address, and I tried to underline just how important it was. I got no response. I thought about texting Charlie, but I wasn’t sure she’d have my back the same way Nick did. Also, she was still on sick leave. The thought crossed my mind that I might just cut the crap and talk to the sheriff directly, but I got the impression that he might be involved to a level that might just cause me some trouble if I didn’t play my cards right.

So I said to hell with it and went by myself. I’d have Adam, and maybe that’d be enough. Let the chips fall where they may.

The address that Adam’d given me was his house. He lived in alone in a two-bedroom one-story house at the west end of town, not too far from Frog Lake. I got there just after my shift. Still no answer from Nick. I’d texted Adam a couple of times too, just to see what this was really about. I’d been getting a bad feeling about it all day, so I brought my service weapon.

I knocked on his door and waited patiently. After about a minute, I knocked again, looking around. I noticed there was something stuck to the bottom of the door. The corner of a slip of paper. I pulled it out.

‘Door’s open. Go on in,’ it said.

I took out my gun, just in case. I opened the door to a pitch-black hallway. I felt around for the light switch, flipped it, and relaxed my shoulders. It was empty.

I got in and closed the doors behind me, making sure nothing was following me. This whole ordeal had started to feel like a spy movie. Like I was some kind of double agent working behind the scenes. I know that wasn’t the case – I was just getting involved with a cold case. That’s all. At least that’s what I kept telling myself.

I noticed another note on the kitchen counter, along with a bottle of wine. It had a nice little blue ribbon tied to it.

‘Make sure I’m secure and call it in. Then you got a trail to follow. Some wine for your trouble.’

It was nice wine, but I let it rest on the counter. I looked over the note again.

Adam, what the hell did you do?

It was quiet as a grave. I rounded the corner to the bedroom, expecting something horrifying, but… it was nothing. Just a knocked-over chair and an open window. Looking a little closer, I could tell something was off. There were a pair of handcuffs on the floor, ripped open. The chair was broken in three different places. The window hadn’t been unlocked; someone had broken it from the inside and climbed out. There were tracks in the sleet.

Looking back at the scene, I was starting to piece a couple of things together. There was an empty water bottle on the nightstand; the same one Adam’d drunk from the previous night.

A trail to follow. Making sure he was secure. Broken handcuffs.

The idiot had infected himself with something and wanted me to call it in, so I could follow what happened to him. That was his way for me to get an idea of what happened to Elizabeth, and maybe, help her. That’s why he’d asked the day prior.

Except he fucked up. He was on the loose, doing God knows what, and now I was the only one who knew about it.

There was a knock on the front door.

I rushed to get it, forgetting to look through the peep hole. I opened it just as Nick raised his hand for a second knock.

“This better be important, rook,” he said. “I got work in the morning.”

“I may have fucked up.”

He adjusted his pink sunglasses, looking past me.

“You got Adam in there?” he asked. “Still looking for his girl, huh?”

“You know him?”

“Rook, I know everyone.”

I sat Nick down by the kitchen wine and explained it all to Nick. I told him how Adam and I had talked, how I’d looked into a couple of cases, and how Adam had come up with a plan on his own. I told him I was suspicious, that maybe Adam had infected himself with something. Possibly SORE, the thing he’d talked about. That made Nick perk up.

“SORE? How the fuck did he get a hold of that?”

“I think Digman got it for him.”

“Jesus Ace-of-Base-loving Christ, if that’s… you sure? He got SORE?”

Nick got out of his seat, holding his hands up like everything was a land mine waiting to go off.

“No, that’s… you got no idea,” he continued. “We had to spray down like a hundred cars who was even suspected of having caught a whiff of that thing. If we got a real SORE case on the loose, that’s…”

Nick pulled out his gun. I followed his lead.

“The DUC catches a scent of this, we’re dead,” he continued. “That ain’t no joke.”

“Alright.”

“Alright?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Alright.”

There were some tracks outside the bedroom window, heading southward. We followed them past the Frog Lake trail, and into the woods. The snow-slush was clear enough, but we’d figured out where he was heading by then. Adam was going for the police station. Maybe he didn’t know it’d burned down, or maybe he wasn’t thinking clearly. As we made our way through the pine woods, I turned to Nick. He’d taken off his pink sunglasses – an obvious giveaway that he was nervous as all hell.

“So you know about this stuff?” I asked.

“Kinda,” he admitted. “When they called us in for the outbreak in West Virginia, we were given some outlines.”

He held up a hand, counting off on his fingers.

“First, it was airborne. Second, it triggers if you rest within 72 hours. Third, if and when it triggers, there’s no telling what’ll happen.”

“You seen it though?”

Nick didn’t know what to say. He struggled to find the words, leaning his head to and fro.

“I guess I did.”

He explained that there was a sort of unspoken partnership between Hatchet Pharmaceuticals and the DUC. Hatchet had the best, if not the only, facility that could house people with SORE. They had experts who knew how to study it, and they had people who knew how to diagnose it.

“But some things you can just tell,” Nick explained. “You can see it from a mile away. Like, most infected people stop to stare at the sky.”

“Creepy.”

“It’s even creeper when you know why.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. Nick rolled his eyes.

“I talked to a Hatchet guy. He said they are sort of programmed to look in the direction of the source of infection, like a… magnetic thing. Sort of like a… migrating bird.”

“Wait, so the source of… up? They look up?”

“It’s somewhere up, yeah.”

“Up,” I scoffed. “That’s fucked.”

As we rounded a small hill, we could see the charred ruins of the old police station. Nick and I stopped for a second. We’d lost the tracks some time ago, but there was no doubt in my mind that this was the place. It’d been a straight line.

“If the DUC hears about a case like this, we’re done,” Nick said. “They can’t know.”

“Then this has been for nothing, Nick.”

“I’m telling you – if they hear about it, we’re done. They’ll comb through this guy’s entire life, and you’ll pop up. He’ll be put in a box somewhere, and you’ll join him. Then I’ll join him. And then we’re just one big happy meal for some sick Hatchet experimental shit in God-knows-where Fucklahoma together.”

He grabbed my collar and looked me in the eye.

“If he’s infected, no one can ever know. No one. Please.”

I nodded, and Nick let go. I didn’t like it, but this was the guy I chose to trust.

We made our way to the burnt-out police station. It didn’t take long for us to pick up more tracks. They were circling the building, as if looking for something. Nick suggested we split up to cover both sides, but I put my foot down. We were sticking together, and that’s that.

Rounding the corner to the back of the building, you could see the sleet  bump up a bit where the old fire door lay flat on the ground. Just a couple of feet ahead, we saw the tracks dip southward. Giving them a wide berth, we stepped sideways, keeping our hands on our weapons.

And there he was.

It was Adam, just as I’d seen him the day prior. He had a cut around his left wrist; probably from struggling his way out of those handcuffs. He didn’t look any different physically, but his mannerisms seemed… unusual. He was just standing there, wet all the way up to his knees, staring at the sky.

“You sure he’s infected?” Nick asked. “I ain’t putting down an innocent man.”

“How can we be sure?”

“I don’t know,” Nick admitted. “This shit’s above my pay grade.”

He raised his firearm at Adam, and I followed his lead.

“Hey!” Nick called out. “If you understand me, say something!”

Adam turned to us, not lowering his head. I could see the corner of his eyes, as he stared unblinkingly with childlike wonder up at the sky. Tomskog is one of few places where you can still see the stars at night, but in that moment, I sort of wished I couldn’t.

“I need you to speak!” Nick repeated. “Say something!”

Adam took a careful step our way, leaning his head back further. His mouth opened wide, peeling back his lips. And still, he was perfectly balanced and upright. It’s as if his head didn’t even matter.

“Last chance.”

Nothing. Not a glimmer of recognition.

Nick looked at me, and I nodded. There was nothing we could do. It was the end of the line.

And the gun went off.

Adam dropped to the ground. Nick took another shot for good measure and holstered his weapon. He was breathing like he’d ran a marathon. I had to snap him out of it before he fell into a panic.

“We need bags,” I said. “Lighter fluid. Duct tape. Maybe… maybe a hacksaw. I don’t know.”

“What?”

“If we don’t want the DUC or Hatchet or whoever to know about this, this has to go away.”

Nick nodded, looking back and forth between me and Adam. He tapped me on the shoulder and ran off to get his car, leaving me with the dead body.

The moment he was gone, I broke down. It felt like I’d swallowed a block of ice, turning my blood cold. I shivered. I took out one of my gloves to bite down on, because my teeth wouldn’t stop chattering. I wanted to pinch my eyes closed and cry, but I forced them open. I forced myself to look. I had to convince myself this was for the best. If it hadn’t been, then Patrick would’ve put a crossbow bolt in me by now. Maybe.

Adam was lying face up, still staring at the sky. I could count the stars reflected in his eyes. Dying from a gunshot to the head is like putting the body on pause; it doesn’t look like it’s done moving. It just immediately stops what it’s doing, as if ready to go again at any second.

So when he started moving, I barely noticed it.

It took my eyes a moment to adjust to what I was seeing. Adam’s head rolled; his eyes looked for me. They weren’t focusing, but they were looking my way. Something convulsed its way up his throat. I could count its throbbing movements.

Little white strands rolled out of the corner of his mouth. Like thick hair. Just a couple inches long. They retracted, then rolled out again. It repeated this a couple of times, growing a little longer every time.

It was like a hand, trying to crawl. Like something was using Adam like a snail’s shell.

There was a little pop as a couple of buttons opened on Adam’s bloodstained shirt. A couple more strands of white had erupted from his belly button. He was an outie. Fuck, how I hate that I know that detail. It’s burned into my mind.

I aimed my gun at his head, setting off two more shots, followed by a third shot to the chest. I paused, breathed, and took aim at the neck.

As my finger reached the trigger, something burned my hand. A string of three feet long white strands of white had shot out, digging into my skin. It felt like getting strangled with gasoline-soaked dental floss; this bright painful burn.

I took my gun in my left hand and pulled back. At first, I couldn’t lose the strands and ended up pulling Adam along like a dog on a leash. On my second attempt, the strands came loose, curling back up into his head; leaving these blue and yellow burn marks on my hand. I backed away, raising my gun for another round, but I couldn’t get the fingers in my right hand to move like I wanted them to. There was some sort of paralytic effect going on, and I could feel it spreading through my arm.

Aiming with my left hand, and trying to block out the pain, I took aim at his neck. Then he moved. And not just a little pull, but a proper full-body jerking motion. He rolled backwards, slowly, letting his head move every which way with full abandon; dragging it through the sleet and gravel. He got up on his knees, letting his head roll back to once again look at the stars.

I fired. I fired every bullet I had, tearing out his left tendon, his shoulder, his neck, and part of his eye. There was no way he could survive it, and yet; there he was. Standing up like it was the most natural thing in the world; only limping slightly from the torn fiber in his foot.

I tried to reload, but I dropped my magazine. I wasn’t used to doing it with just one hand. By the time I got it, Adam had turned my way. As I raised my gun towards him, he burst into a sprint.

I rounded the corner to the burned-out station. I could taste the ashes, despite my dry mouth. Part of me just wanted to keep running, thinking there was no way I couldn’t outrun a guy with a torn foot. Then again, it didn’t seem to slow him down; it just changed the way he hobbled. He was fast as hell, almost tripping over himself; using his body weight to go faster in an ever-falling motion.

Something was burning in my leg. Whatever had attached to my hand earlier had done a number on me, and I was feeling something all the way down in my leg. Maybe I was the one with a disadvantage?

In the moment, I wasn’t thinking that clearly. This was a matter of seconds. I decided to take my chances indoors. Sure, the roof had collapsed, but the locker room and the sheriff’s office were solid enough. So when Adam came charging around the corner, I rolled my way inside a window, letting my thick jacket absorb the crunch of shattered glass on the floor.

I plopped down on the floor, but I couldn’t get back up. My right leg wasn’t working. It didn’t contract. I crawled my way across the floor, but as soon as Adam’s shape popped up in the window, I didn’t hesitate. I put six shots in him. It didn’t even slow him down. Long strands of white shot out from a bullet wound in his neck in a web across the walls. It pulled his body inside the building, almost reluctantly.

His body flopped onto the floor unceremoniously as the strands contracted. I propped myself up against the opposing wall, firing every damn bullet I had. The pops echoed against the bare concrete walls, ringing my inner ear with every shake. My hands were stained with ash and sleet, but I could barely feel the cold.

With the final click of my gun, Adam was still standing. What remained of his head still leaned back. White strands poked out of every corner of his body, searching blindly for something to grasp. Something like me.

I couldn’t get up. My leg was done. My right arm, too. My breathing was shallow. My heart was pounding, but I could barely feel it. There was just this pumping feeling in my left arm, but nothing in my chest. My trigger finger retracted with every beat of my heart, but there was nothing but empty clicking left.

The white strands found the steel tip of my right boot. They curled across the surface, but found nothing to grasp. They retracted, aiming higher. A couple of them found the edge of my boot, and the warmth of my leg. I should’ve felt a burn, as I saw another blue and yellow discoloration form on my skin, but there was nothing. The strands retracted a third time, now knowing full and well exactly where I was.

I closed my eyes, and covered my face with my left hand; leaving my empty gun on the floor.

Then, another shot rang out. Not a pistol this time, but a shotgun.

I opened an eye to spot Nick in the window. He’d blown a hole the size of a fist through Adam’s shoulder blade. Click-click, then another shot. Adam’s body collapsed face-first next to me, the white strands struggling to shelter themselves.

He climbed in through the window, emptying every slug he had into that body. Using my left hand and leaning against the wall, I managed to get up. I had to jump on one leg, and almost slipped on a handful of debris, but I made my way across the room. Joining Nick, I looked back, only to see the floor around Adam sprawling with these long white ringworm-looking things.

“Can… can you make it to the car?” Adam asked.

“I think so.”

“You… you go ahead. I got this.”

By the time I’d made it back to Nick’s car, there was a fire coming from the building. It was a pretty solid cover-up; a fire in a burnt-out building? No one would think to look twice.

Nick helped me into the passenger seat, excused himself, and stepped outside to throw up. He kept mouthing ‘oh my God’ over and over, banging his hand against the hood of the car. It took him a solid five minutes or so before he collapsed into the driver’s seat. He looked over at me. I didn’t know what to say. We just sat there for a minute.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know who to call.”

“No, it’s okay,” he said. “You’d be dead if you didn’t.”

“Probably, yeah.”

We just looked at each other for a moment, trying to let those words sink in. This wasn’t empty platitudes. I’d actually be dead.

“We gotta keep you up for 72 hours,” Nick said. “You should be good after that.”

“I’m infected?”

“Yeah. I might be too.”

He revealed a spot on his neck. A bloodstain from the shotgun blast.

“Might be nothing. I dunno. But we don’t wanna risk it.”

“Alright, yeah.”

I tried to close the car door, but my right hand still wasn’t working. Nick leaned over and closed it for me, giving me a pat on the shoulder.

“We’re gonna be okay,” he said. “If we just keep our mouths shut, we’ll be okay.”

“Sorry I got you into this,” I sighed. “Really.”

“You don’t get to do that,” Nick snapped back. “Not this time. If I’d told you about this shit earlier, maybe I could’ve-”

We calmed down, taking another deep breath. Well, as deep as my lungs permitted. There were no words, so I just raised my left hand at him.

“Partners. But, for real, right?”

He shook my left hand, giving me a solemn nod.

“Partners. For real.”

Firstly, a quick introduction. I’m Cheryl, and my husband is Mark. We’re a husband and wife couple who were planning to start the Natural World Adventure Vlog, but my husband’s injuries will make that impossible. We just want answers to what happened in the cave. But I think it’s best to get everyone on the same page about Rock Well.

Rock Well Caverns is a recently opened show cave somewhere in England. The exact location isn’t something I can tell you right now, as news of this event seems to be getting removed for some reason. This might be tourism related, or it might be to prevent public paranoia. You’ll see the caverns have a sort of “spooky” theme, with witches and skeletons and the like around the front entrance. This is sort of what attracted us to it: a new, unheard of location with a theme perfect for the Halloween season, which is when we planned of launching the channel.

Okay, I’ll speed up a little for Mark’s sake. I’ll get through the backstory and caves, then Mark can take over. With the condition his mouth’s in, we have a system that allows him to dictate words to me using eye tracking software. 

We arrived pretty early.  I think we were the 20th or so visitor into the caves. The mouth was pretty unassuming, just a crack in the side of the valley wall, barely squeezing the metal walkway between the jagged sides. We travelled in groups of ten to prevent the cave getting clogged with visitors. It was like walking through a portal. The warm Summer air of outside quickly became colder, almost slimier, once we entered the Caverns. It smelled of limestone, the smell so thick I was almost worried my nose would clog up with limescale. The group was ushered into a chamber, one lit with thick red lights that cast elongated shadows across the damp walls. This is where we were told the backstory of this place.

According to local legend, plants and crops around the town started to die off one week after a supposed witch was executed in the town centre. Their roots turned to stone and flaked away. People who drank the water from the well wouldn't fare much better. Some would pass, as our tour guide called them, “intestine stones”, others would have their insides turned to rock. They'd fall to the ground with a bone-cracking thud as the petrified organs slammed into their ribs. This was believed to be nothing more than a morbid tale inspired by the town's name, until a cave explorer discovered an underground lake. A petrifying well.

Maybe you know of the petrifying well in Mother Shipton’s Cave, North Yorkshire. A thin trickle of water coats any object placed under it with minerals over the course of months. This lake is like that, but stranger. The body of water is stagnant, and, perhaps because of that, the effects are much faster. It takes seconds to coat something, not months. Nobody knows why. The visitor attraction is partly a way to get funding for experiments on the lake, but the working theory is the water’s lack of movement, as well as lack of exposure to weather, allows the process to happen faster. My husband and I disagree.

Deeper into the cave, our tour guide pointed out inscriptions on the walls. They are apparently indecipherable, but they could be phrases in an ancient language eroded to incomprehensibility. Mark’s telling me he took some close up shots of these, but with the camera in the state it’s in, they’ll be unrecoverable. From memory, they seemed almost geometric. The “erosion” theory seems like a stretch, with how preserved the shapes are. Mark also tells me of the rocks found on the floor. Some child in the first group found a gemstone, barely reachable from the walkway. I can remember a conversation between tour guides about whether he could keep it. Management got involved, but we’re not sure what came of it. Mark believes this detail is important, and I almost forgot to mention it. I was more shaken by the gust of wind from deeper in the caves. It smelled even stronger than the cave’s natural atmosphere. It almost felt sandy. I remember brushing some kind of powdered rock (it felt like salt) off my face.

The next chamber of the cave is the petrifying well. I’ll give you a description of the room, before I let Mark give his side of the story.

The chamber is a massive dome shape. A row of electric lights were supposed to illuminate the pool, but some were out, coated in some kind of sediment. The dim light illuminated a milky pool below, surrounded by beaches of rough sand. We were on a metal platform, ten metres above the pool. Around the railings, a series of metal wires acted as safety nets in case anybody lost their footing too near the edge. The smell here was the strongest, even the tour guide suggested only having a brief look at the pool and regrouping outside the chamber. In hindsight, everything was leading to what happened.

Before Mark takes over, I’ll say right now that the doctors found no evidence of head trauma. He is in relatively sound mind, and I believe everything he’s told me. I’ll let him talk now.

“Why me?” I can’t stop thinking that. I’ve been told that if I have a positive outlook, it’ll be better for me. Well, finding shoes in my size was always a hassle - I’m glad I’ll never have to do that again. Anyway… I’ll start properly now.

I had this feeling in my stomach when we entered the chamber. It was like I swallowed an entire ice cube, but I just chalked it up to the stench that place gave off. The best description I can give is “it smelled like an old, damp church in the rain”. The walkway was thin, the water was bubbling, the lights were dimming. I should've run out of there. But I just needed some footage of the pool. Everyone else had left, and they were congregating around the tour guide as I slowly walked back towards the crack in the wall that formed the chamber’s entrance. I didn’t even get halfway when a powerful gust of wind blew me back, it forced my scream of fear back into my lungs. I think you [he’s referring to me, Cheryl] were out of the chamber when this happened - I let you go ahead so you could hear what the guide was saying. Each backward step I took felt lighter than the last, until I was totally weightless. The camera I tightly held onto flew out of my hands as I was launched over the railing.

It felt like it took several hours. Flying over the safety nets and several metres into the pool can’t have taken long, but my head was racing. Nothing seemed real. I couldn’t process what was happening as cold cave air rushed past my head. Then I felt a splash.

Sound became muffled. Powered by nothing but adrenaline, I forced my head above the water. For a split second, I thought the stories of the petrifying pool were exaggerated. That I was safe in the water. I reasoned that the heaviness on my lower body was due to my clothes being waterlogged, and that the tingling feeling on my face was just sediment from the pool. Luckily, I hadn’t fallen too far away from the walkway, and underneath it was a rocky outcropping, just above the waterline. I’m not sure how I made it there, but when I did, I flopped onto the rock. It felt… strange. Not the rock, but the impact. It was like my entire body was wrapped in a hard, rough bandage that dulled all sensation. Something was on me. I could barely see it in the dim lighting, but my coat and trousers had turned to stone and fused with my body. My vision became hazy and filled with dark splotches as I began to panic. I could hear you [me, Cheryl] screaming my name as lights scanned the pool, so I tried to call back. But pain surged through my body as I did. My coat crumbled away, and it must’ve taken some flesh with it. The parts of my chest that weren’t numb burned and screamed in agony. In a panic, I tried to grab my chest, but my left arm began to flake away. By the time I grabbed my crumbling body, it was only a stump. The water on my face hardened into dust. I brushed it off, with sharp stings of pain as the rock was torn away, before everything turned black. 

I jolted back awake. At first, I expected to be in my bed, maybe wrestling with you for the covers, but the stench of limestone quenched that fantasy. The lights were mostly out now, the cave became a wall of darkness. Everyone was gone. I assume they left to get help, to start a search party. The skin I had left was sweaty and clammy. Intense nausea throttled my stomach as I rolled around on the rock. I couldn’t feel it, but I knew fragments of rock were chipping off my body. Even my mouth was turning to stone. That was all I was - a lump of stone with a head. My face bled, and I could feel several layers of rock scraping against each other as I moved. Well, I couldn’t feel the rock, but I could feel the vibrations made by the friction, and the echoing of these vibrations in my teeth. I lay in a panic induced haze, when I heard a splash. A light flicked, illuminating the outline of a humanoid figure in the pool. That thing wasn’t human. It was too thin. It looked more like a skeleton linked by just enough muscle to hold it together. I kicked and rocked, trying to move away from the water, when my shin slammed into the metal support of the walkway. As a metallic clang echoed out, I could feel my crumbling away. 

Something grabbed me and scraped my chest with what felt like a blunt metal pole. The light flickered again. This skeletal figure had me pinned down with its finger, and was scratching something into my skin. I tried to scream, but my mouth had completely hardened, with just a crack where it used to be. With as much power as I could muster, I kicked it with my remaining leg. A puff of dust erupted as my leg evaporated into powder. I covered my face with what I had left of my arms, when the light flickered off and a silence overcame the chamber. My stomach, drunk with nausea, churned and tightened, but I blacked out before I ever got the chance to throw up. 

Mark is getting exhausted from this now. He’s listening to his favourite music (of course, he made a pun about it being “rock”) to raise his spirits. We’re not sure how long he’ll survive in this condition, or if he’ll ever make it out of the ICU, but he seems to be on the upturn now.

But, a few things have me concerned. In the weeks it took Mark to dictate his side of events to me, the camera was recovered from the pool. It was on the walkway, but covered in a thick layer of sediment. Most of it was intact, but the rubber grips were turned to stone completely. The picture of the markings he took are exactly the same as the engraving on his chest. Some say that he did that to himself in a state of panic, but that can’t be true - the fragment of fingernail found in the scratches are old, way older than 43. The cave is pending investigation, and nobody can understand what caused the “wind”, and rumour has it that the rock found by the child was a currently unclassified type of gemstone. But, what really has me scared, is the black lump on my hand. It’s heavy and hard, like stone. I never touched the pool, only Mark. Does anyone know if this “petrification” is contagious? Does anyone know anything about the curse of Rock Well Caverns?

CW: self-harm, cult abuse

*****

New York City is full of words.

They surround you, lap at your hands and feet; wherever you look on the streets of New York, words stare back at you.  Graffiti’d on red bricks and rolling metal doors and bus shelter walls and the sidewalk and the subways.  Scrawled on stickers, stuck to lampposts and on the back of street signs.  Flyers and posters for film screenings, or meetups, or concerts, or sex parties, or guitar lessons - torn, half the original words gone, creating disjointed new messages with the words on the even-older flyers taped beneath. 

Black flowers smell like rot, Adrienne texted me.  Does that mean anything to you?

Not at all, I responded.  Who said it?

A poster.  Outside a club.

Lemme know if you want to talk, I wrote.  

She didn’t respond.  I wasn’t too concerned; Adrienne and I weren’t exactly BFFs, just work buddies at an events venue in Lower Manhattan.

Two days later, she took her own life.  Her landlord, looking for unpaid rent, found her body.

Adrienne’s death devastated all of us at work.  The deterioration of her mental state over the previous two or three weeks had been stark and terrifying.  Adrienne - the wonder-girl sales manager who treated every convention, every showcase, and every social media campaign like a military operation - began missing meetings, sleeping at her desk, sobbing in the liquor room with black circles under her eyes, and jumping like a scared rabbit when approached from behind.

I’m not sure if she quit or was fired, but she stopped showing up at work.  Then she texted me that cryptic, desperate message.  And then, she was gone.  Gone to be with her twin sister, who’d died the year before in a car accident. 

I could’ve saved her.  Because of Cyrus, I should’ve known.  

No.  I couldn’t go there.

The thought buzzed around in my head like a trapped bird.  I knew it was illogical.  I knew any friend or acquaintance or therapist would assure me I was being ridiculous, that Adrienne was sick and suffering from PTSD and survivor’s guilt, and that it was actually quite narcissistic of me to cast myself as the Shining Hero on a White Horse.  

But still.  

I recalled she’d gone to a show in the Lower East Side the Friday before her breakdown.  She’d posted pictures of it on Instagram - a dive-y little place with a purple door.  Black flowers smell like rot.  That phrase was important, somehow, and Adrienne said she saw it on a poster outside a club.  If I could find that poster, find those words, then…

Then, I didn’t know.  But the Saturday after Adrienne’s siblings left the city with her ashes, I took the D train to Delancey Street.  

In bright daylight, the entire Lower East Side looked like the visual representation of a hangover - shabby, dirty, over-bright.  There were posters and stickers and phrases scrawled all over store fronts and lampposts and trash cans.  I couldn’t find a club with a purple door.  I couldn’t find anything having to do with black flowers.  It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack.  And, even if I could find it, Adrienne and Cyrus would both still be dead.  

I walked, aimlessly, down Essex.  I turned right.  I turned left.  I wandered deeper into the Lower East Side, past smoke shops and bodegas with burnt-out signs and hipster restaurants with chalk-calligraphy menu boards.  In front of an abandoned sandwich shop, I stopped.

The padlocked wooden door was covered in torn posters, stickers, and crude street art.  

LANA WAS AN ETHICAL HOE, on a sheet of paper with a cartoon drawing of a cow in a ballet tutu.

SLME WLD in cartoon letters on a sticker.

Words and phrases, stacked on top of each other.  Coded messages.  Secret instructions to our alien overlords.  Or maybe, it all meant something to New Yorkers cooler than me, with their finger on the pulse of the city’s culture.  One phrase in particular caught my eye.  It was handwritten, in shimmery pink calligraphy, on a pale yellow piece of thick paper the size of a postcard.  

Open your mouth and eat your calling whole.  

Directly below the words, a QR code.  

It made no sense, but I felt myself drawn to the words.  I couldn’t take my eyes off them.  The morning light caught the glittery letters at the exact right angle, searing them into my eyeballs.  

This is a message for you, they teased.  

I pulled out my phone and took a picture.  Then, I focused on the QR code.  It took me to a website - agopsegklsd.co.wtm.  On the website was a single video file.  

A girl, out on the street in bright sunlight.  She looked about my age - mid-twenties - with frizzy brown hair, freckles, and small features on a round face.  The video had no sound.  The girl bounced around like a puppy, a goofy grin on her chapped lips.  I could tell she was nervous, out of her element, hiding her fears behind an outlook as bright and cheery as her hot pink babydoll shirt.  

The girl pranced by a series of nearly-identical houses.  All had steep, sloping roofs; three windows arranged in a triangle; and quaint covered porches.  The small lawns were overgrown with thick weeds.  Years’ worth of storms had torn half the gables from roofs and shattered windows and torn away at wooden faces.  Creeping ivy scaled walls.  When the camera pulled back, I saw the street the girl walked along was cracked, pot-holed and, in some parts, hosting the same weeds that choked the houses.  The neighborhood had clearly been abandoned.  Perhaps, for generations.  

The girl stopped in front of a house with faded red paneling.  Half of the porch had collapsed and sunk to the ground like quicksand.  She waded through the yellowed weeds and climbed up unstable steps to the front door, which had once been black, then peered through a shattered window.  Whatever she saw there must’ve been what she wanted to see, because she turned abruptly and stared directly at the mysterious camera operator.  

She smiled.  The camera zoomed in.  The more detail I saw of her face, the more uncomfortable I became.  Her nostrils flared.  Her skin was less Snow White pale than an off shade of yellow.  Her grey eyes, which appeared elfin and mischievous from afar, became those of a scared animal: wide pupils, red veins, puffy dark circles.  I knew, then, that the girl wasn’t some clout-chasing urban explorer.  That her trek to this overgrown ghost town hadn’t been a choice.

She’d been lured.  She’d been cornered.  Maybe both.  

And then the video froze, dissolved into pixels, and turned black. 

*****

The days after I watched the video, I kept on having the same nightmare.

In my dream, I was a woman.  That part felt natural - like the breasts and long hair belonged on my body, always had.  I was in a cold place with chipped walls and cockroaches breeding in corners.  There were other women there with me.  They all wore loose brown dresses, their skin dull and flaky, their hair dirty, and their faces all somber and apprehensive.  Somewhere, someone sobbed.  

I was always afraid.  But the fear was dormant, incapsulated, hidden away somewhere so I didn’t have to see it and face it.  

The whistle of a train cut through my focus.  I remembered what I was afraid of.  And I screamed and screamed and screamed.  

And then, I woke up.

I couldn’t get that video out of my mind.  I re-watched it on the subway, during my lunch break, when I was alone in my apartment, again and again, late into the night.  

Cyrus couldn’t sleep either, towards the end.  

Fuck that.  I bought sleeping pills.  The nightmares stopped.  

*****

Two weeks later, an old college buddy moved to Greenpoint.  We got together that Friday night on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village; I wanted to show him around, show off my favorite places, make him fall in love with New York City after dark.  I arrived at the restaurant early and waited outside, expecting him to call for directions at any moment, The Village being a notorious maze.  I stared across Christopher Street.  My eyes rested on a woman in an oversized brown dress, standing in front of a wine shop, staring back at me.  

Her hair was ice-blonde, curly, and cascaded down her shoulders and back like a river of gold.  She was bone-thin.  Her face… there was something wrong with her face…

I stepped closer.  A car honked as it blew by me.  When the car passed, the woman had vanished.  

The next time, I saw her up close.

It was Sunday night, a week later.  Work was booked until midnight for a wedding and I’d volunteered to cover clean-up.  The bartenders dutifully loaded all the product into crates and sent it downstairs in the dumbwaiter, then left everything in the liquor room for me to sort through.  We had a corporate event the next afternoon and I knew I wouldn’t get around to organizing in the morning, so I rolled up my sleeves and resigned myself to staying late.

I found an untouched container of lime wheels in a crate with cans of tonic.  The limes would be good for another day; I took them to the kitchen, wrapped the container in plastic wrap, and stuck it in the produce fridge.  The cooks had been cut hours before; the industrial kitchen was empty, clean, and sanitized to shiny, bleach-smelling perfection.

Something moved, by the giant grill.  

I froze.  Just feet from me, her.  

She smelled like urine and sweat and something putrid and coppery.  Her brown dress was stained with mold and dirt and possibly blood.  Her hands, the small bit I could see under her long sleeves, looked like the hands of a war refugee - filthy, with grime embedded under nails, covered in putrefying sores, leaking pus.  Her hair, flaxen gold from afar, hung frizzy and damp and greasy.  And her face… I couldn’t see her face.  It blurred and twisted and flickered.  

She reached a rotting hand out to me.

I cried out.

The air around her shifted.  And, like a mirage, she was gone.

*****

The next Wednesday, she inserted herself into my real life.

Not the scarred, blonde, faceless wraith.  She’d taken a vacation from haunting me.

The other her.

That night in the industrial kitchen turned me into an agoraphobic.  I’d become so dedicated to avoiding the outside world that I’d forgotten to buy groceries, and I didn’t even have coffee.  So I thew on my hoodie and set off for my favorite bakery on Nostrand.  

I found an empty table for me and my iced latte.  Someone had scribbled on the green-painted wood with a sharpie.  Abandoned tunnels are best seen with dead, bloodshot eyes*.*  The words felt oddly rounded, like they’d been waiting there for me.  I took a picture with my phone.  Then, I peered through the window of the coffee shop.

She sat at an outdoor table under a Covid shelter, sucking down a green smoothie.  She had a round face, with chubby, freckled cheeks and small features, rimmed by frizzy brown hair.  She wasn’t wearing her pink babydoll shirt - she’d switched it out for a collared button-down under a posh periwinkle sweater - but I recognized her immediately as the girl from the QR code.  The girl from the video.  

She glanced up.  Her grey eyes met mine.

All my fear - of the blonde wraith, of whatever haunted the edges of my nightmares - burned away like hot butter in a pan.  

This chick was real.  

I ran out of the shop and towards her.  But just then, a mass of brunch-seeking yuppies crossed the sidewalk in front of me and, by the time they’d filed into the cafe next door, the girl had gotten up, tossed her smoothie, and was making her way down Nostrand towards the C train.  She wasn’t running, but she wasn’t waiting up for me, either.

Silently, carefully, keeping a good distance between us, I followed her.  She turned left.  She turned right.  She turned another corner and, when I next caught sight of her, she no longer walked alone.  A second woman strode beside her.  Red hair cascaded down her slender back, and she wore a blue romper with yellow flowers.  They kept it up for awhile - leisurely strolling along, just fast enough where I couldn’t approach them, yet not to lose me completely.

The curly-haired girl had changed, I noticed.  In the video, she’d embodied golden retriever energy.  The woman I followed down the street appeared calm.  Confident.  Her mannerisms fluid and purposeful.  

They stopped in front of a large building with a brick face and waited, leaning on their hips like high schoolers at the bus stop.  When I got close - not too close, just close enough - I saw the two girls had picked up another friend: a tall, skinny black guy with dreds and a Texas Chainsaw Massacre t-shirt.  All three emitted smoke.  A grayish haze hung around them, with neon yellow-green undertones.  

Simultaneously, the trio stared straight at me.  They smiled private little smiles.  Their eyes twinkled in recognition of the game.  Single-file, they jogged up a short flight of steps and through a glass-paned push door.  I looked up.  They’d led me to one of the Brooklyn libraries.

I scanned the large main room of the library.  A bored-looking clerk scrolled on her phone behind the checkout desk, two rough-looking men in dirty clothes sat in front of the ancient computers, and a young nanny absentmindedly rocked a sleeping baby in an expensive stroller.  I couldn’t see Curly, Red, or Goth Boy.  They must have hidden from me amongst the tall shelves of books.

There.  Slender peals of yellow-green smoke wafted from the adult fiction section.  I jogged across the room and entered at the R-slash-S shelves, which was where I could swear the hazy fumes had originated.  But I saw no sign of the three.  I turned a corner, then another; allowed myself to become lost in the sea of paperbacks with laminated covers.  At the J, K, L shelves, I took a long breath through my nose.  I stumbled, bent over, and gagged. 

Good God, something stunk.  It smelled like a festival porta-potty crossed with chicken nuggets left rotting in an office fridge, with a twist of old pennies. 

THUD!

I whirled around.  A book had landed, loudly, on the carpet at my feet.  It was heavy and hard-backed, with a worn red cover that looked about a hundred years old.  I picked the book up and stared at it.  AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE: 1940-1979.  Well, that definitely didn’t belong in the fiction section.  Which meant either it had been mis-shelved and fell by chance, or else it hadn’t so much dropped from the shelves as been thrown in my path, specifically for me to find.  

I took in another waft of the rotten stench.

I turned the book over in my hands; it fell open.  Someone had used a folded piece of printer paper as a bookmark.  I scanned the pages it opened to.  On the left, a detailed description of Mid-Century Modernism and the design of northeastern churches.  On the right, a sketch depicting an example of Mid-Century Modernism: a squarish church with faux columns, a gently sloping roof, a tall steeple and a circular stained-glass window depicting a haloed child cuddling a lamb.  Behind the church, there was a line of fir trees and an elevated railroad.  The caption read - First Methodist Church, Pennsylvania.  

Oh-kay.  Not sure what that had to do with anything.  

I set the book on the ground and unfolded the bookmark.  On the inside of the folded paper, there was a message in one word.

Revelation.  Written in calligraphy, with a sparkling pink pen.  

An off-key, baritone note rang out behind me.  The pitch triggered an instinct buried deep in my subconscious.  Apprehension spiked the hair on the back of my neck, trickled down my spine, tightened my muscles.  

I whirled around.  And there she was.

That she.  The dirty blonde wraith - in full, disgusting detail - lingered between the rows of books.  She smelled like rot and nasty BO and copper.  And I saw her face.  God, I saw her face.  Her eyes were hidden behind fat purple hematomas, as though someone had attacked her with a hammer.  A jagged hole gaped where her nose should’ve been.  Her cheeks were purple and swollen and dotted with semicircular red cuts.  Teeth.  

She lifted her arm.  She opened her jagged, bloody mouth.  A low-pitched growl rang in my ears, through my brain, into my eyes, throbbing and expanding…

*****

I regained awareness sometime later, sitting awkwardly on the concrete sidewalk outside the library, my back against a lamp post.  A middle-aged Caribbean woman stood in front of me, hands on her knees.

“You okay, baby?”  she asked. 

I forced myself up onto my feet.  “I’m fine, thanks.”

The Caribbean woman frowned.  But I was standing and walking, so she must’ve figured I was as good as I was going to get.  

“You need me to call you someone?” she asked, smiling reassuringly.  

I shook my head.  “Nah, I’m fine.  I’m just gonna head home.”

She nodded, offered me one last smile, and walked back across the street towards the grey brownstone that must’ve been her home.  Turned around, I opened Google Maps before I inadvertently wandered ten blocks in the opposite direction.  

I noticed there was a flier stuck to that lamppost.  

Cartoonish clip art of a red-eyed, graphically stoned Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, and Dumbo.  No party, it read.  September 10th.  No party at the Butler Outfit.  Absolutely DO NOT come to the Butler Outfit on September 10th, 2024.  There will be no party here.

*****

I spent the next thirty minutes in a Bed-Stuy coffee shop, scrolling Reddit’s NYC subs.  The internet informed me the Butler Outfit in Williamsburg wasn’t an actual venue - it was the unofficial, colloquial name for an abandoned store that had once sold discounted furniture.  The business shut down a few years ago; the space had yet to be permanently rented.  It remained under the stewardship of a certain property manager known to “misplace” the key for the benefit of shady promoters who slipped him a couple hundreds.  

“Don’t go to a party at the Butler Outfit alone,” cautioned one Redditor.  “My friend got roofied there.”

I didn’t want to party at the Butler Outfit at all.  But if I wanted to figure out what was happening to me - if I wanted it all to stop - that flier outside the library presented my next set of instructions.  

Over the next few days, I caught myself humming a melody I couldn’t place.  Coming up with poetic verses in my head.  

Abandoned tunnels under cold, dead earth.

With sightless eyes, I cry for rebirth.  

The urge was unfamiliar - I’m not musically inclined at all, and I didn’t even go through a crappy poetry phase in high school.  But it became suddenly pleasurable, plucking words that went with other words, tapping out rhythms with my toes.  

And the nightmares had returned.  

In the first, I was back in that cold, empty house.  It was bigger than I’d initially imagined - a labyrinth of dusty wood, accentuated with spiderwebs and tenanted by rats and crawling things.  My sisters and I sat in rows in a wide room.  We were all dressed in brown, our faces bare, our hair matted, our stomachs empty, our vanity humbled out of us.  We raised our hands to the sky in a stretch, then leaned forward into a yoga pose, striving for endorphins like orgasm.  One of my sisters sobbed.  The stench of urine filled the room; a damp spot extended on a young brown-skinned sister’s dress.  

Then, footsteps.  A figure moved in the shadows.  He took my sister’s arm and lead her away.  She risked one last look back at us, her face a mask of terror, and then she was gone.  

We extended our arms and chanted a low, reverberating note.  Our chant was broken by sharp, animalistic screams.  

The second nightmare came two nights later. 

I could barely see; I was engulfed in hazy darkness, somewhere damp and foul-smelling.  My bones ached.  Something wet slid down my cheeks.  I was tired.  Too tired to move, too tired to cry out.  Bodies writhed beside mine; a hand brushed against me, a foot kicked at my knee.  Small, cold toes skittered across my leg; whiskers tickled, and then sharp pain.  

I screamed.  Then, I coughed.  Smoke singed my nostrils, coated my throat, settled into my lungs…

I woke up hacking and shaking, tangled in my blanket.  

And then, there were the others.  

I saw one in Times Square, on the way home after a vodka showcase for work.  She stood at an artisan’s table, admiring charcoal drawings, looking like a normal twenty-something.  Asian, dressed in jeans and fuzzy boots and a denim jacket, hair up in a ponytail.  But she glowed.  Grey fog, with a yellow-green hue beneath it, hung off her like smoke over dry ice.  

The next appeared in the grocery store.  A man this time, in his mid-twenties, with a blonde undercut and a noir-ish black duster, comparing two brands of sourdough bread.  He too was encased in a smoky, greenish-yellow mist.  The door opened, a breeze blew in, and I smelled rotten fast food, copper, and pit sweat.  Then, the guy turned.  He caught my eye.  And he smiled - a smug, conspiratorial smile.  As though we shared a nasty little secret.

I needed answers.

So, on September 10th, I left work at nine and took the L train to Williamsburg, to seek out the party at the Butler Outfit.  I walked a couple blocks to a still, poorly-lit mixed-used neighborhood.  This should be the place, I thought.  I saw a closed and metal-gated immigration law office, an abandoned store front that had once been a shoe shop, and… there.  

A brick shop space covered in graffiti, with papered windows and an uninviting black door. I’d have walked right by it, except the storefront glowed.  Pale yellow-green light emanated from the windows.  Little wisps of grey smoke snaked out between bricks.  Yep.  Message received.  

I approached the door and knocked.  Nothing.  Then, I noticed a call box with a big red button.  I pressed the button.  There was a rush of static, and then a man’s voice.

“Password?”

Crap.  The flier hadn’t said anything about a password.  

It didn’t need to.

“Abandoned tunnels are best seen with dead, bloodshot eyes.”

A moment of apprehension.  I hoped that was the password.  I also hoped it wasn’t the password.  

With a loud buzz, the door opened.

*****

I recall the rest of the night in pieces.  

Sad, orphaned pieces of furniture lay around the main floor of the Butler Outfit.  A bored security guard sat amongst them.  He pointed me towards an open door in the back, which lead down stairs to a basement, where a party was in full swing.  

A DJ played slow, repetitive, wordless house music.  It settled around my nerves, into the grooves of my brain, and it calmed me, hypnotized me.  I sipped a PBR I’d paid too much money for, sold by a guy with a cooler and a paper sign.  There was a zero percent chance this establishment maintained a liquor license.  Red and green strobe lights flickered and flashed; a disco ball hung from the ceiling.  A half-naked guy with glow-in-the-dark paint slathered all over his chest grinded against a panties-and-pasties clad girl.  I fell into conversation with a guy on a couch; I don’t remember what we talked about, but his teeth were disturbingly white.  He gave me a pill.  I took it.

The blonde wraith was there.  I saw her on the dance floor, swaying and twirling, running her bleeding and pustule-dotted fingers through her long, matted hair.  I didn’t fear her, then.  I felt myself drawn to her.  And then I was dancing beside her, spinning and thrashing about, raising and dropping my arms, uninhibited, as we’d been that summer’s day in Prospect Park, dressed in white, overcome with the tingling bliss of love and sisterhood, leaping and spinning and collapsing into each others arms… and then I saw him, our lover, our husband, our father, our messiah, our north star…

I jerked, with an unpleasant lurch, back to reality.  The blonde wraith was gone.  Pain cut through my head; my stomach flipped, my jaw ached.  I half-dove, half-stumbled for the rickety red bathroom door, fell to my knees on sticky tile, and expelled the contents of my stomach.  I flushed, then puked more, then flushed again, then retched, and finally the spinning stopped and my muscles regained their tone, and I was able to stand upright and flick on the light switch.  Dingy, brownish light filled the tiny room.  I washed my hands and splashed water on my face.  Then, I noticed the words.

Band stickers.  Magazine cutouts.  Old posters for parties long since partied.  Names and numbers and drunken messages scrawled across the dirty red walls and scratched into the cracked mirror.  

DANDY GOOP, with a graphic of a skateboarder showing his ass.

Keep on reaching for that beautiful life, in red pen.  In black: reach for my dick.  

Catalina is a piddling puss!

OPYH INC

Sadness will become your only friend. 

I stared at that last phrase: sadness will become your only friend.  And it began to glow.  The words, carved crudely into the mirror, emitted piss-yellow light.  Smoke poured from the shallow cuts.  It filled the room, blinding me to all but those glowing golden words.  Sadness will become your only friend.  

The mirror bubbled, like hot lava.  Searing black balls protruded from the cracked glass.  The balls became fingers.  Then thumbs.  Then whole hands - pitch black, putty, reaching hands.  Reaching for me.  Cold hands on my hands, clutching my arms, running fingers through my hair, brushing my face…

The last thing I remembered, before the smoke thickened and reality blurred and blackness overtook me, was the sound of my own primal screams.

Part 2

I'm writing this on a bus, coming home early from a frustrated trip. I can't stop thinking about what happened, and I feel like I need to share it with someone else. 

This year, a few friends and I decided to take a vacation together and go on a beach trip, planning to stay for about a week. We arranged for everyone to take time off at the same time and rented a house on the coast of a neighboring state.

At first, everything went smoothly, I took the bus around nine PM, and knowing that the trip would take around three hours, I put on my headphones, reclined the seat and enjoyed the view. We agreed to meet at the town’s port.

At a certain point in the journey, the bus stopped, and the driver informed us he’d be making a brief stop in a town near our final destination. I went to a restaurant, grabbed some coffee and a sandwich, which I barely had time to finish before the bus started moving again.

I was dozing off when I felt the bus stop. The driver turned off the engine, the lights came on and the passengers began to get off. I quickly looked out the window to check that I was in the right place, and after seeing some containers, I got off too.

That's when things started to get weird.

As soon as I stepped out, I noticed there were no other passengers around, which felt odd since it had been barely twenty seconds since everyone had disembarked. The place I was standing in was just part of the road; it didn’t even look like a bus stop, much less the port and bus station that my friends had mentioned earlier. The only sign of life nearby was a gate with a guard booth and, inside, a collection of containers and cranes that looked like a shipping company.

When I tried to get back on the bus, to ask the driver if I hadn't gotten off at the wrong stop, he had already left.

I looked at my phone, paused the music, and checked the time: midnight sharp. I called one of my friends to let them know I had “arrived,” hoping that this was the right place. No answer. I only managed to send a quick message – “I think I’m at the port” – before my battery died. Apparently, listening to music for three hours straight was just too much for my old phone. With no idea what else to do, I approached the guard booth to ask for information.

Inside was a woman, who smiled when she saw me approaching. I asked her if I was in the right place and explained a little bit of the situation. 

"Ah, the port? Oh, no, you’re far away, about five miles I believe, my dear." She replied, with a big smile and a voice a little... strange.

I can't explain it, but the woman seemed off. Her skin looked different, in a way that I couldn't tell whether she was 26 or 62, and her voice didn't sound natural. At the time I didn't pay much attention to any of this, but in retrospect, it seemed as if she wasn't human, but something trying to be human.

"But if you want, you can go through here, James and I will take you to the port, everything will be fine!" She said while gesturing to a colleague who was near the gate.

I hadn't noticed the colleague before. In fact, it's is as if he appeared out of nowhere as soon as she called him. He came towards me, with the same huge smile and strange skin.

For some reason, that gave me chills. Those two looking at me, piercing me with their eyes, and with that sinister smile, almost drooling, as if I were a dish from a five-star restaurant. Something told me not to wait for this “James” guy to approach, so I walked away, muttering a goodbye.

I couldn't see much ahead, just the road and the silhouette of vegetation on both sides of the asphalt. There were no streetlights except one in front of the “company,” and likely none for the next five miles. I started walking, but I soon realized that it would be a long trek, so I raised my thumb in hope that someone passing by would give me a ride.

And it didn't take long for a truck driver to pull up next to me. I got close to his window, and to my surprise, he didn't look right either. He was an older man, or at least I think it was because of his white hair, but he had the same strange skin as the woman and “James“ I just met. He invited me into the truck, saying he would take me to the port in no time. Strange, because I hadn't even told him where I wanted to go.

"Come on, kid, I'll take you there, you won't even notice! You can sleep if you're tired. Everything will be fine!" The old man insisted. He spoke in the same strange, weirdly broken way as the other two.

The chill I had felt before now intensified, and it went up my spine like an electric shock. I didn't even bother to say something to the truck driver, I just moved on, quickening my pace. He just stood there.

From then on, I started to walk faster. I had a weird feeling, as if things weren’t right, and what scared me the most: that something was watching me.

I rounded a bend in the road and saw a broken guardrail and a crashed car beyond it. It looked like the accident had happened some time ago, but obviously, the scene didn’t help with my anxiety at all.

The further I got, the more unsettling the place became. The air grew heavy, and I started to hear noises in the vegetation, twigs snapping, leaves rustling. I was getting exhausted from the walk, and my eyes were strained from trying to see in the pitch-dark.

After about two hours of walking, just past another curve, this time forming a big "S" along with the previous one, a car stopped next to me. It was an old hatchback, probably from the '90s. I couldn’t see much, but the car looked run-down. At this point, I was obviously no longer hitchhiking, and my paranoia made me completely suspicious of whoever the driver was.

And with good reason.

"Get in, Alex, I'll take you to the port." He said, calmly.

"HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME?" I shouted, desperate.

"What do you mean, Alex? We all know your name. We just want to help you! Trust us, everything will be fine!" He replied, lifting his head and looking directly at me, with the same massive, twisted smile as the others.

Taking a good look at his face, he looked almost identical to the truck driver, like twins, both equally disfigured and weird.

This time, I ran.

I ran like I’d never run before, without even looking back to see if anything was following me.

I must have run for another two hours until exhaustion took over, and I sat down on the roadside. Everything seemed quiet and safe. Too safe. I opened my backpack to take the last sip from my water bottle when I began to hear them.

Voices, coming from the bushes next to me. At first, I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but slowly I began to recognize my name being called.

"Alex... Alex... come this way, Alex... it's a shortcut, Alex... everything will be fine, Alex."

The feeling of safety soon turned to horror, and I went back running.

The voices grew louder, more distorted, and when I inevitably looked back, my fears were confirmed.

There was a man – no, a creature – chasing me. It was humanoid, but with disproportionate limbs and a bizarre skin, as if it were imitating human skin, which writhed and twisted. And it was smiling at me.

That thing came closer, initially walking slowly, but picking up it's pace towards me.

I ran awkwardly, totally consumed by fear, crying and screaming, the creature chasing, obviously faster than me, at one point getting close enough to touche me. And it did. It put it's hand, boney and cold, on my shoulder.

As I fumbled to get away from its grasp, I tripped and went rolling. The thing came after me, opening it's mouth, revealing rotten and missing teeth, kneeling down in my direction.

I've never been a fighter, but at that time some kind of instinct came over me. Somehow I felt this would be my last seconds alive if I didn't try to fight it. So I kicked, punch, did everything I could to get away.

After a few blows to its head, the creature seemed to recoil for a second, looking at me with a twisted and broken smile, mixed with an expression of confusion, as if it didn't believe that I could defend myself like that. To be honest, I didn't believe it either.

But that single moment was enough for me to get up on my feet and start running again.

I soon encountered the first streetlight in what felt like years.

As I got closer, I saw the sea, containers, docked ships, a lighthouse in the distance, and a small group of people. It was the port. I stopped running but was still paranoid and anxious, so I avoided contact with anyone. Looking behind me, at first I saw nothing besides the darkness of that godforsaken road, but squinting my eyes, I could barely see that pale figure, standing still, staring directly at me. For some reason, it had given up on chasing me after I've entered the light.

Then I saw the bus arrive, and exactly the same passengers who were with me got off. Soon I also saw my friends approaching. They were drinking and laughing, and when they saw me, they ran over, shouting and cheering to celebrate my arrival. One of them tried to talk to me, asking me why I was looking terrible, sweating, dirty, and shaking.

I just lit a cigarette, walked with them to the house, a few blocks away, and told them that I was extremely tired and needed some sleep.

When I got there, I left my things in my room, plugged in my phone to charge and went to take a shower. There was a clock in the hallway, and, giving me one last moment of terror, it showed twelve-oh-five.

The next day, my friends woke me up asking about what had happened the night before and why I seemed so scared.

I tried to tell the story, but obviously no one believed it.

Some said I was lying, or that I was smoking some really good stuff. I even opened Google Maps to show where that company was, where everything had supposedly happened, but, to my surprise, I couldn’t find it.

There was no "S" curve on the road. In fact, the road between the town where I stopped to eat and the port of the town we were in was completely straight, well-lit, and without companies, gates or containers. There was even a gas station halfway through, which I sure as shit didn't see last night.

Amid all the jokes and questions, one of the people in the room, who I didn't really know, approached me and said:

"Relax, Alex, I think you just had a weird dream. You're with us now, everything will be fine." He broke into a giant smile as he said those last words in a distorted way.

At that moment I ran up the stairs, grabbed my backpack and went straight to the port to wait for the next bus, without saying anything to anyone.

The holidays are always an emotionally very confusing time for me. I love the decorations, the festive mood, but I also feel a melancholy nostalgia that lingers in the back of my mind. Not a yearning for younger times, but vague childhood trauma and family inadequacies bubbling to the surface. My sister and I individually still live in our hometown. My parents do too, and so did my grandparents. I have no desire to move, I do really like it here. That doesn’t mean though that I’m not affected by the proximity of parts of my past.

I practice Wicca in a modern, cultural sense. I was raised loosely Catholic, and I still celebrate Christmas. But I also celebrate the Wiccan sabbat of Yule which overlaps with Christmas. It’s nice to be able to have something to share while also having something for “yourself” to enjoy and experience. This year’s holidays were different though. Surprising, but not shocking, my grandfather died.

He was ninety-two, so his passing was not unexpected. Active and mentally alert up until the very end, but still, ninety-two. Just the timing of being so close to the holidays was not foreseen in the brief overview of planning for his passing that my parents, sister, and I happened to discuss earlier in the year. Getting funeral arrangements made for December 20th was a pain, but we got it done. We made it simple. A public wake and a private funeral. Of my family, I was the closest to my grandfather and I felt treating his death arrangements in a more logical, left brain matter just made sense and wasn’t insensitive at all. He would have wanted people to move on quickly and continue with their lives.

I learned of Wicca from my grandfather. Many people are surprised to hear that being Wiccan, or a witch, is not just some New Age fade. My grandmother was Wiccan too. My mother, their daughter, decided not to practice which is of course totally fine and her decision. I decided though that Wicca really aligned with my values and felt best for me. Cooking, especially baking is a main aspect of my practice. Since I was a kid my grandfather and I would bake together in his big kitchen. Savory or sweet galettes (depending on the season), witch’s bread pudding using buttery brioche bread, and much more. Nine out of ten times, we made perfect creations.

Wicca is very much individual-centered. While my grandfather and I practiced together, he also encouraged me to develop my own practice for myself as he did his own. When my grandmother died three years ago, it was nice to see that he had a “system” in place for himself to process the grief in a healthy way. What exactly that system was when he was alone, I’m unsure. But it worked for him.

Speaking of speedy death arrangements, I happened to get a call from my grandfather’s lawyer maybe 10 minutes after the funeral. He wanted to go over my grandfather’s will. He was able to arrange a meeting for my family and I to come into his office the following day. The convenience was very nice.

We all sat down in front of the attorney’s desk. “It’s honestly one of the most simplified wills I’ve ever been designated to carry out,” the lawyer said.

“As he stated in his will, you are already aware he is donating most of his money to charities and causes he cared deeply about. However, he left $10,000 total to divide amongst the four of you equally.” Thankfully, we all understood and acknowledged that we knew this well in advance. No one contested it. The lawyer handed each of us a check for $2,500. The lawyer proceeded.

“The only thing left is this.” The lawyer lifted up onto his desk a small, old wooden chest that was maybe a foot wide and half a foot tall. The dark brown of the wood was almost black, which matched the black metal of the hinges, lock, and corner edge plating.

“This is for you Zack.” The lawyer handed me the chest. My family looked at me inquisitively but said nothing. Right then and there I tried to open the chest, but it was locked.

“Is there a key?” I asked.

“No” the lawyer replied firmly. The lawyer then stated that my mother was designated as the executor of his “estate” or what would happen with the rest of his belongings like his home. That concluded the will distribution and the lawyer ushered us out the door because he assumingly had other things to do.

The plan was we would all get together for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at my parents’ house, which was normal for us, unfortunately. I drove back to my place. I put my keys down in the bowl by the door and took the chest into the kitchen where I placed it on the dining room table. I made myself a mug of herbal tea and then sat in front of the chest, thinking. Should I try to pick the lock? Do I try and pry it open?

I gently shook the chest. I couldn’t hear anything inside. Was it just decorative? That doesn’t seem like something my grandfather would leave in a will. Wicca tends to be utilitarian, and that’s how my grandfather was. Practical, but not in an emotionally detached way at all. He didn’t like giving or receiving gifts. He liked to show his care by providing experiences, acts of service, words of affection. Baking was a clear example of giving an experience of the senses.

I left the chest on the table and decided to light a fire in the fireplace. Some find it contradictory, or a dichotomy? I don’t know. Anyway, people find it weird that I use natural kindling from the woods but put one of those packaged logs you light on top of it. To continue the theme of Wicca, I think it’s a perfect representation of the practice. “Old” and “new” together. I lit the fire, and it immediately went up in a roar and then settled down. It’s a traditional fireplace, it doesn’t use major flammables like gas. The wood must have been really… dry? A moment after the fire settled, I heard a thud come from the kitchen. I got a little scared. Just in case, I grabbed the fire poker hanging near the fireplace and slowly walked to the kitchen.

Stepping into the kitchen I looked around. Nothing was there. The door that connected the garage to the kitchen that I normally walk through was closed, and so were the windows. I looked over at the dining room table and saw the chest. That, was open. I walked over to it and looked inside. I had to blink a few times to make sure nothing was in my eyes, and that what I was seeing was actually what I was seeing. There were eleven teeth scattered within the chest.

A shiver shot up my spine. Teeth? Real human teeth? How did I not hear at least a rattling when I shook the chest? The question in itself made me uncomfortable. Whose teeth were they? I had to assume they were my grandfather’s. Where else would he get human teeth? I thought of the worst possible scenario. Did he hurt someone to get these? I was just being paranoid in the moment. I never saw my grandfather get even remotely angry at anything. I don’t think I ever even saw him slightly irritated. Is that a good trait, or the trait of a psychopath?

I needed to calm down. I know my grandfather. Horribly, these had to be his teeth, and the coroner or funeral people didn’t notify us because, for some odd reason, they didn’t see his missing teeth as abnormal. Maybe they just thought he had poor dental hygiene? There was a part of me that wanted to pick them up and inspect them, but the shock was still subsiding in me, so I didn’t. 

It’s an old chest. It must have been spring-loaded and broken open. I left the open chest there and decided to bring my tea over to the couch near the fireplace and just relax. I would try reading a book I was almost done with and organize my thoughts about this discovery after. I decided not to tell my parents and sister. At least not so close to Christmas. Again, I already feel weird around my family this time of year. It’s not an emergency, and I wouldn’t want to sour their Christmas and create more tension just like I wouldn’t want my Yule shaken up like that. If I was going to tell them what Grandpa left me, I would wait until after the holidays.

Only three to five pages into reading, I started to smell a really pungent odor. It wasn’t bad-smelling, just really strong. It was cinnamon. I didn’t add anything to my tea. I thought maybe some of the wood I was burning could be producing a smell? I went over to the fireplace, but it wasn’t that. I remembered I had mini cinnamon brooms hanging outside each of my house’s doors. I thought that was ridiculous, because how could they suddenly become that strong in smell, but I checked anyway. 

I opened the front door and the cinnamon smell hit me like a wave. Yes, it was ever so clear that it was coming from the cinnamon brooms. When I bought them, you literally had to put your nose up to them to smell the slight scent they held. Now, it was as though the scent radiated off them like a nuclear reactor. I checked the one outside the connecting garage door, and it too was overwhelming.

For those that don’t know, in Wicca, it’s tradition to hang a cinnamon or spiced broom outside your door during the colder seasons’ sabbats, especially Samhain/Halloween and Yule. It’s a very contemplative time of the year. The brooms protect your home from “bad energy” and ground you in the physical realm while the veil between life and death is… thin. They’re symbolic. The same concept applied to lighting fires in the fireplace.

Whether you notice it or not, air circulates through homes constantly. Air pressure changes dramatically simply by opening and closing doors. My home is on the older side so I thought there must have been a particular draft where a wind was strongly wafting in the scent of the brooms toward my house and then through tight spaces even though the doors and windows were closed. I really couldn’t think of any other way. I went back to reading.

I finished my book. Albert Camus’ “The Fall.” I liked “The Stranger” better, but overall this was a good read too. It was around 9:00pm. The glowing fire had relaxed me with its light flickering within the room. However, that feeling left. My heart sank a little. I remembered I needed to do something with the chest of teeth. I turned and saw it on the table. With the lights off it mainly just looked like a darker black spot within an already dark room. I finished my tea which was cold at this point. I decided to just leave the chest there. I’ll get a good night’s sleep and figure out what to do with it tomorrow. I put out the fire with cold ashes, showered, and went to bed.

I jolted up, leaning forward in bed. I had woken up feeling panic. I checked my phone, it was 3:00am. There was silence. Did I have a nightmare? I took a few deep breaths. As I was going to lay back down, I heard a faint sound. It went away after a few seconds. I heard it again. I was certain it was the sound of children giggling. I couldn’t tell if it was coming from outside or somewhere inside the house.

I checked my phone again. I didn’t accidentally have any audio playing. I thought it must be the Alexa playing something downstairs. I got out of bed and the immediate feel of the cold wood floors on the bottoms of my feet added to the tension in the air. I have a semi-auto shotgun in my room’s gun locker but I felt getting it out would be excessive. I slowly made my way down the stereotypically creaky stairs.

Not even fully down the stairs I saw the red light from the Alexa which means I indeed did not forget to turn it off before bed. No sound was playing. The on-and-off sound of children giggling had stopped. The pungent smell of cinnamon still filled the air downstairs. I turned the living room and kitchen lights on and began to look around. On the kitchen counter next to the stove, my bag of baking flour was sitting there, open. The windows and doors were still closed and locked. I looked outside the front and back windows. No one was out there. Nothing was disturbed or out of place, minus the bag of flour being out. I then saw the chest on the counter, of course still sitting there.

I went over to it. I felt a desire to see its contents again, still not believing what the chest held. Looking inside, I saw it was completely empty. The teeth were gone. The doors and windows began to shake violently. I could hear the hinges rattling, but they stood strong. The child laughter came back loud. I realized the laughter was coming from outside the house, all around. It was utter chaos. It felt like a fever dream. Clearly, it was now not excessive to go get my shotgun. I ran upstairs, got it out of the safe, and ran back downstairs. I didn’t know where to look. The laughter was coming from the doors, the windows, the roof, everywhere, but I could see nothing. Then, as quickly as it came, it was silent. The doors and windows stopped shaking. The laughter stopped. The cinnamon smell dissipated. I stood there, in a sweat, holding my shotgun. I felt scared yet relieved at the same time. 

I don’t like the police. People roll their eyes at me when I say it, but I believe in community self-defense. I did not call them to report this, nor was I in the mood to go outside and investigate. Maybe this was a deranged, elaborate prank from neighborhood kids… who I didn’t know lived on this street. Maybe I was hallucinating. I went to the kitchen where I keep my medication to check that I hadn’t missed any doses, or taken more than I should have by accident. I happened to see the bottle of melatonin I recently bought. 10mg. Of course. I usually take 3mg tablets and only take melatonin occasionally. I must have not been paying attention when I bought it, and forgotten that I took some melatonin before bed and my body was reacting strangely negatively. I’m always sensitive like that. I literally have to stop drinking coffee at least eight to nine hours before bed because of the caffeine.

I double-checked the doors just to soothe my mind. They were still locked. So were the windows. I even checked the chimney shoot. That was closed too. I left everything as it was. The lights on, the flour bag, the chest, I just left it as is. I went back upstairs and put my gun away. I laid my head to rest. It took me about an hour to go back to bed, but I eventually fell asleep.

When I woke up in the morning, I showered, got dressed, and went downstairs. Everything was fine. The lights were off and the flour bag was in the kitchen cupboard. The doors and windows were still closed and locked. I made some coffee and went to head out to run some errands. Right as I was leaving, a thought entered my mind. The missing teeth. I went over to the chest and looked inside. The teeth were back where they were. Well, I figured they were always there. I figured everything was what and where it normally was. The melatonin just messed me up last night. I brushed it off and left the house.

I came back home about an hour and a half later. There were still some leaves falling from the trees from Fall, so I went outside and did some raking. The crisp, cold air was refreshing and cleared my lungs. I paused for a moment. It was a nice feeling, but the air had a tension to it. No, more so a very slight vibration. A presence. An anticipation lingering in the background. I chopped it up to the weird seasonal imbalance. Fall holding on tight, not letting Winter fully sink in. Climate destruction making every year warmer. I finished raking, put the paper bags of leaves on the curb, and went inside.

I made another fire in the fireplace and got cozy with a new book. It got dark quickly. Shortly into reading, the fire did a roar. It was the same quick blaze that occurred when I lit it the day before but now just on its own, not right when I lit it. I thought that I needed to be more careful with the wood I chose because it was getting dangerous. Maybe 30 seconds after that, the giggling started. The children’s laughter slowly began to surround the house. I quickly accepted that this wasn’t last night’s excuse I told myself. This wasn’t me. This was real.

I got up and headed toward the front door to investigate when my grandfather’s box on the table, which I continued to not do something about, began to shake in its place. I slowly walked up to it. It shook violently. The teeth, again, were gone. The doors and windows began to shake again. The children’s laughter grew and got louder. The scent of the cinnamon brooms became overwhelming. I ran upstairs and grabbed my gun. When I came back downstairs, rushed to the door, and almost turned the doorknob, something stopped me. I felt a sudden feeling that stopped me in my place “telling” me not to open the door. A part of me wanted to proceed, but I continued to feel the sudden emotion guiding me to stay inside. Do not open the door.

I walked backward to the center of the room and just stood there. I let everything just occur. The fire roared again but continued blazing instead of the one-quick burst it had done twice before. The chest shook even more violently, and so did the doors and windows. The stench of the cinnamon stung my nostrils. The children’s laughter increasingly became deeper and deeper until it sounded purely demonic. It was booming all throughout the outside of the house. I just stood there. I stood in my place and protected my home. If it, whatever it was, came inside, I would defend myself. I had no other choice.

Amongst the cacophony, another sound did manage to make itself known. The short, clear ding of my oven’s timer. As it did its single ring, everything stopped. The fire went back to normal. The chest, doors, and windows stopped shaking. The cinnamon scent died off. The laughter was gone. I went back over to the chest, and the teeth had returned. It was all over. What was also there was the bag of flour, back on the kitchen counter.

For the rest of the Yule season, I left the chest open on the table. The day Yule ended, I closed the chest and put it on the shelf in the living room closet. My grandfather taught me when I was younger of the Yule children. Some Wiccan cultures like witches in Iceland call them the “Yule Lads.” I was always taught of them as strictly a symbolic tale to uplift the idea of protective energy in your home. I was told the group of at least thirteen “mischievous” children were from a witch couple that practiced “dark magic.” They were supposedly the souls of children who did not pass over due to random accidents or unexplained reasons, from parents of those in a nearby village of the witches who lived in the woods or mountains (depending on which recollection). The witches would call to the spirits to stay with them, and these thirteen did. Eventually, the witch couple suddenly died. It is said they sacrificed themselves to some entity, unknown.

I had Christmas with my family and went back to my normal life. What else could I do? Call the police? What I experienced was what I experienced. It was real. People experience supernatural events all the time. Some true, and some fake or misinterpreted. This was no Wiccan myth. Instead, I saw it as a positive and profound event that, if anything, confirmed for myself my spiritual practice even more. It was a miracle. Months passed, and Halloween season came around. My favorite sabbat, Samhain.

I was in the kitchen baking to really bring a warm feeling to the home on a chilly Fall night. I could hear the wind rustling the leaves outside. It was really nice. I put the dish into the oven and set the timer. Then, the sound of slight shaking occurred. I walked into the living room to see where the sound was coming from. I listened, it was coming from the closet. I walked over to the closed closet door. Yes, it was coming from inside. I knew it was the chest. It had to be.

I just stood there. I didn’t know what to do. Do I bring the chest back out on the table? Do I leave it where it is and let whatever happens, happen? I just really didn't know what to do. I still don’t know what to do with my Grandfather’s teeth.

I am, finally, brave enough to post this. I do not care about the consequences. I may be arrested and prosecuted for treason. I shall not use my real name.

You can call me Rareș. Sergeant Rareș Buzescu, of the Romanian Army. This is what happened to me in October 2022. I was in a military unit in the delta of the Danube, in the north of the Dobrogea region of Romania, under the border with Ukraine. A little bit of context, for those unfamiliar with the places: That region of Ukraine is southern Basarabia, sandwiched between Romania and the Republic of Moldova and it used to be Romanian theritory. It has had a turbulent past, belonging during the centuries to many states, being strategically important.

In those days, a lot of confusion and fear were present in Romania. Being close to war, rumors of incidents made things very tense. People were afraid, several Romanian military aircraft were brought down, the Ukrainian forces admitted they did it accidentally. Romania, being a NATO country, any incident like this could degenerate into a war with either Russia or Ukraine and Romania to be in the front line of destruction of World War III. 

That night we heard explosions before the alarm was set. It seems some missiles coming from the north of the border hit Romanian targets. It was a chilly, autumn evening. It would not be the last incident of this sort. We did not know if they were the Ukrainians or the Russians. The colonel summoned us to prepare for marching to the target.

The delta of the river Danube is split between Romania and Ukraine. It is one of the last true wild ecosystems in Europe, an official Biosphere Reservation. It is, basically, a huge marshland, where the Danube splits in smaller channels, until it flows into the Black Sea.

We followed orders, of course, in silence, in the thicket. The explosions stopped, some fires in the distance were visible, we could not make out if they were across the border or not. Suddenly, gunshots were heard not very far, we were ordered to be prepared for combat. Another military unit was pretty close, they were dispatched first. When we finally reached the location of the first flames, we could see that there was an explosion earlier in the evening on Romanian soil. On the other side of the border, things were burning as well.

Our comrades from the other unit have reached the location; some were already fallen, dead or wounded. In fact, most of them were down. It was here: War. For real, for the first time. It felt unreal. I was a soldier, I knew this was my purpose,  but it was not supposed to be like this. It felt unreal also, it did not expect it. I mean, in Romanian history, as we were taught in school, Romanians fought bravely against our enemies, against the Ottomans, the Hungarians, the Soviets, and the Nazi. But then at least it was clear whom and why we were fighting. Now we did not.

Finally, we found a living soldier. He was breathing heavily when the colonel shouted at him: ”Report! What has happened?”

The private answered: ”They attacked us. They fought each other, on the other side, then they came to us.” ”The Russians?”

”We don't know. We were bombarded and they came shooting. They looked insane and fired at us like they had rabies, honestly…”

At this point, he was breathing hard. The colonel left him, looked around in the silence and ordered us to cross the bridge into Ukrainian territory. We obeyed, we were soldiers, soldiers obey orders. But we knew what this meant. A part of me wanted to just flee. No, I was not afraid of death or physical injury. I was afraid of being part of this and suffering and dying sensely and shamefully. I would have preferred to have been dead, by some previous disease or something to have killed me before getting into this. 

I even hoped a loose bullet would take down now, before being engaged in the fight. I was not old, I was in my late twenties, but I wanted to die with a clean conscience then to get on with this. I thought of running and being put to trial like a deserter, perhaps I would have been executed. The thoughts rose up, one after the other, in my mind.

We crossed the bridge and the colonel brought us, as the last remains of daylight disappeared, in thicket. I didn't even know if the colonel knew what he wanted, it doesn't matter anyway. Trees formed like a small forest, on the other side of the border, almost complete darkness and chill. A shadow creeped upon my heart, it was something else, something different from what I felt before. A fear not just of death, a fear not just of dishonor, it was something else that engulfed all my previous fears, worked alongside them and made them stronger. 

Then, it started. They ran and fired. I could not make out if they shouted in Russian or Ukrainian, or both (I do not understand either.) and the uniforms were not clear. They fired at us, each other, in every direction. Colonel ordered to engage in fire. We complied. I fired at any non-Romanian soldier I could see holding the gun towards us. Some seem to have been Ukrainian, some Russian, I did not care, it did not matter. Some of them were hit, some of us were hit. I became numb, I desperately knew I had not just to protect myself, but my comrades. At least this was something I could do, something to hold on to and not just pointing the gun at me and finishing me off. It seems I already killed several people, the first time in my life. Were they allies, were they foes? I did not know.

Something was tearing inside my soul, a part of me. Yes, I have made a great mistake joining the military. I was not made for this, at least not in this situation. I think I could have been a war hero, but in World War II, not in War War III. This was my thought, as the Russians and/or Ukrainians mingled with us. I felt no physical pain, as they hit me chaotically and I responded as non-chaotical as I could. A warm liquid touched my hand gently. I realized it came from my shoulder: I was hit by a bullet and did not even realize it. The enemies looked, like the comrade said earlier, like being on rabies: their eyes wide in terror, mouths opened, they charged at us, but were also running from us. 

As we entered the woods, the clash became even more chaotic, as darkness engulfed us and little to no light was visible. My heart was beating hard, as we lost it and started running with no sense deeper inside the woods, like being driven. Incidents became fewer, the clash went cold and silence took over almost completely. I continued to run deeper, in the darkness. I heard callings in Romanian, I asked one of them, then decided not to, in order not to attract attention to myself. 

It was cold, bitter darkness. Suddenly, I hit something, in the dark. Something that blacked my way, like some kind of net, that held me fiercely. No, I was not tangled, more like glued to it. I tried to force my way out of it but, the more I forced it, the less I was able to release myself. My mind felt almost completely helpless of handling this new thing and it started to shut down. Yet, like a faint whisper, a thought came to my mind: ”Take the knife (combat knife) from your boot, while you still can, and cut it out. Fast!” I obeyed the thought and managed to get the knife. Fortunately, my right arm was almost completely free of the thing and I was able to grab it and started cutting.

It was hard to achieve this, at first, but I think it was good that it was hard. If it came to easy, my mind would not have calmed down, would have not settled down and I would have restarted running blindly. I was desperate at first, seeing that it was so hard to cut, especially since I clearly felt I needed to get out as fast as I could. As I struggled with the process, I started to become aware of my situation and surroundings and, even if I knew I had every reason to finish it as soon as possible, I was able to evaluate my situation and what was around me more calmly. Few people were around at this point, few gunshots, some screams from time to time. 

The darkness felt unreal and intoxicating. I tried to get rid of this thought, as was starting to get hold of myself, but I could not escape it. And something like whispered in my thoughts something very bad will happen to me soon, if I do not get out soon from there. Indeed, as I was getting close to cutting it completely, I heard a rumble in the trees behind this net, from up, towards me. For the last two seconds, before breaking free, I even caught a glimpse of something moving, but I escaped and went backwards.

This time, I was determined not to lose myself so easily and, although I was far from being safe, I walked slowly and, eventually, decided to stop and evaluate. The almost complete darkness felt unnatural, like some sort of black mist that, once entering the lungs, made my mind like being into some sort of drug. I thought this could be chemical weapons or something. I stood on the spot and opened a flashlight from my haversack. I was able to bring the light only for a few meters in front of me, like the light got lost into that mist. 

I was able to see the trees around, no person in sight. I went towards what seemed to me like the way out, slowly, looking around. Some small sounds were heard in the trees.

Suddenly, in front of me, in the upper branches of the tree, I saw something white, standing there. It was shaped like a Human, but engulfed like some sort of a  whitish or grayish shroud, with legs tied together, like an Egyptian mummy. It twitched a little and then I realized that the same matter the shroud was made from is the same as the leftovers of the net on my hands and uniform. The shape in the tree moved and I realized pretty fast it was not moving on its own. Something moved the shape from behind and I could see a dark thing, almost the size of the Human shape, covering it, and some dark, articulated arms taking over the white shape.

I could not bring myself to move and stop watching. The dark creature stabbed the white shape in the chest area and started some sort of sucking from it voraciously. Dark fluid came out to the ground and a striking, disgusting smell of blood mixed with something I did not know what it was. It was a spider eating its still living prey.

I turned my flashlight around me, around the trees and noticed that this tree was not the only one with victims wrapped in cocoons. My blood ran cold, when I realized that above me, in the canopy, the spiders were moving. How many of them there were, I do not know. I started to run towards what seemed to me like the exit of the woods. No living person was in sight, although I could see corpses all over the place. From time to time, some cocoon swung in the wind, or had fallen to the ground.

I stumbled into one, almost falling. I could feel that almost nothing but bones were left, engulfed into some goo that stuck to my boot, like a glue, sticking the tip of my foot with the cocoon and I had use the second boot, to let go, while I could hear clearly something above me coming down, pretty close. I managed not to lose myself and escape just before an unbearable stench almost touched me.

Less than a minute later, in front of me, on the trail, a thick web, with something really big moving on the other side. An insidious sensation of deep danger came over me, as I watched the thing from behind. I went backwards, looking behind and around me, for a way out, on another track, where I could see no web or creature. But this was a really bad idea,  as I stumbled more into the woods, especially since I was unfamiliar with the place. 

I stopped in my tracks, for a while, trying to figure out what to do. I listened around me, faint noises around me, scratches not very far, but not too close either. No living soldiers, only dead (or dying?) from time to time. Where was everybody? Has someone escaped? There was no way of knowing. I was trained to face difficult situations, but this was beyond all I ever imagined, as this new enemy was unlike any I prepared  to face. I needed to meet someone, anybody. I sat down, listened and sniffed. Yeah, I sniffed. Strange odors, marsh combined with weird, unpleasant smells. The darkness itself felt unnatural in itself, like it was absorbing light, so to say, the flashlight could not reach far, it was like it faded into some fluid. 

Was I afraid of death? Yes, I was. But that was not all. I would have preferred a death that I could understand, a death I could expect, if it makes sense, but not this. I did not understand what was going on and that made me feel that all my experiences, all my training was not just useless, but also senseless. I kneeled on one leg and looked at the ground, not knowing what to do. I listened, trying to calm myself even further so that my rational mind shall find a way. 

Then I heard a rustle in the tree next to me. I had the first impulse to just run, but something in mind told me it was a bad idea, I do not know why. I turned back slowly, towards the source of the sound, making sure not to point the light directly at it. I was clearly a Spider, it was almost two meters long, and it dropped something towards me. I snapped and jumped towards the place I came from, but another of those creatures was in there. Then, I heard gunshots from sideways, sounded like an AKM. Bullet flew above my head, like someone aimed at the creature behind me. It gave a shriek, and it seemed to stop. I dared not to move, waiting for a cease fire. And it did, I heard footsteps coming fast towards me.

I noticed my benefactor. It was a tall, muscular woman, with long, black hair. I noticed the Ukrainian flag on her uniform. She came fast towards me, grabbed my arm and pushed me towards some bushes I had not looked before. I let her guide me, it felt like she knew the place. I could not ask anything, we were silent. She gasped for air, as she pushed me. 

”I hope it is clear there. We shall see.” she said.

”What to be clear?” I asked.

”A small underground shed or refuge.” she replied. ”I think I can find it.” My flashlight was a clear advantage, being able to see it, even if at a short distance, the webs and we were able to avoid them. Those things were in the trees, mostly, not on soil, fortunately, even if, at some point, a pretty large one charged at us.

”I think we missed it. We need to go back.” she added and turned us around. I could hear a rustle behind us, but not too close. It felt like we moved in circles for about five minutes (I felt much longer, but I am sure it could not have been more.) until she knocked with her boot something almost completely covered in fallen autumn leaves. We stopped.

”Here it is.” she said, as she started to remove the leaves, showing a hatch, then going down to open it.

As I went down too, to help her, I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder, where the bullet hit me, but I did not care too much. She succeeded in opening the hatch, but something blocked the full opening. A few bullets burst from inside, as the rustle from behind came closer and I knew that, if there is to get in, we should do it fast. 

She shouted something in Russian or Ukrainian, a male voice responded from below. They argued a bit, until I said:  ”If he lets us in, do it in the next seconds. It is very close.”, as a spider about the size of a ten year old child was only a few meters away. She started to plead and it worked. The man managed to push the improvised barricade at the hatch to let us in.

The woman went first. As the creature came closer, I struggled to turn around, in order to keep my eyes on the spider, as it was inches from me. I placed, without realizing it, the flashlight towards the creature. 

Two things happened at the same time. First one, I saw a being that was deeply dark, so dark that it made shiver, emanating something like it wanted to consume me as fast as possible, something I could feel in its eyes that I could not distinguish, but that I could feel strongly they were there, in that giant black mass. The second one was that the creature stopped in its tracks when the beam of light hit where I felt the eyes were for a few seconds. Those seconds were enough for me to get through the hatch.

I tried to close it, but the pain in the shoulder made me unable to pull and a dark shape covered the little light coming from outside. Coldness took over my body and the stench made me nauseated. I could hear sounds of a mouth chewing nothing, in anticipation of chewing my flesh. A harsh, sticky, hairy, black articulated arm entered just for a few seconds, before a bullet from inside hit the arm. A shriek with splatter and the arm retreated, just enough as a thin man, wearing a Russian uniform came, pulled the hatch, then locked it. Fortunately, I did not drop the flash light, and a second flashlight, held by the man, made enough light to see underneath.It was a small underground structure, more like a refuge. I am not sure if this was to be a refuge or some storage place, since many provisions seemed to be deposited, mostly crates covered in dark green canvases. The man went towards the end of the corridor. There were a few rooms on the left and right, but he went to a larger one, at the end. Some chairs, a blanket, some food on the floor, guns. The two spoke in Russian and/or Ukrainian. 

”Sorry to interrupt, folks, could we speak English, please? I do not know either Russian or Ukrainian…” I said. They stopped and looked at me. He answered: ”Ok, then, it makes sense.” I looked at him. He appeared around the age of forty, pretty thin and short, but stocky, in a way. His almost complete shaved head was covered with a small military cap.

”What is going on?” I said. They stood silent for a few seconds, then the man started, not breathing to easily, like trying to remain calm:

”We fought for about two days before they came. We did not plan shooting into Romanian territory. But, as casualties arose in such a short time, weirdness started. As lack of sleep builded up, some of us start to act weird, not all in the same way. At first, they were only dreams and hallucinations, I do not think they were hallucinations now, of being attacked in their beds by some small creatures. Some showed small scars on their bodies, but they were dismissed, since we were in the middle of a battle.

Some started to turn on each other, the colonel ordered detention, then all who behaved aggressively were shot. The Ukrainians kept fighting, we had to fight back. Soon, we did not know how much we fought the enemy and how much we fought each other. I did not know who I could trust, if I could follow orders or not. Then those things started to appear. I did not pay much attention to them, trying to keep myself from being killed by my comrades. But I could not deny it when I first saw a black spider, near the edge of the camp, eating away from the still living body of our cook. I managed to get close to Yury, one of my comrades who felt still sane and we retreated in the center of the camp, until the order came to leave a large part of the equipment and get into the woods near the border and we were dragged alongside the rest.

In the fields, those creatures attacked us, some trying to fight back. But even from those who we still able to understand this is a new, non-Human enemy we had to deal against, seemed too confused and unable to fight back properly. I heard we were about to clash with the Ukrainian foe, that the Romanians seem to have crossed the border, as a response of the provocation, when me and Yuri managed to run away and get into the woods on our own. But the spiders were there, more of them and larger. Yury was caught by a very large one, just before I stumbled across the hatch. I found my way in and barricaded the entrance.”

The woman started: ”Pretty similar things happened to us as well. Small spiders were seen at first, biting people, who started acting weird. Unfortunately, our colonel was affected pretty early on and started just shooting people. The major shot the colonel and shouted he is the new commander, some protested, and someone I could not identify shot the major. The flood gates were open and my comrades started turning on each other. I hid myself up to a point, then, like in his case, I was taken with the flow, as the people started to head towards the woods.”

I gave a sigh and looked at them. ”You know, my country may be enemies with any of your countries, I understand not to talk about certain aspects. But right now, what matters is that those things are a common enemy and, in the end, all of us are Human. We need to work together to escape.” They looked at me, the woman smiled and nodded, the man gave a sigh and nodded as well. ”I think it is ok to introduce ourselves. I am Sergeant Rareș Buzescu, Romanian army.”

The woman said: ”Lieutenant Olena Kerkova, Ukrainian army”.

The man said: ”Private Dmitry Feodorov, Russian army”. We shook hands and started talking on a strategy. Olena tried to help me with my shoulder, some stinky goo was on my uniform. Fortunately it was barely more than a scratch and she managed to keep it covered from the goo. We ate a bit, took some vodka, then went to the entrance to listen.

I found out that Dmitry was from Yekaterinburg, that he lost his father when he was in primary school. He told us he used to be religious as a child, then he became colder into faith, but not atheist. He told us he prayed for the first time in a while tonight and he feels that only God can help us. Olena told us that she was from Kyiev, that she joined the army years ago, that she was always a competitive girl, as a child and teen, who loved female action heroes, that she was a convinced feminist. Then, after a while, being disappointed in real life military life, left it and became a hair stylist. She held a Youtube channel where she posted ASMR videos with haircuts, hair styling and massages, while being dressed sexy. The channel gained some following, she did some interventions, like pumping her lips, she planned breast augmentation, when war came she was called to arms, on the basis of her previous formation.

I told them that I was from Suceava, in the north, that I was not particularly religious, that I became a soldier due the wargames and RPGs I played as a teen and that I justified it to myself somewhat thinking of the patriotic literature I was taught in primary school. I told them I was never truly religious, that I went to the Easter service, to weddings and funerals and that was about it. Dmitry told me it makes a good idea to start praying now and he showed us the cross his late grandmother gave him that he never stopped wearing.

The surroundings were, mostly, silent, but we did not dare to come out, as we still felt their presence, like waiting for us to get out.  I started: ”Those flash lights shall not be out of battery soon. The night is still pretty long, so we need to decide quickly what to do. I hear them screeching on the outside. Is there any way for them to break in?”

Olena replied: ”There are some ventilation shafts, sideways, as far as I know, but they are pretty narrow. I don't know, if there are little ones, as they seem to change size, they may enter.”

”I say to secure them.” I answered. They agreed and we started searching each chamber for the vents. They were pretty narrow, they were not hard to cover with cloth, although the metal covers were kind of rusty. We have had enough supplies for a few days, and decided to put the flash lights off and stick them together near the entrance, and watch the clock from time to time. We allowed ourselves to sleep for about 90 minutes at a time, but never all at once.

As we sat, we felt like some force, let's say (I can not find a better term.) in the air, something that took away, slowly, my will to fight and live and I started not just feel, but also live like it was just a question of time before I shall become the meal of the creatures, like they spread something in the very air we breathed and it entered our tissues.

Neither of them seem to know if this was a weapon of either armies, they seemed sincere enough. Dmitry started praying, he said he felt like it, the Paraklesis of the Mother of God, then the Akatist of Saint Demetrios of Thessaloniki, who was his patron Saint. We felt a clear release from the shadow on our souls, although not totally. I dared to have a little sleep, then Olena fell asleep alongside me. Suddenly, Dmitry woke us up.

”There is something in the first room on the right,” he said. 

”We secured them. What can it be?” I asked.

”I do not know. Let's have a look.” he answered.

We managed to get up and open our flashlights and get into there. There was something screeching in there, behind a wooden box. Carefully, Dmitry removed it to discover a dead mouse and, behind it, a hole between the floor and the wall, probably made by mice. Olena gave a sigh of relief, probably thinking it was a mouse. Dmitry looked carefully around, pointing with the flashlight around. I felt dread, I knew that was not a mouse that made those sounds, even if it used, probably, the mouse hole to enter. With my flashlight I managed to get a glimpse of something larger than a rat, something black that ran away from my light, before jumping upon Dmitrys left leg and piercing the flesh through the pants. 

I hurried to help him and I saw a black spider, larger than a tarantula, firmly embedded in his leg. Pointing the light upon it, it gave some sort of screech, it was clearly uncomfortable with the light, but it held on. I grabbed my knife and tried to stab it, between the head and the abdomen. It was not easy, as I had to be careful not to get bitten myself. Dmitry fell to the ground, and I used his lack of balance to crush the neck of the spider with the knife and a black, sticky fluid came out of it. Dmitry  grabbed it with a piece of canvas and pulled it out fast, with a grimace of pain, breaking its head from the rest.

”No, you should not have done that.” said Olena, going down next to him. ”The mouth pieces will remain in the flesh.” Dmitry was panting, as the fluid started to stick to his clothes, and the clothes to the skin. ”Fast, we need to remove the head and the pants!” I was a bit confused, since I did not know what to do. ”We need to improvise. I shall try with a knife!”

What followed was a kind of brutish improvisation. I am not sure how much Olena knew what she was doing. She tried to pull out the mouthpieces from the wound with the knife, I think she kind of fumbled. I actually tried to call in Romania, since the border was close and I might have got some signal, but it did not work. Olena tried to wash the wound with some vodka. Dmitry endured pretty stoically, only with some moans. 

”We need to get him to a hospital as fast as we can. This could be lethal soon.” said Olena.

”Either death or losing my mind, like those before me.” replied Dmitry. ”No, I do not think there is any way to reach any hospital soon. I think this is it.”

”Stop it!” said Olena. ”With this attitude, you shall die surely. Without it, at least you have a chance.”

Dmitry started laughing bitterly. ”No, I know it, I feel. This is how it is supposed to happen. I prayed earlier, I am quite at peace now. You can either let me die or, if I get insane, like the others, you can either shoot me or send me out to eat me.” Olena looked at him with a mix of anger and frustrated desperation, but Dmitry continued:

”One of us needs to die in order for the rest to escape. They shall enter this place before dawn, one way or the other. They are really hungry and we know it. I prayed when you thought I was sleeping. I remember how Saint Demetrios, my patron Saint, the Christian military imprisoned for Christ, prayed in prison that Nestorius, the Christian fighter, would defeat the giant champion of the Pagans, Lyaios, like David defeated Goliath. I remembered how, when the Pagans discovered that the prayer of Saint Demetrios helped defeat Lyaios, they killed him, and he became a Martyr. Tonight is his night, the night between summer and winter. The choice is yours, mine if already taken.”

”No!” shouted Olena. ”Cut the crap, we shall all escape! We shall take you to the hospital! We shall escape this!” She started to make plans out loud, on how to leave. My heart felt something in the words of Dmitry, like some power was in him, like a little bit of the peace he had come to me as well. Earlier, when I fought outside, I never prayed a bit, but now I started to feel like doing it, just by looking at him. Nonetheless, I helped Olena, both in discussing tactics and in putting them in practice.

We improvised some torches from pieces of wooden box, with cloth and vodka, to keep them away. We also improvised some Molotov cocktails, from vodka bottles and cloth. Olena was very pushy about this and I really admired her for that, as I admired Dmitry for his attitude. In a way, both of them were completing each other.

”You know,” said Dmitry caughting, ”I have heard about things like that years ago. It is not the first time this has happened. They came where people fight and kill each other. It makes them stronger, they are greedy in suffering and death. They are terribly powerful, but they are not by far undefeatable. I never heard anyone escaping something like what we go through now, but I trust The Lord that you have a chance. And, in case you didn't escape, be ready to die. Ask for The Lord to forgive you for all your transgressions, say your sins to each other. It is not like confessing them to a priest, but it matters. I shall start myself, whatever I tell you now, tell a priest you trust, this is my final confession.”

And he started telling us his sins, as we prepared. We could not stop him. What he told us then I shall not disclose, but I told to a priest after I escaped. Olena refused to confess in front of us, and that made me reluctant to do it either. Dmitry gave a sigh, as all was ready.

”Forgive each other, love each other. Please forgive me for everything. Pray as much as you can: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner! Be prepared for both life and death. Death will seem certain, but it is not.” By this time, he was already caughting bad, his face became bluish-grey, he could not walk on his own.

I took him and helped walk on the stairs. Olena held both a torch, and a gun, I held only a torch. She opened the hatch. A cold breeze that felt like it would have frozen my bones, if it weren't something else holding me, both me and Olena. The webs were all over the trees, the air was thick and difficult to breathe, like it intoxicating us with terror and hopelessness. One side of me realized all this, and the other side was tranquil. The result was like watching all this detached, somehow. We used the compass to determine where south was and the plan was to go south, as much as possible, to exit the woods.

We stepped out. No rain, only an autumn breeze. We felt them around, we felt the trees above us, but they did not move. I helped him walk a bit, then he signaled me I better let him walk on his own. I was reluctant to, but I complied. After a few meters, I realized he backed out a few steps. I turned to him, Olena turned as well. A spider the size of a large dog came out from the canopy and stabbed him in the back, but he was still standing. Olena opened her mouth in terror, I could not move.

Dmitry spoke (I don't know how he was able to speak, since he was stabbed in the back.): ”Christ Is Victorious already. You need to accept to be victorious in Him. Go now! The Mother of God is with you. The Lord Himself is with you! Go now! And always remember: Christ Is Victorious!” And with that, he fell to the ground and the spider started devouring him. Something like an iron claw passed through my soul.

Olena broke out crying. I don't know how, but something pushed me. I took the gun from her and grabbed her arm and started running towards the first clear path we could see. The air was really thick, hard to breathe, not like a city smog, but like something else. It was a clear night, not very cold, but I felt like I was in a frozen giant basement cage, surrounded by a crowd of predators that allow me to live for a few more seconds not for my sake, but because they compete with each other to have me. 

The webs were all over the place, we could not just feel them almost all around, not just hear them, but also see them in the trees. We needed to run, if we stayed in one place, their mere presence would build up some sort of poisonous fear that would take over soon, the building up being unavoidable, even if they do not grab us. I lost track of sense and direction, I went into any clear passage between the trees. The torches kept them at bay for a little, only for a few moments. I knew that, if we stopped, they would gain courage and strength to take us, but it was enough. Olena cried muffledly. I felt her strength going down.

”Do not let go, sister, now. You remember how you saved me earlier? Now is my turn.” I said. ”God is with us. We should rely on Him now, there is no other way.” The last phrase came out of my mouth half without realizing it. For a second of disbelief, I looked out into the front of us. On the path, there was a big spider, almost two meters long. I saw no immediate escape. Olena felt feeble, like she just wanted to kneel and give up. I shouted: ”Lord protect us! Mother of God, cover us! Saint Demetrious, help us!” I was quiet for a second, then said gently: ”Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us, the sinners!” I fired the gun into the creature. I gave a horrible shriek, backed up, Olena stood up, like something gave her a boost of energy, of life, we saw another clearing and we ran towards there. 

We stumbled upon webs several times, only barely touching them. At one point. Olena got stuck with her shoulder in one web. It was nothing serious, but a spider the size of a dog came pretty fast. I managed to set the web on fire, before breaking Olena free. The fire started to spread pretty fast. They feared fire, as even light from a flashlight was probably unpleasant for them. Less than three meters away, the darkness ate away the light, it was surely not a natural darkness. I could not stare at it too much, as it made me feel like I was sinking into something unreal. In a way, it was like quicksand for the mind.

I almost stumbled several times. On the forest floor we often stumbled upon Human bones or piles of goo that had some leftovers like pieces of clothing, showing that they were part of a Human body.

We circled around several times, because we found ourselves again in front of the flames. They were more widespread, it was clear they hated all the fire, their shrieks turned into some type of screams that could easily break someone who is faint of heart, it was like they went into my very bones. The fire was our only hope. Olena was breathing heavily, it was clear that she could not resist too much.

I stopped for a few seconds and looked into her eyes. She tried to be tough, but she was clearly pretty close to giving up. I said: ”Look, they are afraid of fire. I do not know if it is to exit from this, but at least we can take down as many as we can. We have several Molotov cocktails. I shall hang the gun on my shoulder and ask your help in getting them out of my haversack, and light them up, to throw them into more places in the woods, to get as many of them down as possible. Do you think you can do it?” Olena looked faint at me. I crossed myself then I crossed her. ”Indeed, as Dmitry said, the Jesus Prayer helps. At my signal, light them up and throw them. Please, at least try.”

Olena smiled and tried to settle herself in the new arrangement and we left just as a pretty big Spider got close to us. We moved into an area that was far from the fire. I asked Olena to light up one of the bottles. It was really hard to do it while we walked, but she managed to. We soon had the chance, since there was a big one, in a tree, wanting to jump at us. I took the bottle and sent it into the spider. The tree got on fire fast and we ran. Olena seemed into some new energy state, but it felt like it was something from outside. We repeated it several times, the fire took over different parts of the forest.

The fear in my mind not just got stronger, but it started to blow like a wind. It felt huge anger from the creatures  that turned into hatred. We prayed the Jesus Prayer almost ceaselessly, just to keep us standing. Mentally, it was like running a marathon on a very narrow path, with the mountain slope on one point, and a deep precipice on the other. We finished the bottles and I started firing the gun over and over, as those things came more and more towards us, and faster. At some point, we remained out of bullets.

We were held by something, or someone. No way we could have survived and not break. We could have lost it or died one hundred times. At some point, Olena stumbled and fell to the ground. Her torch fell to the ground, as she laid down, breathing heavily. I tried to wake her up, she was clearly at the end of her strength. She went to sleep on the leaves.

At that moment, two things happened one through the other. A dark shadow, greater than the darkness I was already accustomed with covered us, and with thuds giant articulated legs surrounded us, covering almost the entire clearing. It was good that Olena fell to sleep then, and she did not face the giant beast above us. I did not dare to look at it, as drops of unholy toxic saliva fell upon us. I heard the chattering of a giant mouth ready to chew us at once in such haste, that it would not take its time to cover us into a cocoon and suck us. Even the invisible dark eyes felt like wanting to devour us, to suck us in a second, before the mouth reached us. I do not know how the stench did not make me pass out at once.

And the second thing was that, for a moment, I looked at one side of the clearing and I could see the field and the clear night sky.

”Mother of God, help us! Lord have mercy on us!” Perhaps my heart would have just stopped before the mouth ever touched me, when I heard a voice, perhaps in my mind, I do not know, the voice of Dmitry, who said: 

”Get up and place the torch into its mouth, then take the small knife from your boot and push it inside the enemy now!”

Perhaps my heart stopped beating, I do not know, I was already almost gone, but a terrible, yet amazing force took me up and made me push the torch inside my mouth. That force felt like a shield that protected us from death or from having our minds blown by the scream, so that I was able to get the knife out of the boot and stab the being close to the mouth. The torch fell to the ground, the creature stood up in pain and that invisible force made me or helped me take Olena in my arms, rise and start running, inside the tornado I was in. 

I do not know how I found myself out in the fields, running with Olena in my arms, sleeping. Unearthly screams were heard behind us, from the woods, and I heard the creature coming towards us, at an immense speed. I was like skydiving at a huge speed. I heard one last huge scream and a blast.

I stopped and looked back. The being exploded out in the fields, as the forest was on fire. I grabbed Olena and continued running. As we moved away from danger  my strength diminished. I let her down in the grass and tried to wake her up. She opened her eyes and gave a sigh.

”It is over.” I said. ”The Lord saved us. He worked through Dmitry. Praise be The Lord!” She started crying. I gave her a hug.

I guess your career path can take a sudden turn...

I used to spend hours slicing through chlorinated water, racing my own shadow down those perfectly spaced, blue-tiled lanes. I was supposed to be at the Olympics, once. I was that close. I'm not even joking. But torn rotator cuffs and a few failed surgeries later, my dreams sank like a stone.

A job in the water with bad rotator cuffs isn’t easy to find either. Most companies don’t want to take a chance on someone who might struggle lifting even 20lbs above their head.

So I've been desperate.

I've been taking gig work mostly. For a while, I was teaching basic scuba classes to tourists, getting them ready for certification, but lately, I've been getting hired by a company called Fjord Explorations.

They've developed some new submersibles and are testing them in the Norwegian trench. And one of my old coaches is involved with the company. His wife is one of the investors.

It's a tiny metal sphere covered with cameras.

Claustrophobic if you let it get to you, part of a new line of business that Fjord Explorations is venturing into. Deep-sea exploration for the everyday consumer.

Designed to drop way, way deeper than any regular Joe is ever really meant to go, pushing the boundaries of what we know about visiting sea floors.

Honestly, as the test has been getting closer, I've been psyched. I'm going down 700 meters and giving feedback on their first human-passenger test.

I'm also low-key terrified, but it’s not like I was gonna say no.

****

Inside the submersible was freezing. Way colder than I expected.

The pod was tiny.

Imagine you're in a spherical MRI machine, standing up right, fully strapped in.

The entire front panel of the pod is a special glass, a viewing porthole.

They're sending me down, pulling me up. Easy.

“Ready, Maria?” crackled through the speakers, snapping me back to the here and now.

I stared out the porthole at the water.

It was this endless, gorgeous blue that was just begging me to come get lost in it.

“Shit, I guess so,” I replied, adding a grin.

With a lurch, the pod began its descent.

50 METERS

I watched as the world outside shifted from bright turquoise to this dark, almost navy blue. Sunlight still pierced through, casting streaks across the water like an underwater cathedral. The kelp swayed gently, and I could see schools of fish darting around.

100 METERS

It was getting murkier.

The sunlight faded, replaced by a deep blue that was almost hypnotic.

"Visuals are still good," Control said over the speakers.

200 METERS

I could feel the weight of the ocean pressing in, squeezing the pod. The light outside was nearly gone, and all I saw were shadows.

Strange shapes drifted by. Maybe fish, maybe something else. But it was hard to tell.

The deeper I went, the less anything looked familiar.

300 METERS

The pod’s lights clicked on, casting a faint glow into the darkness. It was eerie, the way the beam just vanished into the black, like the ocean was swallowing it whole.

The pressure built with every meter down, squeezing in, like the ocean’s giving the pod a hug that just kept getting tighter. I tried to keep my breathing steady, my eyes flicking over the gauges.

Depth, pressure, oxygen. So far, so good.

"Camera feed seems to be struggling," Control said.

"Shit, really?" I asked.

"Let's hope the connection resolves itself. Radar's still clear," they said.

The descent continued.

500 METERS

It was completely dark.

I mean, it was dark in a way you don’t really get until you’re down there. I’d always liked my alone time, but this was next-level isolation. Even my thoughts sounded louder than they should.

700 METERS

It felt like the ocean was closing in, squeezing tighter and tighter.

The pod’s lights barely cut through the darkness, and suddenly, there they were...

Hulking shadows looming just beyond the beam.

The outlines of massive ships, covered in barnacles, rusted and broken, their skeletons frozen in time. World War II vessels, I realized, swallowed by the sea decades ago.

Huge, shadowy figures moved among the wreckage, their serpentine bodies coiling around rusted beams. Massive eyes glowed faintly, reflecting the pod’s light.

They looked like something out of a nightmare, long, serpentine bodies with rippling fins, massive eyes that glowed faintly, watching me. And then, in the distance, I saw her.

A mermaid, her eyes locked on mine.

She was beautiful in a haunting way, her long hair floating like it had a life of its own. Her eyes were empty, cold, like they’d seen a thousand shipwrecks and dragged a thousand souls to the depths.

It almost looked like she was conjuring all of this, like these monsters and ghost ships were her creation, her puppets in the dark water.

Re... venge... for... thou... sand... ships...

Re... venge... for... chem... icals... you... drowned... us... with...

The words were broken, disjointed, but I knew they were coming from her.

They sent a shiver down my spine.

“Control, I… I think I'm hallucinating” I whispered.

It was the only thing that made sense.

Giant sea monsters and ghost ships aren’t real, right? This had to be some kind of pressure-induced, oxygen-starved trip. Suddenly, there was a loud, crunching noise, and the pod shuddered violently.

Yet it was so real. I knew deep down I wasn't hallucinating.

Then -

One of the ships crashed into the pod, the sound echoing through the small cabin. I could almost hear the groaning of metal, like a deep, ancient sigh, as if the ocean itself resented my intrusion.

“Maria, stay calm,” Control said, voices overlapping, urgent now. “Your readings are… Hold on, we’re seeing a drop in—”

The radio crackled, then cut off entirely, leaving me in total silence. Then there was a loud hiss, and the air inside the pod thinned out.

The following happened in an instant. I will try to describe best I can remember it.

It felt as though the pod was struck from behind by something else. Maybe another ship. I could sense the pod was about to split apart from the pressure.

My heart rate was cruising up and up.

I was staring at the pod's ceiling, wondering if it might give out.

Then the banging on the front porthole started.

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

It was her, slamming her fists against the glass.

She stopped, then slowly reached through the glass, as if it wasn't there, wrapping her amphibious fingers around my right wrist, squeezing it with more pressure than I could have ever imagined.

She was going to break it, I knew it.

Re... venge... for... chem... icals... you...

My vision blurred, and I tried to focus, tried to breathe, but my head felt light, and everything started fading. The last thing I heard was the pod’s systems winding down, like some eerie lullaby.

Then. Total blackness. Nothing.

****

When I came to, it was the harsh, buzzing lights of the Fjord Explorations office that greeted me. My head was pounding, and I was wrapped in this scratchy-ass blanket that smelled like it had been in storage for a while. Across from me were two HR types, looking at me like I was some science experiment gone wrong.

“Maria, can you hear us?” one of them asked, leaning forward like he was talking to a kid.

I blinked, trying to piece together what was real.

“Uh, yeah,” I croaked. “What… happened?”

The guy glanced at his tablet, scrolling through something.

“We’re still figuring that out. The pod’s systems registered a depressurization event, but when we pulled you up, everything was… fine.”

“Fine?” I repeated, my brain still foggy. “I saw things down there. It wasn’t fine.”

The woman beside him cleared her throat, frowning.

“We reviewed the footage. And I'm sorry to say we lost signal about 300 meters down.”

I stared at her, my mouth dry.

"You're kidding me," I finally said.

“We’re going to have you checked out by medical,” the guy said, his voice that fake calm people use when they think you’re about to lose it. “Just to make sure everything’s okay.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled, barely listening.

My eyes were drifting down to my right wrist, where I could see that it was swollen and bruised. It was already a mixture of deep purple. Blood was pulling under my skin.

"We think you may have freaked out and had a panic attack," he said.

"Fix your fucking cameras," I snapped back to him.

After being cleared by medical, I was sent home on leave.

To take a couple weeks off and recover.

My wrist healed pretty quickly.

I've spent the last week thinking about what happened down there. You could say what happened has become my Moby Dick. I have to get back and figure out what's happening down there.

Online, I've been searching like crazy. But the Norwegian trench is quite young by trench standards, only a million years old or so.

But I did find something...

Apparently, during WWII, the Norwegian trench is famous for having 36 ships sunk that were carrying Chemical Weapons. The attack was approved by the Norwegian government. Never recovered.

So I wonder if this has to do with what I heard down there.

Revenge for chemicals they drowned in. But the thousand ships part doesn't make any sense.

I think this mermaid figure knows the full story.

My apartment isn't far from it where we dropped the pod. I'll catch myself glancing out the window at the fjord. The water looks so calm, so normal, but I know better now.

I’ve seen what’s down there, even if no one else believes me.

When I first saw the job listing, I thought it was a scam. “Night Attendant Needed. Historic Arcadian Hotel. Must be reliable, detail-oriented, and trustworthy. Pays $500 per shift.” The rate sounded unreal, too good to be true, but too good to pass up, especially considering my dwindling bank account. The email response arrived less than a day after I applied. They attached a quick questionnaire, then sent a brief email confirming that I'd been hired and was expected to report that night.

The day before my shift, an envelope arrived at my apartment. Inside, a small brass key, along with a second envelope containing a check for $500 and a handwritten note:

Congratulations, and welcome to the Arcadian family!

Enclosed is your master key. You’ll need this key to let yourself in and access certain parts of the hotel. Enter through the main doors by 10:00 p.m.

Your first shift begins promptly at 11:00 p.m.

Training will be available in the back room behind the front desk. Please watch all training materials before starting your shift.

We appreciate your commitment to rebuilding the legacy of the Arcadian.

Curious, and admittedly a little nervous, I made my way to the hotel that night.

The Arcadian was just as I’d imagined. The exterior was a fading memory of elegance, worn stone walls with crumbling edges, tall windows with elegant exterior spotlights that no longer worked. I glanced at the clock on my phone. 9:45. I had time.

The hotel’s lobby was huge, dominated by a grand staircase. Dust layered every surface, and the faintest whiff of mildew hung in the air. I took a breath, suppressing a shiver, and walked toward the front desk. Behind it was a small door labeled STAFF ONLY. This must be where they wanted me to watch the training.

Inside the staff room, I found a TV set atop a rolling cart and a row of numbered VHS tapes stacked next to it. The first tape had a label on it in looping script: “Arcadian Employee Training - 1952.” Next to it was a sheet of paper with instructions: “Watch all tapes in order. Do not skip ahead.”

I slid the first tape into the VHS player and turned on the TV. The screen flickered, a hum crackling through the speakers, and then it jumped to life.

A video came up, which looked in rough shape, like it was a copy of a copy. A cheerful man in a sharp 1950s suit stood in front of a pristine version of the lobby I’d just walked through. “Welcome to the Arcadian family!” he began with a polished grin. “We are delighted to have you on board as a steward of one of New York’s finest luxury establishments.”

His tone was light, upbeat, but he had a strange way of pausing, just momentarily, between each sentence to smile.

“Let’s begin with a few simple rules to keep our guests safe and happy!” he continued. “Remember: our guests may at times be unique, but they deserve the utmost courtesy and the finest of service. Now, please follow these essential guidelines.”

 The first few videos went over the basics; instructions on how to clean, address guests, check-ins and check-outs, when to check the guest log, and where to find supplies. But on the final video, things took a took for the strange.

"Congratulations on making it to the end of your training. Attaboy! Now, let’s cover a few final essentials to keep our guests smiling, and keep you right as rain. Listen close now, these pointers are real important!"

“Rule #1: If the elevator takes you to the basement, do not be alarmed. Simply close your eyes and stand still until it moves back up. No peeking!”

The man chuckled in a practiced, rehearsed way, as though he’d been told to laugh but wasn’t sure why. My stomach twisted at his words. The basement? Why would the elevator just take me to the basement?

“Rule #2: If you find a guest wandering the halls between 2 and 4 a.m., gently escort them back to their room. Under no circumstances should you allow them near the front doors. Use a firm hand if needed. If they seem upset, simply assure them that it will all be over soon.”

A chill ran through me. What kind of guest would be staying here, anyway? The hotel wasn’t even open. I tried to shake off the unease.

The man’s smile remained fixed as he went on with the rules.

“Rule #3: Do not look into the mirrors after midnight. Our mirrors sure are something else! We wouldn’t want you to become disoriented.”

“"Rule #4: Every night, count all the keys on the board. Make sure all your keys are accounted for. Mot importantly, there should always be four keys marked for the 10th floor. If one of those keys are missing, lock up the lobby doors, turn off the lights, and wait behind the front desk until dawn. Do not attempt to look for it."

Tenth floor? I thought. The hotel doesn’t even have 10 floors.

He proceeded with a few more rules.

“Rule #5: Now listen closely, folks! If a gentleman with a yellow umbrella comes in asking, “Do you have a vacancy?” you must politely reply, “I’m sorry, we have no vacancy.” No matter how upset he gets, stay calm and cheerful! That’s the way to keep things running smoothly!”

“Rule #6: Attention, night owl! If you find that key 309 is missing at the start of your shift, here’s what you do: whip up a ham and cheese sandwich. Gather those supplies from the kitchen. Then, head on over to room 309 and give a polite knock. Remember, don’t make eye contact! Just hold out that plate and wait until you hear the door close before you step away. You’ve got it!”

“Rule #7: Now, let’s talk about Ronald, our cleaning ace! He’ll waltz in and say, 'I’m here to clean the mess.' To which you’ll unlock the custodian closet, and let Ronald take it away! If he doesn’t give you that magic phrase, simply say, 'No cleaning needed tonight, Ronald,' and don’t forget to lock the doors tight after he leaves. That’s how we keep everything shipshape!”

“Last but not least, Rule #8: Now, listen up, friends! It’s important you remember this: Never, and I mean never, enter the management office. If you happen to find the door slightly ajar, just keep on walking and mind your business. And if you hear any peculiar sounds coming from inside, don’t let your curiosity get the better of you! Simply carry on with your tasks. We want to keep everything peachy keen around here!”

What the f….. I thought

The next few minutes focused on specifics of the hotel layout, explaining what doors led where, how to reset the breaker, and the importance of logging any “guest encounters” in the shift report binder. The rules he’d given, though, stuck with me like a bad taste.

“That concludes our training. You’re now ready to head on out there and knock it out of the park! Thank you again for your commitment to the Arcadian legacy!”

Finally, I switched off the TV. By then, it was a little after 11 pm, so I made my way to the front desk to get a feel for my new workspace.

The first part of the night was uneventful. The Arcadian was silent except for a soft hum. I completed the tasks in the handbook they’d given me, accounting for all the keys, sweeping the lobby, wiping down the desk. It was eerie, but manageable.

I settled in behind the front desk, scrolling through my phone and waiting for the night to pass by. At around 1:30 a.m., the front door of the hotel opened. An old man shuffled into the lobby. He wore a faded custodian uniform that looked like it had seen better days, and I could barely make out the name tag reading “Ronald” as he drew closer.

He moved slowly, his feet dragging slightly on the worn carpet, and I felt a knot tighten in my stomach. I knew I had to wait for him to say the phrase that would confirm he was here for his nightly duties.

When he finally reached the desk, he looked up at me with weary eyes and said, “I’m here to clean the mess.”

A wave of relief washed over me as I realized he’d said it. I quickly unlocked the custodian closet, my hands trembling slightly as I fumbled with the keys.

As he pulled out his cart, filled with an assortment of cleaning supplies and tools, he glanced at me, almost amusingly and asked, “New here?”

“Yeah, it’s my first night. Any tips?” I replied, eager to learn anything that might ease my nerves.

“Stick to the rules, and you’ll be just fine, kid,” he said, before turning back to his cart.

He wheeled it toward the elevator, the cart rattling softly behind him. As he stepped inside, the doors closed with a quiet thud, leaving me alone again. Ronald’s words did little to ease my nerves. I was still trying to figure out what those rules might really mean, and why seemingly mundane rules would be so important to follow.

When I returned to my desk, I noticed almost immediately a space on the key rack. A key was now missing. The key to room 309. Panic rose in my chest as I rifled through the key rack again, hoping it was just hiding among the others.

“Where the hell did it go?” I muttered to myself, feeling a bead of sweat form on my forehead. I had barely left the desk for more than a minute. Had someone come in while I was with Ronald? Or had I just missed it during my last count?

I quickly pulled out my notes, scanning for the rule about the ham sandwich. There it was: if key 309 is missing, bring a ham and cheese sandwich to the room and knock, avoiding eye contact. I sighed, resigning myself to follow the rule.

Heading into the kitchen, I was surprised to find it fully stocked, despite the hotel’s long period of inactivity. The shelves were lined with canned goods and an impressive assortment of fresh ingredients, as if someone had prepared for a busy night. I quickly gathered the supplies and assembled a ham sandwich, placing it carefully on a plate.

With the plate in hand, I took a deep breath and headed for the elevator. The fluorescent lights flickered as I pressed the button for the third floor, and I felt a twinge of unease as I rode up.

When the doors opened, I walked down the hallway, the carpet muffling my footsteps. I approached room 309 and knocked gently on the door, my heart racing. I heard shuffling inside, and after a moment, the door creaked open.

I instinctively lowered my head, avoiding any eye contact. A figure stood in the doorway, reaching out to take the plate from my hands. They lingered there for an extra moment, as if waiting to see if I would look up. I kept my head down, my heart pounding in my chest.

After a tense pause, the figure shut the door quietly, leaving me standing in the dim hallway, a chill running down my spine. I let out my breath, realizing now that I had been holding it. I turned and walked away, the feeling of being watched weighing heavily on me. What is with this fucking hotel, I thought.

I got in the elevator, feeling relieved to head back to the safety of my desk. What were with all these rules anyway? What kind of hotel is this? Questions raced through my brain as I took the ride back down to the lobby.

The elevator descended, and as it approached the lobby, I got closer to the doors, anticipating my exit. Only, it didn’t stop at the lobby. It kept going down. Panic washed over me as I realized what was happening. The basement. “No, no, no!” I said as the elevated descended.

I desperately smashed my hand against the buttons, hitting any floor that would possibly bring me back up. But the elevator didn’t stop. Forcing myself to calm down, I remembered the rules, and I shut my eyes tightly, clenching my fists at my sides. The elevator dinged, and the doors opened, unleashing a rush of cold air that sent a shiver down my spine. The damp, musty smell filled my nostrils. I stood there, back against the wall, heart pounding, waiting anxiously to see what would happen next.

Then, I heard something. Something moving, slow and deliberate, getting closer. The smell hit me like a punch to the gut; a putrid stench that filled the air and clawed at my throat. It was a sickening blend of rot and decay that seemed to wrap around me, making it hard to breathe. The elevator creaked, and I felt it move slightly, as if something heavy, very heavy, had entered it.

I could feel it, whatever it was, right there, right against me, hovering right in front of my face. My pulse was racing, and tears began to stream down my face. I could feel it staring at me, like a predator, waiting, praying for me to open my eyes. What was probably only seconds felt like an eternity of pure horror.

Just then, the doors dinged again, and I felt myself moving back upward. I slowly opened my eyes to find the doors now open, looking back out to the lobby and the grand staircase.

I ran out of the elevator, ready to rush out of the front doors and quit, on the spot. But that’s when I noticed it. Dawn was breaking outside, and a new envelope was sat on top of the desk.

Hesitantly, I opened the envelope, sniffling like a child and wiping the tears from my face.

Inside the envelope was another $500 check, and a note:

Great job on your first shift. As a thank you, we have included your pay up front for tomorrow night. If you choose to not return, feel free to keep the check as a courtesy from us. But we hope you do return. You are a valuable addition to the Arcadian Hotel family.

-Management

I took the check and left the hotel, fully convinced I would never return.

That was last night.

Back home, I've paced my small apartment all day, the check burning a hole in my pocket, and the sunlight giving me a sense of security. I wanted to quit; the nightmares and anxiety of last night are too much. But then I thought about my bills, my empty fridge, the weight of my loans.

I’ve been staring at this check, the memory of Ronald’s words echoing in my mind: “Stick to the rules, and you’ll be just fine, kid.”

Maybe I can figure it out. Maybe I can endure just a little longer.

I’ve resolved to return to the hotel. I will follow the rules, keep my head down, and stay focused on the prize.

Tonight, I will walk into that hotel again, ready to face whatever horrors await me. The money is too enticing to walk away from. And maybe, I can even find out whatever is going on with the Arcadian Hotel.

After all, it’s just a job, right?

Samhain Part 1

The Dead Duo had a far worse time of it than we did. To put it simply, Victor had met us at the bonfire alone.

I'll get into what happened to Wes in a minute. Sorry to leave yinz in suspense, but this account of events is all second-hand. To spare us all some confusion, let me start at the beginning of their night.

(If you're not familiar with what Orion Pest Control's services are, it may help to start here.)

The first time that they'd heard the howls of the Cŵn Annwn, the otherworldly hounds had sounded far off. During their initial trek into the woods, the black birds continued to haunt their steps, chattering to each other as they shadowed the two undead men.

However, our coworkers didn't have this unwelcome entourage for long.

They didn't see the owl, at first. A crow screeched, then its cry was abruptly cut off. The other crows began to chatter in outrage.

Victor saw the owl soaring away with one of the Hunt's crows trapped firmly in its talons. It was the very same brown screech owl that had been watching us load up the barn with supplies. It had even brought friends, the ranks of which included other birds of prey that dove furiously at the Wild Hunt’s crows as if they had a vendetta against them.

Wes and him exchanged a look.

“Friends of yours?” Victor questioned, only half joking.

Wes shrugged, “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

Since the owl and its buddies were keeping the lesser Hunters off of their backs, Vic opted just to keep moving without questioning that odd experience further. They could find some way to thank the birds at a later date, preferably when they weren't about to be hunted for sport.

The Dead Duo didn't waste any time once they got to the barn, swiftly pulling out their supplies to start securing the doors. Salt lines were drawn across the thresholds of every entry point, including windows. I guess the boss hurt himself with it, in his haste. Wouldn't be the first time. Occupational hazard for a draugr.

During our initial preparations, one of the three extra hagstones had been hung from the rafters. It may sound like a questionable location for a stone, but the Hunters can fly, after all. Meanwhile, the Dead Duo kept the remaining two stones on them. They were as ready as they could be. At least, that’s what Victor had thought at the time.

Roughly an hour after they finished setting up, there was a round of hooting and hollering from the hounds. Victor knew in his gut that their chorus meant that the Hunters had found one of the ‘appetizers’ the mechanic had mentioned.

After the fact, we found out that both victims were registered sex offenders. Something I'd never thought about until Victor brought it up is that the registry provides full names. The boss explained that it’s a useful tool for the Hunters, chock full of the exact types of souls they prefer to torture the most. To quote Iolo, ‘The types no one’ll miss.’

Up until that point, the Dead Duo had been killing time with chitchat. But after the second ‘appetizer’ had been caught, all conversation died. Victor was on high alert, listening to every breeze, every creak of the trees, every murmur of the forest. Waiting. Meanwhile, Wes still seemed fairly excited as he kept glancing through the windows to see if anything was coming.

Occasionally, they'd hear the crows call as they passed the barn by. The owl attack had thrown the lessers off, buying the Dead Duo a good deal of time before shit hit the fan.

Another hour passed. They continued to wait. Wes had begun to pace from pent-up energy. They hadn't heard any hounds or crows for a while. Where were they? There was still time before sunrise.

There was a soft scuffing sound outside. Wes' pacing stopped, having heard it, too. There it was again, but higher off the ground.

The roof. Something was on the roof.

Victor didn't hesitate. He took aim and shot at whatever was climbing on top of the barn.

They heard laughter outside from multiple sources, followed by Briar's voice from above, mocking, “I've been trying to reach you about your car's extended warranty!”

Thorns began to slither along the top of the barn, their serpentine movements stopping abruptly as they neared the hagstone on the rafters. Putting it there was a good call. The vines were unable to pass it.

Victor fired again into the gathering of thorns, blasting some of them off.

They heard the mechanic's voice then, taunting Wes, “You gonna hide in there all night, boy?”

To Victor's chagrin, our coworker didn't hesitate to shout in reply, “Just you!”

His response was met with more laughter along with some Gaelic spoken amongst their pursuers. Not surprising that the merry band of jagoffs would take the challenge as a joke.

Victor glanced up to see that Briar was standing above the hole in the roof in all of his winged glory, head tilted curiously. The thorns writhed against the ceiling, testing the limits of the hagstone on the rafters.

“Don't go out there,” Victor warned.

Unfortunately, Wes wasn't listening, “If I meet you out there, I'm only dealing with you. Hear me, Dragonfly? No interference from anyone else. One-on-one. Just you.”

There was a moment of consideration before the mechanic replied casually, “Yeah, I got some time to kill. It'll be a while ‘til the White Son of Mist finishes up.”

That had instantly rang alarm bells in Victor's head. Finishes what? He'd worried that meant that the king of the Wild Hunt had turned his attention to someone else. Namely, Reyna, Cerri, or I.

Victor tried to warn his employee again. “Don't-”

“Oh, be quiet.” Briar cut him off dismissively, “He wanted this, didn't he?”

Without another word, Wes marched out to face the mechanic, salt-covered cutlass drawn.

The boss stepped forward to follow, but stopped once he heard more scuffling from above him. He turned to see that Briar now clung to the barn's ceiling by the hooks in his wings.

“You don't mess with the fight, neither will we.” The Hunter told him lightly. “All's fair, right?”

Was it, though? Was it really fair, Briar?

It's probably a good thing I wasn't there to piss the Hunters off more.

“Sure.” Victor snapped curtly. “This the thanks we get for helping you with the hag?”

Briar scoffed, “Come on, draugr. I know you don't like us, but you know us better than that! At least, you should, by now.”

The Hunter had found a spot on the rafters that was just outside of the hagstone's influence to perch on, thorn-covered antlers brushing the ceiling.

He continued, “We let you set up this little safe house without making a move to sabotage it. You really think we didn't know what you were up to? Hell, I'm even going the extra mile and taking the liberty to make sure that none of our guests get the idea to weasel their way in here. We're being far kinder to you than we have ever been to any others. And you didn't even notice. Have to say, it's kind of hurtful.”

Victor stole a line from Reyna: “Cope.”

When he told me that, I let out the ugliest snort. Clearly, the boss was done giving a shit. And he didn't have many of those left to begin with.

Briar just shook his head, “You Orion fuckers really have forgotten how to keep your attitudes in check, haven't you?”

Victor ignored that comment, “Won't your boss have some choice things to say about you helping me?”

Briar chuckled, “Who do you think is the one that okayed this?”

Okay. That's interesting. But one semi-good deed on the mechanic's part isn't much compared to his laundry list of war crimes.

Thankfully, none of the other Hunters appeared to have any interest in entering the barn now that Wes had come out. He was their primary target. Briar’s influence probably didn’t hurt either, as begrudging as I am to give him so much credit.

To Victor's horror, he then saw that Wes had left his hagstone hanging on a hook by the door. The reason for this was most likely that he wouldn't have been able to get close enough to the mechanic to try to stab him without the stone repelling him. Victor swore to rip him a new one for taking that risk later.

Keeping the shotgun trained on the thorned Hunter, Victor glanced out the window to see what was going on between his employee and our least favorite psychopomp. According to him, the pair were moving around each other so quickly that it was hard to keep track of them. He'd occasionally catch a glimpse of Iolo's wings or spikes glittering in the darkness, or the reflective Orion Pest Control logo on the back of Wes’ jacket.

“Your boy is doing better than I thought.” Briar commented, swinging one furry leg absent-mindedly. “I should've brought popcorn.”

“I am very selective about who I hire,” the boss informed him. “You think I'd bring on just anyone off the street? You should know me better, Briar.”

Briar sighed heavily, clearly not happy with Vic sassing him yet again, but conceded with a shrug of his shoulder, “Yeah. You got me there.”

That's when he heard the mechanic whoop from outside, “Hoo! Yup, that's salt!”

To Victor's disappointment, he sounded more surprised than hurt.

The dueling pair had slowed down a bit, circling each other in front of their audience of antlers, growling dogs, and black birds. The mechanic had his banjo strapped to his back, ready to use if he got bored of his wooden sword.

As an aside, I wonder if he'd sharpened the blade up before Halloween. That training sword was a bit dull in our sessions. Of course, I could also see Iolo liking the idea of slowly killing Orion's vampire with a dull sword.

“You know what you're doin’, boy, I'll give ya that!” The mechanic said, rolling his bad shoulder, a subtle edge to his voice that made Victor think that he wasn't being entirely sincere. “Here I was, thinkin’ I'd be humblin’ some half-cocked lil’ shithead. Gotta say, I'm pleasantly surprised.”

At first, Vic thought that Wes had gotten hit at some point, since his mouth was covered in blood, but then he noticed that Iolo nonchalantly wiped at a gash on his shoulder. Wes had actually managed to take a bite out of Iolo. Along with that, the base of the mechanic's prosthetic wings were bleeding, most likely from forcing the Huntsman to push himself before they'd fully healed.

He remembered thinking that they might actually be able to pull it off. That they might actually have a chance against the Wild Hunt.

“I'm a bit rusty,” Wes told Iolo with a vicious smile. “It's been a while since I've had a real fight.”

“That why ya volunteered?” Iolo asked, as if they were merely making friendly smalltalk.

“Partially.”

A new voice spoke then. One Victor had never heard before, deep and gravelly, “Are you planning on toying with the poor thing all night?”

Every Hunter's head turned towards the speaker, including Iolo. The ones watching the fight had bowed deeply, including the Cŵn Annwn, their red ears back against their heads as their backs arched.

The White Son of Mist had arrived.

From Victor's description, the king of the Wild Hunt was equally as magnificent as he was frightening. Great antlers like that of an elk stood from his scalp, adorned with shining crystals that reminded him of icicles. Some of those icy gems were braided into Gwyn’s auburn hair. Smokey, ink-black skin surrounded the king's featureless white eyes and the bridge of his nose like a mask, the ornamentation accented with additional black lines beneath the corners of his mouth. Unlike his followers, the rest of his anatomy was humanoid. No hooves, fur, or wings.

Victor had said he'd expected an ancient god to dress in finery. But instead, the king of the Wild Hunt was clothed in regular, practical outdoor wear, at odds with his intricate braids and crystal embellishments.

The mechanic bowed his head respectfully at the king, replying, “I was waitin’ on you, sir.”

The White Son of Mist grinned coldly, crouching down, resting his elbows on his knees as those white eyes fixed on Wes, “I'm here, now.”

That was when shit got real for the Dead Duo.

The mechanic had gone after Wes with renewed ferocity, the vampire unable to do much more than defend himself against the onslaught. It was hard to see exactly how bad it was, between their speed and the darkness. When Victor heard the audience of Hunters cheer, his heart sank.

He knew that if he tried to get involved, that would only make things worse for our coworker. That'd give one of the other Hunters a pass to intervene as well. Even so, there had to be some way around that. There always was. He just had to find it.

He'd slyly glanced at Briar from the corner of his eye. The Hunter was watching him intently, chin resting on his fist, daring the boss to make a move.

‘I've heard many things about you.’

The voice hadn't spoken aloud. It was a whisper in the back of Victor's consciousness. He tensed up, knowing that he hadn't imagined it.

‘You and your colleagues don't disappoint. This has been a most special Calan Gaeaf.’

It was then that Victor had learned the hard way that there was a huge difference between a god that still had his divinity intact and a Wild Huntsman. When Victor glanced out the window again, he saw that Gwyn’s gaze was still firmly fixed on the fight. Unlike his followers, the White Son of Mist didn't have to look the boss in the eyes to get into his head. And the hagstone had done absolutely nothing to protect him.

‘Your life was cut short. Too short.’

As Victor recounted this to me, he unconsciously put a hand on his bandana.

The god had made him experience the knife cutting into his throat once again, his own hot blood rushing into his airway, unable to cough enough of it up. He woke up in his murderer's trunk. Tasted his killer's flesh. His body was wracked with heroin withdrawals while his father's voice told him he couldn't help him anymore.

Then just quickly as it had happened, he was back in the barn again. At some point, he'd fallen to his knees, the shotgun on the ground in front of him.

‘I don't intend to cut it short once again. That would be a waste. Wouldn't you agree?’

Victor dared to whisper, “What do you want?”

‘You've already given it to me.’

There was another uproarious cry from the audience of jeering Hunters. Victor pulled himself back up to the window to see that Iolo had gotten Wes on his back, tearing our coworker's throat out with those horrible teeth.

He paused to spit Wes’ own blood back into his face, growling, “See how you like it!”

There is a selfish part of me that is glad I'd missed that. I've seen Iolo pissed before, but never to the point of going semi-feral. I've decided that it's something I'd never like to bear witness to.

In response, Wes dug his fingers into the weak spot at the base of Iolo's prosthetic wings.

When he saw that, Victor had rushed for the door, certain that Iolo was going to rip Wes’ head off until something huge and furry knocked the furious Huntsman off of him. As Wes scrambled to his feet, the boss could see that the mechanic had taken such a big chunk out of our colleague that the ridges of his windpipe were exposed.

Wes’ savior had been a black bear.

It positioned himself between the mechanic and Wes, protectively baring its teeth at the Huntsman. In the forest surrounding them, there was commotion from the other Hunters as coyotes yipped at the Cŵn Annwn. Trees groaned deeply, as if speaking to one another. From a tall cedar, the brown owl that had protected them from the crows’ prying eyes watched intently.

Of all things to happen that night, the False Tree coming to their rescue was not on any of our bingo cards, especially since the barn wasn't located anywhere near its territory.

The last time we'd seen it, it had told us, ‘The forest will remember your kindness.’ I guess this is what the False Tree had meant.

Iolo savagely spat more of Wes’ blood onto the ground before calmly telling the snarling animal, “Don't forget. We helped you, too.”

One of the Hunters tried to sneak up on the agitated bear. Before he could strike, Iolo seized his arm, digging his claws into the Hunter’s skin until his subordinate dropped his weapon. He kept squeezing, not stopping until the Hunter crumpled to his knees.

Using the fallen Hunter’s bare shoulder to wipe the blood from his fingers, Iolo then turned his head towards the rest of them, announcing coldly, “Don't let me catch any o’ you tryin’ anything with these here animals. I don't give a flyin’ fuck if they bite ya where the sun don't shine, ya don't touch ‘em. Understood?”

The army of assholes confirmed that they understood.

Once again, the White Son of Mist's voice was in the back of Victor's mind, the tone patronizing, ‘The Shepherd of the Forest wishes to aid you. The sun is due to rise in an hour. You’ve gained quite a few luxuries in a short amount of time. Yet, the same question remains: do you think your friend can make it?’

Looking at the state Wes was in, Victor wasn't sure. Our coworker was putting on a brave face, but the boss could tell that he was hurting. And he was fairly confident that Iolo and Gwyn were just as aware of this as he was.

“Only one way to find out.” The boss grumbled before marching to the door.

That time, Briar made no move to stop him, shaking his head at the mechanic, “I told him to take it easy...”

The bear kept Wes and Iolo separated like a big furry referee. The mechanic circled, angered enough to ignore the blood dripping down his back. I guess his teeth were also stained red. His prosthetic wings drooped.

The mechanic had stiffened when Victor came out, his head following the boss like a cat watching an interesting insect. He appeared to be barely holding himself back from going after Orion's manager. Without a word, he removed that damned banjo from his back.

Vic had expected him to start playing, but The White Son of Mist placed a hand on the mechanic's good shoulder, whispering something that Victor couldn't hear. Whatever it was, it made Iolo visibly relax. However, he still watched every move the Orion employees made. The boss could feel Iolo's gaze crawling along his spine as he guided Wes back into the barn.

Briar was still chilling on the rafters when the boss dragged our coworker inside. Though, Victor had reluctantly said he couldn't complain about this too much since those thorns were the only things keeping the other Hunters from entering the barn from above. That had been Briar's way of repaying his debt to Orion for not letting the hag cook him to death.

It's harrowing to think about. If we hadn't had all these favors that we'd collected, the Dead Duo would've been completely fucked. Far more than we'd anticipated. In hindsight, all of our other preparations seem almost silly. How could we have thought that hagstones and salt would be enough to withstand the wrath of a literal god and his legion of sadists?

In a worse timeline, Orion Pest Control was violently wiped off the face of the earth on Halloween night. We've heard of it happening to other specialty pest control companies before. It's something we don't speak of often, like just mentioning it has the power to invoke that cruel fate.

Wes leaned heavily against the wall, using its leverage to remain standing. His head was tilted to the side, inadvertently showing off what remained of his destroyed throat. The bear curled up next to him, watching the door, ears pricked.

When he tried to speak, all that came out was a terrible gurgle. God, poor guy.

“Don't talk,” The boss told him, clutching the shotgun as he guarded the window. “Just try not to die on me.”

Wes gave him a thumbs up.

There was scraping from above as the thorns began to recede from the hole in the roof. Cautiously, Victor made Wes take his hagstone back.

That was when Briar finally spoke again, “I need to go check on my superior, seeing as your boy screwed up his wings again. Oh, and just a head's up: they're about to tear this place down. I suggest you two start running.”

Victor swore, then rushed over to grab Wes with his free hand, pulling our injured coworker towards the sliding doors on the other side of the barn. Once he was certain that Wes wasn't going to keel over the instant he let go, he pressed his shoulder against the heavy sliding door to push it open.

The bear bounded out ahead of them once the enormous door cracked open enough for it to squeeze through. The animal let out a blood-curdling roar at the Hunters waiting outside, its yellow fangs exposed in a clear threat.

They gracefully danced out of the way of its claws, making no move to retaliate against it. After the mechanic's harsh warning, they wouldn't dare. Even the Cŵn Annwn just shoved the foxes and coyotes nipping at their ears and heels away, keeping their own sharp teeth to themselves.

They just had to stay near the bear. That seemed to be their best bet. It seemed to know where it was going.

Aa they followed their protector, Victor looked over his shoulder. White eyes in the darkness. The White Son of Mist was tailing them, hands in pockets. Victor half expected the god to start whistling or humming, that's how casually contented he looked.

Stay near the bear.

But would the king honor the mechanic's sentimentality towards the False Tree? Victor didn't want to find out the hard way.

Slowly, Wes seemed to be recovering from the bite. Very slowly.

He was at least to the point where some of his vocal chords were working again. He whispered jokingly to Vic, his voice hoarse, “Can't say I've ever had a giant bug almost bite my head off before. That's a new one.”

Despite their circumstances, Victor managed a snort, “You're the one that wanted to fight him.”

“Worth it.”

“Was it really?”

“Absolutely. Sure, I got a little fucked up, but I got to hurt his precious wings. And if you're curious, his blood tastes like cherries.”

Victor offered him a wry smile, “I wasn't curious, but thanks for telling me anyway.”

“No problem!”

There was a terrible crash behind them. The barn. When Victor checked over his shoulder again, he saw that Briar hadn't been exaggerating. There was a flurry of wings and antlers as their only safe spot was reduced to splinters. As that went on, more commotion could be heard from both the Wild Hunt and the False Tree's animals as they brawled.

Suffice to say, that False Tree is going to get an offering fit for a god as thanks for what it did for Orion that night.

However, speaking of gods, there was one thing even the False Tree couldn't protect them against: Gwyn ap Nudd. And Victor had lost sight of him.

“How are you feeling?” He asked Wes warily, glancing around for any sign of the king.

“I'm fantastic, how are you?” Wes rasped.

“Don't be a smartass. Can you move on your own or not?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

The boss let go of his shoulder, wanting to have both hands available for when the White Son of Mist showed himself again.

When Victor was telling me this story, he suddenly stopped, closed his eyes, and frowned.

“I can't remember exactly what happened.” He admitted. “The next thing I knew after I let him go, the bear was dragging Wes away by the arm. He wasn't moving. I was in the dirt, covered in claw marks. And the White Son of Mist was smiling down at me.”

While Victor was trying to figure out what the hell had just happened, he heard wings and footsteps from all directions, rushing after their quarry. He couldn't tell friend from foe. They all hurried in the same direction.

All except for the king. He stayed where he was, eyes locked on the boss with a tight-lipped grin. Daring him to try something.

Victor dared.

He'd found the shotgun on the ground next to him, snatching it up and opening fire. The god didn't even blink as a hole was blown in his midsection. Just kept looking at Vic with that damned smile.

This time, when Gwyn spoke, it wasn't in Victor's head, “You've been a real treat for me. I mean that, leader of Orion.”

He stepped forward. Victor fired again, despite knowing that it wouldn't do any good. It was merely for the principle of it. If the god of the Wild Hunt was going to torture him or use him to hurt Wes again, he at least wanted to make a stand before he had to endure whatever hell was in store for him.

Once again, the White Son of Mist didn't appear to notice that he'd been shot. At least Iolo actually had the decency to get hurt whenever I'd blasted him with the salt shells.

Victor scrambled to his feet, trying to encourage the god to continue chasing him. If Gwyn was focused on him, that meant that at least Wes would have only the rest of the hunting party to contend with.

I say ‘only’ as if run-of-the-mill Hunters aren't also complete nightmares to deal with. But at least hagstones and salt can repel them. What can you do for a god?

“What do you want?” Victor asked again, still backing up as he struggled to reload with shaking hands.

Gwyn merely kept approaching, ignoring the animals and Hunters rushing around as if it were just him and Victor in the woods that night.

“What would it take for this to end?!” Victor questioned. He dropped the salt shell he'd been trying to load in. “Fuck!”

A hand on his throat. The White Son of Mist lifted him off the ground as if he weighed nothing. He felt pressure in the middle of his back, then a piercing sensation deep within his chest that made him go limp. Dimly, he glanced down to see the sharp point of a tree limb sticking out of his chest, coated with his blood.

His comparison made my teeth clench, “I was like a worm on a hook.”

“Weren’t you listening earlier?” The king replied, pulling down Victor's bandana, tracing his slit throat with a light finger. “You've proven to be everything my captain said you'd be. I want for nothing.”

Without Gwyn supporting his weight anymore, Victor had begun to feel gravity pulling him down. It felt like he was splitting in two. He weakly gripped the branch he was impaled on, trying to pull himself up to alleviate the sensation. By that point, he couldn't. Even with being undead, his strength had been stunted by the shock of it.

When he told me that, I instantly started crying. He let me hug him, assuring me that it was his job as Orion's manager to take the brunt of the punishment, whether that was from shitty clients or shitty Neighbors.

The White Son of Mist cast his gaze at the sky. It was turning green. Not quite sunrise yet. On our end, it was roughly the same time that the Dullahan had surrendered to get his head back.

He then cupped Victor's cheek, forcing the boss to meet his white eyes as he said, “The next time I see you, I’ll be bringing the winter with me. It was a pleasure to finally meet you.”

He left Victor hanging from the tree. The boss didn't remember what happened after that. He ended up blacking out from the pain.

Something hot and wet on his face. He came to on the ground, eyes opening to see a fox's orange snout in his face. It whined, continuing to lick him. He raised a hand, weakly scratching its ears.

“Is my friend alive?” He asked it.

The sound of something being dragged. The bear was back, gripping a dead deer by the antler with its teeth. Victor reluctantly admitted that his mouth had begun to water. The bear dropped the buck by Victor's side.

“The man you protected,” Victor tried to ask again. “Where is he?”

In response, the bear nudged the deer closer with its snout, snorting. It stared the boss down.

It wouldn’t lead him to Wes until he ate. Victor obliged it without further argument.

Good news: Wes is alive. Or unalive. You know what I mean. However, he's avoiding Reyna, Cerri, and I for our own safety. The bear had fed him similarly to the way that it had Vic, but with how severe his injuries were, an animal sacrifice was just enough to give him the self control he needed to get home to his emergency blood supply.

He'll be taking some time off to recover. I'd say he earned it. Likewise, we're trying to convince the boss to take a vacation. Victor definitely needs one.

Samhain definitely could've gone worse for us. Wes, Vic, and I all got maimed a bit, but we survived, in no small part because of the aid from the False Tree.

If yinz learn anything from what happened to us, let it be this: the forest never forgets. The Neighbors never forget. Your kindness will not go unnoticed.

I’m sure some of you were hoping for some big, epic battle where we manage to vanquish the beings terrorizing us and live happily ever after. Unfortunately, this is real life, and in this line of work, survival is an epic victory.

It’s like the boss always says: we’re not heroes, we’re pest control specialists.

When I returned to Deirdre, she threw herself into my arms, having been anxious waiting for me all night.

As much as I hated to do it, I'd asked her to stay behind. Not wanting me to have yet another thing to worry about, she'd agreed, albeit reluctantly. Though, she promised that if the river gave her any of our shirts, she’d rush over to the bonfire.

I fell into a deep sleep in her arms, feeling her soft lips ghosting over my skin, her fingers gently stroking my hair. My dreams were haunted with headless horsemen. My coworker’s skulls were attached to his chain. I woke up crying and unfortunately, alone, fingers digging into my pillow.

Maybe I should go back to therapy.

Hold on. Where’d Deirdre go?

After that nightmare, I’d instantly panicked, rushing out to look for her, breathing a sigh of relief when I saw that she was just in the kitchen, making tea. I guess she’d been wanting to surprise me with breakfast in bed. Whoops.

She did what she did best and calmed me down. The tea helped unclench the fist that was squeezing my heart. Before her, I was never much of a tea drinker, but it's been growing on me.

The whole time, I could tell that she wanted to tell me something. I could see it in the set of her brow and the tightness of her mouth. The way she anxiously gripped her mug with both hands. When I questioned her on it, she told me that she was waiting until my mental state improved. Like the mentally healthy person that I am, I joked that if that were the case, she’d never have a chance to tell me anything. She didn’t find it funny.

“A few weeks back, I saw my own death,” Deirdre eventually confessed to me.

Naturally, that threw me for a loop. “What? Hold on, ‘a few weeks back?’ And you’re just telling me now?”

She sighed shakily, dropping her mug onto the table so roughly that some of the liquid sloshed out, drenching her hand. She didn't notice. “You had enough on your plate. But you’re right. I shouldn’t have kept it from you. And you need to know that I've put you in a bad position. I didn't mean for it to happen, but it did.”

Deirdre then told me that she only had one more person left to guide. One more soul to spirit away, then she'll be free from the river.

“Isn't that good news?” I questioned, not bothering to hide my confusion.

“I was wondering how I was getting away with it,” She mused, eyes distant. “None of them ever stopped me from keening outside of their jurisdiction. Never. But those damned crows never stopped following me. And when the Huntsman retaliated against me, didn't it seem underwhelming to you?”

“No, it looked pretty terrible to me.” I disagreed in the kindest tone possible.

She had begun to talk rapidly, sounding distracted, barely making sense. “If he were to kill me now, as a Weeper, he'd be breaking the river's claim on me. A transgression that is punished severely. However, as a human… That’d be a different story. And of course, the Huntsman knows it.”

It took a minute for my tired brain to catch up, but after she’d said that, I saw what she was getting at.

Chills erupted over my skin as I voiced the realization out loud, “Iolo's waiting for you to turn human.”

“He was the one in my premonition.” Deirdre confirmed gravely, eyes fixed on her mug. “And I’m sure it won’t surprise you to know that he does not intend to be kind about it.”

Something else. There was something else. Had Iolo not been bullshitting when he’d laid into her a couple weeks back? What had he meant by all of that?

I questioned further, “Wait, hold on, how does this put me in a bad position?”

“Do you remember the terms of our agreement?” She muttered, clenching her fists, near tears. “For translating the ledger, you swore to free me from the river. It was my suggestion. In my selfishness, I've doomed you. I've doomed us both.”

She then added, beginning to cry, “I’m no better than them, as much as I try to pretend otherwise. Just as deceptive. Just as self-serving.”

Thanks to my exhaustion, the gravity of her confessions didn’t click in my brain immediately.

In summary, if I was going to complete my vow to her, I'd have to accomplish one of two impossible tasks: convince Iolo to not be a violent, jealous bastard, for once, or kill him.

Judging by the way Gwyn acted around Victor, the king of the Wild Hunt has a peculiar interest in Orion. Even if I managed to take the mechanic’s life, that would introduce a litany of other problems, one of them being retaliation. As much as I love the idea of driving Ratcatcher through his vile heart, the cons outweigh the pros.

I put my face in my hands, letting out a tired, muffled. “Well, shit.”

Admittedly, after dealing with the Dullahan and hearing about the Dead Duo's trials and tribulations, I didn't have the capacity to be as worried or angry as I ought to have been.

She apologetically whispered, delicately touching my uninjured shoulder, “Nessa, if I'd known-”

“I don't blame you.” I assured her. “You risked a lot, so you had to ask for a lot.”

“I’ll fix it!” She insisted through tears. “I’ll fix what I’ve started. You don’t need to worry about this. I’ll handle the Huntsman. I will fix this.”

I came out of hiding to grumble, “We'll figure something out. Together. But… later.”

What she said next shook me to my core. “I think I'll let him do it.”

That shook me up, “What?!”

“Each day that I'm like this, I can feel my heart change more and more,” She admitted softly. “I’m becoming more like them every day. As hateful. As vindictive. As unforgiving. I haven't been human in so long, and each day, I forget more and more what being mortal ever felt like. And this world… everything has changed so, so much.”

She turned to me, eyes red, shaking as if barely holding back sobs as she then asked, “What place do I have in this world, Nessa?”

I was so taken aback by all of this that I struggled to find words. Any words.

The first thing I thought of to do was pull her close so that her cheek rested against my chest. For a moment, all I could manage to do was stroke her hair.

Of all the things I'd considered when it came to her secrecy, I didn't realize it'd been an existential crisis. And yet another bad deal. One that she trapped me into, whether she meant to or not.

I’m trying not to be mad at her. I believe her when she says that she didn’t mean for it to happen. But it did happen.

That's when I just began to talk. Letting my heart find the words for me instead of my head, “I know it's not exactly the same, but when I was discharged, I felt like everything had gone wrong for a long time. Either I was wrong, or the world was wrong. I wasn't sure which.”

Deirdre kept hiding her face against my sweatshirt.

I continued, “It took me a lot of therapy and trial and error to figure out where I fit into regular life. Even now, I’m definitely still a bit on the fringe. My world is pretty well consumed with atypical pests and Neighbor nonsense. But now, I at least feel like I’m where I need to be.”

The Weeper raised her head, gray eyes searching mine, face and eyes reddened.

“You can’t find your place in this world if you don’t even give yourself a chance.” I told her.

“I’ll fix this.” She repeated quietly. “I’ll wait to lead that last one. I’ll do anything. I just don’t want to be…”

Like them. She didn’t have to finish her sentence.

“We don’t have to deal with it right this minute.” I reminded her. “It’s been a long couple of weeks. Hell, it’s been a long couple of months, but we’ve weathered the storm. You’re the indebtor. As long as you can wait, we can take our time. Figure it out rationally rather than having to act fast.”

Deirdre noticeably cringed when I referred to her as my ‘indebtor,’ but didn’t disagree with me. The guilt on her face was obvious.

She nodded with a sniff.

That’s something for future Nessa and Deirdre to deal with. For now, we’ve decided that the best thing we can do to try to regain some sanity is to let ourselves soak in the fact that we made it. We actually made it.

I’ll be taking a bit of a break from posting. For how long, I don’t know. But the Neighbors will always be angry with us and people will always be… well, people, so I definitely will have some more stories to tell soon enough. And there are plenty from the past that I just haven’t gotten to. Specialty pest control definitely has job security, that’s for sure.

That being said, we all need time to figure out where to go from here. A lot has happened for everyone.

There is one bright side to all of this, though: Orion Pest Control has proven that our services can extend beyond some simple infestations. We’re still not heroes, but we try our best. For now, I think that’s enough.

(Here's an index of all the cases that have been discussed so far.)

When I was younger, my older brother Theodore and I would spend most of our time in the mountains and forests just outside of town. There wasn’t much else to do in our secluded little neck of the country but that didn’t matter. We would play pirates, cowboys and indians, and even as Jedi after we saw the Phantom Menace. Eventually, as we grew older, we moved on to hunting and exploring. We would push ourselves deeper and deeper into the forest every time we went out.

It was late October when we went deeper into the forest than ever before and ever since. 

I had just turned thirteen and in the eyes of my parents, was able to graduate from bow hunting to using a rifle. It was an old bolt action that my grandad used but to me, it was like being given the keys to a Ferrari and I handled it as such. So when Theo knocked on my door and asked me if I wanted to try it out, I didn’t hesitate to jump on the opportunity; if only I hadn’t persisted in pushing so deep into the woods.

“See him right there,” Theo whispered. 

We were crouched down in a bed of leaves at the top of a small bluff. Through the uneven rows of trees, we could see the front end of a buck. 

“Yeah I see him,” I whispered, the rifle shaking slightly in my arms. 

I had shot before just never at something.

“Wait until-” Theo started.

A loud crack echoed through the barren trees and the buck jumped away. Its outline slowly grew more obscure as it darted through the trees until it finally disappeared.

“What the hell, John!” Theo shouted before shooting up and sliding down the bluff. 

“I’m sorry!” I whined. 

“You don’t shoot until you have a clear shot!” Theo’s voice echoed through the woods, “shit you hit it though.”

“Isn’t that good?” I asked, catching up to Theo.

“No! This isn’t bow-hunting rabbits! We don’t want it to suffer.”

“I’m sorry,” I shrunk back.

“Come on,” Theo said, “we’ll follow the blood trail.”

If I hadn’t taken that shot, if we had just gone home empty-handed, we would have never found it. Why did we have to go chasing after that buck?

Normally this time of the year, the trees still clung to at least some of their leaves like a blanket in the cold. This year was different. The trees stood barren with piles of leaves littering the ground. It made it easier to see farther away and this is how we were first able to see the structure. It was vague in the distance but as we drew closer it began to take shape. The fuzzy lines of nature gave way to the harsh lines of man.

It was a riverboat. The kind of multi-story floating hotel with a large paddle wheel on the stern. The paint was faded and peeling and every single window was shattered. I could just make out the name stenciled upon one of the side panels. Roxanna.

Only that wasn’t what kept us staring; a massive tree was growing in it. The shattered remains of the pilot house had been engulfed in its enormous trunk. Thick roots wrapped themselves along the decks and spilled overboard into the calm waters below. The tree was slowly absorbing the Roxanna, even the deck was beginning to buckle under its immense weight. 

But the Roxanna’s entanglement with the tree wasn’t what made the whole scene eerie and slightly terrifying to my young mind. It was the tree itself. Monstrously huge, the bark was a dark red that peeled away from the trunk like sheets of paper. Blood-red sap spilled from beneath these sheets, ran down the trunk, and dripped from the branches leaving bloody splatters across the frame of the Roxanna. Its branches hung off the trunk like massive arms and sprouting from the branches were thousands of bone-white leaves, each with the outline of an eye stenciled on their flesh. I had never seen anything like that before and have never since except for the recesses of my nightmares. 

“Woah,” Theo muttered, seemingly forgetting about the wounded buck.

My gaze shifted from the wreck to Theo and back again. Theo’s bad shaving job left patches of peach fuzz that shined blonde in the setting sun's light.

“Can we… can we go home?” I felt uncomfortable there, like standing outside the open closet door at night. 

It was like we had trespassed on something hallow. We weren’t supposed to be there. Theo either didn’t feel the same or didn’t care. The fear of childhood being suppressed in his sixteen-year-old brain.

“No way we got to show people this,” Theo said, stepping closer to the wreckage.

“It’s getting late, we should really go,” I said, clutching my rifle close as it was the only thing that made me feel brave. Even then it felt small.

“Don’t be such a wuss, this is the coolest find I’ve seen. Might have to bring a lady out here sometime,” Theo said, shooting a wink back in my direction. 

I don’t think he had ever talked to a woman.

“Theo, can we please leave.”

“Hang on hang on, if I can get one of those branches it would prove this exists.”

“Who cares we can just tell people it's here.”

“If you see a ten-point buck, do you run home and tell Mommy? No. You get your rifle and shoot the son-of-a-bitch,” Theo said, walking a little way up the bank of the river. He was searching for something in the trees.

“I’m going to tell Mom you’re cursing.”

“I don’t care,” Theo said, spotting what he was looking for and trudging into the leaves.

“Theo!” I called out. 

The hairs on the back of my neck tingled as I stood there alone. A million eyes stared down at me from above. The sky was growing darker with each passing minute and there I was, alone with a monster. I felt cold staring back into those eyes. The wind blew past me whipping the fallen leaves into a frenzy.

Theo marched out of the woods again carrying a long, mud-covered log. He gave me a triumphant look as he wedged it into the rocky bank, the point just barely reaching the closest edge of the Roxanna’s hull. The water was dark and murky with a layer of red and orange leaves slowly moving downstream. It was impossible to tell how deep the water was. 

“I don’t think this is a smart idea,” I said.

“Just watch my stuff then,” Theo said, shrugging out of his jacket.

Carefully testing the log, making sure it was steady, Theo gingerly worked his way up on all fours. He made it to the Roxanna and gave me a thumbs up.

“See. No problem,” he said before disappearing into the bowels of the Roxanna.

“Theo! Theo, can we leave?”

Theo appeared on a walkway in the second story.

“It’s crazy in here!” Theo said with a wild smile, “Like crazy crazy you gotta see this!”

“No thanks.”

“Suit yourself,” Theo said, disappearing inside again before coming out, “I forgot my knife, can you get it to me?”

“Knife?”

“Yeah, the knife in my jacket pocket.”

“I don’t want to go over there.”

With a large sigh, Theo disappeared again before reappearing where he got on at the other end of the log.

“Just walk it up halfway,” Theo said.

“No, I-”

“Don’t throw the damn thing! Just walk it up you wuss.”

The eyes staring down at me watched my every move as I slowly grabbed the knife and approached the log. Carefully, on my knees and one free hand, I crawled my way up the log. It cracked and wobbled under me. If only I hadn’t listened to Theo.

My hand slipped. The thin layer of mud and decaying leaves took my one hand out from under me. I felt my nose crack as my face hit the wood. The world spun as the cold embrace of water enveloped me. 

Darkness. The next moments exist as a haze. I remember thrashing about. The leaves stuck to my body like a film. Water and blood shot up my broken nose. My clothes were waterlogged and dragged me down. I couldn’t breathe. 

The burn of water in my eyes wasn’t worth the blurred vision it gave me. I couldn’t see anything. Only dark water stretched all around. Then I saw it, tendrils unfolding from the deep, stretching out and slithering through the water like snakes toward me. If I could breathe, I would have screamed. The tendrils wrapped themselves around my ankles and dragged me deeper. I felt them bite into my skin and a cloud of red rippled from my ankles. I kicked and thrashed but was quickly losing energy. Darkness encroached on the corners of my eyes. 

Water crashed above me just as everything faded to black.

I woke up on the banks of the river what had to be several hours later. It was black outside and I was cold and wet. My whole body was sore, my nose was sensitive to the touch, and every breath I took felt like I had nails in my lungs. 

“What the hell, Theo!” I shouted causing me to break into a heavy coughing fit.

Theo didn’t respond.

“Theo! You jerk! I told you we should have left!” 

Still no response. 

“Theo?”

I was alone on the bank. Overhead the eyes stared down; hungry and wrathful. In all my youth and the years that would follow, I never once ran as fast as I did that night. Branches struck my face like whips as I crashed through the trees, tripping several times but not letting it slow me. My lungs were tearing themselves apart but I couldn’t stop.

As the lights of home began to shine through the woods, I began to scream.

“MOM! DAD!”

Dad burst out the back door with a shotgun in hand, Mom right behind him. The blood drained from their faces as they saw the blood that coated my clothes. It was far too much to have simply come from my nose or the deep slashes around my ankles. 

“Where’s Theodore?” Dad demanded.

I couldn’t say anything more except to point into the woods where I had just come from. My parents looked at each other before Dad sprinted into the woods. I collapsed into Mom’s arms and cried like a toddler. Every time I closed my eyes all I could see were those hungry red eyes staring at me. 

Dad never found Theo. The local sheriff put a search party together the following day. No one ever found anything. I tried telling them about the Roxanna, about the bleeding tree, about the tendrils dragging me into the deep. No one believed me. 

As the years passed, I was told it was an emotional response to a traumatic situation. My brain processed what I saw and turned it into a fairytale that would help me cope. That’s what they told me at least. I don’t know what to believe anymore. 

My parents put strict limits on how much I was allowed outside after that. I still snuck out without their knowing, but I never found the Roxanna again. After a couple of years, we eventually moved closer to the city and that’s where the story of my brother Theodore ended. 

I don’t know why I feel like sharing this now. Maybe because it is that time of year again. Maybe it’s because I went back home to the mountains. Maybe because I’m standing in the backyard of our old home, staring into the woods. Maybe what it really is is a selfish desire for the truth to be immortalized. That I am not coping. That the scars around my ankles were not made by jagged rocks or bears. That what happened to Theo is the truth. That after I cross the woodline, no matter what happens to me, the truth will be out there. 

Believe this if you wish. Whether or not you do, please take the story of Theo and me not as the ramblings of a madman, but as a warning. If you’re out in the deep woods, do not go looking for the bleeding trees.

I had just finished watching Terrifier 3 at the theater. I’ll be honest – it was one of the few movies I’d ever seen that actually lived up to the rumors of people fainting and walking out midway. It was gruesome, twisted, and left me feeling more than a little queasy. By the end of it, the place had mostly cleared out. Only a few of us had stayed until the credits.

It was late, and I didn’t feel like walking all the way home, so I ordered an Uber. The app said it’d be about 20 minutes. So, I figured I’d just wait outside, try to shake off the residual tension from the movie.

As I walked out, I noticed a man sitting on a bench directly across from me, all alone. He was dressed as a mime, complete with the stark black and white makeup, red suspenders, gloves, and that eerie painted smile. I tried to ignore him, but he was just… staring. It was unsettling, to say the least.

“Did you enjoy the movie?” I asked him, hoping maybe a quick exchange would make the whole situation feel a little less weird. He nodded enthusiastically, his painted eyes widening.

“Are you cosplaying as Art?” I asked, referencing the clown from Terrifier. He shook his head slowly, like a pendulum, then reached into his suit and handed me a small, yellowed calling card. In simple black font, it read:

"Bozo the Mime."

“I think that name’s already taken, pal,” I muttered, handing it back, half-expecting him to take offense. Instead, he seemed thrilled, his eyes lighting up as he stuffed the card back into his pocket and began an exaggerated mime routine.

I nervously glanced down at my phone to check the Uber’s location. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the mime glance at my phone, irritated that I wasn’t watching. He pulled an imaginary lasso from his side and, in one fluid motion, threw it at me. I felt a tug at my wrist and saw my phone slip out of my hand, flying into his grip. I blinked in confusion.

"Hey, what the hell, man? Give that back!" I said, stepping forward.

The mime just smiled and set my phone on the ground. He mimed lifting an invisible hammer, his expression contorting with the "effort" as he raised it high above his head. And then - he swung down, smashing the invisible hammer into my phone. To my horror, the screen shattered in a spray of broken glass.

l'd had enough. I jumped up, shoved him backward, and bolted back into the theater lobby, where a couple of employees were still mopping up popcorn and closing down for the night. I stammered through an explanation about the mime outside. They looked at each other, sharing a skeptical glance before the security guard stepped forward.

"Alright, let's get this guy out of here," the guard said, leading the way as the mime sauntered through the door.

"Leave the premises" the guard ordered, his voice firm. The mime obediently raised his hands as if being held at gunpoint, but as he lowered them, he mimed pulling a pistol from his invisible holster. He aimed his "finger gun" at the guard and, with a cocky grin, jerked his hand as though firing a shot. The guard staggered backward, half of his head suddenly a bloody mess as he collapsed to the floor, lifeless. For a moment, the rest of us just stared, paralyzed with shock, trying to process what we'd just seen. Then, as the reality hit, panic erupted.

One of the female staff members tried to make a run for it, but before she could reach the door, the mime threw an invisible lasso around her feet, yanking her back. She Screamed as he dragged her closer, grinning wildly. Then he raised his hands, miming the pull of a chainsaw cord. The invisible engine roared to life, and with grotesque pantomiming, he sliced her in half. Blood sprayed across the lobby, painting the walls red.

The rest of us scrambled in every direction. The mime walked casually to the entrance and mimed pulling the door shut, swallowing an invisible key with a dramatic gulp. He turned back to us, eyes gleaming as he pretended to open a cage and release a pair of ferocious dogs. A male staffer tried to defend himself, but something invisible lunged at him, tackling him to the floor, tearing him apart as he writhed and Screamed.

In the corner of the lobby, the last female employee stared up, terror-stricken. The mime looked at her and made a hand-over-hand gesture, as if lowering a rope. She looked up, and before she could react, an invisible weight fell on her, crushing her into a pool of blood and viscera.

And then it was just him and me. He turned slowly, his painted eyes boring into mine. For what felt like an eternity, he stared at me, unblinking, before breaking into an exaggerated grin. With a flourish, he threw his arms as if to say- "Ta-da!"

I forced a smile, laughing nervously, hoping to appease him. His expression brightened, and he bounced up and down like a delighted child. Through the glass doors, I could see my Uber waiting Outside. The mime mimed regurgitating the invisible key he'd swallowed, and handed it to me, motioning for me to go. I bolted, fumbling with the door as my hands shook, but it only opened when I used the "key" the mime gave me. I raced to the car, threw myself inside, and screamed at the driver to floor it. We sped away, my heart pounding as I looked out the back window.

The mime was standing there in the glow of the streetlight, waving goodbye with that same painted grin plastered on his face.

My name is Jane. I'm in a friend group of 4 girls, including me. Recently, I made friends with this girl, Sarah, and introduced her to my other friends. I met her through my Biology class. Mr. Williams sat her next to me, since she switched schools to our school mid-semester. I lent her my notes from the previous semester to catch her up on exam prep.

Most of my friends were fine with her, but one of my friends, Maria, wasn't. I never bothered to ask why since I usually talked to Sarah outside of the 4-girl friend group anyways. I did try not to bring her around Maria as much, because I could always sense that Maria was uncomfortable around her. This worked for the most part, until Sarah began joining us for lunch almost everyday. I didn't specifically tell her to sit with us, she just started sitting at our table.

Because of this, she started to get closer to another girl from my friend group, Jen, thus making Sarah talk more whenever she sat at our table. Maria really hated this, and stayed silent the entire time. I started feeling bad and got curious so I asked her about it during our only shared period, Math.

She told me there was no specific reason, it was just that Sarah gave her "bad vibes". I was a little confused, but brushed it off for a while. I suppose it's not entirely abnormal to get bad vibes from a new person in your friend group.

Anyways, last Tuesday, during Biology, which was the last period, Sarah had returned all my notes and reviewers I had created back to me. I was shocked at how fast she picked up a semester's worth of lessons, but still thanked her and accepted it. When I got home, I started studying, until I noticed an odd smell coming from my books. It smelled something like left out fish. Kind of like the leftover sushi a Japanese restaurant would throw into the trash.

I asked her about it the next day, and she started getting emotional. She said that her family had been evicted the previous month and they had been moving from place to place for shelter. On the days she studied my notes, her family was staying at a musty old motel and had been struggling a lot fincancially. I felt a surge of guilt flow through my veins for asking her about it. She walked away before I could apologize.

During lunch, I talked to Jen about it, since she was also getting close to Sarah. She looked confused. Then, she explained that Sarah had just gifted her a Kate Spade bag a few days ago, as an early birthday gift. How could her family be struggling if she could afford to gift Jen a Kate Spade bag. I was shocked.

Why would she lie about that? Also, what was the cause of the smell of my books if her explanation wasn't true? I couldn't take notes during class because the smell kept distracting me. I just borrowed notes from Anna, the last girl from my friend group. I was too awkward and shy to bring the information to Sarah.

I tried to forget about it, but I couldn't. The smell was so distinct, I couldn't forget it. That spoiled fish stench, with... an almost... burnt smell? It was hard to explain. I couldn't take it anymore. I decided just to take a picture of my notes then copy them onto a new notebook, so I could throw the stinky books out after that.

I wanted to tell Jen about it the next day, but she started ignoring me. She didn't even sit at the same table as me. Maria also sat at a different table from "fear" of Sarah sitting with us. Yeah, fear.

I just ate lunch with Anna that day. She hadn't talked to Sarah much, other than small talk whenever she joined our table for lunch. Anna suggested that I text her when I get home. I did text her when I got home, but she didn't reply. She left me on "read".

Maria pulled me aside the next day. She finally explained why she had been avoiding Sarah. She had recognized Sarah from the summer camp she attended the previous year. She never really talked to Sarah there. She recognized Sarah because she had attempted to hit a girl on the head with a giant wood plank and was kicked out. She was sent to jail for about 4 months. That's why she had joined late this semester. Chills were sent down my spine. It all began to make sense... for a while, at least. The next day, Maria was absent from class. I didn't know why. She wasn't replying to my texts or answering my calls, either.

I had lunch alone with Anna, again, and she told me that Jen had given her a note that she said to give to me. I took it, and read it after finishing lunch. The note read, "I'm being threatened." Another round of chills took over my body. Who was threatening her? Sarah?

Like I had mentioned before, exams were coming up. Our final project before that was a model of a wind turbine. We were already 2 days behind schedule, so we agreed to meet up at her house, to my dismay. "Wait, her house?" I thought, right before I left. I remembered how she got emotional a few days ago speaking about how she was just evicted the month before and how she had been moving from motel to motel for shelter. I hesitated going to her house, but I was already doing bad in chemistry and I couldn't afford to waste anymore time for this project. I brought a small bottle of pepper spray with me. Just to be safe.

I arrived at her house at around 6 PM. Not to offend anyone, but it did not look like the house of anyone who would be suffering financially. It wasn't a mansion or anything, but it had grey painted concrete walls, polished floors of wooden planks. Her parents weren't home. She explained that they had gone on a 2-month business trip. "It's fine. I'm independent, I can take care of myself," she explained. It was pretty comfortable, too. It made me even more uneasy. At some point during the project-making, I told her I needed to use the bathroom. She told me to use the guest one, downstairs. On my way there, my nose started tingling, as if alerted or startled by something. It had caught the whiff of a very familiar scent. That burnt rotten fish smell.

I looked behind me, and realized it was coming from a small hallway. I entered the hallway slowly until I reached the door. The smell got stronger, until it was almost unbearable. I still had that small bottle of pepper spray in my pocket. I was smarter than to leave it in my bag. I opened the door, my right thumb hooked onto my back pocket, where the pepper spray was. The was a small staircase leading down, into the basement of the house.

It was dark. I couldn't see anything apart from the outline of a chair, and a shelf. I felt the light switch, right beside the bottom of the staircase. I turned the lights on. In the center of the room, was Maria. She was unconscious, with a few scratches on her face, arms, and knees. Near the sides and corners of the room, were about 4 dead and bloody birds, the corpse of a medium-sized deer. I gasped, stopping myself from screaming. I had been gone for about 3 minutes by then, and if Sarah had thought I was using the restroom, she would probably expect me to be back up soon. The stench was killing me, and I almost passed out. Maria's hands were tied to the back of the chair, and her face was covered with duct tape. I covered my nose, and tried to untie her.

Suddenly it all went black. Not because I fainted, but because Sarah had found me in the basement and shut the lights. I had forgotten to close the door. I took out my pepper spray. "This is fun! Not for you, though," I heard a voice cackle. The innocent demeanor and voice turned into a dark and murderous aura. A tiny light flashed behind me, leaving a shadow on the wall.

I looked behind me, and it was Sarah. "Boo!" she screamed, as I jumped up in horror at the sight of her lit up face, from the flashlight under her chin. I fell backwards, bumping into the chair Maria was half-tied to. She woke up from the fall. I took out my pepper spray, and sprayed Sarah in the face. She screamed in pain, blinded, as she bumped into the shelf, making it topple over onto her, while she landed on the carcass of the dead deer. I finished untying Maria, and removed the tape on her face, and we hurried out of the house. I helped her as she limped out of the house, as Sarah's screams grew quieter and quieter the further we got from her house. We rode home on my tiny pink moped scooter.

I called the police once we got home, as my mother treated Maria's wounds. Once the officers arrived at Sarah's house, she was nowhere to be found. What would have happened to Maria if I hadn't chosen to go to her house that day?

Though this traumatic experience will follow me for a while, I'm glad I did it for Maria.

The next day, during lunchtime, the four of us finally gathered again. Including Jen. She told us that Sarah threatened to kidnap her if she didn't get away from me, as Maria and I shared the terrifying experience at her house. Now, nothing could break the bond between my friends and I. Not even some rando psycho-killer.

Every now and then, I pass by the park to cool my ever-growing thoughts. I always pass by the same flyer near the lamp post beside the dumpsters. A missing person's report for Sarah Smith. Not wanted, missing.

Why she did all of this, I don't know. I seemed to have stopped her plans before she even finished it half-way, thankfully. I get curious sometimes, but I know it's better that I didn't find out.

Her name was Corina… I think. It’s weird, you’d think I would remember her name properly. She was certainly unique. We met in Psych 101 back in college. She was a little shy, and had a bit of a goth aesthetic. I’m not usually bold, but I took a swing at talking to her, and we actually got along ok. Ok enough that I asked her on a date a few weeks into the semester, and she said yes. We grabbed a bite to eat. I almost expected her to be vegan, but no. Ordered a big, juicy steak. Somehow I can remember that… but not her name.

She was pretty reserved at first, but I got her to open up by asking about her interests. The girl loooved horror movies. She actually kind of lit up when she started talking about them. I would just smile and nod. I didn’t dislike horror movies or anything, I can appreciate a good scare, but I wasn’t in love with them or anything. Corina… she was. So much so, she actually invited me back to her place to watch one with her after our first date. I was a bit surprised at the proposition, but I agreed. She was cute.

Her place was huge. I guess her family had money… a lot of it. They boarded her in a sizable house, almost a mansion, with no roommates. I definitely found it odd, but I quickly grew to appreciate it. At least, for a while. That first night, we watched a pretty standard slasher. She didn’t seem too into the movie, and I didn’t think too much about it myself, as we didn’t end up watching the whole thing. We got distracted.

We started hanging out more, but pretty early on it became clear that staying in and watching horror movies was her favorite pastime. I asked her to be my girlfriend anyway. While I wasn’t a huge fan of the films, the nights spent doing this always ended… eventfully. But, the movies. They got worse. She got braver in what she wanted to watch with me. And she’d get more excited. Pretty soon we were watching some pretty brutal stuff. Movies I wasn’t exactly comfortable with. I didn’t know how to approach the subject, because she seemed to thoroughly enjoy them. A bit too much. I started to notice that her “excitement” always seemed to coincide with the more… graphic scenes. And honestly, the gorier and more deranged, the more wild she got. I would enjoy myself… but the backdrop of the movie. It was more than a little off-putting.

I remember trying to turn it off one time. It was like I had hit the power button on her instead. She stopped almost immediately, telling me she was tired. She seemed annoyed, but didn’t say anything directly. I started to get the sense that she had an unhealthy obsession with some pretty dark stuff. I knew things wouldn’t last, but I was having fun. Even if the films had gotten more than a little disturbing. I remember it getting to the point where they weren’t even mass distributed movies. They were grainy and… god. Some of them felt… real.

It was one night like that, the last night. We were watching some fuckin… VHS tape of what seemed to be a man being tortured. It felt too real. It was too much. I tried to let her know it was making me uncomfortable. But, just like every other time I tried to broach the subject, she was almost immediately on top of me. She was extra energetic that night, and after some of the things she did… well. The man’s screams suddenly weren’t so distracting. Though… they were there. And they came into sudden focus after I heard the doorbell ring.

Corina gasped, giddy with excitement, and dashed to the door. I stood and tried to peer the far distance into the entry hall from her spacious living room, and I saw her excitedly lifting a sizable package. The screams from the TV subsided to whimpers as blood spilled from the tortured man. She looked back at me then, and her expression faltered a bit.

“I’ll be right back, just have to put this away!” She had said, before disappearing into a side hallway that I had never given much thought to before. Her voice had a strange quaver. It seemed like excitement and nervousness mixed. My curiosity was piqued. I tried asking her what she got once she returned, but she merely resumed her vigorous… activities. We took it up to her bedroom, and that night was like nothing had been up to that point. She was invigorated. Our activities eventually subsided, and I laid back in her black clad bed, closing my eyes. I could feel her staring at me. I peeked an eye open, and she quickly looked away. She laid then too, without saying anything. I tried to cuddle with her, but she was rigid and unyielding. Something seemed off, and I felt the unease that had slowly been settling in about her creep into my mind. I knew I had to end things. She was… disturbed. I remained quiet. So did she.

We laid there for a long time. Sleep… couldn’t find me. I felt uneasy. This was not helped by the fact that every twenty minutes or so, I would feel her sit up, and I would sense her staring at me. I peeked once or twice. It was a cold stare. I would always make some sort of noise or other indication that I was not fully asleep, and she would quickly return to lying down. Eventually, her breathing did slow, and she appeared to drift off. I could not follow her there. Something was off, and I felt like it had to do with the package.

After a time, I decided that I wouldn’t be able to sleep, not until I knew what made Corina behave so strangely. An invasion of privacy, I know, but in the dead of night, I slipped out of bed all the same. I crept down the stairs that led back down to the living room, careful not to creak any loose floorboards. It was a lovely house, but a bit old. When I got to the bottom, I realized we had left the tape running. The man, he was dead. His arms and legs were missing, and he just lay in a pool of blood on the floor. But I could tell the tape was still playing. I knew that no movie was show a dead body for that long.

I hastened to the hallway that she had taken the package down before, and even debated leaving then. But curiosity gnawed at me. I walked down the hallway, realizing that I had never been in it. There were three doors, a bathroom, a linen closet, and a locked door at the end of the hallway. It was a traditional lock, and I snuck back to the entryway to find her keys sitting on a small table. There were two keys on her ring, other than the one to her Mercedes. I went back and tried them both. One must have been for her house, and I guess the other was for the mailbox or something, because neither worked. I decided to leave it be and just try to go get some rest. I snuck back upstairs, and was about to lay down, when I noticed her clasp bag a few inches from her fingers on a side table. She went everywhere with that thing. I had even noticed her checking it obsessively on several occasions.

Another invasion of privacy, but I couldn’t help it. I quietly lifted the flap, and poked around inside it. Lo and behold, there was a small pocket on the inside, and in that pocket, a pearly key. I remember her stirring when I set the bag back down. I stood stalk still until her movement subsided, then I snuck back down the stairs.

The key fit. It unlocked the door. And behind that door? A nightmare. On display in clear cases were dozens of dismembered body parts. Some seemed preserved, others… not so much. The smell was not egregious outside of the room, but inside? I wanted to vomit. There seemed to be intricate ventilation systems inside each case, but honestly, that’s not what I was focusing on.

I remember the one closest to the door. A human leg, severed at the knee. It had been opened up like a medical display, but it was clearly for artistic effect. Strips of flesh were cut away to form intricate patterns. Blood still seeped from the cuts. It was clearly still fresh. I stumbled further into the room. I saw many things. I… I don’t enjoy recalling them. But I feel like some of it is important. I saw a woman’s severed head on display, with a cool blue light illuminating it. The bottom jaw had been split in two, leaving the two halves dangling down instead of meeting at her chin. It was not one of the well preserved specimens.

I think the worst was the knot of small appendages. Too small. Obviously children’s. They were broken and twisted in impossible ways to make some symbolic-seeming knot. It was hanging above the main attraction. A terrified looking woman who had clearly been dismembered and re-stitched back together, but backwards. Every joint had been severed, only to be reattached in the opposite direction. Her head was on backwards. Even dead and mutilated, her last expression showed primal terror. She too did not appear to have been dead long.

I could go on, but I don’t think I actually spent much time in there. Not long enough to even think of taking a picture. Not before I heard her voice from the doorway behind me.

“Do you like them?”

I’ll never forget that question. Asked quietly and sweetly. And in the most menacing way I have ever heard. I turned to look at her. She was in a white sleeping gown. Her black hair was disheveled. Her pale skin glowed. So did the knife in her hand.

She charged me. It was a jerky and unnatural movement. She tackled me with a strength that seemed incongruent to her small stature. She straddled me in a perverse reflection of our previous activities, only now she ruthlessly stabbed the knife down at me.

147 stitches. That’s how many I ended up needing. Mostly on my chest and neck, but a few on my face. It’s a miracle none of her attacks nicked anything important.

She wasn’t a big girl. I managed to throw her off, and believe me when I say I tore out of that house like a bat out of hell. I remember her ragged screeches as she chased me out with that damn bloody knife. I never looked back, but I can picture that black hair flailing. That deranged face grinning.

She was gone once the cops got to her house. So were her grotesque collectables. At least, that’s what they told me. The officers didn’t seem to want to look me in the eye. I never heard from her again, never saw anything on the news. Hell, I don’t know if I would even recognize it if I had. I can’t even seem to remember her damn last name. But I know what I saw. I’ve got the scars to prove it. Whoever she was… whatever she was. I hoped she was gone. But last week… last week I got a package. It was a child’s arm, severed at the joints, and reassembled in reverse. I of course reported it to the authorities, but there was no information on the package, and somehow nothing on my doorbell camera, despite it clearly being hand delivered. But I’ve got a pretty good idea of who it’s from.

Hello, name's Mike. To start, to contextualize why ,and how I got in this whole mess. I take trips cross country, now and then. Started with my family, and after I moved out, I kept with it, typically two to five day ventures, and on those trips, I rest at a motel. Also, and should mention, I'm quite the night owl, some times not sleeping till 6,AM, So I developed a hobby of taking nightly walks around the motels, even miles from them, it was always peaceful time for me. Obviously, I understand the typical concern, but I'm usually not worried. Currently standing at 6.2 feet, and don't carry any valuables worth stealing, only my phone I got costing 25 at Walmart. I don't walk in alleyways, only stick to main roads, and this night wasn't an exception.

The night in question. It was roughly the quarter waypoint from a party at Vegas that my friends held, and of course I was driving back alone, I didn't mind. I stopped at a pretty desolet motel, it wasn't exactly in the middle of nowhere, but the nearest gas station was two miles, but surprisingly in some decent business, I had to check in at a line with about 6 people. I got my key, I remember opening the room up, seeing the muted gray carpet, the yellowish White walls, and in comidic contrast, a 20 inch flat screen, and the distracting smell of cigarettes, I didn't care to complain, I was only here for the night. After 10.PM, I took my walk. I was amazed looking at the parking lot, saw my car, and one other. I thought people where checking in, guess not.

Unreasonably dark and quiet, is how I would describe that night. The long stretch of highway in the desert, only visible by the two rows of street lamps parallel to it. It seems to be a new moon, so the only way to separate the pitch black sky from the ground, was stars. For the time I was out there, I didn't see any car, but after a while, I did see something. For some reason, I was compelled to look behind me, there was, probably 200 feet away, a silhouette of a person, contrast from the orangy brown ground. At the time, this wasn't scary exactly, before, seeing people behind me usually ment, they were passing by, the major difference is, that would typically happen in streets, closer to suburbanian areas, I was a little nervous, and that nervous escalated a bit, when I decided to look behind again, and saw that they were closer.

I walked quite a lot that night, I look back perpetually, every time, little by little, they were coming closer. I had an idea, stop and let them pass, if they got close, eye them up and probably scare them off, I walk off couple feet from road, face pirpendicular to it, then stand in the dark. Looking over, and I see them in the same spot, I waited and they just didn't move. I tried to look at the time, but my phone wouldn't turn on, now I didn't charge it befor I walked, but it shouldn't be dead, it was 58%. I didn't know what to do, I couldn't wait here all night, but I had made a plane B. Down the road was a gas station, I should get there, and maybe call a taxi, or the cops. I had decided to walk fast, after a bit, I look back again, they were much closer then expected, I got spooked and decided to run, but after a while instead of farther they even closer. Every time I moved faster it moved faster, and instead of 80 feet away, now it was more like 30 feet. I stand still, look back, and could see them better but just barely, I could tell they had pale skin, but the clothes were hard to make out, anlong with the body. He, I presume, was almost warped looking, the proportion of his arms and legs, and his posture look crooked, and the seems of his clothes, you could see them but the were in the wrong places, he had what I think was a hat, blob shaped and a rim so small you could barely notice, it was unpleasant to even process what I was looking at.

I walked slowly to the gas station, this time. It was tedious, and aggravating, It didn't feel like two miles it felt like five, I should be able to see the gas station at this point but I couldn't. I thought about how, I should turn around and yell at him, demand him to leave, but every time, I try bring up the thought, my brain refuses the option. I try to listen to his footsteps but I only hear mine, no other noise, not animals not wind, nothing, besides the hum of the street lamps, infact, I didn't even see him move his legs to walk. Finally I had a plan C, a plan that, for the most part, would work, I would move to the left side of the street and go back to the motel. In an instant I brake for it, run across the road. On the left side I look back to where he was, and he was gone. A part of me already new the truth, but I didn't have the heart confirm it.

I walked back, for what felt like countless hours, and I see it, the motel. I did it finally, I look back behind me. He was there, I was in a state of depression, I was at the gate, I needed to cross it, slowly, and weakly, moving to the motel lobby, I remember the relief, closing the door, looking through the glass, and not seeing him. And also seeing another human after so long. an elderly woman was working at the desk. Told her the story of a guy following me, on the road, and well, she didn't respond, she didn't say a word, didn't even change her facial expression. I demand her to call the cops, there's a guy following me, yet nothing, she just kept looking at me, with that unchanging expression. After a while of getting no where, so I told her I'm going back to my room.

The path to my room was filled with paranoia, looking around just to know where he was, if I'm safe. I opened the door, and scan the room for my stuff, then went for my car keys. I had a new plane, drop room keys, and drive away, but that plan had been scrapped fast, because when I decided to look over at my car, he was standing next to. I slammed, and locked the door, closed the current, I was sitting on the motel's bed, heart beating out of my chest, just wishing it could be over. It was strange, I never had the thought of hitting it, and luckily, or un luckily, I never got to know what would happen if I did.

I don't know how, I don't remember when, but I had fallen asleep on that bed, the somber feeling of sleep was broken abruptly, in the room, it was dark but there was a light that could be seen coming from out side, it shind through the open door way, above was him looking down at me. His pale rubbery skin which lack facial hair, the distorted black clothes, and a pin on his chest of two diamonds intersecting, the muted blonde hair that seem to form his ears, his mouth looked like it was a horizontal cut through his face, two puncture holes for a nose, the eyes were perfectly circular with there pure black irises, staring at me. Foggy headed, I ran to the bathroom, locking the door. Turning the bathroom lights on, the glaring lights hit my eyes hurting them. And after minutes of waiting, I made the worst choice, I get on on my hands and knees move my head to ground, and I look underneath the door and he was there looking back at me, in his irises, I saw what looked like metal tubing that led to a dark void. I jumped back in shock, slamming my head on on motel toilet. Sitting there, waiting till he left, that was the last thing I remember of that night.

I woke up in the motel bed again, it was day time. I checked my phone it said it was 9.AM and at 52%, my stuff was at the places I left them at, decided to look out the window, and the parking lot was full of cars. Was it really just that. but before I could relax, I noticed the bathroom door was open, I never opened it before I left on the walk. After I left the motel, and came back home, I would tell family friends the story, and I don't blame them for not believing me, after a while even I stopped believing it. It took me two months to get back to nightly walking, I don't ever take it alone though, only walk in crowded areas now, every thing was going back to normal, but one day on trip, a couple of months ago, one of my friends pointed out, when we were out on a beach, a scar on the back of my neck.

It was two diamonds intersecting.

Many years ago, a group of paranormal researchers and their local guide searched for a fellow scientist who along with his students disappeared with no trace. They came to Craven Moss Manor, a strange blight of a structure perched on the edge of an English cliff like a vulture looking for a new corpse to feed on. I was one of the fools who thought they knew what was really happening at that accursed place. 

A dense fog had rolled in from the ocean, suffocating the cliffside where Craven Moss Manor stood. The unholy mist clung to the ground, refusing to lift, even as the sun reached its highest point. The Locals, long wary of the manor’s sinister reputation, began to witness strange phenomena. Lights flickered in the fog, unnatural shadows moved where none should exist, and the most unsettling of all—the rhythmic thumping, like the beating of a colossal, invisible heart, echoed through the night air.

Whispers of these occurrences eventually reached the university, where I and my other compatriots taught paranormal and supernatural quasi-science popular in those days. Alarmed by our friend's prolonged absence, the college board worried about their investment and sent a small search party to the manor, hoping to uncover the fate of the missing professor and his companions. The group, consisting of three fellow professors and a local guide, traveled to that malevolent house. I, the senior researcher at the time, set out with my friends toward the manor with a growing sense of unease.

As we ascended the cliffside road, the fog seemed to thicken with each step, muting all sounds except the crunch of gravel beneath our boots and the ever-growing thump… thump… thump.

The guide, a grizzled man hardened by years of living near the cliffside village, wiped a sheen of sweat from his weathered brow. His hand trembled, though he tried to hide it. "We should turn back," he muttered, his voice barely a whisper, as though the surrounding air would punish him for speaking too loudly. "This place… it’s wrong. Always has been. There’s something here that ain’t meant for us."

His words hung in the thick air, stirring something deep inside each of us—a primal fear that no amount of logic or science could dispel. We exchanged glances, the growing sense that perhaps we, too, were about to disappear without a trace gnawing at the edges of our minds.

I hesitated, glancing up at the manor that loomed ahead, barely visible through the fog. Its twisted, decaying structure seemed to pulse in the mist, as though it had a life of its own, waiting, watching. The rhythmic thumping echoed louder now, almost as if the manor itself had a heartbeat.

“We have to press on,” I said, though my voice lacked the certainty I had hoped for. “We have a duty to find out what happened to our colleague… and to the others.”

But even as I spoke, I could feel the weight of the fog closing in, suffocating any semblance of rationality. The manor was alive, in its own horrible way. And it was waiting for us to step inside.

Dr. Maria Hartman glanced at her colleague, Dr. Thomas Wallace. They shared a look, a silent debate of reason against terror. Finally, Dr. Hartman straightened her shoulders. "We’re here for answers. Our friend and his students could still be inside."

The guide’s eyes widened, his pupils dilated with fear. He hesitated before nodding, though every bone in his body screamed to run.

As we neared the manor, it loomed out of the fog, twisted and more decrepit than any of the photographs had shown. Cracked stone walls were covered in sickly moss, and windows of dark voids reflected nothingness. The front door stood slightly ajar, creaking like an open mouth ready to swallow us whole.

Wallace’s fingers twitched around his flashlight. "We need to find out what happened. We owe them that much."

The guide swallowed hard, his voice barely a rasp. "If we go in there… we might not come back."

We stepped inside, the door groaning shut behind us. As the heavy sound echoed through the decaying halls, the temperature dropped, and the stench of rot hit us like a wall. Cold, damp air weighed on our lungs.

“Well, that isn’t ominous or nothing.” I joked, trying to lighten the mood. 

“I do not feel this is a jovial occasion, Dr. Agiel.” Dr. Wallace complained, clearly upset by the atmosphere of the house.

The rhythmic thumping grew louder. Each pulse reverberated through the walls, rattling the decayed fixtures. The house was alive, and its pulse matched that of the entity lurking within.

The lower floors were eerily silent, filled only with the ruins of forgotten lives—dust-covered furniture, faded portraits, and books disintegrating into ash at the touch.

It wasn’t until we reached the second hallway that the nightmare truly began.

Strange symbols, pulsating with a faint, sickly light, adorned the walls. The closer we got to the symbols, the louder the thumping became, vibrating the very air.

Dr. Wallace ran his fingers over the grooves in one of the symbols. "These… these aren't decorations. They're warnings."

"Or a ward," Dr. Hartman whispered, her eyes scanning the markings. "Something’s trapped here."

“I dare say the only thing trapped here is bad cleaning.” I poked at the symbols and my hand came away glowing. “See, it is just some sort of glowing moss causing these carvings to glow.”

We moved cautiously to the library, where a faint greenish glow seeped through the cracks of the door. Hartman pushed it open slowly.

Inside, we found chaos. Shelves had collapsed, their contents reduced to heaps of dust. The table in the center was split clean in half, symbols etched into it now glowing with an unnatural light.

The strange symbols on the walls glowed faintly, and the familiar rhythmic thumping resonated with an unnatural pulse, growing louder as if something were awakening beneath the floor.

We scanned the room with mounting dread. The floorboards groaned underfoot, sagging as if alive. A creeping chill seemed to rise from the ground itself.

"Do you feel that?" Hartman whispered, her breath shallow. "It's like… like the house is breathing."

Wallace nodded, sweat beading on his forehead. "We need to leave—this place isn’t just cursed. It’s hungry."

“You are just overwrought by the strangeness of this place,” I said, rubbing my face free of sweat even amid the cool air.

Wallace knelt and picked up what looked like a journal. Reading it, his brow furrowed more than I had ever seen it. His eyes widened and he looked back at us. 

“What is it, man? You look like you just read the love notes of Satan himself.” I asked, fearful of the answer.

“It is our friend's journal. We need to get out of here now.” He made for the door as fast as I had ever seen him move.

Suddenly, the floor split open in jagged cracks, black tendrils of shadow spilling from the gaps like inky blood. The house began to twist around us, warping, bending its architecture into grotesque shapes. The once-familiar walls transformed into slick, sinewy material, more akin to flesh than stone.

Then came a deep, guttural laugh that reverberated through the very bones of the house. It was no longer just the rhythmic thumping; it was something else. Something far worse.

"The house… it’s alive!" the guide screamed, backing toward the library door, only to find it sealed shut behind him.

With no escape, the shadows from the cracks writhed like serpents, slithering up the walls, wrapping themselves around the rafters. They had a terrible sentience to them, like they were seeking something. Someone.

The guide froze, his voice trembling. "It's after us. It’s been waiting for us."

Before anyone could move, the tendrils shot forward and grabbed him by the ankles. His scream echoed off the warped walls as they dragged him toward the center of the room, where the floor seemed to open up like a yawning mouth. His body twisted unnaturally, bones breaking, skin stretching as the house consumed him, pulling him down into the black maw.

We watched in horror, our legs paralyzed by fear. Hartman could barely speak. "We… we have to go!"

Sickened by the sight of the man’s death, I stood still, almost giving the creature, the house, time to make me into a snack. A tendril snaked out and stabbed at the place my foot had been a second earlier. 

“Holy Shit, run you idiots, or we are next,” I yelled as I ran like my life depended on it. Which in hindsight it did. “Upstairs, maybe if we get above the mist, the thing will have no control.”

The air on the first floor grew thick with the stench of death. The house groaned again, its guttural laughter more distinct now, almost mocking us.

We sprinted toward the hallway, but the walls were shifting, closing in. The once familiar path now spiraled and contorted, leading our desperate group deeper into the house’s labyrinthine interior. Behind us, the sickening sound of bones cracking and flesh tearing reached us as the house devoured its prey.

"Don’t stop!" Wallace gasped, pulling Hartman along. "It’s trying to trap us!"

The warped walls cracked open and gave us an exit from this, all of us could be eaten buffet. I grabbed both of my friends and pushed them toward the last opening. We bolted from the library, the green fog of the void chasing like a nipping dog after our retreating feet, devouring the floor, walls, and ceiling as we ran. The house shifted and contorted around our party, walls elongating and twisting like the intestines of some hellish beast. The air grew thick with the stench of blood, and the rhythmic thumping was now accompanied by guttural whispers, speaking in a language older than time itself. 

Finally, we reached the main hall. Just as we sighed with relief, having thought we had found a way out, the entrance was sealed shut, stone lay where the doorway used to be, as though the house itself refused to let our dwindling group escape. The thumping was now unbearably loud, shaking the very foundation of the manor. Every corner we turned led us deeper into the nightmare. Doors disappeared, and windows melted into the walls.

“We’re… we’re trapped,” Hartman panted, tears streaking her face. “There’s no way out.”

Wallace’s eyes darted around frantically. “No. There has to be.”

“Up, up,” I screamed, pointing at the stairs we had just come upon. 

I bounded up the stairs two at a time, thankful I had kept my body as sharp as my mind. Maria Hartman was about thirty, and she was a sometimes companion of mine. Presently, we were taking what she called a break, but I still had feelings for her, and I’ll be damned if I was going to lose her to some nightmare house. I turned, grabbed her, and pushed her up the stairs. Wallace stayed close behind us, not wanting to be the one to get eaten next.

The house groaned again, this time louder, as though savoring its victory. And then, from deep within its walls, came the sound of that laughter—a dark, resonant voice speaking words that none of us learned professors could understand. The ancient entity was alive, free, and it had no intention of letting us leave.

As the shadows crept toward us, we heard a deep, resonant voice from the void, speaking in a tongue that burned our ears and attempted to shred our minds. The entity whispered its dark will, its words clawing at our sanity. Hartman closed her eyes, the horror too great to bear. Wallace clenched his fists, his mind unraveling under the weight of the ancient, malevolent presence. As the shadows enveloped us, a final, chilling whisper from the house issued a promise that echoed through the void: "You are home."

In a last-ditch effort to save us, I grabbed both and pulled them to a window. Hartman opened her eyes, looked out, and looked back at me just as a tendril snatched at Wallace. My friend of many years was hurled through the air and pulled into a hungry maw waiting for all of us.

Maria screamed as he was eaten, and I grabbed her and we jumped. Fifty feet, give or take a few inches, the water below would be very cold, even near freezing, but our chances were better in that jump than staying in the house. The house above trembled as if our escape broke it. The void the entity was fighting to escape swallowed the last remnants of light, and as the thumping grew deafening, it consumed itself and the house.

I kept Maria in a tight squeeze and kept us plummeting feet first. We hit the water hard. I managed to get us to the surface and then, nothing but darkness as I passed out. Sometime later, I awoke in a cot on a fishing boat, Maria sitting there watching me intently. 

“I always knew you had a streak of crazy in you.” She said, smiling, “But I never thought it would be what saved us.” 

“I am just as surprised as you that it worked.” I jumped up, realizing we were still in danger. “What of the house, what happened to it?”

“The fishermen said there was a blackness that glowed, and then the house was gone. The cliff is now empty.” Maria said, looking sad as she mourned our friend. 

“He saved us even if it wasn’t deliberate, his sacrifice gave us the time to jump and live another day.” I hugged her close, as much to help her as to help me.

“What was that thing?” she asked as she looked into my eyes. 

I contemplated the question, unsure how to answer. 

“The last message our colleague sent us was that the observatory was being used to communicate across dimensions.” I sat down as sudden weakness wracked my body, “They must have woken something up that was able to cross over into our world, even if partially.”

My vision blurred and the boat pitched. 

“Matthew, what was that?” Maria asked, fright lacing her voice.

“I guess a wave.” I rubbed my eyes, trying to see clearly again.

Slowly, my eyes cleared as a tentacle lashed out and pulled Maria into the depths. 

“MARIA!” I screamed. 

I ran to the railing in time to see the creature wink out of existence with Maria in its jaws. In one last almost defiant gesture, the monster had pulled open the gate between us and snatched Maria and the fishermen back to its hellish dimension. My mind was nearly destroyed by the loss of my love and the events of the day. I went to the cabin and piloted to shore, so I could tell the world of what we went through and what was coming. 

That beast opened the gate without human sacrifice or help. There is no reason to believe it will not do so again. So, if you see an article about a haunted house, do not go to investigate, it might just be a hoax, or it could be that creature hungry again for our flesh.

I remember the first time I saw it.

I had been walking my dog down my street, minding my own business, when something caught my eye on the other side of my next door neighbor, Mr. Carlson's, lawn.

After standing there for a moment, unable to put my finger on it, I eventually noticed a key, just hanging there in the doorknob of his front door.

Not thinking too much of it, I went on with my walk and immediately forgot about it.

But then the next day, I saw it again.

As did I the next day after that.

And the next day after that.

Eventually, after a week had passed, I started to get worried.

See the thing is, I would have maybe written off the key as a simple mistake before going on a trip, but Mr. Carlson was quite old and frail, and had stopped leaving his house a long time ago, depending on caretakers for groceries and basic home goods.

Which brought me to my next conclusion... that it must have been one of his caretakers.

But then I remembered that they stopped by his house every few days, and surely would have noticed the key.

Finally, after two weeks of indecision, I worked up the courage to walk over to Mr. Carlson's door, place my hand on the doorknob, the key still hanging from it, and turn the knob.

As I turned it, I couldn't help but hear a faint echo, like the sound of a couple people shouting from a hundred yards away.

I stopped and looked around.

Nothing.

I turned back to the door... and opened it.

Fearing the worst, I braced myself, closing my eyes. Upon opening them, I simply saw an empty foyer, and let out a sigh of relief. But what I didn't know… was that the "worst" thing that I feared, was nowhere near what I'd soon discover.

"Mr. Carlson." I called out, before shutting the door behind me.

CLICK.

Suddenly, the lights went out, and I saw...

...Them...

...Mr. Carlson and Brenda, our neighborhood post office worker, sitting on the staircase together, a look of horror in their eyes.

Mr. Carlson! What a relief. And Brenda? I haven't seen her in a week. I thought to myself, remembering the past week's strange lack of mail that everyone in the neighborhood had been talking about.

Looking back on it, I should have put two and two together. But what possibly could the disappearance of our mail person and a key in my neighbor's door have in common?

I was about to find out.

"Brenda? What are you doing in Mr. Carlson's house?"

She simply replied. "The key."

"Oh, it's yours?" I asked, letting out a sigh of relief, after spending two weeks running through every possible reason for it being left in the door.

But before I could bask in the moment, she interrupted me.

"No. It's not mine. Or his." She said, before turning to Mr. Carlson, who looked exhausted.

"It belongs to him." The old man said.

"Him?" I asked, confused by where he was going with it.

"The man who visits us." Brenda said.

"Visits you? What do you mean?"

"Just wait. He'll be back. Especially now that you're here." Mr. Carlson said.

"He's right. I entered just like you did, after dropping off the mail and wondering if something was the matter, finding Mr. Carlson here and that I was trapped inside. And within a few minutes, the man arrived." Brenda explained.

"Wait, what are you trying to tell me?"

"That you're trapped here." The old man said.

"Trapped?" I laughed. "Yeah okay. Is this some sort of Halloween prank? What with the lights off and everything?"

That's when I casually walked back over to the door and tried to open it.

CLICK.

But it didn't budge.

I stood there for a moment, with my back to Brenda and Mr. Carlson, wondering if maybe there was some truth to what they were saying.

And that's when I heard...

...Him.

"See?" A hoarse, disturbing voice called out from behind me. "They're right. You're trapped."

Chills ran down my spine, as I realized that the voice couldn't be coming from Brenda or Mr. Carlson.

I couldn't bear to turn around. So I simply called back to the voice.

"Who are you?"

"I'm the keeper of the keys to your worst nightmares."

I turned around, to find a man standing there in the darkness, his eyes glowing, and keychains dangling from every inch of his body.

"Let us out!" I screamed at him, pretending to be courageous, but terrified by the mere sight of such a thing.

He simply replied, "Certainly," before looking at his body and removing a particular keychain with one key on it.

"Yes, this one's for you." He said, as he handed it to me. "This will open the front door from the inside. Go ahead, leave."

I looked at the key, then back at the door, then back at the monster and smiled. "You idiot. Why would you ever give it to me? I'll be back with the police. And you better not be here."

Then, I walked over to the front door and inserted the key.

"Don't do it!" Brenda cried out.

"He's tricking you!" Mr. Carlson added.

But I was too compelled by my plan to listen to them, and proceeded to turn the doorknob.

CLICK.

It opened.

"See?" I said, as I turned back to Brenda and Mr. Carlson with a smug look on my face.

They simply shook their heads in disappointment.

I turned back, opened the door, stepped outside, and shut it behind me...

...To find myself in a bedroom. My childhood bedroom to be exact.

What the? I thought to myself, as once again, chills ran down my spine.

Feeling unsettled by being in there, I opened the door and entered the second story hallway, where I heard the sound of someone being strangled in a nearby bedroom.

Normally, I would have been shocked to hear such s sound, but this was one that I had heard before. This...

...Was a memory. A memory that I was reliving in real life, now as an adult.

A tear rolled down my cheek, as I knew exactly what was happening in the other room, and despite my attempts to hold back, I couldn't stop myself from rushing into the bedroom and trying to stop him.

But just as it had unfolded in real life, many years ago, by the time I opened the door... it was too late.

My father was dead. Strangled to death by my brothers for reasons I'd only later find out.

"Andrew, no!" I cried out. But he had already crawled back into the corner of the room, simply staring at my father's lifeless body.

That's when he looked up at me, and charged at me like a ravenous zombie, managing to claw away at one of my arms before...

...SLAM!

I shut the door and ran downstairs, expecting to find my mother down there, just as I had found her when the event had originally happened.

But all that I found... was Brenda and Mr. Carlson. Staring up at me with wide eyes.

"I'm sorry." Brenda said, seeing the expression on my face.

"How did you know?"

"Because it happened to us. Over and over. No matter which key he handed us."

"No, it can't be." I cried out, as I began to shut down, unable to believe what they had told me.

But I should have.

As I stood there, shaking in horror, I heard the sound of keys rattling, and I turned around to find the monster standing there again.

"What do you want?" I cried out.

But he didn't answer. He simply looked down at his body and removed a particular keychain with one key on it.

"Yes, this one's for you." He said, as he handed it to me.

I looked at the key, then back at the door, then back at the monster, this time unable to smile.

I knew another horror lay before me. Knew that the key would not help me escape the house.

But for reasons I can't quite explain... maybe I thought there was an inkling of a chance that the key would work... or maybe it was a desire to see my father again... I took it anyway.

Took it, and opened the door, only to relive the same horrifying memory and return back to the staircase where Brenda and Mr. Carlson were standing.

Once again, the monster returned, once again he handed me a key, and once again I disappeared through the door.

This went on and on, until I couldn't bear to take it anymore, and eventually gave up on the keys being of any help.

When I finally declined the man's key, he simply replied, "Have it your way," before disappearing into the darkness.

I turned to Brenda and Mr. Carlson, who went on to explain how they, too, had tried the keys and experienced nightmare after nightmare from their respective past. Then we all retired to the living room where we slept on the couch, chair, and floor, respectively, reasoning that we should stay in the same room.

The next day, we huddled together, eventually coming to the conclusion that the house, its door, and the keys, must be some sort of twisted test, caused by the key in the home's front door, and enforced by the monster that wore an armor of keyrings.

We tried everything, from scouring the home for exits, to attempting to make calls on its dead phones, to prying at its boarded windows from the inside out.

But after a week had gone by without a single lead, we eventually gave up.

That's when... someone else arrived.

"Nooooo!" We all screamed, our voices surely echoing outside just as I heard them, as Officer Howe turned the key to the front door, and let himself in.

By the time the door had closed behind him, it was too late... and three... had become four.

Once again, the monster returned, this time offering Officer Howe a key, who took it and let himself out, experiencing a nightmare of his own, only to return from upstairs a short time later with a look of horror in his eyes.

After we told him our stories, he too, declined the monster's next key, and we once again huddled together, eventually deciding that the answer must not lie in the house itself, but with the monster. But how do I stop it? I wondered.

The next time he arrived, we tried to forcibly attack him as a group, but he simply waved his hand and froze us all in place, until he disappeared back into the darkness.

That's when I got an idea, and took off after him into the darkness, following him for what felt like hours through a dark void, until he reached a bedroom of his own.

"What is this place?" I asked.

"My own nightmare." He replied, as he turned to a younger version of himself, asleep in bed.

Suddenly, I saw a window slowly pry open, as a masked man broke in, and moved towards the young man with a knife.

Not knowing what else to do, I sprang to the young man's rescue, darting toward the intruder and grappling with him, waking the young man, who watched on in horror, as the masked man was somehow impaled on his own knife, and toppled out the window.

After catching my breath, I turned back to the young man, who had a smile on his face.

"Thank you." He said, as he handed me a key.

I stood there in silence, unable to believe what had happened, before turning back to the monster, who I assumed had been watching the whole time...

...But he was gone.

I turned back to the young man, who was still staring at me, then stumbled backwards out of his room, and back into the darkness, where I turned around and walked back in the direction I had come from.

When I finally emerged from the darkness, holding the key, I found Brenda, Mr. Carlson, and Officer Howe all standing there in the foyer, a look of shock on all their faces, having clearly expected that I would never return.

I didn't say anything. I simply walked over to the home's front door, inserted the key, and opened it.

Suddenly, a ray of sunshine burst into the home. I took a step outside, and stood there for a moment, until my eyes eventually adjusted to the daylight, and I found myself outside Mr. Carlson's home.

The door still open, I looked back inside the home and saw Brenda, Mr. Carlson, and Officer Howe standing there in disbelief.

I signaled for them to join me.

Brenda and Officer Howe followed, with big smiles on their faces, overjoyed to escape the horrors in the home.

But Mr. Carlson, he simply stayed behind.

"Mr. Carlson, what are you waiting for?"

But he didn't reply. He simply took a seat on the staircase.

"Do me a favor? When you shut the door, leave the key inside the doorknob." The old man said.

"But why?" I asked, unable to understand why he would choose to stay inside the place.

"So I can see my son again." He explained.

I then closed the front door of the house and looked down at its now keyless door knob, before reaching into my pocket for the key that the young man had given me.

Officer Howe ran over to stop me, but it was too late. I had already placed the key in the doorknob and locked the door.

He gave me a look of horror, as I turned to see my wife pulling into my driveway next door.

I looked over at her and after spending what felt like weeks inside Mr. Carlson's home, expected her to be shocked to see me.

But my wife simply waved hello, as if I had never left.

"Don't forget to walk the dog!" She called out casually, before turning off the car and walking away into our home next door, as Brenda and Officer Howe looked over at me, still shocked by what they had just experienced.

Monday January 8th 2024 started out just like any other day. The only notable thing was that it was my first day heading back to the office after my employer had shut down company operations for 3 weeks as they did every year during the holidays. The seasonal depression was really starting to kick in now that all the fun was over and we just had another three months of freezing rain to look forward to before summer. Winter used to be my favourite season as a kid but due to climate change it's just become depressing. It hardly ever snows anymore here in the GTA so everything is just cold, grey and damp all the time, today being no exception.

Traffic on the 404 was actually moving at a decent pace for once this morning despite the weather. I was torn between being happy that I wasn't stuck in the typical morning gridlock and being slightly disappointed that I would actually make it to work on time. As I approached the 401 interchange where the 404 turns into the Don Valley Parkway the rain began to come down a lot harder. The dump truck I'd been following began to slow down, as did the rest of the traffic around me. I could have sworn I heard thunder over the roar of the rain pelting my windshield. "Thunderstorms in the winter time?" I thought to myself. It didn't make sense but then again it was also supposed to be -10 and snowing this time of year not 6 degrees and pouring down rain so I guess anything is possible.

I began pressing down on the brake pedal to slow my car to the speed of the truck in front of me when suddenly my foot slammed into the floor. I immediately panicked thinking I had lost my brakes and I took my right hand off the steering wheel to reach for the emergency brake. When I'd first started driving my dad had taught me a trick where you can hold down the button on the emergency brake so it doesn't lock and you can feather it on and off to slow down if you ever lose your brakes. I was about halfway through executing this plan when I froze. I froze because I realized something. The hand I had taken off the steering wheel hadn't been holding the steering wheel at all, and neither was the other one. In fact I wasn't even in my car. My brain finally caught up to my surroundings and I realized I was sitting in a plastic classroom chair in the middle of what appeared to be a warehouse. I was sitting in the chair with my arms out as if I was a kid pretending to drive a car, except I was actually driving a car, or at least I had been just mere seconds ago. Had I just blacked out on the entire drive to work? I did work at a logistics company but this did not look like our warehouse.

I slowly stood up and looked around the room. All I could see around me were wooden crates and plastic Pelican cases that looked vaguely like military gear of some kind. The only other object of note was a big yellow forklift sitting near the end of the row of crates. I began to walk towards it thinking maybe I could find the operator and figure out just what the hell was going on. An electric hum came from the forklift as I approached it. I don't know a lot about heavy machinery but I assumed that meant it was running. "Hello?" I shouted out into the vast expanse of the building. Only an echo returned. I peaked inside the cab of the forklift and indeed it was on judging by the position of the key and the gauges on the dash being lit up. This meant someone had to be nearby because I'm sure it's gotta be a massive OSHA violation to leave a forklift turned on unattended.

I called out a few more times but no reply came. Was everyone out for a smoke break or something? Surely a warehouse of this size would be crawling with workers, at least ours was back at the company I worked for. Figuring everyone was out for a smoke break or at the very least, given the early morning, it was probably shift change, I decided to see if I could find an office of any kind to see if anyone could tell me where I was. I had briefly tried to consult Google Maps on my phone but I couldn't get any signal, likely due to being inside a large steel building. I eventually spotted some windows high up on a wall on the other side of the warehouse and figured that must be the office. As I walked towards it I passed another forklift that looked like it had just been abandoned in the middle of putting a pallet of electronic equipment up on a rack. Just like the other one the electric hum and position of the key indicated that it had been left on. A little farther up the aisle there was a golf cart with a little orange blinking light on top of it. It had crashed into one of the metal support columns holding up the roof of the warehouse and front end was completely destroyed. It just sat there light still blinking as I walked past it. What the hell was going on here? Was there some emergency I was unaware of? I was beginning to get the feeling the staff of this place had abandoned it in a hurry.

Eventually I reached a set of metal stairs that led up to an enclosed mezzanine area that I thought had to be the office. I climbed the stairs and opened the door to find the room completely empty. It was indeed an office but instead of the loud atmosphere I was used to at work it was dead silent. I slowly walked through the rows of cubicles taking note of the steam coming off a coffee cup on one of the desks. People had been here recently. The most telling sign of all though was that every single computer was logged in and open on some excel sheets or software that I didn't recognize. I may not have known a lot about forklifts but I did know a lot about office computers. They time out after 5 minutes or so automatically and go to sleep. When you wake them up again you have to enter your password again. If these computers were logged in it meant that their users couldn't have gone far or been gone for long.

Figuring now that something must really be wrong I quickly scanned the room and found a door with a glowing red exit sign above it. I didn't know how I'd gotten here but the people who worked here had clearly left in a hurry and I wasn't going to stick around to find out why. I ran through the office and tore open the exit door revealing a long hallway. I ran down the the hallway towards another exit sign and just kept repeating the process through door after door until suddenly I was blasted with cold air and snow as I found myself standing in what appeared to be a parking lot. It had clearly been snowing heavily but the blizzard was starting to clear and the morning light was beginning to shine through the snow, although the light was extremely dim and I couldn't actually see the sun in the sky yet. Where the hell was I? It hadn't snowed like this anywhere near Toronto or my home in Newmarket since, well, ever that I can remember.

My awe of the snow was short lived however as I heard the door click shut behind me. My heart sank as I realized it was locked and it looked like it had a keycard reader to open it again. I was wearing a light winter jacket over my usual business suit but it was not sufficient for the weather I now faced. I could hear an engine running from around the corner of the building so I began trudging through to snow towards it. My fancy dress shoes and suit pants becoming instantly soaked as I made my way through knee deep snow. My feet stung with the cold but I didn't care, that engine sound meant someone had to be nearby and they could help me. Maybe it was a fire truck or an ambulance and they had come to deal with whatever disaster had befallen this frigid warehouse. Maybe I would find the office staff huddled around it. I should have known better.

As I came around the corner of the building I almost walked straight into a running snowblower. My efforts to stop myself caused me to fall backwards into the snow and I began to scramble backwards to get out of the way of the machine. Once I had gotten out of the way and gotten to my feet I realized that it wasn't moving. My heart sank again as I stared at the large John Deere tractor sitting in front of me. Much like the forklifts and golf cart I had seen inside the machine was just sitting there idling as if it had been abandoned in the middle of whatever its task was. In this case it looked like it was about halfway done clearing the parking lot. "Great," I mumbled to myself. It seemed that everyone really was gone. At least if that thing had been running for a while the cab was probably warmed up and it could provide some shelter.

I approached the tractor cautiously as the large augers of the snowblower attachment were still spinning and I did not want to encounter those again. Once I was safely alongside however, I practically threw myself up the steps into the cab. The warmth of the heaters felt almost burning compared to the cold outside but I didn't care. It was better than freezing to death. I leaned back in the operator's seat and just lay there for a few seconds enjoying it. Then I noticed something peculiar. There were no footprints leading away from the machine. If the operator had abandoned it as recently as the rest of the complex had been abandoned then there should have been signs of them running away. The snow was also letting up and there was no way it had snowed enough in the 10 minutes or so I'd been in this strange place to fill in the footprints. Hell there should have been footprints everywhere if a large scale evacuation had taken place. Something strange was definitely going on here.

For the first time since my arrival however, I finally felt safe enough sitting in that tractor cab that I could survey my surroundings. The snow had now completely stopped and I could see that I was sitting next to a massive white building at the bottom of what appeared to be a giant open pit mining site. Rock walls rose up on all sides with a spiral roadway leading to the top. There was also a massive radio tower on top of the building that must have been at least 100 feet above the surface level. It appeared to be held up by cables running down to the rim of the giant pit. Seeing the tower I foolishly tried my phone again but there was still no signal. I stuffed it back in my pocket and continued to look around. From what I could tell it looked like this was some kind of research facility that had been built into an old diamond mine. My suspicions were quickly confirmed as I noticed a row of white pickup trucks with the words "Summer Island Research Facility" written on the doors and various departments such as security or maintenance written along the sides of the bed. Well at least now I knew where I was, just not where this place was.

As luck would have it there was a much more substantial winter jacket stuffed behind the seat of the tractor and inside one of the pockets was a keycard. With this maybe I could get back inside and formulate a plan to deal with my current situation. I put on the jacket and once again braved the cold and made my way back to the door I had come out of. The light on the door turned green as I tapped the keycard up against it and a loud clunk indicated it was now unlocked. I quickly stepped inside and furiously stomped my feet to try and get all the snow off my shoes and pants. I had a better coat now but I needed to find some boots and snowpants if I was going to go outside again. My new mission was now to find an employee locker room or something where I could find some gear. I wandered up an down the halls finding nothing but empty office after empty office. I was beginning to contemplate my situation more and I wondered if I had in fact rear ended that dump truck back on the 404 and died in a horrible car accident and if this was some kind of purgatory. Even though I had only been here an hour tops at this point my morning commute and even my life back in Newmarket seemed like a distant memory. Was all that even real? Or was this even real? I had no idea how I'd even gotten here and the more I thought about it the more questions I had.

Eventually I stumbled into a lab of some kind. I guessed that this was where the research at the Summer Island Facility took place. There was lot of science equipment that I couldn't even begin to tell you what it was for scattered around the room and several computer desks all covered in papers. A large whiteboard in the corner of the room caught my attention. It was covered in what I guessed were mathematical equations but mixed in with the numbers were symbols I have never seen before. At the far end of the room was a large glass wall and on the other side of it was a device that slightly resembled a jet engine with the cowlings removed. "Must be testing something for a new fighter plane," I thought to myself but as I drew closer I realized this was not an aircraft engine. The front end where the fan blades would be and the rear where the thrust would come out were capped off completely and what I initially thought were hoses turned out to be thick electrical cables. Every now and then sparks shot out of the machine but otherwise it was completely silent. Had thing thing malfunctioned somehow and that's why everyone left in such a hurry? I was fine so what could be so dangerous. Then a terrible thought struck me, what if this was nuclear and the whole place was irradiated?

I decided my best course of action at this point was to continue looking for the gear I needed then get as far away from this place as possible. While I knew that tractor was still running outside it was slow and I had no idea how to drive a tractor, I needed to find the keys to one of those trucks and get up to the surface and figure out where I was. Luckily for me the locker room was not far from the lab and by some stroke of luck there was a locker open. Judging by the same high-vis winter jacket I had found in the tractor that hung inside the locker this must have belonged to one of the maintenance workers. I took the matching snow pants, boots and gloves out and quickly put them on. Rummaging around a little more I managed to find a hat and some snow goggles as well. I probably looked like I was ready to climb Mount Everest but I guess in a way that's exactly what I was about to do. I found a set of car keys on one of the tables and quickly snatched them up looking them over and noticing the Ram Trucks logo on the side of the key fob. At least it wouldn't take long to figure out which vehicle these were for. So far I had only seen F-150s outside.

I pulled my goggles down over my eyes as I ventured back out into the cold. It was a little brighter out now but it still seemed way too dark for the time of day it should have been by now. I pressed the panic button on the key fob and heart a repeated car horn coming from around the opposite corner to where the tractor was. I followed the sound until I was around the corner of the building and looking at a big Dodge Ram dually truck with a camper in the bed. It was covered in all kinds of antennas and had some kind of radar system on the roof and a big moose bumper with a winch mounted on the front. It had the same "Summer Island Research Facility" lettering on the doors and the words "Mobile Research Unit" written on the camper that sat in the bed. I remember thinking of my coworker James who wouldn't shut up about his overlanding rig, an old Toyota 4Runner with a collapsible rooftop tent. This truck was his wet dream.

I silenced the alarm and unlocked the vehicle. Climbing into the driver's seat I noticed the interior of the truck looked like a police car. There was a laptop mounted to the center console and all kinds of radio and electronic equipment. There was what appeared to be a CB radio overhead which I turned on and quickly flipped through a few channels but heard nothing. I put the key in the ignition and while the big diesel engine wasn't happy about turning over in the cold it did start. I sat there and let the truck warm up for a minute or two before setting off out of the parking area. Thankfully although the tractor operator had only manged to clear the snow from half of the parking lot it appeared as though the spiral road heading up to the surface had been plowed. Even still it was slow going as I didn't want to slide off the edge and plummit back into the pit.

It took about 15 minutes but I eventually reached the surface and stopped to survey the area. I put the truck in park and got out as if the windhshield was somehow lying to me about what was outside. For as far as I could see there was nothing but snow. Not a single tree in sight and although by this point it had to be at least 11AM and it was completely clear the sun was nowhere to be found in the sky. The only proof of its existence was the dim light coming from over the horizon that was allowing me to see. Was I in the fucking Arctic??? I let out a frustrated scream. What the hell was going on? I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Just hours ago I had been driving into downtown Toronto and now somehow inexplicably I was on the edge of a research facility at the North fucking Pole???

Off in the distance on top of a hill I could see lights in the direction that the road was heading. Maybe that's where everyone had gone and maybe I could get some answers there. I jumped back in the truck and took off down the bumpy road as fast as I could go in the snowy conditions. My excitement was short lived however as I arrived at the lights and realized they were landing lights for a small airstrip adjacent to the facility. I punched the steering wheel in frustration causing the horn to honk. I had heard there were places in the Arctic that were only accessable by plane. If this was one of them and everyone had gone then I truly was trapped up here. I shut the engine off and rested my head on the steering wheel. I'm a bit ashamed to admit it but I had a complete mental breakdown. I couldn't understand anything that was going on and now I was trapped in one of the most hostile places on earth with no way home.

My wallowing in self pity was short lived as I suddenly heard the sound of an approaching plane. I was overjoyed at the sound of this and immediately got out of the truck and began searching the skies for the incoming aircraft. Much like my self pity my feelings of joy were also short lived as I spotted the plane coming low on the horizon. It was moving far too quickly to be a commercial jet or military cargo plane. No there was only one thing that could be and it was a fighter plane. I don't know a lot about the military but they don't generally send fighter planes on rescue missions. At the same time as realization struck me that this was not the government coming to the rescue but rather a coverup for whatever happened here, the plane fired a single missile at the edge of the massive pit. From my vantage point on the hill by the airstrip I saw it collide with the rock wall and explode sending rock and ice flying into the air. Then what I had initially assumed was solid ground began to collapse into the pit revealing itself to be a frozen body of water. Within seconds the pit was flooded and the impact from the wave pancaked the building and sent the communications tower collapsing to the bottom of the newly formed lake. The plane circled around again heading for the airstrip. I dove back into the truck and hoped the white vehicle would blend in with the snow enough not to be seen by the pilot. It did, or at the very least the pilot didn't think it necessary to destroy a stationary vehicle. The plane fired off one more missile cratering the runway and then flew off again disappearing over the horizon.

I peeked up over the steering wheel as the last few pieces of rock came down denting the hood of the truck. There was now no way for anyone to even land to come save me but that was the least of my problems. Whatever was going on the government clearly didn't want it getting out. If I was found I would probably be shot on sight even though I had nothing to do with it. My best bet was to get as far away from this place as possible and then try to seek help. My only problem was I still had no idea where I was and all I had was this truck. If there were no roads out of here I was screwed. There probably were snowmobiles in that facility somewhere and I was kicking myself for not trying to find one before the facility got destroyed. Out of desparation I opened the laptop mounted to the truck's console and found that shockingly it was not locked with a password. It seemed this latop served only for navigation but that was fine with me as that's exactly what I needed. Even more shockingly it did appear to have a connection to some kind of satelite system and from that I was able to pull up a map and finally saw where I was.

I was indeed in the Arctic Ocean on an island roughly 30 kilometres from Tuktoyaktuk in the Northwest Territories. My heart sank upon this realization. If I was on an island then that airstrip really was the only way in or out. If the base hadn't been destroyed I might've been able to survive up here till spring and found a boat or something once the ice melted but it was gone now and I definitely couldn't survive in this truck. Wait a minute, the ice, that was it! The water was frozen over between here and the mainland if I could make it across then I might be able to find help in Tuktoyaktuk. It was a longshot but I had to try. I quickly took stock of the supplies I had in the truck then checked out the camper sitting in the bed. There wasn't much, just a bunch of unhelpful science equipment, a few basic tools, some shovels, and some extra fuel cans which were thankfully full. I tossed all the science equipment out of the back into the snow and tried to make the inside of the camper look as civilian as I could. There were still beds and basic living amenities in there under all the research stuff so I was hopeful I could make it look like just an ordinary truck camper. I then set to work peeling off the vinyl decals and truck numbers and anything else that could tie this vehicle to the facility. I also removed the patches with the facility's logo from all of the winter gear I had stolen. I needed the laptop and radar antennas for navigation but told myself I would ditch those too once I was in sight of the settlement. I had heard the Dempster Highway had been extended to Tuktoyaktuk in 2017 so it was finally connected to the rest of Canada's roads. I could drive south into British Columbia if I made it there but I had to be sure the truck couldn't be easily identified.

I was impressed with how well the truck handled the deep snow as I pushed my way towards the shoreline. I knew any minute I could get stuck and that would be the end but I kept going. It was nerve wracking pulling out on to the ice and I half expected to just immediately break through. I had seen enough Ice Road Truckers on the History Channel to know to take my seatbelt off and drive slow as to not create a pressure wave and crack the ice so I crept along barely going above 40 kilometres an hour. This was a lot different than Ice Road Truckers though. Ice roads are actually maintained it's not like they're just driving on untamed ice, like I was doing right now. It was bumpy and the I could hear the ice shifting and cracking under me as I crossed over the uneven sections. I was sure I was going to break through but after about 2 hours of driving over the uneven ice I saw the lights of Tuktoyaktuk in the distance. I stopped the truck and climbed onto the roof and ripped off the radar antenna then tore out the laptop mount from the cab and took off towards the town. I contemplated going to the locals for help but figured that would only get me arrested so I only stopped briefly for fuel then took off down the long lonely highway headed south. Bob, the guy who ran the gas station was confused as he hadn't seen me come to town but didn't ask too many questions.

I only made one other stop in Inuvik for more fuel but besides that I made it pretty much all the way to Whitehorse in the Yukon in one go. By this point I had been on the road for almost 24 hours straight and was exhausted and needed to rest. I decided to ditch the truck just outside Whitehorse and walk into town and find a room for the night posing as a tourist. Whitehorse had an airport and I could fly home from there the next day. I found an old logging road to hide the truck down. I contemplated setting it on fire but I knew that would draw too much attention so I just abandoned it in the trees, gathered my things and made the hour walk into Whitehorse. My night at the bed and breakfast there was the best sleep I had had in days but sadly I was woken up early the next morning by my phone ringing. I had forgotten I'd even had a phone since over the past few days it had been all but useless to me.

"Hello?" I sad groggily into the phone. "Mr. Richards this is Sargeant Powell with the Ontario Provincial Police we have been trying to reach you for the past 2 days." Said the voice on the other end of the phone. I immediately stiffened up. "What for?" I asked, assuming I had been reported missing. "About the accident you caused at the interchange of the 404 and the 401 on Monday, you rear ended a dump truck and then swerved into the other lane where your car was rear ended by a minivan causing a 50 car pileup. 11 people are dead and many more were injured. We could not locate you at the accident so you have been presumed to have fled the scene on foot which is a very serious offence." The officer continued. I had almost forgotten that I had been driving to work before all this started. Part of me thought that maybe I had lost some memory or something but from what the cop was telling me it seemed like I had, no that's crazy... There's no way I somehow teleported from the GTA to the Canadian Arctic... But then again that did seem to be what had happened... "Well I certainly hope you have the wrong person officer," I said into the phone trying to regain my composure. "You see, I'm in Whitehorse in the Yukon right now, visiting my aunt," obviously I was not going to tell him why I was really up there, "so if my car was involved in an accident then it must've been stolen." "Is that so Mr.Richards," the cop said in a tone that I could tell meant he didn't believe me. "Well if you have any proof of this I'm going to need it as soon as you return."

Upon landing at Toronto Pearson Airport I was immediately taken into custody by the police. They did not believe my story of visiting my aunt in the Yukon at all but had to led me go as it was a pretty rock solid alibi and all the receipts from my stay there and my flight home. I just claimed I lost my ticket for the flight there. After my release I fully expected my house to get raided by the SWAT team or something and I'd be hauled in for questioning about my involement in whatever happened at the mysterious base but nothing ever came of it. It seemed the police were really only interested in the car accident and the higher levels of government had no idea I'd ever been up there. My insurance reluctantly paid for a new car and everything went back to more or less normal. Somehow my job didn't even notice I was gone so I still got paid for those days and went back to work as if nothing had happened.

The only problem is, now I know that crazy stuff like this is possible. I don't know what the government was messing around with up there or what happened to all the people at that base, and I'm not sure I want to know. Either way knowing that it's possible to just get plucked out of existence and reappear in another place entirely often leaves me sitting awake late at night wondering if and when it might happen again.

I met Jeremy at the tail end of sophomore year, though he wouldn’t have known it. Psychology major, sharp jaw, always carrying a battered, highlighted textbook under his arm. To him, I was just background—another half-smiling face in the mass of campus strangers.

But I watched him. I was drawn to his confidence, the way he leaned forward when he talked, like he wanted to dissect people’s words, peer inside their minds. And that casual smile—it was natural on him. He probably had no idea how that smile felt to people like me, people who lived on the edges, unseen. A glint of warmth on a cold day. For me, that smile was a flickering flame.

The little occult shop in town was the type that pulled at you with its own quiet gravity. Its shelves sagged with oddities: dried herbs, jars of something that looked like crystallized spiders, tarot cards with edges worn soft by years of handling. I’d been browsing in there since freshman year. Mostly I looked, rarely bought. The owner, an older woman with eyes that lingered too long, didn’t care.

That day, though, I found the book—a cracked, dust-coated, leather-bound thing stuffed under a stack of crumbling grimoires. “Charms and Potions to Influence the Heart.” I nearly laughed at it, but I flipped through the pages, my fingers staining just from touching it. There, between brittle sheets and smeared ink, was the love potion spell. Irresistible allure, it claimed, with warnings written faintly in cursive in the margins. I shrugged them off. Desperation drives people to warnings, but what did they mean to someone who didn’t plan on taking them seriously? Besides, I wasn’t desperate. I was curious.

The instructions were straightforward, even for a first-timer. A few herbs, some strange Latin incantation. Nothing I hadn’t tried in simpler forms. But one detail felt... unnecessary. The book advised a personal “cleansing” ritual before crafting the potion, to “prevent the caster’s own desires from tainting the charm.” I scoffed at the idea. My desires weren’t dangerous—maybe a little silly, maybe stupid, but not dangerous. So I skipped it, brushing it aside as some medieval quirk.

Back in my apartment, the kitchen reeked of thyme, rosemary, and something called witch’s lavender, a cloying scent somewhere between licorice and death. I ground the herbs in my mortar and pestle, feeling each hard crush of the stone, then mixed the powder with honey and a drop of my own blood—a required “personal touch.” The whole concoction gleamed dark red in the dim light, the color of a bruise. Thick, syrupy, almost alive in the jar. I held it to my nose, inhaling that odd mix of bitterness and sweetness, and felt a small thrill tighten in my chest.

The next day, there was a campus event in the courtyard—some tedious student fair with free coffee on a long table lined with dusty thermoses. Jeremy was there, chatting with friends near the theater club’s booth, coffee cup cradled in his hands. Perfect.

I slipped the vial out of my coat pocket, popping the cork as inconspicuously as I could. The potion trickled out in a thin stream, nearly black, sinking into the coffee like oil in water. I stirred it quickly with the plastic stir stick, looking around, heartbeat quickening, but no one was paying attention. Why would they?

Then I watched him drink. Watched him talk with that effortless laugh and casual shrug, watched the coffee cup go up to his mouth, the potion slipping past his lips. I had to pull my eyes away so no one noticed. And then, I waited.

It wasn’t immediate—no magic spark, no grand revelation. But over the next few days, things shifted. I’d pass him in the library, and he’d do a double-take, that small flash of recognition in his eyes, like he was recalling a dream. And then he’d smile, half-confused, but a little longer than usual. Once, as he left the library, he turned back, lingering by the door as if he had something to say, his eyes finding mine through the glass.

At first, the thrill of it made me dizzy. It was like touching fire without getting burned, like I’d somehow altered the air around me just by saying I would. By wanting it.

The first time Jeremy showed up outside my class, I thought it was coincidence. Just him leaving the lecture hall next door. He walked up to me, an easy smile spreading across his face like I was someone he’d known all along.

“Hey, Emma, right?”

The sound of my name from his mouth was like an electric jolt. He said it like he’d practiced it, testing out the shape of each syllable. I managed a nod, feeling my cheeks heat up.

“I thought I recognized you from the library.” He laughed, an awkward chuckle, his hand rubbing the back of his neck. “You have this focused look, you know? Makes me wonder what you’re always reading about.”

His gaze lingered a second too long. “Uh, yeah,” I stammered. “I read a lot. For class and...other things.”

There was a spark in his eyes as he asked what I was studying, what I liked to do, if I’d want to grab coffee sometime. He seemed genuinely interested—too interested, maybe. And I found myself overwhelmed, almost uncertain. But I agreed. Because, after all, wasn’t this what I’d wanted?

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Over the next few days, I started seeing him everywhere. He’d pop up when I was leaving the library, or walking to class, or at the café where I went to unwind. He acted surprised each time, always chuckling, like, “What are the odds?”

It was thrilling, that first week—like I’d somehow summoned him from a distance. But soon, his presence became a constant shadow I couldn’t shake.

One evening, I was sitting on my dorm’s front steps, headphones in, hoping for a quiet moment to myself. Then a shadow loomed over me. I glanced up, startled, and there he was, standing inches away, grinning down at me.

“You’re hard to find, you know that?” he said, his eyes locked onto mine, unblinking. “I tried to catch you in the library today.”

I pulled out an earbud, forcing a laugh. “Didn’t realize I had a schedule to keep.”

He didn’t laugh. He just kept watching, his gaze heavy. “Just saying it’d be nice if you made a little more time for me.”

____________________________________________________________________________________________

A few days later, Lily started noticing too. She was my roommate, my one friend on campus who knew my quirks and obsessions, though she only teased me for them. But the morning she saw Jeremy waiting outside our building, she raised an eyebrow.

“That guy again?” she asked, peeking through the blinds as he lingered by the entrance. “Is he always around, or is it just me?”

I tried to play it off. “We’re just...getting to know each other.”

She gave me a hard look. “Emma, getting to know each other is one thing. Having a guy stalk you is another.”

“He’s not stalking me, Lily. He’s just...he’s into me, I guess.”

She shook her head, closing the blinds with a sigh. “Just be careful, okay? He seems a little...intense.”

Intense. I brushed it off, but the word clung to me. That night, I felt my skin prickle as I realized how often his face flashed in my thoughts, how his gaze felt more like a lock than a look.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

The next evening, as I walked back from class, I felt a presence behind me. Quick, light footsteps, then a familiar voice.

“Emma.”

I turned. Jeremy was standing just a step away, close enough that I felt his breath, sharp and shallow.

“Hi,” I managed, forcing a smile. “Didn’t realize you’d be here.”

He reached out, his hand brushing my arm, holding just long enough that I felt pinned in place. “You didn’t text me back.”

I stammered, trying to explain about assignments, a long day—but he didn’t let go. His grip tightened, his fingers pressing into my skin.

“I just don’t get it,” he said, voice barely above a whisper, his face inches from mine. “I thought we were...special.”

“Jeremy, you’re hurting me,” I said, tugging my arm free. For a second, a strange light flashed in his eyes—a brief, angry spark—but then he released me, his hand falling limp by his side. He muttered an apology, his eyes trailing me even as I hurried away.

When I got home, Lily was already there, tapping away on her laptop. She looked up when I came in, her expression softening as she saw my flushed face and the red marks on my arm.

“What happened?”

“Nothing,” I lied. “Just...Jeremy.”

“Emma, this is getting weird. You need to tell him to back off.” She bit her lip, worry creasing her forehead. “Or I will.”

I waved her off, embarrassed, but a part of me was relieved she noticed. Maybe I wasn’t overreacting. Maybe he was going too far. But I’d tell him myself, I thought. I didn’t want to make it worse.

The next morning, I woke to a quiet apartment. Lily’s bed was empty, her things untouched. I assumed she’d left early, maybe went to the library or for a run, though she was usually one to leave a note. I texted her once, twice. No response.

By evening, worry settled heavy in my chest. I tried her phone again, hearing only the hollow rings on the other end. I called a few friends, checked the library, even the student center. No one had seen her all day.

Then, around midnight, I heard a knock. Faint, almost hesitant. I opened the door, half-hoping to see her there with some explanation. But it was Jeremy.

His face was shadowed, his eyes rimmed with something dark, like he hadn’t slept. “Hey, Emma. Been waiting to talk to you.” His voice was calm, too calm, but something in his expression—too soft, too careful—made my stomach twist.

I tried to shut the door, but he pushed against it, forcing his way in. “Where’s Lily?” I blurted out, fear breaking through my voice.

“Gone,” he said simply, like it was an obvious fact, a truth as solid as the walls around us. “She was...in the way.”

A wave of nausea hit me. I wanted to scream, to run, but my legs felt frozen, rooted to the spot. Jeremy stepped closer, his face uncomfortably close, his breath hot against my cheek.

“I don’t want anyone else,” he whispered. “Just you, Emma. Only you.”

I didn’t know where else to go. After that night with Jeremy, his face too close, his words slipping over me like a dark fog, the only thought I had was get help.

Professor Grayson had always been friendly, almost fatherly, with his students. He taught my introductory psych course last year, and I remembered the way he’d lean against the podium, speaking about human behavior with a steady, thoughtful tone that made complex topics seem less intimidating. I’d hoped he’d still have that tone when I told him about Jeremy.

The next morning, I found him in his office, hunched over a stack of papers, reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose. He looked up, surprised, when I knocked, but his expression softened as I stepped in.

“Emma? Something on your mind?” His voice was gentle, a rare calm in the spinning chaos of my life right now.

I sank into the chair across from him, feeling the weight of everything pressing down on me. I didn’t know where to start, so I just... started. I told him about Jeremy. How I’d felt a thrill when he’d first noticed me, how that thrill had quickly twisted into something else, something suffocating and terrifying. I told him about Lily, about how she’d disappeared, about Jeremy’s last words to me. As I spoke, I could see Professor Grayson’s expression harden, lines forming at the corners of his mouth.

When I finished, he sat quietly, processing, before finally speaking. “Emma, this sounds like a situation you can’t ignore.” He took off his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I know this is difficult, but... I think you need to take this seriously. Have you gone to the police?”

The word police hit me like a splash of cold water. I hadn’t thought of it—some part of me still wanted to handle it alone, to keep this hidden, as if speaking it aloud would make it real.

“I don’t know, Professor... He’s just... He’s just so good at talking his way out of things,” I stammered. But as I heard myself, I realized how flimsy it sounded. How could I expect anyone to help me if I didn’t even try?

Grayson nodded slowly, leaning forward. “Emma, listen. There’s a possibility here that his feelings for you have become obsessive, and that’s something that needs professional attention. If he’s as clever as you say, he may try to manipulate the situation. But you have to report it. Otherwise, you’re the one without protection.”

I felt a prickle of fear, and a desperate sort of relief. “Okay,” I whispered, barely loud enough to hear. “I’ll go.”

The police station was a maze of buzzing phones, murmured voices, and the soft shuffle of papers. I felt small in that space, as though every set of eyes knew my secrets, saw the tangle of regret and guilt I carried in my chest.

After a short wait, an officer named Michaels led me into a room with pale walls and flickering lights. He was younger than I expected, with sandy blond hair and a thin smile that never quite reached his eyes.

“Miss Graves, you reported a concern about someone named Jeremy?” His voice was calm, patient, as he opened his notepad, ready to jot down what he probably thought was another college drama.

“Yes,” I said, steadying my voice. “Jeremy—he’s... he’s been following me, showing up everywhere. He’s been... intense. And my roommate... she disappeared. The last time I saw her, she’d confronted him. He... he said she was ‘in the way.’”

Michaels’ pen scratched across the page, his face unreadable. “Did you see him do anything directly to her?”

I hesitated, the words tangled in my throat. “No... but I think he... he must’ve done something. She wouldn’t just leave, not without telling me.”

He nodded slowly, watching me. “Do you have any evidence, Miss Graves? Texts? Threats? Anything specific he’s done that could back this up?”

“No,” I whispered, hating the smallness of my voice. “But he... he’s always there, everywhere I go, like he’s watching me. And he... he told me I was the only one for him. That he didn’t want anyone else around me.”

Michaels jotted down a few more notes, nodding in that patient, skeptical way that made my skin crawl. I could almost feel his judgment, the doubt coiling in the room between us. He promised to “look into it,” but the tight set of his mouth told me all I needed to know. To him, I was just a girl spinning a story, maybe jealous, maybe paranoid. My words felt flimsy, insubstantial as they floated away from me, and I knew they weren’t enough to convince him.

The call came a couple hours later. Officer Michaels. His tone was flatter than before, and he didn’t waste time with pleasantries.

“Miss Graves,” he began, “I wanted to follow up on your report. My partner and I spoke with Mr. Fields, and he had a lot to say about you.”

My grip on the phone tightened. A lot to say about me?

Michaels continued, “Mr. Fields indicated some... concerns about your recent behavior. He said he felt you’d been following him, contacting him excessively, and—” Michaels cleared his throat, “—making unfounded accusations.”

I stood there, the silence pressing down around me like a shroud. “That’s... that’s not true,” I managed, but my voice sounded thin, barely there.

“Miss Graves, Mr. Fields was remarkably cooperative,” Michaels replied, the clipped edge to his voice as sharp as a knife. “He’s expressed that he’s worried for your well-being.”

My head spun. Worried for my well-being. I knew I shouldn’t be surprised. Jeremy had the kind of charm that disarmed you before you even realized it was happening, but the words hit like stones. “So you don’t believe me?” The question slipped out, edged with a desperation I hated hearing in my own voice.

Michaels hesitated, then let out a slow sigh. “We take all reports seriously. But Mr. Fields provided a different perspective. He even mentioned that he feels you may have... projected certain feelings onto him. That maybe, you felt hurt when he didn’t reciprocate. His story was... consistent.”

The words hit me with a nauseating clarity. Jeremy had spun it perfectly—turned me into the unhinged one. “I know what I saw, Officer Michaels,” I said, struggling to keep my voice steady. “He’s been following me, showing up everywhere I go. And my roommate, Lily, she—”

“Mr. Fields told us about your roommate,” Michaels cut in. “He said she left abruptly after a disagreement between the two of you. And there’s no evidence to suggest anything otherwise.”

I felt my grip slipping, a cold panic crawling up my spine. “But... she wouldn’t just leave. Not like that. She didn’t tell me anything, and I haven’t heard from her. Please, you have to understand—”

“Miss Graves, we understand that you’re upset,” Michaels said, his voice softening slightly, like he was speaking to a child. “But we can’t pursue further action unless there’s concrete evidence or a clear threat. Mr. Fields expressed genuine concern for you. He’s offered to back away if that’s what you need.”

I could almost hear the finality in his words, the practiced tone of dismissal. To them, this was resolved. My mind was made up, my side of the story a flimsy attempt to cover up jealousy or disappointment. I was losing ground, fast.

“Thank you for your time, Officer Michaels,” I said, forcing the words out, feeling them slip away like lifelines into an abyss.

“Take care of yourself, Miss Graves,” he replied, and then there was a click. The line went dead.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

The next morning, I went back to Professor Grayson’s office, not sure what I’d even say but knowing I had to tell someone. He listened as I explained what had happened with the police, his expression darkening with each word. When I finished, he shook his head, a pained look crossing his face.

“I’m so sorry, Emma. I can’t imagine how frustrating this must be.” His voice was steady, calming, but his face betrayed his frustration. “It’s disturbing, the way he’s manipulated this situation.”

“What do I do now?” The question fell out of me, half plea, half despair.

Grayson leaned forward, his eyes earnest. “You need to protect yourself, Emma. Be careful around him, avoid any direct confrontation if possible. If there’s any further escalation, the police will have to listen. They can’t ignore you forever.”

The room felt suddenly colder, the quiet stretching thin between us. His words should have been reassuring, but they only deepened the gnawing fear inside me. Jeremy had already drawn a line around me, shutting out anyone who might have helped. And now, with the police doubting my every word, I felt as if that line was tightening, closing in.

“Emma, you did the right thing by going to them. Even if they don’t see it now, you’ve planted the seed. If something else happens, they’ll be watching him.”

I nodded, swallowing hard, but the cold dread gnawed at me, a thick stone lodged in my stomach. Jeremy wasn’t just dangerous—he was cunning. And he knew how to twist things, bend reality until the truth no longer resembled itself.

Grayson leaned forward, lowering his voice, his gaze locking on mine. “Emma, stay vigilant. And don’t let your guard down around him, not even for a moment. Do you understand?”

I nodded again, but my hands were still trembling. I could barely process his words, the gravity of it all settling like lead in my bones. This was beyond anything I could explain away. I had created something that now existed outside of me, something I couldn’t control.

When I left Grayson’s office, my heart was heavy with a dread I couldn’t shake. Each step I took felt weighed down, as though Jeremy’s shadow had somehow rooted itself to me, stretching out of sight but never far behind.

I sat in my dorm room, staring at the empty space where Lily’s things used to be, feeling a hollow ache expand inside me. Jeremy had turned everything upside down with barely a handful of words. To the police, I was now the one in need of “help.” Jeremy was free, probably laughing to himself at how effortlessly he’d twisted the truth.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. Every creak and rustle outside my window sent jolts of fear through me, visions of Jeremy lurking just beyond the glass, that calm, calculating look in his eyes. The walls seemed to close in around me, the silence thick and suffocating.

I tried calling Lily’s phone again, the line ringing and ringing until her voicemail kicked in, her cheerful voice echoing through the empty space. “Hey, it’s Lily! Leave a message, and I’ll get back to you soon!”

I didn’t leave a message. I knew I wouldn’t get a call back.

After my last meeting with Professor Grayson, I did my best to avoid Jeremy, ducking down side hallways, taking the long way home from class. But it was no use. He was always there, waiting with that quiet, intense stare that seemed to peel back layers I’d thought were hidden.

One night, as I was leaving the library, he stepped out from the shadows, his gaze heavy, lips parted like he’d been waiting hours just to say something.

“Emma,” he said, his voice soft, almost coaxing. “You don’t have to keep running from me. You know I’d never hurt you.” The words echoed my own thoughts—thoughts I’d whispered to myself late at night, trying to convince myself that he wasn’t dangerous, that I hadn’t brought this on.

“Please, just...leave me alone,” I replied, trying to keep my voice steady. But the fear in it was too real, and he must have heard it because he smiled, a slow, almost pitying smile.

“Emma,” he whispered, taking a step closer, “you know you can’t hide from what you feel. I know you better than anyone else. Better than you know yourself.”

The way he said it chilled me, as if he’d peeled that thought from somewhere deep inside my mind. How could he know those words, those exact words? I had never said them out loud. The thought scratched at my brain, a creeping paranoia sinking its claws into me.

Over the next few days, I saw him everywhere. If I walked out of my dorm, he’d be standing across the quad, his eyes following me even from a distance. If I ducked into the cafeteria, he’d sit a few tables away, watching with an expression that was both knowing and hungry, like he was waiting for me to break down, to finally acknowledge him.

I stopped eating in public, avoiding the places where he might show up. My nerves were fraying; I couldn’t focus, couldn’t sleep. His words, his gaze—each encounter chipped away at the edges of my thoughts until they didn’t feel like my own anymore. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was inside my head, that somehow, he knew my thoughts before I even did.

One afternoon, as I crossed the courtyard, he appeared beside me out of nowhere, slipping into step as if he’d always been there.

“You shouldn’t ignore what’s right in front of you, Emma,” he murmured, his voice barely a whisper. “You know, pretending I don’t exist won’t make this go away.”

I flinched, tightening my grip on my bag, quickening my steps. But he matched me easily, a shadow tethered to my own. The campus felt empty, the late hour lending an eerie silence to everything around us.

“Jeremy, I don’t know what you think this is, but whatever it is… it’s over,” I said, trying to inject steel into my voice.

“Is it?” he asked, sounding genuinely curious, as though I’d suggested something amusing, maybe even absurd. “You think walking a little faster will change anything? You think you can just wish me away, like some bad dream?”

I took a deep breath, willing myself to stay calm. “This isn’t real. Whatever you think is between us—it’s just... it’s just a mistake. A misunderstanding.”

He laughed softly, a sound too close to my ear. “A misunderstanding?” His voice was calm, almost indulgent. “Emma, you made this. You made me. And now you want to pretend it didn’t happen?”

I made him? 

I made him…

I forced myself to look at him, summoning every ounce of courage left in me. “You don’t know me, Jeremy. You’ve never known me.”

His expression shifted, a hint of something darker in his eyes as he leaned closer, his voice low. “I know you better than anyone. I know the parts of you no one else even sees.” He cocked his head, his gaze fixed on mine. “Tell me, when’s the last time anyone else paid attention to what you really wanted?”

My stomach twisted. “You’re… you’re twisting this,” I said, my voice wavering, but I held his gaze, refusing to back down. “Whatever you think you know, it’s a lie. It’s… it’s in your head.”

“You can run,” he said, a strange satisfaction in his voice, his eyes glinting. “But you’ll always end up here. You know that, don’t you? Back where it all began. With me.”

I felt my heart pounding, my legs aching to bolt, but his gaze held me in place. “No,” I whispered, voice trembling. “I’m not coming back to you. I never chose this.”

He stepped closer, so close that I could feel the warmth of his breath on my skin. “But you did, Emma,” he murmured, his voice soft, dangerous. “The minute you thought of me… the minute you wanted me.”

I swallowed hard, hating how my voice shook. “Wanting isn’t the same as this. This is twisted, it’s wrong. It’s a violation.”

Jeremy’s smile widened, a dark, almost pitying look in his eyes. “You can tell yourself that all you want. But you and I both know you’ve never wanted anything—anyone—as much as this.” His gaze pierced through me, his voice taking on a hint of mockery. “You can’t run from what’s already inside you.”

I could feel the ground slipping out from under me, my mind scrambling for an escape. But as he watched, that strange, knowing smile still on his face, I knew he’d already won this battle.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

That night, as I lay awake in my bed, I felt his words echoing through my head, dark tendrils wrapping tighter around my thoughts. I tried to shake them, to convince myself it was paranoia, but his voice was there, whispering my own fears back to me.

I couldn’t ignore it anymore. The only place I knew to turn was that old shop, the strange, dusty room where I’d first found the spellbook. Desperation had pushed me to the edge. I needed answers.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

The shop looked the same as ever. The shopkeeper was there, standing by the counter with that same unreadable expression, as though she’d expected me all along. Her eyes narrowed when she saw me, a slight curve of amusement at the corners of her mouth.

“Back so soon?” she asked.

I forced myself to speak, swallowing back the unease that tightened my throat. “The spell I cast... the one for attraction.” My voice sounded small, hesitant. “Something went wrong. He’s...he’s acting like he knows things I haven’t told him, like he’s reading my mind.”

The shopkeeper tilted her head, studying me. “Did you follow the instructions exactly?”

I hesitated, shame pooling in my gut. “Mostly,” I muttered. “But I thought... I didn’t think the precaution mattered that much.”

The shopkeeper’s eyes darkened, and she let out a long, low sigh. “You thought the cleansing was unnecessary,” she said, her voice more a statement than a question. Her gaze felt like it was burrowing into me, unearthing my mistake from where I’d buried it under excuses.

“It was... just a small detail,” I whispered, the words pathetic even to my own ears.

Her mouth twitched with a bitter amusement. “The cleansing was to protect you from yourself, to bind the spell to your intention alone. By skipping it, you left the connection open-ended, unguarded. A spell like that doesn’t stop at attraction, dear. It digs deeper, attaching itself to every thought, every suppressed feeling. It binds your psyche to theirs, an open channel.”

My stomach dropped, nausea twisting through me. An open channel. Jeremy wasn’t just watching me; he was reflecting back my own fears, insecurities, every dark thought I’d ever buried. I’d done this. I’d ripped open a door and given him free access to the deepest corners of my mind.

I took a shaky breath, my voice barely a whisper. “Is there a way to undo it?”

The shopkeeper’s gaze softened, but there was no pity in her eyes. “Once a bond is formed, it’s not easily broken. Bonds built on the mind and heart are strong. Sometimes... irreversible.” She leaned in closer, her voice low and steady. “But be warned: severing such a bond is no small thing. It can leave both parties... damaged.”

The weight of her words pressed down on me, the hopelessness settling in like a lead weight. There was no simple undoing, no easy fix. I had created something dark, something hungry, and now it was consuming me piece by piece.

As I left the shop, her words echoed in my head, each one sinking deeper, heavier. Irreversible. I’d taken a harmless crush and twisted it into something monstrous. And now I’d given Jeremy a foothold in my mind, and every step I took seemed to lead me further into his grasp.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

The next day, Jeremy was waiting outside my building, leaning against the stone wall with a calm, patient smile. His eyes met mine, and there was a strange light in them, something sharp, unhinged. He took a slow step toward me, his gaze never leaving mine.

“You went to the shop,” he murmured, his voice low, almost gentle.

My blood ran cold. I hadn’t told anyone, hadn’t spoken it aloud. There was no way he could have known.

“What are you—”

He stepped closer, his voice soft and familiar, as though he was coaxing a confession out of me. “I know everything, Emma. I know what you think about at night, alone in your room. I know the secrets you keep from everyone else. I know because... you let me in.”

Each word sent a chill through me, a horrifying confirmation that he was bound to me in ways I hadn’t even realized. I felt stripped bare, exposed, every dark thought held up to the light.

I tried to back away, but he caught my wrist, his grip gentle but unyielding, his eyes locking onto mine.

“You and I,” he whispered, his voice soft but laced with something cold, “we’re the same. And no one can come between us, Emma. Not the police, not Grayson... not even you.”

My throat tightened, and I felt the edge of panic rise within me, a flood of helplessness I couldn’t shake. “Jeremy, this... this isn’t what I wanted.”

He tilted his head, a glint of amusement in his eyes, as though my fear only fueled his certainty. “Isn’t it? You wanted me, didn’t you? You wanted someone to see you, to be part of you. And here I am.”

I felt sick, a wave of nausea washing over me as I realized the truth. This was what I’d done—what I’d made of him, of us. He was my reflection, twisted and broken, but undeniably mine.

As I pulled my hand free, his smile widened, a slow, chilling curve of satisfaction.

“Don’t fight it, Emma,” he said, his voice like a shadow crawling over me. “You’re already too far in.”

I turned and fled, his laughter trailing behind me, echoing down the empty corridors. Each step pounded with the realization that this wasn’t some nightmare I could wake up from. I had bound us together, and the more I tried to resist, the tighter his grip seemed to grow, a thread weaving itself through the fabric of my mind.

And I knew, as his voice followed me into the silence, that there was no escape—not from him, and not from myself.

I hadn’t seen Professor Grayson since the night I’d gone to the occult shop, but his words had lingered, sharp reminders to stay vigilant, to protect myself. Jeremy’s presence was pressing in, a shadow I couldn’t shake. I knew Grayson was the only one who might understand, the only person I could trust with the truth.

When I reached his office that evening, the lights were off, the door ajar. A chill ran down my spine. “Professor?” I called softly, stepping inside. His desk was cluttered, books half-open, a mug overturned. It looked wrong, like he’d left in a rush.

I moved further into the office, the silence growing thicker. My gaze landed on a dark stain near the side of his desk, smeared across the floor. My stomach twisted as I took in the scene: his glasses, broken, beside what could only be—

A shadow loomed in the doorway, and I whipped around, heart hammering. Jeremy stood there, his gaze locked onto mine, a quiet intensity in his eyes. I stumbled back, bile rising as I realized he was blocking my only way out.

“Looking for Grayson?” His voice was soft, almost tender. “I told you, Emma. No one else matters. No one but us.”

Fear pulsed through me. I shoved past him, darting into the hall, my footsteps echoing in the empty corridor. Behind me, I heard his calm, measured footsteps. He wasn’t in a hurry. He knew he’d catch me.

Bursting out of the building, I ran toward the forest, the darkness closing in around me as I pushed through the thick underbrush. Jeremy’s footsteps grew louder, relentless. I could barely breathe, but I pressed on, desperation forcing me deeper into the trees.

The only thought anchoring me was escape, the fleeting hope that somehow, I’d lose him in the shadows. But his voice drifted through the trees, closer than it should have been.

“Emma,” he called softly, as if coaxing me back. “You can’t run from this. You know that.”

But I kept running, his voice a dark promise, echoing in the cold night air.

I stopped in a small clearing, the cold pressing in from all sides. Setting down the supplies, I knelt and arranged the candles in a circle, my hands shaking as I lit each one. The spellbook lay open before me, the words heavy on the page, almost pulsing with dark intent. This was the severance ritual—the one the shopkeeper had warned me about.

With Grayson gone, this was all I had left, my last desperate attempt to break the bond I’d unwittingly unleashed. I had no choice; Jeremy had taken everything—my safety, my thoughts, even my sense of self. Tonight, it would end, or it would consume me whole.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and began the incantation. The ancient words felt foreign and thick on my tongue, a strain as I forced them out. The candles flickered, and a cold wind swept through the clearing, wrapping around me like an unwelcome shadow. I could feel the bond resisting, trembling, refusing to break.

A prickle ran up my spine, the eerie feeling of being watched. I opened my eyes—and Jeremy stood there at the edge of the clearing, his face cast in the eerie light of the flames. He looked at me with an unsettling mix of sorrow and anger, eyes glinting with something wild.

“Why are you doing this, Emma?” His voice was soft, almost tender.

My heart raced, but I stood up, clutching the book to my chest. “This has to end, Jeremy. You have to let me go.”

He stepped forward, his gaze intense, unwavering. “We’re meant to be together, Emma. I know every part of you, remember? There’s no escaping this.”

“No, Jeremy,” I said, forcing strength into my voice. “This isn’t love. This is wrong. Twisted. I never wanted this.”

His expression hardened, a flash of hurt giving way to fury. “You made me like this,” he said, his voice breaking. “You bound me to you, and now you’re trying to cut me away like... like I’m nothing.” He took another step, then lunged, grabbing my wrist.

“Stop!” I cried, yanking my arm back, but his grip only tightened.

He pulled me closer, his face inches from mine, eyes wide and unhinged. “I won’t let you take this from me, you ungrateful bitch,” he snarled, his voice raw with desperation. “You’re mine, Emma. We’re bound together. You think you can just toss me aside?”

His fingers bruised into my skin, and I fought back, wrenching my arm free, shoving him hard. He stumbled back, but his eyes were on fire with rage, his breathing ragged. In the chaos, I raised my voice, speaking the final words of the incantation with every ounce of strength I had left, pushing at the bond, ripping it apart.

A fierce wind tore through the clearing, scattering the candles as Jeremy clutched his head, a scream ripping from his throat. I felt the connection unraveling, the poisoned thread between us snapping one painful fiber at a time.

“Emma…” His voice broke, his face twisted in pain, lost. And then, like a light extinguished, his eyes dulled. His grip slackened, and he slumped forward, his expression hollow, empty.

I staggered back, watching him, the weight of what I’d done sinking in with chilling finality. Jeremy was… gone, his mind shattered, a hollow shell left in his place.

“Jeremy,” I whispered, but there was no recognition in his eyes, no spark. Just silence.

I backed away, nausea twisting in my gut as I stumbled from the clearing, fleeing into the darkness. The bond was broken, but it had left a scar, an indelible mark of the cost I could never undo.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

The days blurred together after that night in the forest. Word spread quickly: Jeremy had been found wandering aimlessly near campus, vacant-eyed and unresponsive, as though he were caught somewhere between dreams and reality. The authorities, confused but sympathetic, labeled him “catatonic” and transferred him to a psychiatric facility out of town.

I never visited. I couldn’t bring myself to see him again—not like that. Friends of his, those who only knew him as the smart, driven student he’d once been, tried to reach out, but he barely responded. Occasionally, he would murmur something low and indistinct, a name he’d repeat under his breath.

My name.

The nurses told me this one day, almost as if they thought I’d be comforted. But it only deepened the hollow ache within me. He was there because of me, because I’d dragged him into something I couldn’t control, something I never should have touched.

One night, I took everything—the spellbook, herbs, candles, and vials—to the edge of town. Beneath a twisted tree, I dug a shallow pit, threw in the items, and struck a match. The fire crackled and grew, devouring each piece, and I felt a strange calm, as though I could burn away the past.

But as the flames died, a chill crept over me. In a shard of glass, I glimpsed my reflection—his shadow faintly behind me, watching. I blinked, and it was gone. Yet, the weight lingered, an indelible mark, as if he would always be there, woven into my reflection, beyond my reach.

I had always found solace in the wilderness. The Appalachian Trail, with its sprawling, untamed forests and ever-present murmur of wind weaving through the trees, felt like a realm where civilization's chatter was replaced by nature's symphony. I had planned this trip meticulously: a two-week solo hike, a chance to disconnect and breathe in the wild. The pack on my back was heavy with supplies, and my boots felt sturdy as I set off, the trail stretching out before me in a serpentine embrace of roots and earth.

On the third day, I met him.

The light was soft that morning, filtering through the canopy and dappling the forest floor. I had just crossed a narrow stream when I saw the hiker. He was crouched by the water, cupping his hands to drink. The sun caught the worn edges of his backpack, which bore patches from other trails, distant places that spoke of experience and adventure. His hair was shaggy, and a scruff darkened his jawline, giving him a rugged, timeworn appearance.

“Hey,” he greeted as I approached, standing and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His smile was open, unassuming, and for a moment, it felt as though we had known each other far longer than a few seconds. I returned the greeting, and in that pause, a subtle connection sparked between us, the camaraderie shared by two souls venturing into the same wild unknown.

“You going southbound?” he asked, gesturing in the direction I was heading. When I nodded, he shouldered his pack. “Mind if I tag along for a bit? Haven’t had a conversation in days, and I could use some company.”

I considered it for a moment. Part of me craved the solitude I’d embarked on this journey to find. But another part—an undeniably social side that thrived on shared experiences—welcomed the opportunity. “Sure,” I agreed, and together, we set off.

His name was Daniel. As we made our way through the increasingly rugged terrain, conversation flowed easily between us. He told me about his past hikes, regaling me with tales of the Pacific Crest Trail and other adventures. In return, I shared some of my own experiences—smaller excursions, nothing as grand as his, but enough to keep the rhythm of our words balanced. He laughed often, a genuine, warm laugh that seemed to echo from somewhere deep.

The trail wound through groves of towering oaks and ancient hemlocks, their roots gnarled and weaving in intricate patterns across the path. Now and then, we encountered a meadow blooming with wildflowers or a clearing that offered a breathtaking view of the blue-hazed mountains beyond. There were times when silence fell between us, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was the kind of silence that spoke of a shared appreciation for the world around us, a moment of mutual awe.

Late in the afternoon, we reached a section where the trail descended sharply, weaving through a series of switchbacks. The air was cooler here, heavy with the scent of damp leaves and moss. I stumbled once, and Daniel reached out instinctively, steadying me with a firm hand. I noticed then how solid his grip felt, like the roots of the very trees we walked past.

“Careful,” he said, and there was something in his voice, a kind of deep concern that made me look at him a moment longer than necessary. His eyes met mine, and I saw something I couldn’t quite name—something that made my breath catch, but only for a fleeting second. Then he smiled again, and the sensation vanished as quickly as it had come.

That evening, we set up camp by a creek. The water sang a soothing lullaby as the sun dipped below the tree line, painting the sky in hues of orange and purple. We shared a meal, the firelight dancing between us, and I found myself grateful for his presence. Despite the vastness of the wilderness surrounding us, the night felt less daunting with him there.

“Do you ever think about how small we are?” I mused, staring at the embers spiraling skyward. “Out here, with the mountains and the stars, it’s easy to feel insignificant.”

Daniel poked at the fire, his expression thoughtful. “Yeah,” he said. “But sometimes I think it’s comforting. Knowing that the world carries on, no matter what. It’s... steady. Reliable, even if we’re not.”

His words lingered, and I felt a pang of something I couldn’t quite place. We talked until the sky was a velvet blanket dotted with stars, and sleep eventually pulled us under. In the stillness, the forest hummed its ancient song, and I drifted into dreams filled with shadows moving just beyond my reach.

The following days unfolded in a blur of sunlight and shadow, the trail stretching endlessly ahead as we pressed onward. The forest seemed to grow denser, the undergrowth more tangled, as if the earth itself sought to ensnare us. Daniel’s presence had become a steady comfort, a counterpoint to the sometimes harsh and unpredictable landscape.

We had developed an easy rhythm, our steps in sync as we navigated rocky ascents and steep descents. There was a sense of unity in our movements, the unspoken understanding that comes from traveling side by side. Yet, beneath the camaraderie, I began to notice things about him that didn’t quite add up.

For one, he never seemed to tire. While I occasionally paused to catch my breath or shed a layer of clothing, Daniel was unyielding, his pace unwavering. It wasn’t as if he pushed himself; rather, he moved as though the forest’s hardships were merely a suggestion, a breeze he could walk through unscathed. His stamina was admirable, almost enviable, but as the days passed, it became... unsettling.

Then there was the matter of his gear. His backpack, despite its well-worn appearance, never seemed to lose weight. He carried it effortlessly, without complaint. I brushed it off at first, telling myself that he was simply a seasoned hiker. But doubt began to gnaw at the edges of my mind, and I found myself studying him when I thought he wasn’t looking.

We had reached a stretch of trail that led us to a broad ridge, the land dropping away on either side to reveal a sea of trees below. The view was breathtaking, a sweeping panorama that made me pause in awe. Daniel came to stand beside me, silent, as we took it in.

“It’s beautiful,” I said finally, and he nodded, his gaze distant.

“It is,” he agreed. “But this place holds more than beauty.” His voice was quiet, almost reverent. “There’s something here that’s... different.”

I turned to look at him, puzzled. “Different how?”

He hesitated, as if weighing how much to reveal. “This land has stories,” he said. “Legends that are older than we can imagine. Some say there are things out here that never left when civilization crept closer.” He met my eyes then, his expression unreadable. “You ever feel like you’re being watched?”

The question sent a shiver through me, and I laughed to shake off the feeling. “I think everyone does, at some point out here. It’s the way the woods are, right? The sense of something ancient, hidden just out of sight.”

He didn’t laugh with me. Instead, he watched me with an intensity that made me want to look away. But I didn’t. Something held me there, rooted in place as the wind whispered through the trees. Finally, he turned and started walking again, and I was left to trail behind, questions swirling in my mind.

That night, the air was heavy with humidity, and the fire struggled to catch. We were deep in a hollow, surrounded by trees whose limbs seemed to lean closer as the dark set in. The forest was quiet, too quiet, as though holding its breath. Daniel sat across from me, sharpening a small knife he’d pulled from his pack. The rhythmic scrape of the blade against the whetstone filled the space between us.

“What made you decide to hike the trail?” I asked, trying to dispel the unease that clung to me. He glanced up, his expression softening.

“I guess I’m chasing something,” he said. “Or maybe running from something. Hard to tell the difference these days.”

The honesty in his voice surprised me, and I felt the tension between us ease. I nodded, understanding more than I wanted to admit. “Yeah,” I said. “I get that.”

The conversation drifted after that, and we settled into our own thoughts. As I lay in my tent, the weight of the day pressing down on me, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Daniel was guarding something—something I was perilously close to uncovering.

We pressed deeper into the Appalachian wilderness, the terrain growing ever more treacherous and the underbrush thicker, as though the forest was slowly closing in around us. The trees loomed tall and ancient, their gnarled branches twisting like skeletal fingers. Daniel was quiet, his mood subdued in a way that had become more frequent as we traveled. His eyes often drifted to the woods, a far-off look settling on his features, as if he could see something I couldn’t.

By the seventh day, my sense of unease had blossomed into a full-blown anxiety. Strange things began happening, events that felt too deliberate to be chalked up to coincidence. The rustling in the bushes that never seemed to move away, even as we progressed. The occasional echo of footsteps mirroring our own. The feeling of being observed, of unseen eyes following our every move. My imagination ran wild, fueled by the silence that had fallen between Daniel and me.

We reached a rocky outcropping around midday, the sky a pale, ominous gray. Clouds clustered low, threatening rain. We stopped to rest, and I took the opportunity to ask him something that had been gnawing at me.

“Daniel,” I said, hesitating as he looked up from adjusting the straps on his pack. “Have you... felt anything strange?”

He regarded me for a moment, his face unreadable. Then he sighed, the sound heavy and worn. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I’ve felt it. This place... it’s not like other trails. There are things here we don’t understand.”

“Like what?” I pressed, though part of me feared the answer.

His gaze shifted to the woods, and for a long time, he said nothing. Just when I thought he wouldn’t respond, he spoke. “Sometimes, people vanish out here,” he said. “Without a trace. No bodies, no signs of struggle. Just... gone. Some say it’s the land taking back what’s hers. Others think it’s something else, something older.”

A shiver coursed through me, and I had to remind myself that these were just stories. Legends, passed down through generations to scare hikers like me. Yet, the seriousness in his voice was undeniable.

We moved on, our conversation trailing off into silence. By late afternoon, the trail led us into a shadowy ravine. Mist clung to the ground, swirling around our boots, and the temperature dropped. It was then that I noticed Daniel lagging behind. He had never fallen behind before, and a new, unsettling thought occurred to me: Maybe I had been wrong about him. Maybe there was something deeply wrong.

I stopped, turning back to where he stood a few yards away. His face was pale, almost waxy, and he looked impossibly weary. Eroding the confident image I had built of him.

“You okay there?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even.

He nodded slowly, but his eyes didn’t meet mine. “It’s getting harder,” he murmured.

“Harder?” I stepped closer. “What do you mean?”

Before he could answer, a rustling sound erupted from the woods to our left. We both tensed, staring into the shadows. The sound grew louder, branches cracking and underbrush rustling as if something heavy was moving through. My pulse quickened, and I fumbled for the small knife strapped to my pack. Daniel, however, just stood there, eyes fixed on the noise with an expression I couldn’t decipher.

The rustling stopped, and the woods fell silent once more. A silence that was thick, suffocating, and pregnant with anticipation. I glanced at Daniel, half-expecting him to make a joke to lighten the mood, but he didn’t. Instead, he looked at me with a strange, almost apologetic expression.

“I didn’t mean to drag you into this,” he said softly. “I thought I had more time.”

I frowned, my confusion deepening. “What are you talking about?”

He opened his mouth to respond, but his voice was drowned out by another sound—a whispering, indistinct at first but growing louder. It came from all around us, an echoing murmur that seemed to rise from the very ground. I spun in a circle, heart thundering, searching for the source.

And then I saw them.

Figures emerged from the mist, their forms hazy and translucent. Men, women, even children, all dressed in hiking gear from various eras. Their faces were pale, eyes wide and empty, and their mouths moved in unison, forming the whispers that filled the ravine. I stumbled back, my breath catching as panic rose like bile.

“What the hell—”

Daniel stepped forward, his face etched with sorrow. “They’re the ones who were lost,” he said quietly. “Trapped between worlds. And I... I’m one of them.”

The world seemed to tilt around me. “What?” My voice came out thin, strained.

He met my gaze, and for the first time, I noticed the ethereal quality to his features. The way his edges seemed to blur, as if he were a painting beginning to smudge. “I died on this trail,” he confessed. “Years ago. I’ve been trying to find a way to move on, but I can’t until... until someone understands. Until someone knows.”

The truth hit me, cold and undeniable. He was a ghost. A spirit, bound to this place, his presence a lingering echo of a life cut short. The weight of it left me speechless, a tidal wave of disbelief crashing over me.

“I thought if I could help someone—guide them safely through—I might be freed,” he continued, his voice filled with a yearning that made my chest ache. “But it never works. No matter what I do, I’m still here.”

The whispering grew louder, the lost souls drawing closer. Their eyes held a silent plea, a yearning for release that mirrored Daniel’s. Fear twisted in my gut, but so did compassion.

“What do we do?” I asked, my voice shaking.

Daniel’s form flickered, and he gave me a sad smile. “You keep going,” he said. “Finish the trail. Live. And remember us.”

I wanted to protest, to say I wouldn’t leave him, but the mist thickened, and Daniel’s figure began to dissolve. The spirits pressed in, their whispers merging into a mournful wail, and I felt myself being pulled away, as if the forest itself were ushering me onward.

I stumbled back, tears streaming down my face, and then I ran. The ravine, the spirits, Daniel—all of it blurred as I fled, the path a twisting, treacherous blur beneath my feet.

When I finally broke free of the mist, the woods opened up, the whispers fading into the distance. I collapsed, gasping for air, and looked back. The ravine was gone, swallowed by the forest, and with it, Daniel.

But his memory lingered. His story, and the stories of the others lost, were now part of me. And as I rose, gathering my strength to continue, I silently promised I wouldn’t forget. The trail stretched on, and I walked forward, carrying the weight of his truth with every step.

I just wanted to have a nice vacation getaway after fall midterms.

Instead? I’m crammed into a hot tiny space, barely able to breathe, trying not to pass out while typing this.

For reference, this all started when the girls trip we talked about in the group chat finally became a reality. You see my friends Callie, Genevieve, and I, Elenor (Ellie for short) are hardcore Halloween fans. Anything horror related, spooky, paranormal, you name it- we eat that shit up. Fall is our favorite time of year. So, as a reward for our hard academic work this semester and passing exams, the three of us saved up and pitched in for a trip to New Orleans, Louisiana. The most haunted city in the United States of America. The best part? Our trip would take place the week of Halloween.

Exciting right? Wrong.

It should’ve been, but it didn’t turn out that way. For me at least. I don’t know where my friends are or what they’re doing. All I can do is hope that they’re not stuck in the same sick and twisted game as me.

Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me explain.

Last night, the second night of our trip, some local told us about The Seeker’s Game. Our Air BnB was in the French Quarter which is home to Bourbon street, where the party never ends. We’d been bar hopping and partying all night dressed as the Powerpuff Girls. Callie was Blossom, Gen was Buttercup, and I was Bubbles.

It was pretty late in the night when we stumbled into this bar. It was mostly empty with just the three of us, the bartender, and The Local occupying the space.

After our first round of shots, Gen started lamenting about how she wanted to see something really spooky. We’d been on a couple ghost tours already, but nothing was really hitting the spot, ya know?

Callie and I agreed, clinking our shot glasses together before ordering another round of drinks. That’s when The Local stepped in.

“So you want to see something scary eh?” A Creole accented voice asked ominously from a booth in the corner.

The three of us gave each other “the look” before bursting out into a fit of giggles. We went back to drinking, brushing the man’s interruption off. Then he got up from his booth and started making his way towards us at the bar, a whiskey sour in hand.

The Local was an older, skinny black guy. He walked with a bamboo cane to help with his limp. One of his eyes was blind, a cataract causing his retina to look pale blue and clouded. A salty goatee cascaded down his chin in the shape of a V.

“You should play The Seeker’s game then.” He slammed his glass on the bar, causing the three of us to jump in fright. This garnered a little chuckle out of him as he took his seat on a barstool.

“T-the Seeker’s Game?” I asked, shakily taking a sip of my drink. He’d definitely grabbed our attention now. “What’s that?”

The Local grinned with a glimmer of mischief in his good eye. “Oh ho ho, Mon chéri! Do you really want to know? Because once you do, there’s no going back.”

Callie, Genevieve, and I looked at each other skeptically. Callie then answered his question with another question. “Would we be asking you if we didn’t?”

“Ha!” He drunkenly laughed, energetically banging the palm of his hand on the counter. “You three are fun, I like it!”

We responded with more nervous laughter. At that point he was starting to creep us out more than this game was supposed to.

The Local then threw his head back, gulping down his drink. “To play The Seeker’s Game you first have to call out to him. The Seeker will then extend an invitation out to you if he wishes to accept. The game begins when the invitation is received. Be warned though for he sets the perimeters. He picks the time. The only thing you have to do, is hide.”

“How do we call out to him?” Callie asked, chuckling under her breath. Clearly, she didn’t believe a word he said.

Gen finished what was in her glass, looking The Local over curiously. She tried and failed to conceal her intrigue. “Do we just say his name?”

“No, Mon chérie,” The Local innocently grinned. “A chant must be invoked so The Seeker can hear you. It goes: Seeker, Seeker, heed our call! With every breath, we hide and sprawl! Seeker, Seeker, heed our call! As shadows dance, let fate enthrall!”

He leapt off his seat, swaying his shoulders back and forth with his arms up in the air. He laughed a wicked laugh before saying, “Then you must gather around, holding hands, and shout to the heavens: We want to play the seekers game! We want to play the seekers game! We want to play the seekers game!”

When The Local was done with his display, he took a bow before getting back in his seat. Gen gave the man a weak pity applause.

“Okay…” Callie said, taking another shot. Needless to say, we were thoroughly freaked out. But, another round of drinks would fix that. “So, shat’s the prize if we win, do we get a wish or something?”

The local stiffened, giving her a serious look,“The prize? The prize is your life.”

“No fucking way,” I murmured into my shot glass. Gen and Callie gave each other “the look” again. They followed in my footsteps and consumed more alcohol.

“Like I said, once the game starts there’s no going back…” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

“Well, thanks for telling us about this scary game of yours,” I said, pulling out my wallet to pay. Genevieve and Callie followed, apparently on the same wavelength as me. “Consider us spooked.”

The Local tipped his imaginary hat at us. “Do have a Happy Halloween now,” he said, flashing a smile before hobbling back over to his booth.

We gave the man our final pleasantries before leaving the bar for the night.

“So should we do it?” Callie asked randomly as we walked down Burbon Street. By then some time had passed since our encounter with The Local. It was nearing almost four in the morning.

“Do what?” I responded, fiddling with my costume.

“Play The Seeker’s Game, duh!” Out of the three of us, Callie was the last person I expected to bring up playing the game.

Gen pulled out some chapstick from her purse and started applying it on her lips. “Sure, seems fun.”

“Uh, am I the only one that remembers him saying we could die?” I laughed, tightening my pigtails.

“Puh-lease!” Callie squealed. “It’s not real, Elenor, so there’s no harm in trying it.”

I couldn’t argue with that logic.

After looking around for a place with the perfect ambience, we landed on an old courtyard. A defunct fountain sat in the middle with vines covering it and some marble benches. The moonlight gave it an ethereal glow. We set our things down and started to chant.

“Seeker, Seeker, heed our call! With every breath, we hide and sprawl! Seeker, Seeker, heed our call! As shadows dance, let fate enthrall!”

Next we gathered in a circle and grabbed hands, mimicking The Local as we gyrated back and forth. We danced and spun around, having a little and had fun with it. Our raucous laughs filled the old courtyard.

“We want to play the seekers game! We want to play the seekers game! We want to play the seekers game!”

The three of us stood there waiting in silence for something to happen. After standing there for five minutes Gen and Callie snorted and started giggling like school girls. Nothing had happened.

But I felt weird. Too creeped out and too drunk. I voiced my thoughts to the group. My friends wanted to stay out a little longer, so I went back to the AirBnB early by myself. I bid the girls adieu and somehow managed to stumble back and right into bed.

Today, I woke up with a raging hangover around three in the afternoon. My first stop in the bathroom revealed I looked as bad as I felt. The hair in my pigtails were wiry, my makeup was running, and there was a stain of unknown origins on my blue dress.

My second stop was to the kitchen. There I brewed myself a fresh cup of coffee and downed about four aspirin. Groggily, I stumbled to the front door, wanting nothing more than to enjoy my morning cup of joe in one of the rocking chairs out on the porch. I wanted to take in the historic scenery and watch as people got ready to start Trick-or-treating.

A warm gulp of coffee slid down my throat as I stuck my hand out for the door handle. A swipe and a miss. I paused, the lip of my mug stopping just beneath my mouth, wisps of steam still floating off the hot beverage.

The doorknob was gone.

A deep breath then a step back. I must’ve been more out of it than I thought. After rubbing my eyes, I looked again.

Still no door handle. In its place was a patch of smooth wood painted white. Like there had never been a doorknob there at all.

I let out a disbelieving laugh. I’d try the glass sliding back doors next. The coffee mug just about slipped out of my hands. The plastic handle on the doors had been removed too.

Frantically, I searched every door in the house. This is when I discovered pretty much every other door still had its handle. Only the doors leading to the outside world seemed to be inopenable.

Okay, if I couldn’t leave through a door, I’d just have to crawl out a window. Imagine my surprise when I found that the windows we’d been able to open just the other day, were now one big pane of glass, unable to open. No biggie. Glass could be broken.

Honestly, I was bugging. Completely freaked out and feeling like a caged rabid animal. And caged rabid animals do crazy things when they’re scared.

The dining room table of our Air BnB had these fancy wicker chairs surrounding it. They were light, but sturdy too. Just sturdy enough to break through a glass pane.

A guttural yell passed through my lips as I charged at the back door, a wicker chair as my battering ram.

Thunk!

My shoulder crashed into the piece of furniture, aiding my attack on the glass. Unfortunately, my first attempt was fruitless.

Composing myself, I picked the chair up and charged forward once more. The view of freedom taunted me. Just beyond those glass doors lay a whole world filled with fresh air. I set forth my attack, running with all my might. The collision was a hard one, but not enough to break the glass.

My balance wavered from all that momentum. I tripped, tossing the chair back with me. Thankfully, I managed to catch myself on the kitchen counter before cracking my head open on the floor. That’s when I saw it. The note.

It was addressed to me, Ellie. The handwriting on it was hauntingly light and elegant. It was an invitation.

My heart sank to the bottom of my stomach. “No way,” I breathed out, shakily. “It can’t be-“

But it was. The back of the note revealed the rules of this game.

This house.

“He sets the perimeters”

The game lasts until midnight.

“He picks the time.”

The game starts now.

“All you have to do, is hide.”

Fuck me.

According to the note he would begin seeking at sundown. That gave me about an hour and a half to find a good hiding spot, which wouldn’t be easy in this Air BnB. The layout was small: only a master bedroom, a guest room, living/dining room and kitchen. Plus furniture was sparse too.

Hiding under the bed, in a closet, or in the shower would be too easy. The Seeker would find me too fast. The cabinets were a no go too. They were filled with food or other miscellaneous items.

I needed to think outside the box.

I searched the bedrooms for a crawlspace entrance or attic door. Just to see if maybe there was a secret hidden entrance somewhere, I pulled a couple books out from the bookcase. Nada.

Maybe the couch? No, it would look lumpy and obvious if I hid in there.

With a groan, I kicked the thing, letting all my frustrations out because at that point I was going to die.

My purse slipped off the cushion from the harsh vibrations, falling to floor and spilling its contents out everywhere. Including my set of car keys.

My eyes lit up as I remembered my car was out in the garage! Normally it’d be parked out on the street, but something in my gut told me to bring it in last night.

Now I had the perfect hiding place.

You see, my mom wanted us to drive her old minivan down here. She went on and on about luggage space, good gas mileage, and reliability. Basically she didn’t give me much choice about taking it. But the good thing about this minivan is that there’s built in compartments in the middle. The middle seats can fold down into them, giving the cabin more trunk space if needed.

When the middle seats were up, however, theoretically there was just enough space in those compartments to fit a tiny, petite, body like mine.

Knowing I’d be in there a while, I grabbed a large water bottle and my phone before heading out to the garage.

To double check and make sure, I tried to open both the regular door and garage door once I got out there. Just as I thought though, they wouldn’t budge.

The minivan chirped as I unlocked it. Stealing one last glance out of the garage door window before hopping in, I noticed sundown just off in the distance. It wouldn’t be long before The Seeker started seeking.

Squeezing myself into the compartment was harder than I thought. The angle needed to be just right for me to fit down there. Relief flooded through my body as I finally got my hip into a good place where it wouldn’t pop.

I slid the door to the car closed, grabbing the compartment hatch and floor mat at the same time. Slowly, I lowered the upper half of my body down into the small space, carefully sliding everything above me in place.

From an aerial view, it should appear like a normal minivan from the inside, with nobody none the wiser that I was hiding right beneath the seats.

It’s dark out now. I know because there’s a hole on the floor that’s about the size of a penny. I can see the garage’s concrete floor.

Someone’s been moving around inside the Air BnB. It’s probably The Seeker. I can hear him searching, angrily tossing things about because he hasn’t found me yet.

I’ve been holding my breath since the light in the garage turned on a couple minutes ago. Slow, methodical footsteps filled the air as The Seeker walks around, still looking for his target. Me. I can see his shadow moving about from my little peephole.

My tongue almost came off, stifling a scream when the back door to the minivan slid open. I mentally kicked myself for not locking it behind me.

My hands were clasped tightly around my nose and mouth, making my breathing barely audible. I watched his shadow in anticipation as he rifled around in the cabin above me.

My shuddering sigh of relief was concealed by the sound of the car door slamming shut. The Seeker stormed out of the garage in a fit of anger. He’s back inside my Air BnB, still seeking.

I’ve outsmarted him for now, but there’s still four more hours until midnight.

All I can do is pray to God that he doesn’t find me. I don’t think I’ll survive if he does.

My younger brother wanted to visit a haunted school for Halloween. He recently fell in love with ghost-hunting YouTube channels but wasn’t ready to buy all the equipment to go on a hunt himself. But he wanted to still go to any haunted locations. I didn’t exactly have the time to drive him around. I kept putting off hanging out with him until now. At first, the plan was to just drop him off at the school and pick him up later. Ben was fifteen after all. The principal refused to let him explore the school alone which I understood. I traded my shift and packed up my sibling for a boring day out.  

“Sorry, you’re stuck with me for a few hours. Wouldn’t you rather go to a Halloween party instead of hanging out with me?” I joked to him on the drive to the school.  

He didn’t look as excited as I expected when he got into the car. Maybe he was a bit nervous.   

“I wasn’t invited to one.” He said in an even voice but I could tell he was upset.  

I shouldn’t have brought up his lack of social life. He was a shy and nerdy kid. It’s not as if he didn’t have any friends. They just preferred to play games online rather than hang out together.  

“Well, I bet they’re all lame parties anyway. Who cares about drunk people dressed in skimpy costumes when you could explore a haunted school?” I said trying to lighten the mood.  

He smiled and I relaxed a little.   

“Sorry, you gave up a shift for me.” Ben commented and the mood shifted again.  

I shook my head not wanting to have this sort of conversation.  

“I traded a shift, not gave it away. Don’t worry about it.”  

Money has been tight for us the past few years. We all made sure Ben got what he needed and some of what what he wanted. I got a job early to help pay for things. He wasn’t a dumb kid. He noticed the extra shifts and penny-pinching. I think he felt guilty that he hadn’t been able to find a side hustle that brought in money aside from mowing lawns in the summertime.  

We arrived at the school after nearly an hour of driving. The light of the afternoon was orange due to the season. I didn’t know how long Benny wanted to stay here. An hour? Two? Until nighttime? The building didn’t appear special. It was older. Ben told me it was built in the 60’s. And it was still in use aside from some rooms being off limits.  

A man met us at the front doors inside. He was tall and thin with tied-back black hair. I didn’t expect the principal to look like him. Instead of a balding middle-aged plump man, he was a handsome slightly older man with hints of wrinkles at the corner of his eyes.  

“Thank you for sharing your time and letting us explode tonight.” I said to the man and shook his hand.  

Ben awkwardly did the same, nodding and acting nervous around a stranger. Normally he wasn’t this shy.  

“This is Ben. He was the one who asked permission right Mr...?” I trailed off not remembering his name.  

“Chambers.” The principle was helpfully added. “I don’t mind giving up my Halloween to help a young man with a report. It's not often students are interested in the history of this building.” He explained.  

Report? I glanced at my brother and he looked away. So that’s why he was acting weird. He lied to be able to hang around this building tonight. It was a harmless white lie but I decided to make my brother actually do a report and send it to Mr. Chambers as a thank you for his time.  

A gust of wind rattled the front doors. I looked over my shoulder to see the sky suddenly grey. I didn’t remember seeing dark clouds when we walked inside. A small rumble came under our feet. It wasn’t as loud as thunder but what else would it be? No one else seemed to notice. Mr. Chambers gestured for us to start walking down the hallway as he started to go into details of the school. I only half paid attention.  

I had graduated high school a year ago. Since then, I worked my butt off to save up for college. I was accepted into a course and would start next fall. Being inside a high school felt odd. I never expected to be back in one.  

We stopped in front of a long line of lockers but oddly enough a door had been removed from one. The metal was dusty from years of neglect.  

“In 1971 six students and a staff member went missing. There had been rumors they found the head of one student inside this locker. However, there are no official reports detailing such events. The idea remained causing any student to be assigned the locker to be tormented by their classmates. We removed the door years ago to avoid such bullying.” Mr. Chambers said in a calm voice.  

He was a good speaker. His tone was even and easy to follow. I hadn’t looked into any history of the place beforehand. All I knew was the it might be haunted thing. I stood behind Ben and placed a hand on his shoulder causing him to slightly flinch. I liked teasing him and didn’t get to do it very often now. 

Ben wrote a few things down and took a photo of the locker with his phone.  

“Sorry, I don’t know much about this place. Were the students ever found?” I asked the principal as we walked down the hallway to the next location.  

“Not all of them.” He answered with a slight shrug.  

“So, they found at least one of them alive or...?” I said following behind Ben and the man.  

“Oh, no I meant they found some parts of them.” Mr. Chambers corrected himself.  

Normally I wasn’t affected by ghost stories but the casual way he spoke about such a gruesome crime made my skin crawl. It bothered Ben as well. Reaching down, I grabbed his sides and made a noise at the same time to make him jump. His face flushed red as his leg kicked out trying to get me. Mr. Chambers smiled, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes making him appear older for a moment.  

We finally stopped in front of a locked classroom. A sign had been taped to the door warning people to stay out. Our guide stepped next to the door ready to dump more information before unlocking it.  

“All photos and reports of the event have been destroyed or lost. All we have left are second-hand accounts of the people who witnessed the gruesome sight that was found on Halloween night in 1972.” Mr. Chambers started.  

“Wasn’t it 1971?” I spoke up unable to help myself.   

Ben glanced at me. The principal didn’t appear offended but was glad to see I had been paying attention.  

“Yes, the seven people went missing in 1971. Their bodies only appeared a year later. Pieces of the six students were found inside this classroom arranged in a way people described to be a part of a ritual. All the heads were missing. They all appeared healthy before their deaths as if they were taken care of over the year they went missing. Since there are no photos and sparse eyewitness accounts, no official details of the ritual-like crime are available.”  

Benny appeared interested. He was so engrossed in the story I bet he would jump out of his skin if I grabbed him again. I held off crossing my arms. This all felt like a weak story to me.  

“Did the ritual thing even happen? Or do you think stories got exaggerated over time?” I suggested only to have Ben kick my shin.  

Mr. Chambers softly laughed at us and nodded his head.  

“That’s entirely possible.” He agreed which disappointed my little brother. “There are simply not enough facts in this case. What is known for certain is the seven people disappeared. Six students were found inside this classroom a year later with pieces missing. The staff member was never found. Due to the lack of information countless rumors spread. A few stuck. Most claimed the staff member killed the students in some sort of Satanic ritual. The police handling the case was a small inexperienced department and never solved the case. That added to the rumors.”  

“It was a long time ago. They didn’t have computers and all that back then so I don’t blame them for losing records. I heard there had never been a murder in this area, let alone six. I think I read one of the students was a deputy’s niece. He killed himself years later because he could never find her murdered.” Ben said showing off just how much he researched this crime. 

I wish he put the same kind of effort into his math homework. Mr. Chambers was nodding along but he looked a little concerned over something.  

“Was 1971 really that long ago?” He asked mostly to himself.  

He didn’t look to be in his 50s until I squinted a little. I bet he was having the same kind of crisis I did whenever I heard kids speaking in newer slang. I understood the feeling of suddenly being aware of your graying hair.  

“Anyway, you’ll be able to take photos for your report. I just ask you to not enter the room.” Mr. Chambers said then reached over to unlock the classroom door.  

For some reason, I felt my heart start beating faster. I unconsciously held my breath almost expecting to see the still dead bodies of the students trapped inside. It was a silly idea and yet, the mental image didn’t leave.   

A burst of cold dry air came from the room when the door was opened. Just before Mr. Chambers let go of the handle a sound echoed down the hallway causing all of us to jump. A phone rang loud and angry. The older man chuckled over his reaction and told us he needed to answer the phone or call the person back. We assured him we would be fine alone for a few minutes and let him rush down the hallway.  

Ben raised his phone and carefully started to take photos of the dark classroom. He needed to put his flash on to see inside. The room was empty with the floor warping from years of disuse. The windows had been covered with cardboard. Small cracks of dull grey light came through. Even the blackboard had been removed.  

“Why are you so interested in this?” I asked my brother.  

Somehow, my voice sounded wrong. It was as if we shouldn’t speak next to a place like this.  

“I dunno I just...” He started unsure if he wanted to tell me.  

I placed my hands on his shoulders tempted to hug him. He was getting older so signs of affection like that didn’t fly anymore. No matter how old he got, I knew I would always see him as my baby brother. I wondered if he would grow taller than me. Right now, I was a head taller than him.  

“I like the idea of people’s memories sticking around. We don’t know what happened to these people but we know their names. They’re a little sign honoring them and everything. I think it’ll be there for years...”  

I had no idea he cared about stuff like that. Was he having a middle-aged crisis before he outgrew his baby face. What made his brain worry about these things?  

“That's sweet you remember their names.” I commented and he jabbed an elbow into my gut.  

“Don’t call it sweet.” He said annoyed.  

I smiled unable to help myself. This poor kid was concerned about so many things. Some of which didn’t matter.  

“Why? Because it’s not all alpha male?” I teased.  

“Stop.” he said with his cheeks getting red.  

“In case you didn’t notice, we don’t come from a very manly bloodline. A light burst of wind could topple all the guys in our family. Embrace being cute and delicate. It's in our blood.”  

I bent down to hug him from behind and tried to rub my cheek against his. I think the last time I smothered him like this he was ten. He yelled, trying to get out of my grasp. We wrestled for a few minutes little Benny unable to gain much distance. His foot slipped inside the classroom. He jolted back with such a horrified expression on his face I thought something was wrong. I let go, concerned over his reaction.  

Ben’s breathing started to get heavy with tears appearing in his eyes. I was confused by the sudden change.   

“Hey buddy, did you roll your ankle or something?” I asked wondering if I had been too rough.  

“No I...” He stuttered then took a moment to collect himself. “I just felt wrong. I can’t explain it.”  

I patted his shoulder. This place must be getting to him.   

“How about we leave early? Maybe your blood sugar is messed up or something.” I offered. 

He chewed on his lip not really wanting to take me up on my offer. Footsteps came from down the hallway. Mr. Chambers came back unaware of how Ben was feeling.  

“What are you kids up to?” He asked in a friendly tone.  

He must have heard our roughhousing from down the hall. Sound carried well in this place.  

“Mr. Chambers...” I asked my voice suddenly filled with dread. “Are we the only ones in this building?”   

He nodded confused.  

“Yes, why?” He asked staring in our direction not understanding our change in expression.  

“Then who is behind you?”  

He had stopped walking down the hallway when he first spoke. I had noticed a dark shape I assumed to be his shadow until it stood up. My hand flew to Benny’s griping it tight, my body getting ready to run. The shadow looked to be a very tall and thin person lacking any features. Then, a smile appeared on its face just as Mr. Chambers turned to look at it. Instead of appearing afraid, he looked almost disappointed seeing such a creature. It was as if he thought we were childishly pranking him.  

A clawed hand shot out digging into his stomach. Within seconds the hand ripping out all sorts of important flesh and organs, spilling them onto the ground. The older man didn’t scream or make a sound. His body fell limp into the creature to helplessly be further ripped apart.  

We were too scared to scream. We just ran.  

Our shoes hit the floor hard slipping in places. The shadows followed us. The lockers flew open as countless dark hands shot out trying to rip at us. Benny tripped. On instinct, I scooped him up to keep running thanking God we did in fact come from a family with the men on the shorter side making him easy to carry. I saw the front doors and turned to crash into it. My brother was in my arms as I used my back to open the glass doors, heart racing.  

We should have gotten out. Instead, I found us walking back into the school. Did I get turned around somehow in my panic? I set Ben down and dragged him along to go through the doors again.   

Only to walk back into the school. I screamed in frustration. How was this possible? Ok, so we did see a shadow monster. The front doors magically not letting us outside were no longer out of the realms of possibility.  

“Windows!” Ben shouted.  

He took my hand to drag me into a classroom. The far wall was nothing but a line of windows. When we entered the room, desks and chairs started to move trying to get in our way. We jumped over them reaching the other side to bang on the glass. I had picked up a chair to smash the window just as Benny unlocked on and opened it. That worked. I pushed him through first. To my horror, he came tumbling back out through a suddenly open window next to me. I swore a few times using words my little brother had never heard me say before.  

The activity in the room was getting too chaotic. We got out before getting crushed by some desks. For the moment the hallway was clear of the shadow hands giving us a second to regroup.  

“We can’t get out.” Ben said in a shaking voice.  

“They totally did a ritual in 1972.” I said and he furiously nodded agreeing.  

“I played this game with a haunted school where you needed to collect the body parts of the students. Maybe we need to do that? Make them whole and we can leave?” He suggested on the verge of a breakdown.  

“Buddy, that’s a game though...” The words just slipped out.  

He made a squawking noise and then spread out his arms gesturing at the situation we were in. Ok, sure, game logic could make sense. We were dealing with shadow monsters and possessed school equipment.   

I wish I could say we had a plan. We avoided the shadows and tracked down the body parts to please the restless spirits. I really wish this had a happy ending. Instead, I suddenly felt a white-hot pain in my back, and then the feeling in my legs was cut off.  

Looking down I saw my bother splattered with blood. I was scared to death that he had somehow gotten hurt until I glanced at my stomach to see three long dark claws coming out from in.  

Benny started to wail. The claws were ripped sideways, and my body fell to the ground in pieces. I can’t even start to describe the pain. I was scared of death, but my last thought before the darkness took over was how I regretted bringing Ben here.  

I woke up. I should not have woken up. My body jolted, fear and panic clouding my brain. I found myself bound to a chair in the middle of an empty classroom. The boarded-up windows told me what room we were sitting in. Benny was next to me also tied to a chair passed out. Thankfully I didn’t see any wounds on him.  

Slowly his head raised. Our eyes met and he started to scream. He nearly tipped over his chair trying to get away from him. I had been ripped apart in front of his eyes. I don’t blame him for the reaction.  

“When you were six you left the fridge open all night at Christmas because you wanted Santa to get more food for all the reindeer and bring some back for the elves. I told Mom and Dad the fridge just died overnight so you didn’t get in trouble.” I said trying to sound calm.  

He stopped struggling, eyes wide trying to decide if he could trust me. Ben assumed I was some sort of monster disguised as his dead sibling instead of the person he cared about coming back to life.  

“You...” He sputtered holding back more tears.  

“Go ahead and cry.” I told him.  

I wanted to just hold him and cry too. He quietly sobbed for a few minutes rubbing his wet cheeks against his shoulders. My heart hurt that he was going through all this. But I was glad he trusted me enough to act more like a kid when we were alone. I felt like when he was with our parents Benny acted too mature. He needed to just relax once and a while and not worry about what others thought.  

“I’m sorry. If I didn’t-” He started.  

“Don’t.” I cut him off with a stern voice. “This is not your fault. Don’t ever blame yourself.”  

Footsteps came from the door as it was opened. A person walked over in front of us. Someone Ben didn’t expect to see walking around but I did. I glared at him with clear hatred.  

“He’s right. It’s not your fault. I didn’t even know this was going to happen until it did.” Mr. Chambers said his voice sounding cold and distant.  

“Bullshit!” I shouted back.  

He didn’t react. A cold feeling came to the back of my neck. I glanced behind us to see the tall dark figure, its shape flickering. My stomach rolled making it hard to keep a brave face. 

“A ritual was performed by the school principal back in 1971. The goal was to bring forth dark creatures into this world. Instead, this new layer was created. No one can come in or out unless the layer lets them. No one can die. The ones trapped in here shall forever remain stuck in time regardless of how much suffering they endure. It seems as if the seal on this place weakened enough to let you two inside. It’s happened before. But all the others were able to escape before the seal closed. Bad luck for you two.” The older man shrugged sounding like he was simply telling us the weather and not how we were doomed. 

Ben’s bottom lip started to tremble. This was far too much for him to handle. I strained against the rope trying to get free of the chair. I couldn’t accept this.  

“There has to be a way out!” I shouted voice raw.  

Mr. Chambers shook his head, then paused. It was poor acting. He had been waiting to make this offer since he walked into the room.  

“The seal is weak enough to let one of you leave. The one that remains here will be tormented without any rest or escape. This place is fueled by negative emotions. The more intense, the better. It appears as if I’ve gotten used to it all. Thus, why it opened up to bring another victim inside.”  

I narrowed my eyes trying to spot a lie. Mr. Chambers did appear dead inside. He sounded nothing like the person we first met. Benny made a sound snapping me from my thoughts.  

“I’ll stay!” I shouted before my brother could speak.  

“No!” He yelled back sounding like a child. “I was the one who asked to come here! I should-”  

“I’m staying. That’s final.” I used my best older sibling's voice to shut him up.  

He lowered his head failing to hold back more tears. It hurt so much seeing him like this. I don’t think there could be any physical pain these monsters could inflict that would ever be greater than how I felt at that moment.  

“I don’t want you to leave. I barely have any friends. I just wanted us to hang out before you left for college... I just. I can’t...”  

My heart sank deeper into my chest. I wasn’t aware he had been that stressed out about me moving away next year. Mr. Chambers watched us with a cold and emotionless expression. He didn’t care which one of us stayed. As long as he had a new plaything.  

“Benny, listen to me. I love you. No matter where I am, or how much time passes that will never change. You’re a great person. You just need to see that. I know you’ll make friends. You don’t need that many. You’ll find a person who will see how special you are.”  

“I’m a baby.” He sniffled.  

“So what? Be immature. Keep playing the games you like and collect awesome toys. You can be forty and still have the same interests you did when you were a teenager. Just keep being you. You’re a good kind person. That’s all that matters.”  

He raised his head and I put on my best smile. I wanted to see him grow up. I wanted to watch him get friends and get taller than me. I wanted to hear about his weird interests and cover for him when he got in trouble with my parents.   

“From what I’m hearing you both would like to stay. I need a clear answer from each of you.” The older man said in a stern tone.  

I nodded at my brother knowing that he’ll be alright without me. No matter how painful of a thought that was.  

“I’m staying.” I firmly stated.  

“I'm leaving.” Benny said holding back sobs.  

Mr. Chambers raised his hand and snapped his fingers. That was it. Benny disappeared as well as the chair I had been sitting on. I fell to the floor, free but still stuck inside the school.  

“I’ll give you a few hours to collect yourself. Then we’ll start.” He said and started to turn away.  

“I want the truth. What’s really going on here?” I demanded.  

Something felt off about his words. I couldn’t place it. I knew he had been lying but about what?  

He crossed his arms behind his back with a sigh. When he spoke again he sounded like he had when we first met.  

“My twin was the one who performed the ritual. He wanted an army of monsters under his control because he felt like the world owed him more than what he had. Of course, he botched it all up leaving me to clean up his mess. I made a deal that would seal away what he summoned in this layer as long as those monsters were fed negative emotions. These creatures cannot be sent back. If this seal breaks and this layer disappears, they’ll come into the world to attack innocent victims.” He explained and my head started to swim with questions.  

“Why didn’t you tell us that? How come you let Benny go without the truth?” I asked somewhat doubting his words.  

Maybe he was lying to get me on his side for some unknown reason. The shadow monster watched us in the corner of the room. The sharp claws at its side were ready to use when the time came. After a minute he finally looked over with a tired expression.  

“There are some sad people in this world. I didn’t want this to get out in case they started to come here offering themselves. They may assume since they’re already in pain, then they might as well make their suffering mean something.”  

A heavy silence fell between us. I didn’t know what to believe. Was this man a victim or the mastermind behind all of this? It looked like I now had a lot of time to try and figure it out.   

“I’m getting out of here. I don’t care what you say. I need to get back to my brother.”  

Mr. Chambers looked me over almost amused at my statement. A sudden thought came to me. Was he here by choice? Or did his bother to force him to stay all those years ago? And what happened to his twin?   

As if able to read my thoughts to speak again.  

“If I had a better relationship with my brother, then all of this may not have happened. Instead, we both got dragged into the trouble he caused. While you’re here feel free to fight back and insult him all you want. He earned it.”  

A cold breath appeared at the base of my neck. A pair of dark-clawed fingers wrapped around my shoulders from behind. I deep cold dread came to my stomach that made it impossible to turn around and face what was just out of sight. The man who wanted power became twisted into something beyond human. And he had been hurting the only one who ever cared about him for years.   

The hands fell away letting me breathe again. Mr. Chambers left the room after giving my cell phone an interested glance. I guessed he hadn’t seen them too often and wasn’t certain of what they could do.  

The signal was weak. No calls got through. It took a few solid minutes to just load anything. Even if I could contact someone, how can they reach me?  

Those things are waiting just outside the room. I can hear them. I don’t know how much longer I have before they drag me outside to do God knows what. No matter how scared I am or whatever I face I can’t give up. I’ll see my brother again someday. I don’t care what I have to go through to make that happen.