When the metal doors of the elevator slid open, we were finally free.

Standing on the threshold between reality and our personal hell dragged the breath from my lungs. I didn't want to step back into what was right after drowning for so long—so fucking long. Days bled into weeks, and weeks into months.

It was a trap none of us saw coming: a job interview inside an office building in the middle of nowhere.

No kidnapper, no grand speech, no motive. Just us, locked away to die.

I was fresh out of high school—a naive, bright-eyed wonder egg, ready to explore the world. Instead, I found myself with three other interviewees and an elevator that went dead on floor four.

When sunlight hit my face, it felt both wrong and right, foreign yet real, prickling my eyes. Blurry faces hovered in front of me. Paramedics, their voices bleeding into my mind. “Sweetie, it’s okay, I’m here.”

One of them, a woman, tried to smile, tried to soothe me.

But her hands trembled, fear glinting behind her plastic mask.

Her gloved hands gently wrapped around my elbows as if I were dangerous.

Jeez, I wasn’t an animal.

Her eyes kept flicking up and down my body.

She motioned for me to move, but I stood frozen, transfixed by flickering light.

“Move.”

My gaze flicked to Caine, standing behind me with his arms crossed. He looked better without his beard—just like the smug, pretentious boy I met the day the elevator doors slammed shut on us.

I spluttered on a laugh I couldn’t control.

We were finally being rescued, and he was still acting like an asshole.

“Come on, Violet,” Caine said, rolling his eyes. “We’re not getting any younger.”

“Ignore him,” Summer groaned from the floor, cross-legged. I preferred her with hair. When she shaved it all off, she didn’t look like Summer anymore. “Caine just wants to go back to being insufferable. Let him go first.”

“If anyone’s going first, it’s me,” Kai muttered. He leaned against the back wall, head tipped back, still swearing he could climb through the elevator shaft.

I frowned at his wide smile.

The paramedic clapped her hands in my face, snapping me out of it.

But Kai kept smiling.

How could he smile?

When I had eaten his teeth? When I’d stripped the meat from his bones and stuffed myself full? His teeth hurt going down, but they were enough. Summer’s skin made the perfect outfit. The stretchy parts of her neck became little bracelets.

The paramedic’s soothing mask shattered into screams, and she jumped back when seeping red dripped from our little home.

I stepped out, legs splattered with blood and writhing maggots.

Caine didn’t follow me. He stood frozen, glaring, as I adjusted his skull atop my head.

The crown I snatched from him when I took my rightful place.

Queen of the elevator, at last.

Contents: Mass disappearances, seismic events, and subsequent investigation of Tributary, Vermont. 1992-1998. Pertinent definitions provided.

Seismic activity first noted at 0632 on March 5th, 1992, by one of our senior personnel, Dr. David Wilkins, stationed at the Woodford State Park, Vermont. At dawn, he noted a magnitude 7.1 earthquake with an epicenter approximately three kilometers northeast of Glastenbury Mountain. The seismographic data suggested a massive and ongoing tectonic shift centered on Tributary, a small town along the edge of the Deerfield River. Despite that, there were no reports of distress from the civilians of Tributary in the hours that followed initial seismographic readings.

That morning, Dr. Wilkins placed calls out to all the nearby ranger outposts. Eleven out of the twelve did not note any abnormal noise or quaking, but five of those rangers observed a subtle visual “vibration” of the landscape when asked to look toward the epicenter. The twelfth outpost, 0.3 kilometers south of Tributary, could not be reached by telephone, despite multiple calls.

Concerned about a potential developing convergence point, Dr. Wilkins ordered an emergent quarantining of the area. He and his team planned to perform confirmatory testing once they established a physical perimeter around the epicenter.

———————————————

Convergence Point*:* A collapse of the temporal framework that keeps diverging chronologic possibilities separate and distinct from each other. This collapse results in an abnormal overlap of multiple chronologies at one single point in space.

Examples of small, non-destructive convergence points include: identical twins, déjà vu phenomenon.

The larger the convergence point, the more destructive the anomaly is. Additionally, larger convergence points are at a higher risk of expansion, as the initial temporal collapse often has enough energy to destabilize adjacent, initially unaffected areas.

Examples of large, destructive convergence points include: The Flannan Isles Lighthouse and other missing person cases, such as the disappearances of Eli Barren or that of the Shoemaker family.

———————————————

Dr. Wilkins requested the initial perimeter encompass a half-mile radius around the epicenter. There were concerns from upper management that this was unnecessary use of funding and labor. However, Dr. Wilkins successfully argued that, if the seismographic data was accurate, they may be dealing with the largest convergence point in recorded history. If so, the anomaly would be an unprecedented threat to all human life and immediate containment was of paramount importance.

Upper management relented and siphoned resources to Vermont. The organization completed and operationalized the perimeter three days later, on March 8th. No civilians were detected leaving the quarantined area during that time. A handful of calls came in from outside of Tributary inquiring into the safety of family members, friends, or business associates that were permanent residents of Tributary. The Bureau managed these calls with bribery, coercion, or neutralization. Thankfully, the town was insular and had minimal connections to the world at large, allowing a quarantine to be established with limited additional loss of human life.

Further testing suggested there was an exceptionally massive convergence point radiating from the seismic epicenter. Bacteria gathered from the perimeter had a 29% rate of chimerism, and camera installations positioned towards the epicenter by Dr. Wilkins and his team revealed consistent refractive doubling.

———————————————

Chimerism*:* An abnormal merging of microscopic organisms that indicates recent convergence. Single-cell bacteria present in the environment (Clostridium, Bacillus) will often form atypical, multicellular hybrids if subjected to convergence. Concerningly, unlike their mammalian counterparts, this merging process does not appear to result in death.

There are no documented instances of a multicellular hybrid infecting a human, but it is an ongoing consideration. Some research on hybrids has shown that they may be more deadly, contagious, and resistant to antibacterial treatment, but these findings are early and require additional corroboration.

Normal levels for chimerism are less than 0.001%. Prior to Tributary, the highest levels ever documented were 4%.

Refractive Doubling*:* A phenomenon that can be observed with ongoing, low levels of convergence, wherein a photograph taken of the affected area will show overlapping objects that the naked eye cannot perceive.

As an example: Imagine someone took a photograph of a person leaning back against a single oak tree in an area undergoing convergence. Although they may appear to look normal, a picture may reveal the person’s right hand has eight fingers. Or that the tree has another, identical tree growing out of its side.

***Both phenomena were first described by Dr. Wilkins. His current protocol for evaluation of refractory doubling involves placing several automated cameras around an area concerning for convergence. Trained personnel manually review photos taken every thirty seconds by the cameras, inspecting for signs of doubling.

———————————————

On March 10th, a trained pilot flew a plane over Tributary to visualize the affected area. When questioned afterwards about what he saw, the pilot remarked that “the land and buildings around the epicenter were wobbling, like the inside of a lava lamp”. His answer was similar, although more extreme, to the observations made by some of the park rangers on March 5th, who described the affected area as “vibrating”.

Pictures taken from a camera on the hull of the plane could not substantiate what the pilot saw. When developed, they were all pure white, with scattered brown-black specks that gave the photos a “burned” appearance.

Based on the testing, Dr. Wilkins was of the opinion that a convergence point of unprecedented size and scope had materialized directly on top of Tributary, Vermont. An additional event on March 12th all but confirmed his fears.

HQ received a distress call at 1330 from Lindsy Haddish, one of many mid-tier operatives assigned to maintain and monitor the perimeter. She reported that something living had appeared from inside the quarantined area at her outpost. Dispatch was immediately concerned about a breach. In the moment, Lindsy was unable to describe what she was seeing because her rising distress was turning into a stabbing pain in her right leg. Since she believed she was on the precipice of amalgamating. Lindsy gave dispatch her exact coordinates and said she was activating her sleepswitch; then, the communication ended, and personnel were sent to assess the situation.

———————————————

Amalgamating*:* A byproduct of convergence, where one individual is physically conjoined with another, nearly identical individual. The process results in the “molting” of the original individual, as the copy spontaneously materializes from within the original’s tissue.

Per current records: 100% fatality rate for the original, 93% fatality rate for the copy.

Sleepswitch*:* A potent sedative that is self-administered via a previously installed chest port by a remote control. High energy emotions, such as rage or panic, can catalyze an instance of amalgamation at a location that is experiencing convergence. Immediate sedation has been proven to delay or prevent amalgation, even if it is already in progress.

Per protocol, all personnel interacting with convergence points must have an installed sleepswitch.

———————————————

Rescuers found Lindsay unconscious, but alive, at the southernmost outpost. Her right foot and calf were eviscerated, with a copied foot and calf protruding from the destroyed tissue. Luckily, she halted the amalgation via her sleepswitch before the copy fully formed. Heroically, she also successfully caught the living being that had appeared from within the perimeter and provoked her distress. It was a robin that had a human eye extending from its abdomen and human bone fragments growing from its wings.

Cross-species amalgamation, for official documentation purposes, is still considered by upper management to be impossible.

Dr. Wilkins ordered the perimeter to be extended substantially after what happened to Lindsay Haddish. Upper management, having seen pictures of the robin and Lindsay’s foot, cleared the construction without hesitation. They also green-lit the first ever utilization of a swansong to make sure there were no other mammals still living within the perimeter.

———————————————

Swansong*:* A sonic weapon developed specifically for usage within large convergence points. To prevent the spread of convergence, it is critical to remove life from the affected area. However, anything that neutralizes targets using fire or an explosion (i.e. gunfire, napalm, missiles) can expand the convergence point by giving it additional kinetic energy. A swansong, on the other hand, induces self-termination to anything mammalian within two to three minutes, assuming they can hear. It is a lower energy intervention, so, it is less likely to accidentally expand the convergence point.

The radius of action is a little under one mile. Personnel deploy them aerially, and they continue playing until the internal battery runs out.

During development, they were affectionately referred to as “earworms”, though this nickname was eventually scrapped.

———————————————

Upper management wanted a ground team to investigate Tributary despite the risks. However, that did not occur until May of 1997. Dr. Wilkins theorized it would not be safe to have personnel at the epicenter until the convergence point cooled significantly. By that May, the seismographic data radiating from the epicenter had finally become undetectable. Overhead pictures of Tributary had improved but had not become entirely normal. Most of the area was visible but blurred in the photographs. However, white “sunbursts” still appeared on the pictures - similar to the appearance of the pictures taken in March of 1992, but they did not take up the entire photo like before.

Dr. Wilkins demanded the overhead pictures normalize prior to sending in a ground team. Unfortunately, he passed away on May 21st, 1997. Upper management deployed a team to Tributary and the epicenter on May 23rd, 1997.

Per communication records, there were no perceivable visual abnormalities on route to the epicenter. As the team entered Tributary, however, they reported visualization of many amalgamated skeletons. The species that originally housed those skeletons were mostly indeterminable by examination alone because of an array of skeletal anomalies.

When the team was nearing the epicenter, they began to report something “big, bright, and moving in place” on the horizon. Then, communications suddenly went dark. There was no additional radio response from any of the eight team members in the coming months, and they were presumed dead. Transcripts from May 23rd do not detail any reported distress from team members prior to them becoming unresponsive.

No further attempts have been made to physically investigate Tributary or the epicenter. Upper management has elected for an indefinite quarantine for the time being.

Shockingly, all eight team members reappeared at HQ on November 8th, 1998 - appearing uninjured, fully mobile, and well-nourished.

HQ has been housing them in its decontamination unit. Although they are well-appearing, they are unwilling or unable to answer questions. They seem to understand basic commands. None of the team members have requested to return home.

The only helpful abnormality so far: about once every day, each team member says the following phrase in synchrony: “all of her is going to wake up soon”. They live separately. Thick, concrete walls and at least 900 meters of distance separate each team member. They have not seen each other for over a month. Yet, at seemingly random times during the day, they say “all of her is going to wake up soon” in unison with each other, regardless of what any of them are doing or where they are. They have not said anything else, and we’ve had them back for a full month.

We have named whatever is at the epicenter of Tributary “the prism”, on account of it being described as “big, bright, and moving in place”. You are receiving this memo because The Bureau is seeking ideas external to the department. We are looking for thoughts on how to approach re-investigation, and/or ideas on how to neutralize the prism with minimal additional human causalities.

Please respond directly to me.

Sincerely,

Ben Nakamura

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

Related Stories: The Inkblot that Found Ellie Shoemaker, Claustrophobia, Earworms, Last Rites of Passage, May The Sea Swallow Your Children - Bones And All

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

In 2007, a group of Japanese scientists discovered a way of growing new teeth in adult mice by transplanting into them lab-grown “tooth germs” derived from materials extracted from other, younger mice. These new teeth were fully functional and indistinguishable from the old ones, and the results were welcomed by doctors in the field of regenerative medicine. However, as with many results of experiments performed on animals, the question was: would the same method work on humans?

Officially, no attempts to replicate the experiment on humans were made, given the ethical intricacies involved.

Unofficially, several experiments were conducted and failed. Further testing was suspended.

Several years ago, another group of Japanese scientists—with strong ties to the first—published the results of a similar experiment. This time, instead of extracting biological material from one specimen, growing it externally and transplanting the result into a second specimen, the scientists discovered they could promote tooth growth in a single mouse by using a drug to suppress a certain protein in that mouse. This method was cheaper, quicker and simpler, and it avoided many of the ethical issues which had prevented the earlier method from being officially tested on humans.

Consequently, the lead scientist of the Japanese group, Dr. Ochimori, partnered with an American university, received funding from both the U.S. and Japanese governments, and assembled a team to test the ability of the protein-suppressing drug to promote tooth growth in human beings.

My mentor, Dr. Khan, was chosen to co-lead the testing, and Dr. Khan chose me to help him.

In total, there were six people involved in the human trial: Dr. Ochimori, Dr. Khan, me, two Japanese scientists chosen by Dr. Ochimori, and the test subject, whom I knew only as Kenji.

Of these six people, I am the only survivor, although, as you will come to understand, the term “survivor” is itself problematic, and in a sense there no longer exist any survivors of the trial—not even you.

I do want to make clear here that there was no issue with consent. Kenji agreed to take part. He was a willing participant.

My first impressions of Kenji were that he was a polite and humble middle-aged man whose dental problems had caused significant problems in his life, including the breakdown of his marriage and his inability to progress professionally. He was, therefore, a relatively sad individual. However, he exhibited high intelligence and was easy to work with because he understood biology, anatomy and the foundations of what we were attempting. Hence, he was, in some sense, both the subject of the experiment and an unofficial part of the team conducting it, effectively testing upon himself. While I admit that this is unusual, and in most cases improper, no one voiced any concerns until such concerns were no longer relevant.

The trial began with a small, single dose of the protein-suppressing drug injected once per day. The effects were disappointing. While the drug did somewhat inhibit the creation of the requisite protein, this did not lead to any tooth growth, and it did not replicate the results Dr. Ochimori had achieved with mice, in which even minor protein suppression had led to minor tooth growth.

Dr. Ochimori and Dr. Khan therefore decided to increase the dosage, and—when that did not create the desired result—also the frequency. It was when Kenji started receiving four relatively high-dose drug injections per day that something finally happened.

The first new teeth formed, and they began to penetrate his gums.

But this came with a cost.

The pain which Kenji endured both during the formation and eruption phases of the dental regeneration was much more intense than any of us had anticipated. In mice, the tooth growth had been generally painless, no different than when their old teeth had grown naturally. What Kenji experienced was magnitudes more painful than what he had experienced when his adult teeth had grown in, and we could not explain why.

At this point, with Kenji screaming for hours in the observation room, Dr. Khan suggested stopping the trial.

Dr. Ochimori disagreed.

When we held a vote, all three Japanese members of the team voted to continue the trial, so that Dr. Khan and I were outnumbered 3-2. What was most interesting, however, was that Kenji himself did not want to stop the trial. Despite his pain, which to me seemed unbearable (I could not listen to his screams, let alone imagine the suffering which caused them) he maintained that he wanted to continue. Thus, we continued.

Within three days of the implementation of the more intensive drug injection schedule, all of Kenji’s missing teeth had grown in. This was, from a purely medical standpoint, utterly remarkable, but it rendered the trial a success only if you discounted Kenji’s pain.

It was not feasible, Dr. Khan argued, to report such results because one could not market a drug that caused unexplainable suffering. Dr. Ochimori disagreed, arguing that the cause of the suffering, which he deemed a side effect, need not be understood for the results to be worthwhile. He pointed out that many drugs have side effects we know about without understanding the exact biochemical mechanisms behind them. As long as the existence of the pain is not hidden, he argued, the results are beneficial and anyone who agrees to further testing, or potentially to the resulting treatment itself, does so fully informed and of his own free will. Dr. Khan cited ethics concerns. Dr. Ochimori accused him of medical paternalism.

It was in the hours during which these oft-heated discussions took place that we missed a troubling development.

While it was true that in three days Kenji’s missing teeth had all been regenerated and were functionally indistinguishable from his old teeth, this indistinguishability was temporary. For, while regular adult teeth grow to a certain size and stop, the regenerated teeth had not stopped growing.

They were the same size as Kenji’s old teeth only for a brief period.

Then they outgrew them: first by a small amount but, steadily, by more and more, until they were twice—then three times—four times—five, their size.

They were more like tusks than teeth, fang-shaped columns of dental matter erupting endlessly from his profusely bleeding gums, until even closing his mouth had become, for Kenji, impossible, and the strain this placed on his jaws bordered on the extreme.

We had already cut the drug injections, of course.

Or so we thought, because we soon discovered that even when we thought we knew how much of the drug Kenji was receiving, Kenji was injecting himself secretly with significantly more.

This, more than anything else, drove Dr. Ochimori to despair—because he knew it invalidated the results of the trial.

At this point, Dr. Khan decided to forcibly confine Kenji and perform emergency surgery on him to remove the inhumanly growing teeth.

I agreed, but the two Japanese scientists did not, and they instead confined Dr. Khan and myself to one of the unused observation rooms. We pleaded with them to let us out. More importantly, to help Kenji. But they ignored us.

For hours, we sat together silently, listened to the crying, howling, growls and crunching that emanated from somewhere in the facility, each of us imagining on his own what must have been going on.

Once, through the reinforced glass window of the observation room door, I saw Kenji—if one can still refer to him as that—run past, and the impression left upon me was one of a deformed elephant, a satan, with teeth that had curved and grown into—through—his head: (his brain? his self? his humanity?) and exploded outwards from the interior of his skull.

And then, hours later, the doors unlocked.

We stepped out.

I am not ashamed to admit that in the wordless silence, I reached for Dr. Khan’s hand and he took it, and hand-in-hand we proceeded down the hall. My own instinct was to flee, but I knew that Dr. Khan’s was the same as it had always been, to help his patient, and he led me away from the facility doors, towards the room in which Kenji had been tested on.

We came, first, upon the body of one of the two Japanese scientists.

Dead—pierced, and torn apart—his hand still held, now grotesquely, a handgun. His eyes had been pushed into their sockets and a bloodied document folder placed upon his chest. Dr. Khan picked it up, thumbed through it and passed it to me. Inside was the identity’s true identity. He was not a Japanese scientist but a member of the Naichō, the Japanese intelligence agency. I put the folder back on his chest, and we continued forward.

The facility had been visibly damaged.

Doors were dented, some of the lights were off or flickering.

We heard then a sound, as if a deep rumbling. Dr. Khan motioned for me to stop.

We had rounded a corner and were at the beginning of a long corridor. At the other end, into a kind of gloom, rolled suddenly what I can describe only as an ossified, half-human ball, except that I knew it could not be made of bone—because teeth are not bones, and this ball was constructed of a spherical latticework of long, thin, white teeth, somewhere in the midst of which was Kenji’s body. It appeared to me only as a contained darkness. The teeth, I noted, seemed to originate no longer solely in his mouth, but from everywhere on his body, although given the complexity of the spiralling, winding, penetrating network of fangs, which had pierced his body innumerable times, it was impossible to state with certainty where any one tooth began, or what the resulting creature even was. Surely, Kenji the man must be dead, I thought. But this new thing was alive.

“Kenji,” Dr. Khan said. “I can help you.”

And the ball—started rolling…

Dr. Khan smiled warmly, but the ball, although slow at first, began to pick up speed, and soon was rushing towards us with such velocity that I leapt to the side and plastered my back against the wall. You may call it cowardice, but to me it was the instinct of self-preservation. An instinct Dr. Khan either did not share or had overcome, because I hadn’t even have the time to yell his name before Kenji-the-sphere crashed into him, impaling him on a myriad of spear-like teeth, and continuing into—and through!—the wall at the head of the corridor, one man impaled on the other, and with each sickening rotation, Dr. Khan’s body was pulverized further into human sludge.

I realized I had been holding my breath and let it out, gasped for air.

I screamed.

Then I set out after them, following, for reasons I still cannot explain, the unhindered destruction and viscous trail of flesh.

A few minutes later, I found myself having entered a dark conference room, in the corner of which sat Dr. Ochimori, slouched against the walls. He was holding a long knife with which he had just finished disemboweling himself. His spilled innards still steamed, and his eyes, although moving slowly, set their gaze firmly upon me, and in slow, slurred speech he said, “End yourself now—before—before you too become of him…”

He died with a cold, rational grimace on his face that left his small, yellowed teeth exposed, dripping with pinkish blood. And here, I think now, was the last true human.

Determined to follow the path of death to its very end, I stepped through a broken down wall into some kind of office in which Kenji-the-sphere had come to rest. A few parts of Dr. Khan were still stuck to the exterior of his dental shell, but the shell itself was now completed: solid. I could no longer see between the individual teeth to the darkness that was Kenji inside.

Speaking seemed foolish, so I said nothing. I simply watched, listening to the groaning and grinding sounds that filled the room, as Kenji’s teeth, having melded together into one surface, continued to grow, to push one against each other in the absence of empty space—and then to crack: audibly first, then visibly: the first fracture appearing at the top of the sphere, before following a jagged line downwards, until the rift was completed and the shell fragments fell away, revealing a single already expanding unity that I could not—even in the brief moment when its entirety was before me—before it expanded forever beyond the pathetic, human scope of my visual comprehension—fail to comprehend. From a thousand textbooks! Through a thousand microscopes! I knew it. It was life. A cell. A solitary cell.

Growing fantastically.

In the blink of an eye it had absorbed the room and me and the facility and you and the solar system and the universe.

We have all become of the cell.

We used to ask: what is the universe? We must now ask: of what is the cell which contains the universe? In a way, nothing has changed. Your life goes on as usual. You probably didn’t even feel it. Or, if you did, your mind imagined some prosaic explanation. Perhaps it doesn’t even matter: living vs. living within a cell. But I believe that a part of us knows we are irretrievably separated from the past. Those who died before and those who die after share different fates.

Looking at the fragments of Kenji’s emptied shell, I felt awe and sadness and nostalgia. We used to look at the stars and feel terror, wondering if there was any meaning to our existence. How comforting such non-meaningful existence now seems. Once, I was afraid that I did not have a purpose in life. I tried to find it in my relationships, my self, my work. Now, I feel revulsion at the thought that I am trapped in a biological machine whose workings I do not understand and whose purpose we cannot escape.

It was always the same words, the same slightly upturned lips like they were trying not to smile. I always expected that response, but not so passively, like dragging a blunt knife down my spine. 

Nobody believed me. 

A year since I was kidnapped by fairies and left behind while my friends were taken away, and I was slowly losing my mind between giving into my own delusions and gaslighting myself into believing I’d had some kind of psychotic break and none of it was real. 

Dr. Casey was my latest in the long line of psychologists assigned to me since my so-called mental breakdown. 

Sitting in front of me, her smile was patient and her eyes were trying to be sincere. I liked her office. It was a lot cosier than the others. The one in Boston had walls that made me feel like I was in a psych ward. Sickly green, resembling barf, with too-bright lights and a TV in the waiting room that only played ancient game shows with zero volume. 

Dr. Casey’s office was minimalist with a desk and a bookshelf. The decor was warm, purplish blue, an outdated laptop sitting in front of her. Unlike my other therapists, she seemed… human.

While the others had clinical white offices and scary looking posters on the wall bearing mental health disorders and human trafficking warnings, Dr Casey had stained coffee mugs and ancient comic books piled on top of each other, a dogeared map sitting on top.

She chewed on her pen between writing, tapping her feet to a beat only she could hear.

Which was familiar and relatable.

My therapist was a beautiful woman, kind, brown flecked eyes and velvet coloured hair tied into an untidy ponytail. When she leaned forward and met my gaze, I found myself taken aback by her natural beauty.

She smelled of fresh pine and lemon, and had a smile that wanted to help. 

Dr. Casey made me feel comfortable. 

I thought I could tell her everything. 

So, I started talking. 

Hesitantly at first, but the more I was speaking and actually letting everything out, all of this fear and frustration and anger I had been bottling up for a whole year.

Initially, she seemed interested when I told her the basics, nodding and making comments to assure me she was listening.

I started telling my story as normally as possible. My flight was cancelled on Christmas Eve, and because of my age I had no choice but to join my fellow young travellers inside the unaccompanied minors lounge.

Dr. Casey kept smiling and scribbling in her notebook until I got into the meat of my trauma. Why I couldn't fully look her in the eye, and even a year later, I still struggled to sit still.

My hands were always wandering, either delving into my lap or playing with stray thread on my jeans, my fingers steepling together, constantly  clammy. I could never fully suck air into my lungs during a therapy session. 

I had an odd posture, leaned over myself, my lungs crushed.

There was never enough air for me to breathe, and my body was constantly too light, like at any moment I would lose contact with the ground all together.

This kind of thing was better to explain by saying, “I had a psychotic break” but I thought I could talk to someone who would listen. Who wouldn't call me crazy. 

I always felt small and childish, hating the words coming from my mouth. 

Eighteen years old, and I still felt so much younger. “I was kidnapped,” I told her, a lump growing in my throat. 

Dr. Casey’s smile faded, eyes darkening. 

I noticed her fingers tighten around the pen. She began to write before pausing, her gaze snapping to me. “Kidnapped?”

I could already see the cogs in her head turning, ready to make phone calls and offer support– maybe even call the police. It's not like I didn't look like a kidnapping victim.

I was sickly pale from malnourishment, my hair hung in tangled streaks in front of my face, and I hadn't bathed in days.

But my failure to meet basic hygiene was for a completely different reason. I didn't know how to tell her I couldn't wash or brush my hair, and I couldn't force food down my throat. They wouldn't let me.

When I spoke of them, she leaned forward with wide, sympathetic eyes that were going to listen, urging me to take my time.

She thought they were human, an abusive family member or significant other. That was until I dropped my gaze, shuffling uncomfortably on my chair.

It had been the same leather chair for three weeks, and I still couldn't get comfortable. 

The upholstery felt wrong grazing the backs of my jeans and I had been nervously picking on it since starting my session. I had been skating around the subject of my depressive episodes. 

Because when I eventually let loose and went into detail, I always lost them. I lost my therapists with one single word. 

“Kidnapped,” I said again, “By fairies.”

Dr. Casey stopped writing, her lip twitching slightly. She lifted her head. 

“You were kidnapped by fairies,” her brow shot into her hairline. 

Dr. Casey’s expression crumpled into what might have been sympathy before confusion and amusement took over. 

Before I could respond, she cleared her throat a little too harshly, and spoke the words my last five therapists had said with the exact tone. “Miss Jaimison, aren't you a little old to still believe in fairies?” 

Yes, I was.

I didn't even believe in them when I was a little kid, and now I was being hunted by them. In the space of a year, fairies, and to an extent, Santa Clause were real.

Dr. Casey sighed when I didn't reply.  “Okay then, Ruby,” she continued to scribble in her notebook, and I wondered if she was making a note to send me for an MRI. 

Her smile was still polite, though a little strained. Just like the others. 

“Why don't you talk me through what happened?” 

I started to, but she cut me off. “Miss Jaimison, there is nothing wrong with disguising your mental trauma with preferred fantasy. It's common with young people.”

Fantasy? 

Was she fucking serious?

I knew the difference between reality and fantasy. 

For the last several months, both had blurred into each other, enveloping me completely. To other people, fantasy was what they saw on TV or read in books.

The fae folk, beings of light and beauty hiding amongst the flowers. 

Which was the fantasy I grew up with. 

That fantasy, however, had been haunting me since I escaped my fate to become an heir of the kingdom.

It existed in the tricks that woke me up at night, open windows when I was sure I'd shut them, and poison ivy between my sheets, my possessions being whisked away. That was a warning.

When I refused to submit, they bled inside my brain and made me question my own reality. I coughed up my own blood and teeth, lost clumps of my hair.

They wouldn't let me shower, or brush my hair, or eat.

They were constantly there, whispering and giggling in my ear, murmuring nursery rhymes in their language, their songs all entangled with my lost friends' names. These little bastards tugged on my hair when nobody was watching, a symphony of childish giggles entwined in my skull. 

“It's not… fantasy,” I spoke coolly and calmly, but in the corner of my eye, I could see sharp flickers of movement. “It's real,” I whispered. “I was taken to a different world where fairies exist.” 

She nodded, continuing to write. “Okay, and would you say you were awake during this, uh… this venture? You said you were falling asleep in an airport terminal, correct?” Dr. Casey nodded at me with a smile. “Do you think maybe you experienced a vivid fever dream?” 

“No.” I swatted at my own face again. I could hear giggles. They were laughing at me. “No, I was definitely awake,” I spoke through gritted teeth. “I wasn't alone either. There was a group of kids with me, and there were these screens that…”

I caught hold of myself. “I know it sounds crazy, but,” I struggled with my hands, stuffing them into my lap. “These screens… the ones in the room they took us to. They hypnotised kids into thinking they didn't have parents.” 

“Mmm hmm.” Dr. Casey lifted her gaze. “So, are we talking, like, mind control?”

I nodded. “Yes. There was this Christmas themed animation playing, and it put my friend into a weird trance.” I felt my own secondhand embarrassment, resisting the urge to rake my nails down my face.

“It made him think he was an orphan. Just like everyone else. I saw it too, and I can't explain it.” my hands were wandering again, this time streaking through filthy strands of my hair.

I could feel them tugging my scalp. It was an endless tug of war with them.

Still though, thinking back to their influence on me, that for a single moment with my eyes captured by their magic, my mind drowned by their light and lullabies, I thought I was an orphan myself.

It was so vivid. I had been suffocated with false memories of an orphanage I never attended; wooden bunk beds and children that were not real.

These things had planted fake thoughts, fake feelings and memories inside my brain, enchanting me and luring me in, before I had snapped out of it with the help of Levi and Thalia. 

I didn't realise I was choking all of that out, words tangling from my lips, my voice splintering, until I was handed a tissue, and I swiped at my eyes.

I didn't mean to say any of that out loud, but saying their names, or at least revisiting the memories I had tried to suppress, was a surprising weight off my chest. 

Dr. Casey continued writing. She was scribbling way too much to just be making notes. “Okay, and who was this friend?” she looked up at me, lips quirked into a smile. She wasn't laughing at me.

This was a sympathy smile. She thought I was fucking crazy. 

I tried to lean across the desk to see what she was writing, but she easily hid her notebook from my prying eyes. 

“Was he an, um, a ‘fairy person’ too?”

“Jude Whitlock,” I whispered. 

His name didn't feel real or right on my tongue, almost like he didn't exist anymore.

“No. He was a human, and they took him along with the others.”

I played with the thread on my jeans.

“He was the worst affected. I think because he, uh, he already felt detached from his parents. So, it wasn't hard for them to wipe them from his memory.” 

I straightened up in my seat. “Jude didn't have a good relationship with his Mom.”

Dr. Casey cocked a brow. “Oh?” 

“Yeah.  He said he only got to spend time with her two days a year.”

She paused writing, tapping her pen. “And you haven't seen him since?”

I shook my head. “No. The last time I saw him, he was completely under their control.”

“Their… fairy mind control?” Dr. Casey cleared her throat. Something flickered in her expression. I saw her write separation followed by a question mark. “And did you say the other kids…” she flicked back through the pages of her notebook.

“Levi and Thalia. Were they taken too?”

Nodding, I squeezed my eyes shut. “Yes. But they were replaced by fake versions. I think they're called changelings, though there are also these things called Strays. Who are human kids turned fae that the Kingdom gives back.”

“Uh-huh.” she chewed on her pen. “So, to go over, your human friends were kidnapped by fairies and replaced with…” she nodded at her notebook, “replicas of them, that are called Strays.”

I shook my head. “No, the Strays are different. They're not wanted, and given back to the human world. They're previously kidnapped kids no longer wanted.”

She met my gaze. “And have you met a Stray?”

I did. 

When I was saved by the kind fae who brought me back, there were two Strays in the car.

I still remembered their battered and bruised faces, skeletal figures and haunted eyes. I remembered the markings on the boy's head from his crown, his flesh shredded and burned, sliced and ripped apart.

The slits in the girl's back, where a semblance of wings may have been before being cruelly sliced away. I never saw them again.

There were hunters on earth who specifically went for Stray kids. I was told they were  worth millions to humans. “I did,” I admitted. “But they ran away before I could talk to them.”

“Ahh, of course. They ran away.” 

I stuffed my fists in my lap, trying to breathe. “You think I'm crazy.” 

Dr. Casey dropped her pen with a sigh, her gaze flicking to me. “Well, at least you're self aware. Honestly, this all sounds a little far fetched. I am not supposed to be harsh with my patients, but you are an exceptional case.” she inclined her head.

“Ruby, how exactly did you get it into your head that you're being hunted by fairies? This world,” she glanced at her notebook. “All of these  things. Your friends being kidnapped and uh… half fairy kids spirited away, child eating plants, magical doorways and stray kids being hunted down. It’s not really real, is it?” 

Here we go.

“Ruby, the world is boring. And I don't blame you for creating this world inside your head."

Dr. Casey offered me another sympathetic smile.

“You are an intelligent young woman and you don't seem to be suffering from either neurological trauma or PTSD.” she tapped her manicure on the edge of her desk, rechecking over her notes.

“Do you think you may have an overactive imagination? These friends you talk about.” I watched her fingers drum a single beat.

“Levi, Jude, and Thalia. Are they perhaps people you strayed away from?"

Dr. Casey talked with her hands a lot. “It's possible that you have created a fantasy of sorts, to cope with losing their company.” she leaned back, her smile a lot more patient and understanding than all of the others. 

But she still didn't believe me. 

I think those words were what broke me. Not telling me I was too old to believe in fairies, or implying I had psychosis. She was telling me friends I lost were not real.

Just delusions of my mind. And if they were real, they were past friendships I was dwelling on and clinging onto.

Something splintered inside me. “I can't breathe,” I managed to grit out. “I feel like I've lost half of my breath since coming back, and sometimes I can't suck in air,” my voice broke. “It feels like I'm suffocating.” 

My therapist cocked her head. “That sounds a lot like asthma, Ruby.” she leaned forward. “Do you think maybe you're suffering from panic attacks?”

“They're not panic attacks!” I surprised myself with a yell. “They stole my breath!”

“Who stole your breath?” 

“The fairies!” I swallowed my words, clawing out my hair, pulling it from a particularly violent tugging match between two sets of tiny hands. “I mean fae... I think they're…referred to as fae?”

“Yes, I believe that is what they are called.” 

Her deadpan tone was starting to get under my skin. 

“Can't you see them?” I hissed out, holding out a strand of my hair. “They're right here!”

Dr. Casey’s mouth hung open, like she was struggling to coerce words. Before she could speak though, her gaze snapped to behind me, her expression twisting. “Liam, this is a private session!”

I twisted around in my chair, meeting eyes with a boy who was my age.

Hiding behind a bed of dark blonde curls, his eyes were wide with terror, parted lips moving like he was trying to speak, but failing.

His gaze was frenzied, almost feral. It only took a single glance where intricate lines of ink danced across his forehead, like a child had been using his face as a canvas, for me to know what he was. 

Dr.  Casey was blind to the state of him, and he knew I'd noticed it, quickly yanking the hood of his sweater over his head. “Shut the door! I'm with a patient. I'll be with you in a moment.” 

The boy shot me a look, like he was trying to speak, before nodding and stumbling back into the waiting room, quietly shutting the door behind him. 

“Please excuse Liam, he's one of my patients. He doesn't know the meaning of privacy.” My therapist turned back to me, her expression relaxing. “Have you spoken to your parents about any of this? Do they offer their support?”

“No.”

I didn't mean to raise my voice, but I felt like I was being ripped apart inside. 

Parents were a sore subject. 

Just because I escaped the kingdom didn't mean I wasn't replaced too.

There was a girl with my face living with my Mom and Dad. A girl with too-pale skin, a playfulness in eyes full of mischief.

I watched her meet my father at the airport. Ever since then, my life had been on a downward spiral. I choked up bloodstained flowers daily. I lost my teeth. There were vines growing at the back of my throat, markings I couldn't explain on my legs and arms. Like I had already been branded as theirs. 

Marked for the hunt. 

“I’m not crazy,” I whispered, trying to ignore my hair being yanked and pulled from side to side by tiny fingers.

“I’ve lost my parents to a thing that looks exactly like me,” I hissed out. “I've lost half of my breath. There is a constant chokehold around my neck squeezing breath from my lungs. They're slowly killing me.” 

When I jumped up, Dr. Casey flinched slightly, like I was going to attack her.

“I'm constantly light on my feet,” I continued. “I feel like I'm floating. Like I'm never really touching the floor.”

Sinking back into my chair, I couldn't resist a sob. “They send me… warnings.” 

Dr. Casey hummed. “Warnings? Okay, and do you have them here with you?”

I thought back to the confused look on my Boston therapist’s face when I tried to hand her an old piece of parchment I'd found glued to my window with the remnants of my roommate's cat.

The parchment was an invite into the kingdom and to accept my crown as an adopted heir to the court. 

The calligraphy was always graceful, beautiful, scrawled in human blood. 

I dropped my gaze, losing all my bravado. 

“It's…it's invisible to adults.”

Risking a glance, I could see the muscles in my therapist’s face twitching. Casey’s lip curled. I was losing her. “These warnings that are haunting you are… invisible to adults?” 

She cleared her throat. “Okay, so your kidnapped friends have been replaced by fairy replicas, and you are being haunted by a fairy kingdom, but their warnings are completely invisible to adults.”

I thought back to Liam. “And what they do to you,” I added. The markings and brandings. It's all invisible to adults.”

I could tell Dr. Casey was losing her patience. Still though, I was surprised she held out this long. The Boston therapist gave up at the start. “Miss Jaimison, you are eighteen years old which is classified as an adult.” I jumped when she dropped her pen on her desk. “Go home, Ruby.”

The woman nodded at me to stand up, and I did, grabbing my bag. “I don't think we need to continue this conversation.” 

Before I could protest, her phone rang, and she picked it up. 

“Yes,” My therapist lowered her voice, gesturing for me to shoo like I was a rabid raccoon. “Uh huh. Yes. Perfect condition. Yeah, I'm in the possession of…” she trailed off, meeting my gaze. 

“It.”

Dr Casey cleared her throat, irritation pricking in her eyes. “Ruby, I believe we are finished talking. Have a nice evening.” she went back to her phone. “Yes, I've got it with me. Mmm. Yeah, like I'd said, zero scratches or marks.”

When she collapsed into hissed whispers, I strode towards the door, only for something to catch my eye. On her bookshelf were tiny wooden fairies bearing wide smiles and intricate wings.

These things looked cute and playful. They looked nothing like the beings that kidnapped my friends. I couldn't resist turning around, my gut twisting. 

“Do you collect those things?”

Dr. Casey turned to me, her phone still glued to her ear. “Sorry, what was that?”

I pointed to the figures. “Those fairies. Do you collect them?”

Her gaze flitted to the figures, lips curving into a smile. “You could say that,” she pointed to her phone. “I'm actually in the middle of selling them right now, so if you wouldn't mind…” 

Before I could answer, I was already being escorted out of her office, the door slamming in my face. In the waiting room, the boy from earlier was sitting cross legged on a plastic chair. 

My heart leapt into my throat. I knew it wasn't him, but the way he was sitting, tense, dark eyes following me across the waiting room, like a caged animal, he reminded me of Jude, bearing the same scowl and eyes that did not trust easily.

Jude was a private school kid I'd met in the airport, a boy who didn't want anything to do with me until our plane was cancelled. When we were taken into the kids lounge, I lost him, his mind already captured by the hypnotising screens. Jude mentioned a lost sister.

Which made me wonder if there was more to him than I'd thought. 

The last thing I said to him was reminding him he had a mother and a sister. But he had been far too gone to hear me, enveloped in their fairy dust. 

Unlike Jude, who previously had a destination, his parents house, this kid looked tragically lost. He purposely bowed his head to hide himself, but I already knew who and what he was. 

I could see exactly where his disgraced crown had sat on top of thick blonde curls. 

“You're a Stray.” I said, folding my arms. 

“Go away.” He shied away from me, shuffling back like a wild animal. The boy pressed his head into his lap. “They already know your name,” he sniffled.

His voice was rough. I could hear the turmoil and torture he had gone through. I wondered how long Liam had been inside the kingdom. From the way he was acting, he must have been young. “You can't run from them.”

A shiver skittered down my spine. “How did you escape?”

Liam looked up, his lips splitting into a grotesque smile of razor sharp teeth. 

“I was replaced.”

I nodded slowly, swatting at a tiny ball of golden light hovering in front of my eyes. Liam’s gaze followed its manic dance, his eyes narrowing. “My friends were taken,” I said, “Is there any chance they could be given back?”

Liam cocked his head. “Do they have your friends' names?”

I thought back to the list of naughty and nice. 

Yes. They had their full names. 

“Yes,” I said in a hiss of breath. “But–” 

“Liam?” Dr. Casey’s door flew open, her head poking out. I tried to ignore the boy flinching, the way his body seemed to lurch back. “Would you like to come in?” her gaze snapped to me. 

“Ruby. Go home please.”

I glanced at Liam, who looked panicked. 

“Do you… want to go in there?” I asked him. 

“Liam.” Dr. Casey’s tone hardened. “Come on, what did we talk about? I told you I’m going to help you, remember?”

He nodded with a quiet, “Yes” before ducking his head and following her into the office. When the door clicked shut behind them, I thought back to the miniature fairies sitting on her bookshelf.

I hovered outside the door for a few more minutes, before swiftly leaving. I was on my way down the stairs to the reception area, when two men shoved past me on their way up. 

Dr. Casey told me to go home, so I did.

That night I woke up coughing up blood stained flowers, vines stuck between my teeth and blossoming at the back of my throat. They weren't just haunting me mentally, they were playing with my body.

There was something there, twisted and sandwiched, stuffed down my throat. 

Standing in front of a mirror with tweezers, I forced the two blades into the back of my mouth, pinching a single vine.

When I pulled it from my lips, my throat ruptured and I choked up blood tinged petals, leaves, and a growing tendril of earth entangled with a single strand of hair. Thalia. Her long red hair stuck in my memory, and now it was clogging my faucet and shower drain.

Thalia’s hair was the first real warning that they were coming. 

Quickly followed by a shred of Levi’s hoodie.

And then, Jude's private school sweater. 

It was always pieces of them, nothing was ever whole. All I got were torn remnants and fragments of what had been real. It felt like a tease, like they were dangling my friends in front of me. Cutting them apart, piece by piece. 

Until nothing remained. 

I grew sicker. Paler. Pulling scarlet streaked flowers from my lips and coughing up clumps of Thalia’s hair became a daily occurrence. I was barely conscious in class when the air around me suddenly stilled, a streak of shivers spiderwebbing down my bones.

I could barely concentrate on the class itself, beforehand, white noise screaming in my ears. Now it was too silent.

Like all the sound had been sucked into a vacuum. Even the sounds of light typing, brief conversations and pages flipping over. Everything had come to an eerie stop. Lifting my head, it wasn't just the sound. Movement had come to halt too.

My professor stood at the front of the class. He was frozen, glued to the spot.

But his eyes were still moving, frantically snapping left and right.

Around me, my classmates were paralysed to their seats.

The ponytailed blonde next to me was mid-drinking her water. She was frozen, while water sloshed down her throat.

I could sense that she was choking, her cheeks turning red and then purple. But she couldn't move. The sound of water filling her gut, her stomach expanding, sent my own catapulting into my throat. 

It took me a disorienting moment to realise the wave that had enveloped my class had taken me too. Glued to my chair, I caught a flash of movement in the corner of my eye. There was a shadow moving down the aisle, a figure drowned in light so bright I couldn't see a face.

When a sharp breath sounded next to me, and the girl with the water dropped to the ground, I thought it was just her.

But when it came again, another hiss of breath, and then another, students collapsing like dominoes, I knew exactly what was happening. It was pulling their breath from their lungs, teasing it, before tearing it from their lips.

Bodies continued to drop around me. I could sense it, almost see it, wisps of dancing white being dragged from parted lips and disappearing into nothing.

The lights flickered above me.

I saw feet moving toward me, dancing down the steps. 

Closer. 

Under dull light, I glimpsed the torn remnants of a navy blue sweater clinging to a skeletal figure. The closer he came to me, I felt my own breath leave my lungs and squirm its up my throat, forced through my lips. But it didn't leave me.

Not yet.

When he stopped in front of me, the lingering students around me toppling off of their chairs, he teased my breath, once, and then twice, holding it between my frozen lips, letting me slowly suffocate. 

When my professor dropped, the lights brightened. The figure was no longer a shadow, a being that was once human. It still bared a human face, remnants of its old self. I wasn't sure what to call him. Beautiful, or maybe horrifying.

I couldn't tear my gaze from his skin, flesh that had been battered and burned, branded and used as a canvas.

There were intricate lines of black dancing his cheeks, just like Liam. But while Liam’s had been old, faded, his were wet and fresh. I could still see the gleam, imagine the dripping paintbrush. 

There was so much wrong with him. Malnourished cheeks and skin so pale and brittle, like the pages of a book. 

And yet I still found a sick sense of beauty, that grotesque and breathtaking beauty I remembered from their world.

I had nightmares of him being twisted and contorted into one of them. But it was real. I had aged since our kidnapping.

A whole year had gone by. Jude, however, was still frozen at sixteen years old.

Dark brown curls adorned with flowers and thorns, a crown of bone sitting on top of his head. I could see sharp pieces of bone sliced into his flesh, old and new rivers or red streaking down his face.

His lips carved into a feral smile that greeted me.

No longer human and forever sixteen years old, I still recognised him. Jude suited his crown. 

He suited his smile, too-pointy teeth and eyes filled with mischief. 

Jude never had human parents, or at least ones that cared about him. Maybe that was why he had accepted his fate. 

Accepted his crown.

After all, what 16 year old human boy wouldn't want to be the heir to a fairy court? 

What he didn't suit, was the bruises and burns, his body twisted into a plaything for the Kingdom. Jude looked both human and fae, twin slits in his back, flaps of flesh resembling their sick idea of wings. I waited for him to take my breath.

He did, tearing it to and from my lips like I was his own personal toy. 

When he was bored, Jude reached out his hand, finally, his eyes lighting up. 

I pretended not to see the scalding marks covering his arms. 

The rugged flesh on the backs of his hands. 

“Ruuuuuuuuby.”

From the look on his face, and the whispered giggles in my ear, him laughing with the fireflies buzzing around me tugging on my hair, I didn't have a choice. He made that clear when he violently ripped breaths from my lungs, one by one. I accepted his hand when I could move again, gulping in oxygen.

Jude didn't speak to me. But he did speak to the things still clinging to my hair, giggling in their tongue twisting language. We left the room, his claw-like fingernails digging into my skin. 

He told me my classmates were not harmed.

However, they were missing a significant chunk of their breath. 

“Your sister,” I managed to get out, when he pulled me through the dark. I didn't even notice the passage of time. He could have had my breath for hours.

Something rancid crept up my throat, and I spat out another explosion of red. 

More of Thalia’s hair stuck to my lips, glued to my chin. 

“Did you find her?”

He surprised me with an inhuman grin that was not his, a glitter in his eyes that was both insanity and glee.

Jude had their exact mannerisms, their twitching smiles and gleeful eyes. He was a bigger version of the fireflies trying to rip my hair from my scalp, laughing along with them. “What sister?”

I was wrong.

I thought Jude still had lingering humanity. 

But he was completely gone. 

I knew where he was taking me. Jude took me back to the nightmare world that I had been told multiple times wasn't real. The world filled with child-eating plants, and the wooden cage filled with human children that I had escaped.

I didn't feel as light back in their world.

I felt like I could breathe again, my bare feet grazing the floor. I wasn't expecting the reception Jude got when he dragged me through streets threaded with plants and vines, beings with painfully beautiful faces and horrifying twisted and contorted bodies dropped to their knees in front of him. 

The ground became harder to tread through, vines and flowers with minds of their own twisting around my ankles. Jude pulled me through them, laughing. 

Quickly, it turned to bones we were wading through. 

Humans.

These things didn't just forcefully adopt people.

They murdered them, proudly brandishing their horrified looking faces. 

Stumbling after Jude, I scanned each kill. 

Levi and Thalia. They couldn't be here, right? 

Looking back, I think part of me wished they were. The palace was not what I was expecting; a building made purely of human bone and entangled vines, a towering structure standing over the court.

The guards standing in front of the doors bowed when Jude stepped through the door. While the exterior of the palace was exactly what I was expecting inside a fae court, the interior surprised me.

I could tell the fae stole not just children, but human possessions. 

Glittering chandeliers hung from the ceiling, a staircase made purely of rose quartz.

The ground was made up of patchwork human flooring, carpet and marble with pieces of plastic, woven with thick greenery. In front of me loomed two thrones made up of entangled vine, the King and Queen, adorned in the remnants of children, blood and bone decorating them.

The Queen wore an adult human skull, velvet coloured hair framing a heart shaped face. Her clothes were patchwork, a dress made of white silk.

She looked human at first glance, before her features were narrowing, like she was screwing with my perception.

Jude lowered himself in front of them, yanking me with him.

Kneeling in front of the king, I could still see the skeletal smile of the victim sitting on top of his head.

I could see exactly where their head had been savagely severed from their torso.

His clothes were made up of flesh that had been dried and stitched together. I had to bow my head, swallowing a shriek.

“He's wearing someone's skull,” I managed to breathe, my chest aching. 

Jude shot me a glare, and there was a splinter of his human self. “Be quiet.” 

Oh, so he could speak. 

The Queen stood, and spoke in a language I could not understand.

Looking at Jude, at the knot between his brow, he could hear what she was saying in perfect clarity. To me, however, it was a colourful tongue twister language. “She’s asking all of her children to present themselves to her,” he murmured. 

“What does that mean?” 

“That something big is about to happen,” Jude  hummed. “Stand up. The Queen asks her children to present themselves to her only three times a day. Dawn, high eve, and late eve.” 

“What?”

He didn't reply, the sound of footsteps taking me off guard. They took their places next to the King and Queen.

I recognised Levi immediately, still dressed in the remnants of his Adventure Time sweater.

His hair was overgrown, skin blistered and burned resembling a Stray.

Unlike Jude's, his crown looked like it had been forced onto his head, splinters of bone glued to his skull, threaded vines and flowers adorning his hair. Levi’s eyes were empty of that glitter I remembered, when he called fake Santa a meth head. 

His smile was too wide. I could see blisters on his mouth where his lips had been sewn shut. I didn't want to see it, but I saw the exact transformation, slight points in ears hiding behind thick reddish curls, his face narrower, malnourished cheeks sticking out.

Following those same inky black lines marking his face, I wondered if male fae bore them. Just from looking at Levi Parish, the boy had fought a battle he had lost, ending in him bearing a crown forced on his head, and vacant eyes. 

Next to him…Thalia. 

She was perhaps the most transformed from the three. Her naked back had been twisted into something inhuman.

I could see where her spine used to be, now something was growing from her flesh, something writhing up and down her skin, trying to burst out. Thalia’s hair was entangled in flowers and vines, a crown of thorn sitting on top of her head, instead of glued on like the boy's.

Half of her pretty face had been scorched, and then clawed away, ugly flaps of flesh where her cheek was supposed to be.

I could still see the claw marks on her neck, streaks of red. 

And yet, just like the boys, her grin was wide. 

The smile I knew was gone.

Looking at all three of them, it hit me that my friends weren't heirs to the throne. 

They were toys. 

Playthings.

Canvases for fae children. 

“Mother.” Jude lifted his head, smiling wide. “Father.” 

“Ruby.” The Queen’s voice was melodic. She rose gracefully. “I am so glad you finally came to your senses.”

I lifted my head.  “I had no choice.”

“Careful.” Jude breathed. “The last time I spoke back to them, I got the flesh melted off of my back.”

The Queen's lips curled. “Human child, do speak louder. You are mumbling.”

Instead of responding, I bowed my head. I was speaking before I could stop myself. “I’d like to… make a request.” 

“And what is that?” The Queen asked, tilting her head. “Speak clearly, Ruby.”

“An exchange.” I forced out. "I would like to request that I exchange myself, Thalia Wednesday, Levi Parish and…”

I struggled to speak, the words tangled on my tongue. My gaze flicked to Jude’s bruised knees, the thorns wrapped around this neck which were constantly squeezing breath from his lungs. “And Jude Whitlock.” I spat out. “For four human children of the same age."

I stopped when Jude grabbed my arm, his eyes suddenly fearful. Terrified. His lips were twisted, failing to form words.

“What are you doing?!” His expression screamed.

“I accept.” 

I risked lifting my head, and she was smiling.

“Ruby, you are yet to become my full blooded daughter, and you are already pledging yourself to rounding up human children!” She spoke with a manic giggle.

“My, now how could I reject an offer like that? We are already in a deal for fifteen children this Christmas. Five more would be a luxury. Oh, the things we could do."

Her words sent slithers down my spine. “No.” I said. “No, I didn’t mean—“

My feet left the ground, and I was choking, suddenly. The breath had been sucked from my lungs, and I felt them.. invisible fingers wrapped around my neck, squeezing. I was aware of my body hovering several feet off of the ground.

The Queen sat back down. 

“You did not mean what?”

“I…”

“I don’t think you’ve been educated in our laws,” she said smoothly. “You do not speak my children's names. Do so again, and I will rip out your tongue.”

A fountain of red escaped my mouth, and I could feel something sharp winding its way around my neck. Like claws it stabbed into my flesh. I felt my head spin, my vision blur. I was going to die, I thought. I was going to fucking die at eighteen years old, when my replica was out there living my life— and there I was choking on my own blood.

When I dropped to the ground, the Queen cleared her throat. “Speak clearly. You didn’t mean what?”

I couldn’t speak. The words were shredded in my throat.

“She didn’t mean to bad mouth you, Mother.” Jude hissed out. “The… human child has a sharp tongue, and I ask just this once. Please spare her request, and her stupidity. What Ruby meant was a gift,” he said. “She will gift you four human children in exchange for your kindness and hospitality. As well as your forgiveness  and a seat in the court.”

He wrenched me to my feet and dragged me in a bow. 

My chest was aching, blood dripping from my mouth and chin. But I bowed.

I bowed three times. And each one was progressively more humiliating.

When my face hit the ground for the third time, the Queen cleared her throat.

“I accept!” her eyes lit up. “Ruby, you must be so hungry! Please! Eat!”

A table was brought in filled with fruit and berries, and further down the table, a human teenager skewered on a stick. His mouth was wide open, teeth pulled out, a bright red apple stuffed inside.

That was when my mind started to slowly break apart. 

When the half human, half fae heirs began to rip flesh from bone, giggling manically, chewing through splattered scarlet dripping from the table. Jude handed me a goblet and told me to drink. It tasted like strawberry milk.  

The windchimes started in my head, growing louder until I was laughing myself, choking on a scream trying to claw its way up my throat.

When my crown was lowered onto my head, pricks of glass and bone cutting into my scalp, warm blood slipping down my temple, I felt dizzying happiness and unbridled fear, my lips splitting into a grin that wasn't mine. 

I was home. 

I don't know how long it had been since the feast. 

Since the crown on my head stopped hurting, and blood started like tasting like milkshakes.

I was dancing, a whirlwind of color around me, dancing inside the wooden cage, dancing for my life. If my audience did not like my dancing, then I would be punished. I was twirling around and around, my thoughts cotton candy, until I stamped on something. 

Something…sharp. 

Something that went straight through my bare foot. 

A nail. 

The pain was enough to wake me up, and when I was blinking rapidly, drinking in the pooling red I had been dancing in, a river of blood staining my legs, did I look up and see a familiar face peering through the wooden bars.

His crown of thorns was still glued to his head but I could see claw marks where he'd tried and failed to pull it off. 

Levi. 

He was awake. 

And pissed.

I woke up screaming.

Confused, I watched as the warm blood dripping down my elbow steamed in the cold air, and found myself gripping the wrist that had been hovering over me.

“Zach, please!” Shirley shrieked. “It’s me!” She put her bloodied free hand out in front of her, placatingly – something metal clanging to the ground as she did so. She was thinner than when I’d last seen her and eyes were wide, gauntness highlighting the dark rings below them.

She looked as panicked as I felt.

“Where are we? What happened?” I stumbled out clumsily and studied the display on my pod – we were still a few weeks out from home. Disorientation is a side effect of being awoken from stasis early, I hear – but the pain from the deep gouge in my arm compounded mine even more.

“Something struck us. It damaged the maneuvering system fuel tank and put us off course.” she said hurriedly, looking over her shoulder into the dark corridor. “But Zach, the pods were open when I woke up. I… I don’t think we’re alone on the ship. I was trying to see if they got to you like they did the others.”

In my stupor it took me a few moments to comprehend what she was telling me – dazed, I looked to the pod closest to me, its edges streaked with dried blood.

The others.

“Tasya?” I asked, my mouth suddenly dry.

Shirley shook her head. “I really don’t think you should see her like this.” She whispered, her eyes wet.

She gestured to the wedding picture in my pod, the one that Tasya had a similar version of in hers. “I think it’s better if you remember her like that – in happier times.”

Shirley was right, of course.

I didn't listen. Over her objections, I keyed in my code and as the pod opened with a pneumatic hiss, I knew I’d regret my decision to look for as long – or rather as short – as I live.

I stood there frozen, broken, for who knows how long – Shirley's desperate pleas that we had to keep moving sounded as if they were coming from a million miles away.

I had to force myself to take my eyes off Taysa – I stuffed the picture from her pod – she’d held onto the goofier outtake shot – into my pocket and resealed hers with a sense of finality. Still feeling lost, I numbly opened Craig's pod next.

He was unrecognizable save for the name engraved on the outside – all that remained of our Science Officer within were loosely scattered bones, gnawed and covered in bits of gristle.

Shirley was right. We were not alone on the ship, and whatever was in here with us, it viewed us as prey.

“Zach, come on!” She pulled at my shoulder frantically, finally snapping me out of my stupor. “We can’t help them, we’ve got to go!”

I took one fleeting look back at the grouping of pods, which unlike their inhabitants, were flawless. By looking at the stasis chambers themselves, you’d never guess the gruesome state of those inside.

“How did they open the pods without damaging them?” I gasped, lungs unused to the exertion. “The things in here with us?”

She shushed me as she flattened against the dark hallway, looking around the corner for the longest time before she waved me on. I was so much slower – too slow – my body still trying to recover from its unexpected awakening and my mind still reeling at trying to process living without my wife – my best friend. At several points I encouraged Shirley to go on without me, but she refused.

I’d never encountered any hostile lifeforms before, but I’d heard horror stories from some of the more veteran members of our crew – enough to fill my mind with nightmarish possibilities of what pursued us in the dark, of the spindly bodies and gleaming teeth that could be awaiting us at the end of any hallway or from a dark corner of any room.

“Those things that did this – what did they look like?” I asked weakly, although part of me almost didn’t want to know, hoped that if they did find us, it’d all be over before I even saw them coming. That was a small mercy that I hoped Taysa and the others had been granted – that they’d never even awoken from stasis, maybe they’d never felt a thing.

Shirley’s eyes darted away from mine, her face painted a pale red by the warnings flashing across a distant screen. I almost thought she hadn't heard me, and had been about to ask a second time when she finally answered, “I hope that you'll never have to find out.”

The ship’s system had auto-dimmed the lights in some areas and rendered others entirely dark – none of us were supposed to be awake, after all. Strange shadows, every rattle along the metal grates, and smallest noise from unseen sources had my blood running cold – no matter how hard I tried to push the thought from my head, I couldn’t help but imagine the inhuman things that had greedily pulled the flesh and muscle from the bones of my friends.

I pressed Shirley for answers – begged her to tell me everything she knew about how our routine operation had gone so terribly, utterly wrong, but she didn’t seem to know much more than what she’d already told me.

I fell silent and let her guide me as she expertly navigated the shadows of the dimly lit corridors, wincing as her hand brushed against another deep but healing wound on the same arm as my fresh one.

I tried not to think of how many unseen eyes could be upon us at any given moment as our steps echoed down pitch-black halls – halls that I desperately hoped were empty.

Finally, we arrived at the entrance to the main control room, the place where we had the best chance of not only locating whatever was on the ship with us but could also isolate chambers to remotely modify the gravity and oxygen levels – we could try and fight back against the invaders. After she cleared the threshold, I limped to follow Shirley inside.

I was utterly shocked when she instead sealed the door behind her.

“What are you doing?” I screamed into the comm next to the air-tight, thick plastic of the door.

“I’m sorry, Zach. I lied to you.” Her grainy voice whispered back from the speaker. “There's nothing out there.”

My eyes widened. “So, there’s nothing hunting the crew of this ship?”

“I wouldn’t say that.” She shook her head bitterly. “And something did hit us. We are off course. Stranded. I’ve been calling for help for weeks.”

I tried to will the fog from my brain, tried to process that information.

“Why are we awake, then?”

“My pod failed, I woke up a year early.”

I grimaced in empathy, but part of me was selfishly relieved that mine seemed to have failed so much closer to our destination, “What happened to the others?”

“Craig was never a great guy – I didn’t even feel guilty that time,” she said after a long pause. “He was the first one to go.” She stared past me, dreamily. “When I first woke up, I thought that maybe I could use his pod and fall back into stasis for the remaining year – but he didn't want to cooperate.”

“You know that’s not how those chambers work.” I found myself saying automatically – it was a fact drilled into our heads. A feature, not a bug – programmed to dissuade this exact scenario.

“I was desperate!” she snapped. “I thought I could override it to work for my biology instead of his. But it didn’t work. Of course, it didn’t. At least he didn't die in vain, though.”

Silence was my response, as I tried processing her admission.

“Zach, I've been awake for so long, I ran out of food. I was starving.” Her words were devoid of emotion – spoken in the matter-of-fact tone of someone who had long come to terms with the consequences of their actions. “I had to make a choice.”

“How much oxygen do we have left?” I asked abruptly, as I realized where she was going with this.

“What?” She seemed genuinely perplexed by my question. “We have plenty. Why?”

“The greenhouse. You had to make a choice, right? Between food, and air?”

“Oh.” She gave a little laugh, a sweet smile – one that I just then realized was tinged pink. “Oh Zachary, that's not the choice I had to make.”

As she smiled her newly chipped-tooth grin at me, I realized the decision she had made. Where the missing pieces of Craig, of Tasya, the others, had gone.

“I saved you for last, Zach. You were always my favorite. If we hadn't gone off course, I'd never have had to dig into you.” She shrugged. “I'm sorry.”

Even if the apology was genuine, it meant shit to me in that moment.

‘Sorry’ wouldn’t restore the life Taysa and I had planned together – the one that'd we'd only just begun. It wouldn’t bring back our crewmates.

“I didn’t expect you to wake up this time. And then when you did, I panicked. I made something up to buy me some time.” She pulled on a headset.

The look on my face seemed to tell her that what she’d done was unforgivable. That we both knew she’d have to come out of that room sometime. That I’d be waiting for her no matter how much time she’d thought she bought.

“Zach, look. I can shut off the O2 out there and drag you back into your tube after you pass out, but it’ll be easier on us both if you cooperate. I've been radioing and if someone can get to us within a month and a half, there will be enough left of you for you to still have some semblance of a life. We can both make it out of here, go our separate ways. We can stick to the story that something hostile attacked us and we were the only survivors.”

“Why a month and a half?” Confusion briefly diluted my blind rage.

“Trust me, I’m a bit of an expert on this sort of thing now.” She laughed for a brief moment, before going on to detail the caloric math behind her calculation as emotionlessly as if she were explaining the state of the ship’s three hydraulics systems.

She shook her head in response to my string of profanity aimed at her.

“Alright, Zachary. I'm going to turn the air off in there until you settle down.” She winked at me as she remotely sealed the door between me and the exit from the hallway – trapping me in my small section. “Don’t give me a reason to not turn it back on.”

As she reached for the controls, something in the headset made her jump – took her attention off me.

“Hello? Hello?” She shouted.

I paused my pounding on the door so I could hear her side of the conversation.

“Oh my god.” I heard her weep as she finally made contact – the only genuine emotion she’d displayed since I’d been awake. Maybe even in all the years I’d known her. “The ship’s off course. I thought… I really thought I’d die out here.”

The silence, as she processed whatever she was being told was heavy – palpable.

“You’re two months out?” Her voice caught in her throat, as her eyes darted towards me.

For a fleeting moment I thought I saw true regret – genuine sorrow – in them before they narrowed.

“No.” She whispered in response to the unheard question.

Her stony gaze never faltered as she pressed a button on the panel – entered her override code. The abrupt silence that followed was telling – the steady hum that indicated the flowing of oxygen, had ceased.

“No.” She repeated, her voice harder that time. “It’s just me.

She said nothing for what felt like an eternity – until I saw colors before my eyes, was barely able to discern her next words.

“I’m the only survivor.”

JFR

This is up there for one of the eeriest, most inexplicable things that has ever happened to me or anyone I know. I decided to tell this story tonight because it is now 12:38am on December 8th and it would've been my dads birthday. I was one of his best friends.

My parents divorced when I was 15 and he had met Laura a few months later. My dad was an alcoholic but not the worst I've ever seen. When I was 19, I moved about 45 minutes away to attend college so I wasn't living with him and his girlfriend anymore. My dad called me late one afternoon, a week before Christmas, and said,

"Laura's leaving me. She's packing her shit right now. Can you come get me? I don't wanna fuckin' be here."

I drove there immediately. When I walked in that door, for the first and only time, my dad hugged me and sobbed on my shoulder like he was the child and I was the adult. I would wager that as one of the saddest and scariest moments of my life. Eventually I convinced him to come and spend the night at my place. We had driven maybe 2 minutes through town when he told me to stop at the liquor store. I reluctantly did. When he came back to the car, he sighed, almost sounding defeated,

"Take me back.”

I refuted “Nooo, just come with me. You don't really need to be there right now... It's gonna be okay. Why do you wanna go back??"

"Nahh, just take me back..." he shakes his head.

"No, You're coming with me. Fuck her... I'll roll a big joint, you can sleep on...."

"Take me... BACK!!!!!" he growled.

I sighed and...against my intuition I did. On the way back to his place I played him the song "Overcome" by the band "Live". The lyrics say “Holy water in my lungs…” We both cried...

I called him twice a day, every day for 3 days. He was extremely depressed. I asked him what he was eating and he said..."beer" and "Campbells soup."

That 3rd night he was slurring his words on the phone... told me had gone to the bar and fallen on the way home but was okay, just pain on his left side. The next morning, my flip phone rings around 6:00am. It was my dad.

I whispered groggily, "Dad??"

"Britt...........I'm..coughing up.. blood.."

I sat up quickly "You...what? Coughing...blood??"

A coughing fit on the other end ensues. "Can you....come... and take me to my family...doctor?"

I asked him a few more questions and (against his wishes), I called him an ambulance.

Later that day, I went to the hospital. When I walked past his curtain in emerge, he was sitting on the edge of his bed. I recall thinking he looked like a cancer patient.

"Oh... god....what's going on?"

"They said I have pneumonia. My left lungs full of fluid" he said and then he hung his head sadly.

He was there for 5 days. They gave him Ativan and other things to help with withdrawals. I was there everyday after school. He tried so hard to leave the hospital. I had to stop him from taking out the butterfly, IV and messing with the monitors. I told him when he gets out, he can come home with me and everything will be fine. He became increasingly angry with me this particular day. This time I was so frusterated with him I turned to leave without a hug. My bf at the time stopped me outside the door...

"You should give your old man a hug"....he whispered.

I turned around and gave my dad an awkward hug in his wheelchair and left.

I'm a very sound sleeper. Once I'm asleep I NEVER wake up.

That night at 3:24am, I jolted awake and sat up on my elbow panting and sweating seemingly for no reason. Looked at the clock, noted it and just went back to sleep.

I was again jolted awake around 7am by my ex-boyfriend. The cops were at our door. They told me to have a seat on my couch, asked who I was, asked about my dad. I answered them hesitantly, thinking my dad was in trouble for some reason...

My dad had died.

Doctor told us later that day that his official time of death was.....3:24am. I didn’t realize until later…that’s when I was jolted awake, the moment my dad died.

Later that night, I had a weird vision like dream..never had a dream like this before or since. Remember the old TV's when you couldn't find a channel? Gray static? That’s what the background of this was. He was standing in front of me, looking sad and softly crying. He says to me (verbatim),

"Are you sad?"

Confused and frustrated I choked out "Yeah I'm sad!!!"

He quietly said ......"It's okay..........I'm sad too"

I jolted awake. My face already soaked in tears and more confused than ever.

To this day, I can hardly get through the last song we ever listened to together. The line “Holy water in my lungs” gets me every time.

Happy birthday dad.

Chapter 1
Chapter 2

The Vestal whispered into her prayer candle as she walked forward down the tunnel. Her words would prevent the wax from burning too quickly, allowing her potentially weeks of light if she kept up her muttering. She had already been wandering for hours, and the candle looked as though it had scarcely been burning for a few minutes, but the holy words emanating from her mouth had left her voice cracked and strained. She would have to rest soon to let it recover, lest she be unable to speak at all.

In the hand that didn’t hold the candle she clutched a scourge, brown with stained blood from her last atonement. She wasn’t supposed to leave the convent without the Mother Superior’s permission, and a transgression like that required penance. It wasn’t strictly a weapon, but holding it comforted the Vestal, and made her feel less frightened at the thought of the terrors that were said to lurk within the darkness of the Labyrinth.

In many ways the Labyrinth’s sterile, featureless corridors reminded her of the convent. Save for the chapel, it was generally kept bare and undecorated, lest the sisters within become overly focused on the beautification of their surroundings rather than the worship of their deity. It wouldn’t do for a sister of the hearth to be too focused upon aesthetic considerations.

The Vestal reached a break in the path, the corridor branching off into a four way split that presented her the choice of moving forwards, left, or right. Without thinking, the Vestal took the left turn, continuing her ceaseless prayer. She didn’t bother to note down her choice via chalk or quill; if she was destined to find the Chalice, she would find it. If not, she would perish in the darkness beneath the world. Either way, she would never see the sun again.

- - -

She’d been making a copy of an old Church manuscript when she learned about the entrance to the Labyrinth. It was some dull theological treatise or another, a lecture upon whether or not the souls of virtuous pagans would be destroyed in the Great Burning that would occur during the end times or if they would be given a chance to repent their sins. The Vestal didn’t recall what position the author had taken, as she only remembered the note that had been scrawled in the corner of the page, the faded ink barely discernible.

Beneath the Temple of Shadows there is a staircase. The Labyrinth is real.

A sister of the hearth was not meant to have desires of her own. She was meant to serve; her Church, her community, her God. But deep within the Vestal’s heart, a wish burned inside of her, desperate to be fulfilled. She knew it would be a violation of her oath, but it was something she must do.

Leaving the convent was far easier than the Vestal had assumed. In fact, it was almost easy. The convent had been designed more with the intention of keeping others out than keeping its inhabitants within. Under the cover of night, she slipped away under the noses of her fellow sisters and made her way through the woods to the Temple of Shadows.

It had another name, once, before the Church of the Eternal Flame persecuted its congregation and prohibited the worship of its goddess. Now even the name of the so-called Queen of Shadows had been forgotten, remembered only as a demon worshiped by backwards pagans, justifiably purged in order to purify the untamed land.

When the Vestal reached the Temple, however, it did not seem to her to be a place of malice, the abode of some vile demon. The moon was bright, and its light revealed a building that was smaller than she expected, and seemed to her quite similar to the churches of her own faith, albeit long abandoned and in great disrepair. She had expected there to be an aura of vileness surrounding the whole structure, that its architecture would be unpleasant on the eyes or that it would emanate an intense feeling of dread, but instead it just seemed faintly sad. There was an air of melancholy about the entire structure, its gray columns were covered with vines, and she noticed dead leaves and dust coating the floor of its great hall as she stepped inside. The statue of the goddess who was once worshiped here had been decapitated and toppled to the ground. In the back of her mind there was a faint itch of guilt, one which she could not explain in words.

But the Vestal had no time for such things.

Producing her prayer candle and lighting it with a word, she searched the interior of the Temple carefully, looking for the entrance that was mentioned in the manuscript. For a great while she found nothing; the Temple seemed utterly empty, and she felt like a starving rat scrounging around among the bones of some long-dead animal, searching desperately for a scrap of meat. The Vestal nearly gave up, considering returning to the convent in shame and pleading for forgiveness from the Mother Superior, when she noticed her candle flicker faintly as she passed by the cracked stone altar.

She crept closer, peering carefully at the slab of stone before her. It had once been adorned with runes or sigils or some sort, she could see the faint remnants of some of the symbols, but the majority had been chiseled away in an act of defilement. She felt a faint draft emanating from beneath the altar, and noticed the slightest gap between the altar the floor itself. It was covering up an opening of some kind.

It took all the Vestal’s strength to push the altar from the opening, but she eventually managed to widen the gap just enough that she could squeeze inside. She carefully lowered herself beneath the floor, finding a staircase leading down further than her light could reach. With no reason to delay, the Vestal began her descent.

She lost count of how many steps she had taken somewhere around two thousand, and gave up on determining how deep she was. She felt as though she were descending the stairway to Hell itself, and to a certain degree she knew that it was not an entirely inaccurate comparison.

The stairs and walls seemed to be carved from the living rock, with a level of practical coarseness that bordered upon the primitive, but it seemed stable enough. There were few cracks, and never did she feel as though she was in any danger of the walls or ceiling collapsing around her.

The Vestal felt as though she was falling into a trance, the melodic pattern of one foot after another lulling her into placidity. She didn’t even cry out when she tripped on the edge of her habit and began to tumble down the carved stone steps.

The Vestal didn’t know how far she had left to go, as her candle didn’t provide much in the way of light, but she did know she could not see the bottom when she had tripped. Time slowed for her somewhat as she fell, and she contemplated the fact that she could very well find her end there, in the dark, dying from a broken neck on a fool’s errand. She didn’t feel particularly bothered at the idea of her death. Its abject pointlessness seemed perfectly in congruence with the rest of her life.

A moment later, the Vestal hit the ground, winded and bruised but unharmed. She felt faintly disappointed. She groped around for the candle that had gone out during her fall and ignited it, standing up to find herself facing a long, unlit tunnel. She knew she had reached the Labyrinth itself.

- - -

The Vestal’s legs trembled and her breathing was ragged, but still she muttered out the prayers that kept her candle lit. She was tired, desperately tired, and it seemed to her as though she had made no progress. All of the tunnels looked the same, all barren, all empty. There was nothing but untold miles of rudely carved stone arranged in some insane and inscrutable pattern.

The Vestal’s eyelids began to droop, and it took an effort for her to keep herself walking. She was not used to this level of physical exertion; her tasks in the convent had not, as a general rule, been particularly strenuous. She wanted nothing more than to rest, to sleep.

As she continued to stumble forwards, she became dimly aware of a faint purple light, just at the edge of her vision, coming from somewhere ahead of her. It was very dim, and would have been barely perceptible were it not for the pitch blackness that lay outside of her candle’s circle of radiance, but it was just enough to make her press onward, curious to find its source.

As she drew closer, the light seemed to be ever so slightly brighter and more defined. It emanated from a doorway of sorts, carved into the wall of the tunnel and leading into a chamber beyond. Hesitantly, she peered within.

The room was rectangular in shape, with a low ceiling and nothing in the way of furnishings or décor. The only notable feature of the room were the half dozen large, purple puffball mushrooms, about the size of hay bales, scattered about the room. Each faintly glowed with a gentle phosphorescence that felt somehow calming, comforting. There was a similarly comforting aroma as well, a pleasant scent that reminded the Vestal of lavender.

I must rest, the Vestal thought to herself as she put out her candle, and at least here there will be light to see by upon my awakening. Wearily, she sat down upon the cold, stone floor, resting her back against one of the larger mushrooms. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. The smell intensified in proximity to the mushroom, and the Vestal felt an overwhelming wave of calmness wash over her, as though she were a child being cradled by its mother. Despite her flight from the convent and the oppressive surroundings she found herself in, the Vestal felt safe.

And yet…

Something itched at the back of the Vestal’s mind, a faint worry so slight as to not even qualify as a voice, a feeling more than a thought. She opened her eyes and looked across from her, staring quizzically at one of the other mushrooms. There was something about it that didn’t seem right, a faint familiarity that puzzled her.

Groaning loudly, the Vestal pulled herself away from her fungal pillow, crawling over to the other mushroom to get a closer look in the hopes of determining what had bothered her about it. Even up close, she was unable to quite discover what it was that had elicited her unease, and somehow this served to aggravate rather than alleviate her concern.

The Vestal began to gently peel away at the layers of fungus that made up the puffball, removing strip after strip slowly and carefully. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but she knew whatever it was would be found within the mushroom itself.

After less than a minute of searching, she discovered what had so unnerved her.

The Vestal wretched in disgust, stumbling to her feet and grabbing at her candle, once again igniting it as she retreated back into the safety of the Labyrinth’s gloomy, barren tunnels. She stumbled away as fast as she could, barely stuttering out her prayers as tears of exhaustion and fear ran down her face.

Within her mind’s eye, she could still see it; the yellowed, rotten skull that had been buried deep within the heart of the fungal mass. She still felt the horror clawing at her chest as she realized that each and every one of the six mushrooms resembled nothing so much as a crouching human figure, overgrown with mold.

See here for part 1

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

Three:

With twilight enveloping the landscape, Christian hastily twisted the key into the front door’s lock. As he shook the knob to confirm it was sealed, a handgun’s snout unexpectedly kissed his right temple.

“Don’t move, don’t scream.” Theo growled from under his ski mask in a voice so gravelly and cartoonish that Charlie needed to suppress a laugh stirring in his throat.

Although Mr. Lutzwater obeyed Theo’s commands, his austere aura evaporated, crumbling into primal fear. He lowered his voice to a whisper and attempted to negotiate with his captor, stuttering through bouts of hyperventilation.

“Yes, yes…let me…let me show you to my veh-vehicle. I have…I have money…I have money there. And of course wi-with me.”

“But we need to go - we need to go now.”

Snickering devilishly, Theo denied his request,

“No, Christian. We want the money inside your suite first. If you don’t move to open the door in the next few seconds, I’m going to drive hot lead through your kneecaps, and then we’ll drag you to your suite. Either way, we’re going in.”

As Christian overcame his now full-body tremors enough to unlock the front door, Charlie began preemptively smearing Vaporub through wispy mustache hairs, expecting the embrace of that horrific odor the moment he stepped inside.

If he wasn’t so focused on the task at hand, he may have noticed the pungent aroma was conspicuously absent as the three men descended into the apartment complex. Or that, somehow, the well that was present in the garden just a week prior had dissolved into nothingness, leaving the surrounding soil present and undisturbed, like it had never been there in the first place.

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

With blood and broken teeth landing on the third-floor kitchen tile, Christian at last relented and spoke, unable to withstand another merciless beating.

“The silver key with the red tip is a skeleton key. It opens all the apartments in the building. The pure gold one is for behind the painting.” His tone boggy from the warm puddles of liquid accumulating in his mouth and throat.

“But please - there is nothing here…nothing here that you want. We need…we need to go…”

Charlie passed the keys to Theo, who went to inspect the cubby behind the painting. The older thief continued to monitor Christian, who was bound to a chair in the kitchen.

The first time that Charlie and Theo had interrogated a mark, they were soft and willing to compromise. Years of experience and desensitization, however, had made them inflexible and ruthless. It was for everyone’s benefit, Charlie rationalized. The faster they cave, the faster the experience can be over for all of them - pulling punches only prolonged the trauma.

“Tabitha…Tabitha…oh lord forgive me…” Christian muttered to himself, chin to chest, with plasma dripping from the corner of his mouth and on to the collar of his dress shirt.

The older thief had become concerned they may have bludgeoned Mr. Lutzwater a little too hard. The man had been spilling eerie nonsense from his lips since Theo’s knuckles met his skull. It was profoundly disconcerting, witnessing the battered mark plead to some unseen woman. Adding more wax beneath his nostrils, Charlie wished they’d had remembered duct tape. Something to silence his ominous caterwauling so they could work in peace.

“Charlie, come take a look at this,” Theo shouted from the living room.

Frustrated, he left Christian to his ramblings and walked towards the sound of Theo’s voice, chastising his helplessness: “If the key he said isn’t working on the safe, just start tryin’ some of the other…”

The ongoing criticism suffocated in Charlie’s windpipe when he saw what was behind the painting.

It was a circular hole, about the size of a manhole cover, and seething with darkness. A barred, steel gate separated the cavity inside the wall from the apartment, which was tilted outwards toward Theo, who had unlocked it and left it ajar using the gold key.

Charlie stumbled back, battered by the dreadful stench emanating from the aperture. The odor was an appalling mixture of algae, rusted metal, and sulfur, and it lingered almost palpably in the air like vaporized molasses. Even Theo, with his chronically impaired sense of smell, felt himself involuntarily stepping backwards from the deathly aroma.

From the other room, Christian’s pleading amplified in synchrony with the odor’s diffusion through the apartment. He howled for Tabitha to forgive him, and to forgive the intruders. He cried out, proclaiming that we were all about to leave and that she should stay where she was.

Charlie found himself paralyzed, swaying in place while his mind fought to comprehend their present circumstances. Theo, born without Charlie’s common sense, indifferently walked forward through the noxious vapors and placed his entire head and right arm in the hole, illuminating the space with a flashlight from his tool belt.

From inside the cavity, his words were muffled but audible: “Other than smelling like garbage fire, there’s nothing in here, Charlie. Goddamn, the space goes on for a while. I can’t really even tell where it ends.”

As he yanked his upper body from the crevice, Theo misjudged his position and accidentally slammed the rear of his head against the edge of the black window. After a few twists and “goddamnits”, he was free, but he was enraged. Now a bull seeing red on account of the throbbing pain, Theo angrily strode past Charlie and back into the kitchen. Without warning, he smashed the flashlight against Christian’s jaw with such force that the plexiglass protecting the lightbulb shattered.

“Where the fuck is the money, dickhead?” he shouted, livid from confusion.

Between the simmering panic and the accumulating injuries, Christian had become unresponsive. Unfortunately, this only served to further provoke the young thief. With another overhead arc of his flashlight, Charlie snapped into motion, grabbing Theo’s arm before he could bring it down on Christian again.

“You’re going to kill him if you keep going. He said the silver key can open all the empty apartments, yeah? Let’s go check a few out. If there’s nothing in them, this may be a wash,”

Charlie’s hushed tone soothed him, and Theo cooled. Within seconds, his anger was replaced with an intense embarrassment that his partner had witnessed such a volcanic outburst. The young thief had always hated his volatility, which caused him, in turn, to idolize Charlie’s temperament and control.

Theo tapped his boot rapidly against the floor. Over the time it took for him to exhale three deep breaths, he incrementally slowed the rate of the tapping, letting his foot become motionless at the end of the third exhale. This calming technique was something Charlie had taught him years before. His initial skepticism caused him to dismiss Charlie’s advice. Upon trying it, however, Theo discovered that it worked like a charm - some emotional magic that he was somehow never given access to.

“…sorry Ch-…, man. Stay put, asshole.” Theo mumbled, almost divulging Charlie’s identity. He dropped the now broken flashlight at their feet with a calamitous thud. Charlie watched Christian as he did, whose head was laying limply to his right side. He didn’t flinch, so the thieves assumed he had been knocked out cold.

As their footfalls grew faint, Christian’s eyes shot open. Satisfied with his convincing theatrics, he began to teeter the wooden chair quietly, using the tips of his feet to slowly gain momentum despite the restraints.

He prayed that the crash would free enough of him to operate the shotgun still hidden in the bedroom.

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

Darkness had fallen by the time the thieves exited the main suite and started down the hall toward room 302.

Lutzwater Heights’ was almost completely without electricity, excluding the suite that Christian visited daily. It was a cost saving measure, given that the building had no overnight tenets. They had used sparse natural lighting to usher Christian through the lobby and up the stairwells at first, but the arrival of a moonless night meant that was no longer a viable workaround to navigating the black, powerless labyrinth. Theo’s violent tantrum had also broken their only real flashlight, so the thieves were reduced to Theo phone’s dim flashlight for guidance.

Shepherded by the faint glow of Theo’s device, the men tiptoed down the hallway towards the next closest apartment. They didn’t know exactly why they were attempting to move silently - Theo had confirmed ahead of time that the building had no additional security or residents, so there should have been no one to hide from. Yet, it still felt unacceptably dangerous to stomp around Lutzwater Heights in the dead of night.

In a moment of voluminous silence, Charlie could swear he heard something skittering closer to them from behind. The noise was familiar - it was the same frenetic tapping he heard when he tossed his change down the strange well a week earlier. Immediately panicked, he used Theo’s wrist as a handle to turn the direction of the light one-hundred and eighty degrees. When he did, however, they saw nothing but the empty hallway that led back to Christian’s suite.

“What are you doing, psycho?” Theo snapped, wrenching his hand away from Charlie’s grip.

“You don’t…hear that? The tapping?” Charlie whispered, swiveling his head from side-to-side to identify the best possible angle for isolating the true origin of the noise, which now seemed to be spinning and twisting around him.

Theo heard the skittering, but he had been choosing to ignore it. Masking his own growing terror with a familiar bravado, he rebuked Charlie and continued to move forward.

“Jesus man, get a grip. It’s probably just drizzling outside. Don’t have a coronary over some fucking rain.”

Room 302 was just a short distance away from Theo. As he walked forward and he pivoted the knob, Charlie felt an uncontrollable twinge of fear sprint up and down his spine, but his only friend had already proceeded into the blackness before he could overcome that fear and stop him.

Reluctantly, he forced himself through the threshold after the young thief.

In a fevered rush of bravery, Charlie almost trampled Theo, who was just inside the room and fiddling with a dusty light switch. Despite a bevy of attempts, no electricity appeared to brighten the room and expunge the darkness as he flicked the loose plastic knub up and down.

“Ugh, figures. Guess he wasn’t lying about the power.” Theo declared impatiently, desperate for this experience to be over, but unwilling to admit defeat and leave without some financial reparations for their time. He stepped forward, momentarily illuminating something so grotesque and unexpected that it caused the phone to drop from Theo’s grip. It clattered to the floor, flashlight side-up, sliding just a little bit further into the tomb. When the phone stopped moving, it laid directly under the impossible anomaly, dramatically saturating it with light from below.

Multiple large, fleshy tubes ran the length of the otherwise empty living quarters. They were all approximately three feet in diameter, covered in sickly white skin that was adorned with hundreds of circumferential ridges, giving them the appearance of an unnaturally gigantic colon or earthworm. Each living cylinder came in and out of the room through different holes in the apartment’s four walls, occurring haphazardly at various positions and heights. The tunnels had jagged edges, because unlike the circular cavity tucked away behind the painting in Christian’s room, someone had not installed them meaningfully. Instead, something created them with physical force.

Because there was no forethought put into the holes design, the tubes ended up forming a tangled and overlapping mess - a ball of heavy, intertwining fingers. Though Theo and Charlie only saw about eight distinct tubes from their stunned vantage point, the real total occupying apartment 302 was roughly three times greater. Only an arm’s length from the writhing mass, the thieves watched as it gurgled and twisted with hideous, synchronous movement.

As the tubes squirmed, mists of the infernal aroma were expelled from their pores. The stench and the shock caused Charlie to fall back against the entryway and vomit, unintentionally closing the door and sealing the chamber.

Theo, although petrified by the hallucinatory creature, stooped and extended a shaking hand to get his phone. Only a foot from him, the device was inches below a tube that entered the living room’s top-left corner and slowly sagged downwards to another tunnel deeper within. Nearly on his knees, Theo contorted himself carefully to avoid letting his upper body make contact with another tube that hung higher and closer to the door. Through heavy breathing, the palm of his hand arrived at the phone, which covered the flashlight and plunged the room into a lightless void.

At that exact moment, Christian had finally managed to tip the wooden chair over, resulting in a loud, splintering crash. The distant noise caused a hypervigilant Theo to involuntarily stand and pivot his body to the left, moving to assess another potential threat by looking in the direction of the sound.

A wet slap resonated through the room. Theo’s cheek and forehead had collided with one of the writhing tubes when he stood, and the sensation startled him, causing the young thief to once again drop his phone. As the apparatus left his hand, the gleam of its flashlight reappeared to put a spotlight on Theo, forcing Charlie to bear witness to the hellish spectacle that followed.

The pallid skin of the tube trilled, resulting in a seismic ripple of tiny, pointed waves to appear around Theo’s head like a halo. No taller than a centimeter, thousands of alabaster spikes radiated in a circle from the point of contact, like the way a thrown pebble can send shockwaves over the surface of a previously still lake. As Theo tried to withdraw his forehead, a slab of vibrating flesh the size and shape of an oven mitt erupted outward from a part of the tube located directly above him. The awakened flesh perched in the air for a split-second - a wriggling, amorphous tombstone for the young thief.

Charlie followed the scene hypnotically, convinced he had taken a wrong turn somewhere and entered a daydream. It was almost like the tube wasn’t actually solid; he reflected indifferently. It was more a congealed liquid that had settled on structuring itself in a tube shape, for one reason or another. The creation of the fleshy tendril didn’t seem to damage the tube’s contents, as it should have if the tissue were solid, and more silvery skin quickly filled the space the tendril had occupied before it came to life.

In one swift motion, thousands of tiny, wriggling barbs sprouted from the side of the fleshy tombstone that faced Theo, only to come crashing down on his unprotected forehead and scalp.

Theo discharged an unearthly cacophony from his lungs. An impossibly concentrated terror made dissonant music through his fraying vocal cords, resulting in a scream so disconcertingly primal that it caused Charlie to kick his heels back against the floor, pushing himself into the fetal position in the room's corner. Steaming blood dripped down Theo’s face like melting candle wax, staining his visible skin a deep crimson.

From in front of Theo, another tube audibly shifted. The congealed skin appeared to be running its most superficial layer counterclockwise, like the tube was a sausage and the casing of it was whizzing around an unseen axis. A recognizable three slits slid into Charlie’s peripheral vision. The tube’s shifting slowed and stopped once the slits were parallel to Theo. They seemed to observe his distress indifferently, like someone who found a creature squealing under the harsh steel of a mousetrap in their cellar. It was trying to determine exactly what it had caught.

A moment later, Christian’s foot collided violently with 302’s door. He strode into the commotion with a confidence that showcased that he was relatively unphased by the horror before him. He remained handcuffed to a piece of the shattered wooden chair from the other room, dragging it with him as he walked. Christian beckoned to Charlie with the barrel of a shotgun, wordlessly imploring him to leave the room under his protection. The older thief frantically crawled on all fours in Christian’s direction, sprawling on his back and wailing once he had reached the safety of the unlit hallway.

Then, from the depths of 302, a blast rung out. The explosion permanently quieted Theo’s agony, leaving only the melody of Charlie’s sobs echoing through the apartment complex.

Dress shoes clicked towards Charlie, slow and deliberate. In a reversal of position, the snout of Christian’s still fuming shotgun pressed lightly against Charlie’s forehead.

From above him, Mr. Lutzwater dropped Theo’s phone next to his ear, still sticky and hot with viscous blood.

The flashlight remained on and functional despite the death of its owner, and the plasma now coating the lens had tinted the faint glimmer pink.

“Get up. Show me where you saw the well.”

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

Four:

Once there was a lonely young boy named Christian.

Although his family was staggeringly wealthy, an expansive mansion and a fleet of servants did not quell the young boy’s loneliness.

However, fate would soon intervene on the boy’s loneliness. A young girl named Tabitha skipped into Christian’s expansive backyard one day. They were fast friends, enjoying the same games and stories as each other.

Christian and Tabitha even kind of looked similar, like long-lost siblings or twins. But the resemblance was not a coincidence - no, this was intentional.

Rosemary and Sebastian, Christian’s parents, had purchased Tabitha from a local drunk. They had shopped around for many years, trying to find a child that looked like their Christian. Thankfully, Tabitha’s mother was more than happy to turn one of her children into money to purchase more liquor.

In a time before Christian’s birth, Sebastian had struck a deal with something old and infinite. It lived inside a well, whispering softly to a young, destitute Sebastian. It purposed a simple transaction - immense riches, a fix for his poverty, in exchange for the first of his eventual bloodline.

The young man agreed to the terms.

Thus, Sebastian was an overnight success in the world of real estate. And for a long while, things were prosperous and peaceful. Sebastian was not worried, either. If that thing in the well ever came back and asked for their end of the deal, he had a plan to circumvent the surrender of his firstborn.

Two years after Sebastian purchased Tabitha, he saw a familiar-looking well appear in the backyard, right around Christian’s eighth birthday.

Although it pained him, he enacted his plan that very night.

Quietly, as to not wake Christian, Sebastian and Rosemary rose Tabitha. As quickly as they could, they shaved her head to match Christian’s. Then, they dressed her in Christian’s clothes. Finally, they had their most trusted servant throw her down the well.

When Rosemary and Sebastian could no longer see the well or hear Tabitha’s cries, they assumed their debt had been paid - their surrogate first-born accepted by the thing that lived in the well.

But Christian could still see the well. Christian could still hear Tabitha’s cries, all day and all night. Overtime, the pitch of her voice became lower and lower. The cries of pain transitioned into screams of anger. And one night, Christian was summoned to his bedroom window by a skittering, tapping sound coming from the well.

Horrified, he watched as a massive worm emerged from the well, ascending the stone wall on thousands of legs that seemed to vanish and reappear as it climbed. It almost could not drag itself out of the hatch, its diameter being a near-perfect mold of the inside of the well, causing it to fit very snugly.

The end that first appeared from the well was flat and blunted, decorated with three, rippling slits - two vertical, one horizontal. In the beginning, it was no longer than a broomstick. But as it dragged more and more of the servants into the well at night, its size grew.

Christian could have warned his parents, but he knew the worm was Tabitha, and he wanted to protect her more than he wanted to save them. She skittered up the wall to his second-story bedroom, and he let her inside via the window. The details of the betrayal and the pain Tabitha had gone through convinced Christian to keep her transformation a secret.

He was sixteen when Tabitha finally pulled Sebastian and Rosemary into the well, crying out for Christian to help them. But at that point, Tabitha was almost a half mile long, living tangled up in the walls of the mansion. He couldn’t have helped them, even if he wanted to.

When Tabitha finally got too big for the house, she retreated into the sewers at Christian’s behest.

He promised he had found a new home for her, on the opposite side of the city.

Christian would meet her there.

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

At gunpoint, Christian forced Charlie to the front of Lutzwater Heights, guided by the dim light of Theo’s phone. During the short journey, Mr. Lutzwater bombarded his captive with an array of unintelligible ramblings. Christian never had anyone to talk to about Tabitha. So, when he had Charlie as his unwilling confident, someone who had seen Tabitha and lived, he simply couldn’t help himself. The floodgates broke, and years of pent-up madness spilled through.

“She wants to leave and live in the sewers, but I won’t let her,”

“I had to evacuate the building - she was getting too big to only live in the walls, she needed to start living in the apartments, too,”

“The well still wants me - that’s why she’s so hungry all the time. But I feed her, and she would never hurt me, no matter how hungry she got,”

“Tabitha gets hungrier at night - I told you we shouldn’t have gone in,”

“I’m sorry about this, but Tabitha is still hungry.”

Outside Lutzwater Heights, by the well, Charlie desperately begged Christian to let him return home. But Mr. Lutzwater couldn’t hear anything he had to say over the deafening noise of his jagged, incomprehensible monologue.

As Charlie approached the well, shotgun to his back, Tabitha rose from the inky darkness. He shouted for help, but no one else was around the empty boluvard.

Before Charlie could make a break for it, she caught his leg and twisted around him like a boa constrictor. The pale flesh squished against his body. He braced himself to be devoured like Theo, but he remained intact as Tabitha coiled around him. The barbs, her teeth, had not yet rematerialized.

From his immobilized position, Charlie saw another piece of Tabitha silently slither out the front door. Christian’s endless monologue continued, even though Charlie could not hear a single word of it over the droning and churning of Tabitha’s liquid flesh.

Mr. Lutzwater never saw it coming.

Tabitha’s barbs dug into his right ankle and calf, causing an immediate and ear-splitting scream from Christian that only Charlie was around to hear. The congealed flesh then flipped him upside down, causing his head to slam violently into the hard earth, knocking him unconscious.

The thick tendril then hoisted him into the air, moving Christian directly over the well’s maw. As it did, the tentacle that was holding Charlie in place uncoiled and receded into the well, disappearing from view.

A voice then echoed from inside the well, deep and unfamiliar.

“Don’t forget about our deal, Charlie. This is what happens when you don’t abide by the terms.”

And with that, the tentacle holding Christian released its grasp, causing him to fall noiselessly into the shadows. Shortly afterwards, that tentacle followed Christian in. For the next few hours, Charlie sat upright on the ground and wordlessly watched miles of Tabitha slither from the entrance of Lutzwater Heights into the well. As the sun rose, the last of her squeezed itself into the hatch. Once it did, Charlie could see the well no longer.

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

Two months later, Charlie had his first date with Hilda. She owned a coffee shop next door to where he had been getting therapy. Charlie never divulged to anyone what he saw happen that night - only admitting that he had a close friend pass away in front of him, never willing to divest additional details.

Hilda immediately fell for Charlie, despite his overwhelmingly colorless demeanor following Theo’s death. He was skeptical at first, but then Charlie recalled the terms of his deal.

Sometimes, he thinks he sees the well. In public and in private, lurking on the very edge of his peripheral vision. He frequently steels his conscious and compartmentalizes his emotions, not wanting to become too attached to the idea of Charlie Junior, despite Hilda being pregnant with their firstborn.

In the end, Charlie wasn’t exactly happy, but he certainly was not alone.

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

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

When I was a kid [I think, because who really knows] I met a Soviet soldier ten kilometres north of Yellowknife, where my dad worked for the federal government of Canada before abandoning us.

What's a Soviet soldier doing in the 70s in the sub-arctic, you ask.

[I don't know.]

Trying to outrun the Devil, he said in broken English.

I sat beside him and tried to understand the story he told me. I didn't, but he seemed at peace after he'd told it, so we sat smoking cigarettes.

“I hope you do it—outrun the Devil,” I said finally.

Impossible, he said. Nobody can do it. You can stay ahead for only so much time. “But,” he said, “before he die, God barter with Devil and Devil say that before he catch up to a man, he give him the peace of the moonlight mile.”

What's that, I asked.

He was gone but the northern lights lit up the night sky and I danced with them awhile.

Then I got on my bike and peddled cold back home.

My mom didn't care where'd I'd been, but you may be wondering: what was a deadbeat kid like me doing ten kilometres north of Yellowknife?

Huffing aerosol cans.

So you can appreciate my self-doubt.

[We are ghosts.]

I never saw the soldier again, never found any mention of him at all, but four weeks later the police found two families massacred in a fly-in community five hundred kilometres farther north.

I left Yellowknife when I turned seventeen. Left my mom, passed out drunk, on the couch. I at least turned up the heat before I went.

[Mercy, me.]

I hitchhiked south.

In 1980 I found myself down in the Big Smoke [Toronto], where I fell in with some older men who showed me how to score and the ways of the world. I had a favourite, Downie. He took to calling me Ghost and I liked that, so you can call me that too.

I didn't know Downie long.

He died in 1981.

Of all the deaths I've known, that's the only one I never got over [except my own.] I wish I'd been with him as he went, but the cops had been raiding the bathhouses, and we were scared.

“Life's fucked up, you know?” Downie told me once. “I wish that when I die, instead of dying, I could evaporate my soul into your body forever.”

[Huff me out of a can.]

He was out of his mind, but that's the closest anyone's come to saying I love you.

As for me, I've died so many times I've lost count. I died ten kilometres north of Yellowknife, but the Devil let me go, and when I set my mother on fire his chase began. The federal government never gave a shit about those dead families. [We're all dead up there.] I exhale Downie; breathe him back in. And if there is a moonlight mile, I'm still waiting for it.

First/Previous

The creature, eyes onyx-dark and without whites, sat atop the boulder like a throne and gazed across the far east hills and valleys from its perch along a high ridge. Over its otherwise naked body, was slung a poorly cloak constructed from the patchwork skins of paint horses—the material was strung together with twine through stone-punched holes by untrained hands. The Nephilim seemed like a sculpture against the midday sun’s pink sky; this façade was broken only by its steady breath. This humanoid form was great, with blood-stained hands the size of ceiling fans which hung between its spaced knees, eyes like cannon balls which dully observed, a chest as broad as a lorry which methodically rose and fell. Long dark hair hung over its beardless face.

He, The Nephilim, blinked then went on staring. Beyond him too, where he sat upon the risen earth, land stretched west—on the furthest horizons that way, smoke.

The blank visage he drew indicated stupidity, as did his brief utterances; he spoke frequently to himself and no one else, always in short bursts. This was no indication of his honest intelligence. He could speak clearly and at length but chose not to engage in the practice.

The Nephilim rose from the boulder, planted his bare feet onto the ground and held the ragged cloak around his throat with pinched fingers.

He rounded the boulder to find a scene of fresh viscera there; already birds picked along the sidelines. Among the carnage were a family’s belongings—wagon, books, tools, a dog carcass without a head, scattered children’s toys. He moved to where a dead woman lay face-up and towered over the corpse and stared into the open expression of horror frozen there. He blinked, sighed, lowered himself to lift her booted foot. The Nephilim planted a heel against the corpse’s crotch and yanked swiftly with his hand clamped around the ankle. The leg tore free easily and blood splatter shot across the earth, and he removed the pantleg and boot and lifted the naked leg to his mouth with both hands, allowing the cloak to fall away from him where it remained crescent shaped on the earth.

The beast twisted the leg like clay to shuck the meat from bone. He chewed and walked back to the ridge and stared again and chewed again.

***

Gray cacti and low yellow brush stretched toward the sky in all directions; the siblings cursed against their traveling, against the path in front of them, against the places they’d come from. Trinity took the rear and kept a hand on Hoichi’s elbow as they traversed the arduous land. The earth was like frozen desert ocean waves across Sagebrush Valley. The sun, highest as it was, beat sweat out of them at the pace of a heartbeat.

Among the spitting, the cursing, the scrape of heels against packed earth, Hoichi stopped and grabbed ahold of his sister and pointed ahead in the general direction they’d been going; ahead a series of dead hills was a single ponderosa pine tree. Trinity slammed ahead and Hoichi dragged after her, then keeping his hands on her arm.

“Goddamn, it’s hot,” said Trinity, “Sweat is reaching places I never knew it could.” She blinked and the thick sheen pooled across her eyelids sent drops like tears down her face.

Hoichi pushed his forehead into the shoulder of his robes and rubbed it wildly back and forth. “Dangerous temperatures,” said the clown, “Too dangerous.”

“C’mon to that tree then. Hurry,” said Trinity.

They slammed beneath the ponderosa then carefully sidled around so their faces were well shaded; the clown wafted himself and laid on his back while the hunchback drank heartily and took the hem of her robe wildly to her face—she rested against the trunk of the tree. When Hoichi lazily reached out toward her, motioning for the canteen, she lifted it once more with one hand then outstretched her other with a single index finger.

She sighed and handed him the canteen.

“Maybe north’s good,” said Trinity, “Like that guy from Lubbock said. North wouldn’t be so hot. That’s what people say. I know you were little, but what do you remember about it?”

Hoichi remained silent while he drank, but eventually rose from the open mouth of the canteen and craned to sit cross-legged; he capped the container then dabbed around his eyes for sweat. “It’s cold,” he nodded, “But I was so small, I don’t remember much.”

“Let’s rest here,” said Trinity; she shifted beneath the thin branches of the ponderosa, “Maybe even until dark, huh?”

“Maybe,” nodded Hoichi.

They remained there, silent for a time, and watched the sun in the sky, and sometimes they pointed at the sky to show a cloud to the other, but neither of them seemed in good spirits.

***

Kleine Leute, said The Nephilim; he watched the siblings from the ridge, nodded. He’d taken to sunbathing entirely naked atop the boulder; his horse-cloak was laid out beneath him. He snorted then moved to the disaster camp and among the splintered wagon and strewn corpses, he found a barrel with a spigot. He opened the spigot and splashed himself with the water that came from it, swiping his hair back from his face.

The Nephilim returned to the boulder, hunkered alongside it, lowered nearer the edge of the high ridge. He watched the unmoving figures beneath the shade of the ponderosa and asked himself, Weiche Körper? he nodded to himself, Gutes Gefühl.

He returned to the disaster camp to sate his hunger and watched the siblings from his perch and even as the sun went down, he remained where he was, unsleeping. They lit no fire, so the landscape was dark. They lit no fire, so he descended from where he was, and he was startingly silent for his size. He stood at the edge of the furthest twisty branches of the ponderosa, lowered himself to peer beneath at the sleeping figures. The Nephilim examined them, matched his own breathing to theirs, came close enough to stare at their faces.

The man sleeping there beside the woman had no ears and his face was strange. The Nephilim reached out to the sleeping man, pointed outward with the index finger of his massive right hand—he could easily swallow the sleeper’s head in his palm—and traced the areas where the man’s ears should’ve been without putting skin to skin. This stalker then turned his attention to the prone woman and angled over her and reached out to feel the breath from her nostrils with the tips of his fingers. The Nephilim cocked his head while his gaze traced between the pair.

Hastily, The Nephilim fled from the scene and returned to his perch where he watched them for the remainder of the night.

***

Neither of the siblings stirred beyond the average twists which accompanied sleep, and upon waking to the heat of the sun, the pair of them sat and drank and rubbed their faces.

Hoichi examined the ponderosa tree, “Thanks, ol’ pal,” he said to the inanimate object, “Couldn’t have done it without you.” He yawned, stretched, rose to his feet and dusted himself off. His robe was painted with the dull gray-khaki of the earth.

Trinity rose too and they examined the sky through the branches of the tree; she stopped for a moment, outstretched a hand to the one of the branches, traced along it delicately. “It’s very green. Look at it, it’s really green.”

Hoichi nodded, “So?”

“So? You remember I wanted to see the gardens back at Dallas. We should’ve. It’s maybe the greenest place on earth. At least the nearest one I know. But look at this—you almost never see anything this green out in the wastes. Everything’s so messed up out here.” She pulled her own robe closer around herself and shook her head. “I smell bad. We smell bad. We should stop soon. Somewhere, maybe where they’ve got gardens. Somewhere with a bath and fresh clothes. Hot bath. Clean clothes.”

“Gotcha’,” said the clown, “Clean bath. Hot clothes,” He made a face. “Bath clothes. Clean hot,” He shook his head, “Whatever you said.” Though he grinned, Trinity did not. He nudged her, nodded, and removed the grin from his face. He apologetically shrugged.

They set off from the ponderosa and clamored across the landscape like amateurs, headed westward; the uneven terrain left their feet sliding so they grappled with one another for aid over every big rock and ridge. Seemingly, determination and nothing else carried them. 

Trinity was the first to meet the highest western plateau; Hoichi remained behind to shove her by the rear. She toppled forward onto her knees then threw her head back as though to speak, but her mouth was frozen in its pursed shape when she saw the view awaiting her there. The disaster camp remained unmoving, save the scavenger birds. She didn’t scream in surprise. She lifted herself to her feet, brushed her knees off, and shook her head.

Hoichi came after, stumbling into her with his momentum.

They stood there together and examined the camp.

Three wagons sat in shambles—two overturned and the one left upright was missing a wheel. Glinting in sunlight was a small tanker on wheels; it had been drawn by the remaining upright wagon. A discarded boot sat by their feet. Fourteen bodies lay strewn across the ground around a dead fire—a fifteenth body remained unseen by them, crushed beneath the side of an overturned wagon.

The pair of them took alongside a boulder for rest and wiped their brows and shot each other curious looks.

“What did it?” asked Trinity.

“Something bad. Fire doesn’t look that old,” said the clown.

Trinity moved from their place at the boulder and Hoichi followed.

A one-legged, one-armed woman lay on the earth, face up, clothes mussed; a stain circled the spot where her leg had been torn free. The blood halo by her shoulder, where her right arm had been, was minimal. Trinity kicked the remaining leg of the dead woman; the boot she wore matched the discarded one they’d passed. “This one’s still a bit stiff,” said the hunchback.

“How’s that possible? We would’ve heard it? They have guns?” Hoichi followed his sister then looked at the dead woman on the ground; he dispersed from there, circled the fire, examined the wagons, stopping whenever he saw a corpse. “Kid over here,” he called.

Trinity hunkered down by the dead woman and fished through the departed’s pockets. She came away with a wallet, dumped out a few Republican coins, and let the wallet smack the ground beside the corpse.

She went to her brother; he struggled with a blanket he’d pilfered from the back of the upright wagon. He flapped it flat over the corpse of a small boy; there stood a concave impression, black, across the dead boy’s forehead—there were no eyes. The scavenger birds cawed. Trinity helped her brother to tuck the ends of the blanket around the edges of the corpse.

The pair shooed the birds away and picked over the scene. Hoichi found a double barrel shotgun misplaced beside the wheel of an overturned wagon; he held it to the sunlight in both of his outstretched hands and squinted and whispered, “Bent.”

Trinity examined the wagons’ contents, moved from corpse to corpse and rifled through their pockets and came away with hardly anything; a bit of scratch and a tablet was all she found. She held the tablet, an electronic device, up to her face—its glass screen was cracked terribly, but she pressed the power button on the side of the thing and waited and waited and nothing happened. She shrugged and unslung her pack and put the thing away with her own belongings. “Maybe worth something,” she said to Hoichi, who watched her with some interest. She nodded to the shotgun he held.

“It’s warped, but surely there’s some shells around here somewhere.” His gaze traced the disaster camp. “I don’t know if I want to stick around here much longer though.” His vision shot to the horizon and then traced there too, first to the west, then the east where they’d come from. “I feel eyes, don’t’ you?”

“Paranoia?”

He shook his head, “I don’t know. I don’t like it. What do you think about Roswell?”

“And what?” asked Trinity, “Backtrack?”

Hoichi shook his head again, “You’re the one that was talking about getting a bath. If we keep heading west, then who knows what we’ll find? We’re low on water, I know that. Food too. Pushing on this way’s been foolish. How long until one of us drops from the heat? Or what if starvation?”

“Sure, but the reservations aren’t much further, right?”

Hoichi moved beside an overturned wagon, sat the shotgun across the side paneling of the vehicle, then removed his pack and scanned the red sky; thin clouds transpired there. “What’s the plan then? Do we push on? I trust you.”

Trinity moved to her brother and put her arms across a wagon wheel and put her head down into her arms there. The pair sat in absolute silence besides the patter of the fowls that leapt from spot to spot.

A black bird with red eyes tested the border between itself and the clown and turned its head sidelong to look at Hoichi. The man kicked at the bird and the animal flapped its wings in protest and hopped away before gliding across the disaster camp to peck at the remains of one of the scattered corpses.

Trinity lifted her head. “Wherever we go, let’s stay awhile, yeah? I’m so fucking tired.”

“If we can, we will.”

***

Roswell, beyond its perimeter chain-link fencing, was a city of lights against the darkened sky. Against the blanket of night, Roswell shone like a beacon and the siblings became casual in their pace upon seeing the place arrive in front of them.

Each of them, the hunchback and the clown, lumbered zombielike. They’d quickly depleted what water they’d had and Hoichi had begun to complain about a blister on his right foot; he favored the leg, and even with her own tiredness, Trinity took on some of his weight onto her shoulder.

They came from the sagebrush hills, saw the brave lit caravans venturing south across Highway 285, and Trinity complained for a bath and Hoichi continued mentioning, especially with the landscape growing dark, how he felt eyes on him, and about how he wanted to rest his foot.

It was full dark by the time they rounded the city’s perimeter to meet its gates at the highway. ROSWELL stood out in magnificent lighted font over guarded catwalks suspended across the path and graffities of aliens stood out across propped flat trash flanking the entryway.

First/Previous

Archive

Grandma's I

When I was younger, I moved around a lot, I went from place to place, my parents drifted apart, and eventually, my mom packed our things and we left. 

That brings us to my grandma's. Sitting in the back of the car, I stared at that familiar treeline that the gravel road lead us to. Taking the winding roads into the wooded area, we came onto an open road, the sound of gravel and creaking of the car would keep me from drifting off to sleep. 

We took a slow left turn. The road led to a nice house, grandma's house, the familiar barking of her dogs, and every now and then you'd hear the neighboring horse's. 

My grandma's house is on a property with other family, the houses being a decent distance apart and surrounded by lush woods.

One house (my great uncle?) had horses. I adored them, always packing a small backpack with apples and taking a trip across the small bridge and to the house, always sneaking the horses' apples or other treats. 

That day we got to my grandma's was the day my mom decided we were living there.

Now that I think back on it, she always said it was just a vacation and dad was away working, and being the small kid I was... I believed her.

II

I remember always playing outside with the dogs; Guardian, a rottweiler, and Kip and Rovy some sort of mix. I ran through the yard with the dogs, then down to the creak towards the side of the house, Guardian and Kip splashing in the water.

Being the kid I was, I sat at the edge, playing with the sticks and in the mud, spotting a few frogs. 

Guardian was digging beside me. She must have found something because she had been digging there for a few days. But today she got to what she was digging for. I looked at the dog as she laid down, holding something in her mouth. Chewing on the object.

My hand reaches out, wrestling with her, and finally, for once, I won the struggle. Looking at the object, it was covered in dirt and slobber. It was a yellowish cream color turning black, almost chard?

Being the 5 year old I was, I didn't think much of it. 

Called inside, dinner was ready. I ate, played some more, did kid stuff until I went to bed.

That night I stirred. It was a usual occurrence because of how much I struggled with sleeping, still do.

My bare feet padded quietly against the cold wooden floors. As I crawled out of bed, I grabbed my small blanket, wrapping the soft material around myself. It was oddly cold in the house that night. 

Walking down the hall past my grandma's door and into the living room, the house was dark. From how dark it was, I could see Guardian sleeping on the floor, and Kip on the couch. No Rovy though. Taking a right into the dining room, then the kitchen, I grabbed a step stool. 

Placing the stool in front of the counter, I climbed. Grabbing a glass and filling it with water from the kitchen sink.

Standing in the kitchen, I felt a rush of cool air, the soft sound of the sliding glass door in the dining room to my left opening.

Why didn't the dogs wake up? I turned, approaching the now open door. Standing there, the blanket wrapped around me as I held the glass of water. I just stood there, staring into the dark void that was outside. I swear I could see something or feel something. It was the feeling you felt, the sense of someone's presence, of someone's eyes on you. 

I stood there as the light behind me flicked on. I felt frozen.

It was a deer, just standing there in the backyard. 

"Honey, what are you doing?" My mom's voice cut through the silence, startling the deer and me. It caused me to flinch, dropping my cup in the process, and it shattered. 

As I turned, a glass shard cut into my foot and I winced. Mom picked me up, and she sat me on the tabletop. She began cleaning up the mess I caused after shutting the sliding door.

Mom sighed, fatigue etched on her face. She finished cleaning the mess and grabbed the first aid from the lennon closet in the hallway and came back to tend to the cut on my foot.

***Note: Part one of two, apologies for the formatting error

------

One:

An awful, ungodly stench struck Charlie the moment he opened the creaking front door of the nearly abandoned apartment complex. He winced, reflexively jerking his face away from the entryway so that his lungs might find new air. The thief’s chest audibly rattled as he voraciously sucked in the atmosphere outside the doorway, hand still gripping the brass doorknob. Curious, Theo leaned into the building, inhaling a sample of the escaping vapors. With a chastising shake of his head, he exhaled, chuckling as he did. The younger of the two thieves ducked under Charlie’s arm and pushed forward, seizing the opportunity emasculate his colleague’s fragile sensibilities - teasing him for being so dumbstruck by an aroma. However, Theo’s chronic sinusitis had diminished his sense of smell, unbeknownst to his older colleague. So, despite Theo being able to detect the potent aroma, it was unable to restrain him like it did Charlie.

Theo admired Charlie as a mentor and felt a hint of jealousy towards him, so he found satisfaction in having something to hold over his head. His untimely demise in one of these flats would prevent Theo from ever disclosing this admiration.

“C’mon now, old man. No time to stop and smell the roses,” Theo mocked, now leisurely strolling down the narrow, dimly lit lobby.

He wanted to move himself along, imaging himself running ahead to overtake Theo. But Charlie could not force his body through the partition and further into the corrosive scent, the intensity of which continued to increase as more stale air poured from the dilapidated building. Charlie struggled to identify what exactly could produce such a foul odor. It was acrid and gamey, reminiscent of meat spoiled in the summer sun; but at the same time, it also had a metallic and artificial quality, similar to the inside of a bustling factory. Stagnant, putrefied water closely resembled the stench, he considered, but it didn’t quite match.

Instead of following Theo in, Charlie raised a defiant middle finger as he bent over to retrieve the Vicks Vaporub from his backpack. From somewhere further down the hallway, he heard his partner flippantly squawk about Charlie’s feminine constitution. As he listened to the continued goading, Charlie could not fathom how Theo had developed such a bravado. The man was nearly as broke as he him, he had no girlfriend, and he carted around a body shaped like a neglected pear, one that had sat in the fruit bowl for a few too many days - rotting and sagging in all the wrong places. With Theo somehow still chattering on, Charlie sighed and smeared the waxy material over the crest of his upper lip as a barrier against the assaulting odor.

He wasn’t much better in comparison, though, Charlie lamented to himself. Gaunt and skeletal, he stood at a monstrous six foot seven inches. Though potentially commanding, his great height was offset by a total absence of muscle. Last time he checked, his weight clocked in at just shy of one hundred and twenty pounds. If Theo resembled a decaying pear, Charlie embodied an anemic popsicle stick. Perhaps, he mused, he and Theo were actually a perfect match - both objects that had well outlived their usefulness and only truly belonged at the heart of a landfill.

He at least possessed some companionship, he reflected, however meager it may be. Charlie could not stand the notion of being truly, utterly alone. He had grown to avoid it at all costs.

Protected from the disabling scent, Charlie took a beat to more thoroughly survey the street. Not that there was that much to see. The area was completely deserted and dilapidated, devoid of any sign of human habitation. That wasn’t always the case, though. Lutzwater boulevard used to represent the cornerstone of the city’s downtown, with this apartment complex acting as the linchpin that held it all together. Charlie relocated from the suburbs to the city at age ten, and could remember well the awe that the street’s opulence and glamour inspired when he rode his bike past with friends. A lot can change in thirty years, though. What remained was a mere shadow of what this place had once been. The many competing taverns and night clubs closed, the rowhomes that once contained up-and-coming senators and actors were derelict, and Lutzwater Heights, the nexus of it all, was almost empty. Only the son of the original owners, Christian, still resided inside, at least according to Theo’s contact.

Charlie didn’t let his eyes linger on any one part of Lutzwater boulevard for too long. The destruction was just too depressing, and in a certain sense, symbolic - the beauty of life and the promise of abundance in childhood turning to ash and shit as he aged.

One tiny piece of the deteriorating scenery, however, did strike Charlie in a way that gave him pause - it was something he had never noticed before. At its peak, Lutzwater Heights showcased an immaculately groomed front garden. Ochre and lavender flowers lined the entrance, greeting longtime residents, guests, and prospective residents of the prestigious building with an equal enthusiasm. Similar to the surrounding area, the garden had devolved into an abandoned wasteland, consisting only of overgrown shrubs and discarded liquor bottles. Close to his location at the stoop of the building, on the edge of the dead garden, however, sat a well that he did not recognize. He rode past the apartment complex thousands of times during his youth, and somehow never noticed the stone hatch with the accompanying wooden frame and bucket before now. The object’s presence was jarring against the backdrop of the dilapidated, contemporary architecture - and it would have been even more out of place when the location was at its prime. Now, it was able to partially conceal its uncanniness among the ruins. But thirty years ago, a pillory or a telephone booth sprouting out of the garden would have been less conspicuous than the well.

That said, it couldn’t have been new. To Charlie, that was infinitely more incomprehensible.

Another whiff of the horrible aroma broke his trance and reoriented Charlie to his current purpose on Lutzwater boulevard; Christian Lutzwater and his theoretical wealth. With information passed along from another career criminal, Theo believed there was a fortune hidden somewhere in the bubbling carcass of what used to be Lutzwater Heights, despite his parent’s real estate ventures going up in financial flames after their abrupt and cryptic disappearance over two decades ago.

No idea how he could live with this fucking smell, Charlie thought, zipping his bag and placing the Vaporub in his coat pocket, assuming correctly that he would need to reapply the wax a few more times during their scheduled security system consultation/covert casing of the building and their target. Before following Theo into Lutzwater Heights, he rummaged through his wallet for coins to throw down the well, seeking to obtain good fortune from the pagan deities who might be able to affect the outcome of their so-called business venture. Without looking away from the inside of his wallet, he stood up and began to pace towards the well.

Unexpectedly, a sharp pain crackled from his big toe and radiated through his foot. Not paying attention, Charlie had slammed his boot into the well’s hard stone mid-stride. Apparently, he had misjudged his distance between the stoop, himself, and the well. Charlie felt sure that it had been a meter away, at least it had been before he started searching for coins, but the new throbbing discomfort sincerely disagreed with his previous assessment.

Apparently, the well was practically next to him.

Absentmindedly, he tossed the coins into the abyss without gazing into its inky depths. But as he did, pain and confusion had sidetracked his intended wish. Seeing Theo turn a corner and disappear from view, his mind was instead dragged back to its more fundamental concern as he provided the well with its tithe.

With his subconscious behind the wheel, Charlie wished to never be alone again.

As soon as the coins were swallowed by the blackness, the well instantly began to exude the ungodly odor, like fumes exploding from an exhaust pipe. Charlie didn’t understand what had changed, but he the let vapors propel him into action, finally sprinting to catch up with Theo. As he entered Lutzwater Heights, Charlie thought he heard the metal clink against the well’s bottom, but there was something off about that, too. The sound he heard wasn’t exactly that of a handful of coins briefly clattering against stone. Instead, a sort of quiet but frantic skittering emanated from somewhere in the darkness, like thousands of human nails tapping nervously against chalk - almost in perfect synchrony, but not quite.

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

Two:

Christian Lutzwater looked profoundly unwell. Huge, dark half-moons shadowed the flesh below his eyes, pulling his face down so much that he appeared unshakably joyless, the resulting creases injecting a deep gloom into every facial expression he could manifest. By Theo’s estimation, the man was only forty years old, but his emaciated cheeks and greying comb-over could have given anyone the impression that he was, at best, pushing sixty. Despite those features, his well-pressed, blue pin-stripe suit and solid black tie indicated he was still interested in appearances. At the kitchen table in the building’s largest suite, situated at the very back of the third floor, the thieves watched as Christian humbly brewed them a pot of coffee. As he did, Charlie clandestinely scanned the area, determining where they could install a remote camera or two when he wasn’t paying attention.

“So…where do you need the cameras? In the entrance, the alleyways…? Theo paused, hoping Christian would pick up where he left off.

Despite not being an employee at Charlie’s security agency, Theo seemed to enjoy steering the consultations, occasionally giving the impression to their soon-to-be victims that he ran the company or that security was a family business he grew up in. In actuality, Theo didn’t know the first thing about installing security systems. Yet, his self-assured manner brought the trust of their targets more often than it didn’t.

As long as Theo successfully pulled off the his part in the robberies while wearing the uniform Charlie stole for him, he happily relinquished control. Time and time again, the blueprint worked. From Charlie’s perspective, why mess with a good thing just to feed his ego?

The operation was both clever and profitable. The thieves would steal from their marks a few days prior to installing the purchased security systems, which helped them avoid suspicion. It was a simple and easy to execute plan: they would attend consultations with their marks, confirm that they had valuable belongings and no preexisting security measures, and then they would strike. The marks suspected their wealth needed better monitoring - that’s why they had reached out to Charlie’s company in the first place, so it was no surprise when a burglary actually came to pass. After many of their targets were robbed, their only lingering regret was that they had not called Theo and Charlie sooner, as they imagined a security system may have been able to prevent the financial losses.

“There are several sewer grates around the periphery of the property, a majority of them near the parking lot, " Christian remarked matter-of-factly.

“I need them all covered by a remote video feed that I can have access to.”

Theo, for all his virtues, did not have a talent for improvisation, and Christian’s answer had caught him off-guard. Stunned and at a loss, Theo turned to Charlie for help.

“…I’m not sure that will cover the front gate or the entrance, Mr. Lutzwater.” Charlie mumbled, who was also recovering from the overwhelming strangeness of his original response.

Who the hell would try to enter the complex through the fucking sewers?

From across the kitchen table, Christian set his pallid gaze on Charlie, visibly upset by the insinuation that he didn’t know what he wanted. He was not accustomed to being questioned by anyone, let alone by some blue-collar nobody. Slowly, however, his expression melted from righteous indignation back to its baseline, sorrowful state. Only after a short time did Mr. Lutzwater grasp that his request could be seen as outlandish to anyone unaware of what writhed within his apartment complex.

Without breaking eye contact with Charlie, he slowly conjured a synthetic grin to his face, the corners of his mouth seemingly held up and in position by imperceptible marionette strings.

“Of course, the entrance will need to be monitored as well. I mentioned the sewer grates first because we’ve had local children spraying graffiti on those areas - seems like I can’t get it off my mind,” he replied, following the statement with a mechanical chuckle and a sip of his coffee.

Feeling like the flow of conversation was back on track, Theo eagerly returned to the fold.

“You sure you don’t want a camera for your apartment, too? Can never be too safe with gangs of delinquents roaming the streets,” Theo proclaimed with a toothy smile.

“Oh, I don’t live here, young man. I visit the property daily to make sure everything is still somewhat maintained, but I…but I certainly don’t sleep here.”

A subtle tremor of fear creeped into Christian’s voice when he implied he would never spend the night at Lutzwater Heights. Not only did the prospect of sleeping here scare him, but it appeared like he believed he said something that he should not have. He abruptly shifted the conversation to finalizing his order. After signing the agreement, he excused himself to the restroom, allowing Charlie the opportunity to plant a small camera into the kitchen’s smoke detector.

“Okay gentleman,” Christian proclaimed as he returned from the bathroom, sitting down across from Charlie as he did, “I believe we have negotiated the first part of the deal…”

“What other parts are there, sir?” Charlie interjected. Mr. Lutzwater had already signed and paid for the security system. The older thief turned to his left, looking to see if his younger compatriot understood what Christian meant. But he was not at the table. Charlie darted his head wildly around its axis, trying to locate where Theo had gotten off to. Just moments before, he’d been beside Charlie, yet there had been no sounds of a chair scraping or Theo’s footsteps to suggest he’d left the table while he was briefly distracted by Mr. Lutzwater’s return.

When Charlie’s gaze found its way back to Christian, terror bloomed thick and ravenous deep within his chest. His pulse quickened, blood vibrating ferociously through his entire body. He blinked over and over again, but the image in front of him did not change.

Without warning, Mr. Lutzwater’s face has evolved into something else entirely.

“You know what I mean, Charlie. How many times have we had this conversation? I need your answer. I need your answer now.”

The phrase seeped listlessly out of one Christian’s new cavities. All of his facial features had been replaced by three oval slits, overflowing with impenetrable, inky darkness. Two vertical slits run parallel to each other over the top two-thirds of his skull, with one horizontal slit laying flatly under the both of them on the bottom third. The steel-blue skin in between the holes was smooth and blemishless, but it appeared dangerously taut, like a plastic bag that had been filled to brim and was primed to split and rupture at any moment - or, maybe, that tightness had already caused the skin to break, resulting in the three slits that were currently staring at him.

Charlie’s aching psyche interpreted the slits as a face, but they looked just as much like the holes in a power outlet as they did two long eyes and one even longer mouth. Yes, language had come from it, but the words had not emanated from his so-called "mouth". Instead, the statement leaked out of what Charlie assumed was Christian’s new left eye, causing the crevasse to widen slightly and tremble as it did.

“You made your request - a cure for loneliness. That is something we can provide, but at a cost. We will want the first of your bloodline, as payment for our generosity.”

“I…I…” Charlie blubbered.

In response to his indecision, all three slits began to ripple soundlessly, like a frustrated scream imperceptible to Charlie was being unleashed from all three orifices simultaneously.

Every night since the consultation, he had experienced the same nightmare. It always started as a memory, a replaying of events, but inevitably culminated with Christian’s transformation. But this was first one where he had actually answered the question. All the times before, the vision ended before he had made a decision.

For the remaining three days prior to the heist, Charlie’s sleep would be barren and nightmareless, but it would not be restful.

In that last nightmare, he agreed to the terms.

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

Each day, Theo checked the hidden camera’s recorded feed. In doing so, he determined that there may be something valuable secretly stored within the third-floor suite. In addition, he had confirmed that no one else currently lived inside Lutzwater Heights. No room had been rented out for at least half a decade.

Christian was not lying when he claimed that he visited the premises daily. Every day, about an hour before sundown like clockwork, Mr. Lutzwater would enter the apartment. Without wasting a second, he would pace over urgently to a painting on the wall. He would pull it aside, revealing that it was connected to the wall on a hinge. Because of the camera’s position, it was impossible to discern what lay beyond the painting; the camera’s angle hid that view. However, Christian very clearly took a key that hung around his neck, inserted it into something on the wall, and then reached in to the wall. To Theo, that meant there must be cash, jewelry, or something similarly worth our trouble concealed in that space.

Charlie squinted at the footage proudly displayed by Theo from his old and well-worn laptop. Something caught his eye that the younger thief had neglected to mention.

His lips were moving.

“Who do you think he’s talking to?” Charlie asked, praying that Theo had a good explanation.

“Oh…uh…he’s probably on a call. Bluetooth or something,” Theo replied while scratching the side of his head, clearly unbothered by the finding.

“Hm. Yeah, I guess that makes sense.” Charlie halfheartedly remarked, lying mostly to himself in that moment. There was no evidence to back-up Theo’s deduction. Christian didn’t appear to have ear buds in, nor did he ever take out a phone to indicate he was taking a call, and whenever he was in that apartment, his lips were always moving.

But the camera never caught anyone else in that apartment, Charlie told himself.

Theo must be right.

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

Note: Can't post entire story as one entry (exceeds character limit). Will post the second half tomorrow.

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

I'm a bugman—an exterminator—by trade, but old and retired now. I used to live in New York City in my heyday, if you'd believe it, but try living there nowadays on a bugman's salary, so years ago I moved out to a little town called Erdinsfield. Boring place but with nice enough people.

A few months ago I ran into a townsman named Withers. He saw me in the grocery store, and though I did my best to look the other way, before I knew it he was calling me over, and unfortunately my mother raised me too polite to straight up ignore somebody like that.

“Say, Norm, didn't you say once you were an exterminator?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I did say that I was.”

“Because I think I may have a little bitty insect problem.”

“...as in: I ain't one no more.”

“Oh, no pressure,” said Withers. “If you have time and could take a look. Not in a professional capacity. Friendly-like. We could invite you to dinner, eat a meal and then you could maybe have a little gander.”

“Sure,” I said, regretting it even as I shook his hand, and got what felt like a static shock for my trouble. Maybe the world was reminding me of the price of my stubbornly good nature.

We agreed I'd drop by next Saturday.

When I got there, I could smell Mrs Withers’ cooking, and it smelled delicious, so I thought, What the hell, eh?

We sat down, Withers, Mrs Withers, the two little Withers and me, and shared cutlets, mashed potatoes and a side of boiled beets. I have to admit, I hadn't had a home cooked dinner as good as that since my wife died. “Well, that was much better than alright,” I said after I was done, and Mrs Withers smiled and Mr Withers said I was welcome to come again any time I liked. Then he got up—which I felt was my cue to get up too—and led me to a room in which blue bugs were crawling up and down the exterior wall. They were a most extraordinary colour. “Used to be my office,” said Withers, “but I obviously can't work from here any more.”

There was no question in my old mind that this was an infestation, but even after racking my brains I couldn't figure out an infestation of what. I'd never seen insects like these. I crouched down to look at them and they seemed to sense my interest and disperse.

“They don't bite or anything like that, but I still don't want them in my house. And they're spreading too. I think they're in the walls, maybe eating through the wood frame too.”

“I don't think they eat wood,” I said, remembering the various pests I'd met in my life, “but I can't honestly tell you what they are either.”

“I guess they have different bugs in New York City. Do you think I should get someone to eliminate them?” Withers asked.

“That would be my advice.”

“Someone local?”

“That would be reasonable. If there's one thing I know about pests it's that if you have them, so does somebody else.”

“Even though they're not doing anything?”

“What's that?” I asked.

“I mean: do you think I should have them eliminated despite that they're not doing anything bad.”

“They're in your house,” I said. “That's reason enough.”

Withers smiled brightly. “You're right, of course,” he said, and he thanked me and held out his hand.

We shook—again I felt a static discharge—and he repeated his invitation, that I was welcome to dinner any time. “I truly do appreciate you taking a look. That's not something you got a lot of in the city, I bet. Helpfulness and hospitality.”

“People are a lot warmer here,” I said.

“Oh yes. Certainly.”

Then I went home and forgot all about Withers and his insect problem. Lived my retired life, fixed up my old house to pass the hours. Until that time of year came around again—November, the month my wife died. I drove up to New York City to visit her grave, and in the sad loneliness of the drive back remembered Withers, Mrs Withers and the little ones, remembered family, and the next day called them to invite myself for dinner. It was a moment of weakness that, in my tough younger years, I would've been ashamed of, but I've learned since that there's no nobility to suffering on your own, and when people offer you help—you better take it. “How lovely to hear from you,” Mrs Withers said over the phone after I'd introduced myself. “Of course you can join us for a meal!”

That is how I arrived, for the second time, at the Withers household.

It was Mrs Withers who met me at the door this time. Withers himself was still changing out of his work clothes, she said, but would join us soon. The two children were already seated at the dining room table, plates of meat, potatoes and vegetables before them. I noticed, too, that Mrs Withers was wearing a beautiful white dress; but there was a dark spot on it. But before I could point it out—decide whether I should point it out—it disappeared. “Is anything wrong?” Mrs Withers asked.

“Oh no,” I said. “Just an older man fighting his eyesight.”

“I know how that can be. I used to get these spots in my peripheral vision. On my eyes, I mean. One minute, they'd be there. And, the next: gone!”

She laughed, and from the dining room the children laughed too.

“You don't get them anymore?” I asked.

“No, not anymore. It's all better now."

“Listen,” I said. “Would you mind if this old man used your bathroom?”

I could feel tension but not its cause, and I wanted to back away from it. When you're young, sometimes you crave that kind of stuff. When you get old, you realize it'll just cause trouble, and trouble is simply another word for an unnecessary effort.

“Please,” she said and pointed down the hall. “It's the door right next to the bedroom.”

I thanked her and walked slowly down the hall. I really did mean to use the Withers’ bathroom, if only to calm my nerves, which I blamed on the emotional time of year, but the bedroom door was open—slightly ajar—and as I got to it I could hear, if faintly, a scraping and a pitter-patter, and so I gently pushed the door open and saw, laid upon the bed, like an article of clothing, Withers’ skin!

I would have screamed if I hadn't the instinct to stuff my fist into my mouth.

Instead, I bit hard into my hand and watched in horror as thousands-upon-thousands of blue bugs marched single file up the footboard of the bed and into Withers’ nearly flat, creaseless skin—filling, inflating it as they did, until he was ordinarily voluminous again, but less like a man and more like a balloon, and when his body suddenly sat up, I turned and ran into the bathroom, shut the door and wondered whether I had gone insane.

When I came out, the bedroom was empty, and I went into the dining room, where all four Withers were sitting at the table, smiling and waiting for me. “How wonderful to see you again,” Withers said to me.

“I'm grateful to be here,” I said and sat before my meal. But all I could think about was how soft Withers’ body looked—all of their bodies—soft and unstable, like waterbeds. Like jellyfish. “Did you ever get that infestation sorted out?” I asked.

“It turned out to be nothing,” he said, as a small blue bug emerged from behind one of Mrs Withers’ eyelids, crawled across her unblinking eyeball, and vanished behind her lower lid. “Resolved itself. No exterminator required.”

A few more bugs dropped from the youngest Withers’ nostril. Scurried across the table.

Her brother opened his mouth, and drooled—and on the end of that string of drool, dangling above his plate of food, was a bug.

“Well, that's the best. When the infestation resolves itself,” I said, knowing that no infestation resolves itself. It wasn't even cold enough yet for some of the bugs to have perished naturally.

The Withers said in unison: “We did find one other local exterminator, but we eliminated him. He wasn't doing any harm. Then again, isn't that just how you like it?”

I had fallen so deep into my seat now I was in danger of sliding off it, under the table. Their voices combined in such an abominable way. “Shall you imbibe of him with us?” they asked.

I swiped at the plate in front of me—sending it clattering against the far wall; forced myself up from my chair—and dashed for the front door: next down the front steps, tripping over my own feet as I did, and falling face-first but conscious against the cold exterior of my truck.

They watched from the dining room window as I pulled open the driver's side door, crawled shaking inside, turned the ignition and reversed out of the driveway onto the street. They may have even waved at me, and I could swear that from the inside of my own head, you're welcome back any time, they told me. Any time at all.

I didn't go home. I drove straight into the city. To its coldness and its anonymity. I rented a room and drank until I could hazily forget, even if only for a few hours, what I'd seen. I wanted to drink more, to drink so much that I passed out, but what prevented me was the most stabbing kind of stomachache I'd ever experienced.

I ran to the bathroom, collapsed onto the countertop and vomited into the sink. Blood, I thought, when I looked at what my body had expelled. But that was wrong. It wasn't blood at all—not red but dark blue—and moving, squirming: hundreds of little blue bugs, escaping down the sink drain and into the New York City sewer system.

“Why ain’t you eaten my soul yet, Master?”

“The answer to that question is the same as the answer to why you’re asking the question in the first place.”

“What’s that?”

“You are a fool.”

I behold the side of the man’s festering, pock-ridden visage, the retreating sun refracted from its raw wet flesh, though it betrays no discernible emotion. My mule ambles on beneath me, my hands bound around the saddle horn leaving me unable to rub away the ache of my chafing thighs. I ride with The Devil, and he will not loose me until we’ve arrived at our destination.

The town lies ahead — a quaint etching on the horizon against a backdrop of deep sienna, painted over with purple wisps of cloud. Our path leads us through a perimeter of blighted fields, where a few workers toil away hoeing up dead crops. Dark tendrils of shadow slither skyward from the purpled fields, as if they’ve suffered a flameless blaze. A breeze brings down the mournful call of a whippoorwill from a distant tree. Devilman humphs to himself as he leads his horse past the laborers, and I follow.

“I can tell you what sort of souls I seek to consume, if it will provide any comfort.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I seek exceptional wisdom or considerable talent from my… volunteers.”

“Ain’t that hard to find ‘round here?”

“One would think. However, every town, every village, every gathering has at least one. It is what brings humans together.”

“Sure. Okay.”

The fields give way to boxy wooden homes, scattered in a seemingly random fashion across a brown grassy plain. Garden fences house wheelbarrows and chickens and wilting lettuces. Tree corpses stretch their haggard arms overhead.

“Who else would teach the children? Who would pass on history? There is always someone.”

“I can see what you’re gettin’ at. But volunteers?”

“Oh yes, they always volunteer.”

An elderly woman shoos three gaunt young children indoors, whispering “Diablo!” and crossing herself fervently. The flayed-face man emits a guttural growl in her direction, and the woman glances back once more with tears streaming down her face before slamming and barring the door. Had our steeds not been charmed, they would have surely bolted by now. The gesture appears to have cracked open the tender meat of The Devil’s face. Pus now weeps unendingly from his pores, but he does not move to blot it away.

“How will y’know when you’ve found the right one?”

A townsman slaps a hand over his mouth, and another woman openly screams and buries her face into her hands. People hurry to clear the road lest they cross paths with The Devil. We trudge further into town, hooves kicking up pebbles as the path becomes rockier. The question hangs unanswered.

“Halt, foul beast,” exclaims a broad man brandishing a rifle. He clambers over his porch railing to impede our advance, throwing out his chest in a bravado that doesn’t touch his eyes. “You’re not welcome here.” He brings the rifle up to eye level and stares my companion down through the sight.

“Surely my charge and I can be allowed a few hours’ rest in your little town here. We have been on the road so long.”

“You brought this upon us!” Spit flies from the armed man’s lips with the shout and he shudders with rage. “You cursed us!”

“And you will suffer much worse if you do not allow us to pass."

The man’s gaze, transfixed on Devilman’s face, breaks to meet mine. There’s confusion in his eyes as they mist over. He hesitates, but then his gun slowly lowers. “R-right this way,” he motions with the barrel. “That there’s the town center.”

“Thank you.”

He returns to his home, and as we continue on, we hear the frantic voice of a woman questioning and spewing obscenities at the confounded man.

✢

Half an hour later, The Devil ties his horse and my mule to the hitching post outside the town’s saloon. He pulls me from the saddle roughly so that my boot sticks in the stirrup before pulling free with a few tugs. Whether it was an attempt to emasculate me, or just the clumsiness of a brute, I know not. I remain stoic nonetheless. My hands remain bound.

The building inside is dim, lit only by the scant few gas lamps adorning the scattering of wooden tables. A somber piano man plinks out a simple tune from a dark corner. I remove my hat with some difficulty. Despite my company, no heads turn in our direction. We swiftly approach the pianist. The Devil lays a hand gently upon the lid of the upright piano.

“Care to make a deal?”

The words are slippery with compelling magic. They seep into the musician’s ears and draw a fog over his bright eyes. He picks out a few more notes, then ends the song with a sustained minor chord that settles the bar into a dreary silence. He turns slowly toward the Devilman, then to me.

“What sort of deal?” He rests his motionless hands on his knees.

“You know of the blight upon your town’s crops, do you not?”

His eyes widen slightly, but don’t lose their dullness. “‘Course. People’ve been starving. Children have died.”

“I can remove this pestilence for your people, if you are worthy.”

“H-how do I prove myself worthy?”

“A duel.”

“I can’t fight,” he gasps out. Blotches of red briefly color his cheeks. “I’m—“

“Let me finish.” The man swallows and his eyes dart around, realizing the gravity of his situation. He seems to become more agitated the more he studies The Devil’s face. “Not a man’s duel. A duel of talent. You are a musician, are you not?”

“Y-yes. Of course I am.”

“So you will play me a piece of music. Make it your best, put your everything into it. Show me every ounce of talent you hold within that mortal flesh of yours.”

“And then you’ll heal the land?”

“No. First I will play. And then, if your playing bests mine, I will heal your land.”

The pianist pauses in thought. “Who would be the judge?”

“I’ll make it fair. My companion here will be the impartial judge. He is my captive, so he holds no loyalty to me nor to your people.”

“And i-if… if I lose?” Sweat erupts upon his balding pate.

“Then your soul belongs to me.”

The poor man blanches. He shakes his head in minute spasms and the sweat beads break and flow down his creased forehead in rivulets. His eyes are wild, searching.

“DO IT!” A drunkard throws a glass from a nearby table that tinkles distantly when it hits the floor. A barmaid rushes to clean it up.

“I’ll lift the trance from you, and then we can begin.”

With a snap, the man’s eyes uncloud. He takes a deep gasping breath, then another, wipes his palms on his pants, then stumbles over the piano bench and breaks for the door. He trips over his own feet, but no one stops him as he struggles to right himself.

“Ain’t you gonna go after him?”

We watch as he throws open the saloon door and disappears into the night.

“No… he clearly was not worthy. But worry not, he will bring home a curse to his family.”

A set of boots clomps across the wooden planks, and we turn simultaneously to greet the approacher.

“I ain’t no coward, I’ll take the deal.” A young woman approaches, her fiery plait bouncing over her shoulder. The Devil looks her up and down hungrily.

“You play piano as well?”

“No, but I can play a hell of a fiddle. An’ I can sure as fuck play better’n you.” The nearby drunkard lets out a little whoop. The distant whippoorwill sounds its call again.

“Very well. Do you have an instrument?”

“I’d have to run on home right quick.”

“Allow me.” In a lick of flame, a shadow of a violin appears in the air between us. Like watching a sheaf of paper burn in reverse, it steadily solidifies as the fire spreads across its surface. The result lands gently in the redhead’s hands. She turns it around deftly, inspecting it from every angle as the lamplight dances across its burnished mahogany. Disbelief knits her eyebrows, but she reaches her right hand up in time to catch the materialized bow.

“Rosin?”

“No need.”

Without any flourish, she tucks the fiddle under her chin and draws the horsehair across the strings to find it perfectly tuned.

“Acceptable?”

“Yes,” she breathes.

“You can keep it if you best me.” The woman smiles slightly.

“Alright. What will you play?”

The Devil grins and looks to me.

“Untie me, brute.”

Devilman hulks over and at last, mercifully, cuts my binds. I rub my wrists indulgently and, because I can, massage my chapped thighs.

“Finally.” Another shadow appears and, this time, ossifies into pure bone. I snatch the fiddle from the air, eager for the music to flow through my fingers.

“Okay.” The woman is quieter now, humbled. She takes a steady breath in. “I’m ready then.”

I smile.

The gas lamps stutter, then dim, as I coax the first note from the animal gut string. I pull it into a gentle lament, imbuing the song with tears of ancient mourners at gravesides. Shadows of figures materialize on the walls, melting in and out of dark crevices, seeking out the voices of long gone loved ones. The observers in the saloon are entranced, barely visible but for the whites of their eyes. I ease the music into a lilting waltz, letting my wrist guide the bow into a gentle kiss upon the strings. The shadows clasp hands and lead each other in dance as the notes ebb and flow. Some of the bar patrons sway. I bring the waltz to a close with a fermata, then, after a pause, attack the strings with a heavy chord. I plunge into a frenzy of notes, accelerating and arpeggiating higher and higher until my left hand is at the very end of the fingerboard and my bow is flying faster than vision can register. The shadows flee from the walls and stream around the room in a chaos of smoke. The high notes turn into shrieks, I dig my bow deeper into the strings and death wails sound from the f-holes of the violin. Patrons begin covering their ears, one or two of them letting out sobs. I let this cacophony go on until, with a grand flourish, I dig into the final chord. The death knell. The shadows fall to the floor as grave dust that seeps into the cracks between the boards. The lamps graduate back to their original luminance. I am gasping for air, but the smile hasn’t fallen from my face. The end of my performance is met with a stunned silence. A man wipes tears of blood from his partner’s face.

I lower my violin and bow and it dissolves from between my fingers, matter returning to the aether. When I look over to the woman again, she is beaming ear to ear.

“Well, you’re pretty good,” she says. “But that wasn’t fiddling. Lemme show you what fiddling really is.”

The bar erupts into a raucous cheer. She kicks a chair over and plants her left boot atop the seat, then launches into a jaunty tune, straddling multiple strings with a heavy bow. People begin leaving their seats to make a circle around her as she plays. The assembly claps and stomps along, mostly offbeat, but she expertly adjusts her tempo to match theirs. The lights seem to glow brighter around her. She plays multiple upbeat numbers, flawlessly weaving one into the next, some of them folk tunes that the patrons sing along to. Her playing is jovial and energetic and she certainly knows how to work a crowd. She plays on until she’s visibly out of breath, then ends abruptly on a high note, lets the violin and bow clatter to the ground, and loudly hocks a wad of spit and mucous onto them. The clamor is ear-splitting.

“I don’t want your damn fiddle, demon,” she proclaims. “But I think it’s clear who the winner is tonight.” The noise of the crowd swells, and several people come over to thump her on the shoulder.

“Very well then. You win.”

“You’ll fix our crops?” She steps closer to me as if to close the deal. “You’ll leave this place and not come back?”

“I will. Would you like to shake on it?”

In the background, the saloon is slowly returning to its original purpose. The bartender is refreshing drinks, pouring heavy after the ordeal. Tables are in conversation, though much more excitedly. Someone has taken over the pianist’s job, though not very well. The air is heavy with triumph.

The fiddler nods once and closes the remaining gap between us. She proffers her hand. I feel The Devil shift at my side.

“For the record,” I say, as I enclose her hand with mine. “I don’t give a hillbilly damn what fiddling is.”

The woman’s face falls, and she starts to pull her hand back and step away. I maintain my grip.

“Your people may be safe — oh yes, I will keep that bargain — but your soul? It’s mine.” As I speak, the flesh of her palm bubbles underneath mine. She tries desperately to pull away from me once she realizes her skin is blistering up to her elbow, but I am not human and neither is my strength. She tugs away, like a dumb calf caught in a lasso thinking it can escape the brand. But her outsides are steadily boiling away, revealing angry pink tissue beneath. The curse reaches her face, and as her eyelids recede she looks more surprised than she had before. I have quelled her voice before she could even scream, though it doesn’t stop her from trying. She squirms to the very end, latent electrical impulses firing beyond their purpose, as soft tissue melts into muscle, as muscle melts into charred bone, as bone crumbles to dust. Before she’s gone completely, I catch it — the mist of soul that exhales from her gumless maw as her brain wastes away. I suck it into my lungs like tobacco smoke and hold it there to luxuriate within me. Her talent, her fire, her ambition is now all mine.

The whippoorwill sings a final cry to the night.

✢

“Come, Devil,” I bark as we exit the saloon sometime later. “We must ride on to the next town.”

The big lumbering idiot follows me to our animals, bewitched by nothing other than my orders.

“Bind me once again. We are both privy to the effects of my touching the unwitting.”

Devilman’s hand flies unconsciously to his mangled face, before he catches himself.

“Yes, Master,” he says. He retrieves heavy gloves from his back pocket, then after I climb back on to my mule, fashions new ropes around my wrists and secures them to the saddle horn. We set off back the way we came, out toward the decaying fields. “Where’re we headed this time?”

I think for a moment. “We’ll head west. I’m sure we’ll come across another so-called fiddler out that way.”

“Another one?”

“Oh yes. I don’t think I’ve had any soul more delicious.”

I was eight when the first kid died.

Patient Zero. Abigail Lily, was screaming at me for touching her Barbie doll, dropped dead in front of us.

Penn Carson was next, collapsing in math class.

Then Jasper Michaels—his eyes rolling back during assembly.

I was staring right at him, waiting for the teachers to notice him lip-syncing the pledge of allegiance. But then he was dead too.

Kids started dropping in the hallways, on their desks, even in the street.

It wasn’t just my town. Child deaths skyrocketed across the US. The CDC insisted this wasn’t a virus or outbreak.

It wasn’t contagious. It was a pandemic that didn't make sense.

By then, 50% of my town’s children were gone.

There weren’t enough body bags, and families were too scared to go near the bodies. Scientists swore it wasn’t a virus, though the world screamed otherwise.

All I knew was school was canceled indefinitely, and people feared their children. With most of the kids on my street dead, I played alone—until people started throwing rocks at me, calling me an omen. So, I stayed inside.

By my tenth birthday, half the world's children were gone, and survivors like me were treated like animals. It became illegal to house anyone under eighteen.

My town was lenient, though. By sixteen, only three of us were left—me, Kiara, and Kenji. Since school had been abandoned when we were little kids, we scavenged houses for food.

When Kiara's nose started bleeding, I knew what was happening. I held her when she died, her face pressed against my shoulder. She didn’t scream or cry, just like the others. Kenji was next. His eyes rolled back like Patient Zero’s.

“Fuck.” He spluttered, and I stumbled back. Like he was contagious.

“Wait, Nate, am I going to die?”

“It's just a nosebleed.” I said, and then choked on my words, when his body went limp, crumpling to the ground.

Like Kiara, I held him in my arms, and the words that had been violently choking me since I was a little kid, spluttered from my mouth. “I need to tell you something.”

Kenji’s lips formed a small smile, his eyes flickering. “Oh, yeah? What's that?”

Gently laying him down, I ran home, kicking through flyers promising a new tomorrow for survivors at a newly opened testing facility. Kenji was an escapee.

It wasn't a facility, it was a prison.

“Mom!” I screamed, throwing myself down the basement steps. She hadn't moved since I was seven, after my baby brother and sister died. But her hands had moved–and were still moving.

Bloodied scribbles covered the walls, the latest ones still dripping in a language I didn't know or understand.

Kenji, Ciara, and no doubt the group of kids locked up in the ‘testing facility’.

“Mom!”

I knelt beside her, snatching ancient monograms from her skeletal fingers.

“Stop,” I whispered. My gaze trailed to the wall.

“Sam and Poppy have enough friends to play with now.”

“Well girls, which car should we take on our little road trip? Dad’s Chevy Nomad would be practical, but the Chevy Nova’s got a bit more flair to her. Of course, if it’s flair we’re going for, I don’t think anything we have can compete with a classic Cadillac,” James Darling said as he surveyed his automotive fleet with a sense of satisfied pride.

The Darlings had acquired many vehicles over their long and nefarious career, more often than not stolen from their victims and repurposed into future instruments of entrapment and torment. James had kept their favourites running flawlessly over the years, modifying them as necessary with his own mechatronic inventions when conventional parts simply wouldn’t do.

“That’s a bit of a leading question, isn’t it, James Darling? You know the Corvette is my favourite,” Mary Darling replied. “It’s the quintessential American sports car; nothing else we have drives like it. That was the first car you actually bought, and you bought it for me. I still remember the first victim I ran down with it.”

“Ah, but you only like getting blood on the outside of the Corvette,” James countered as he shoved their bound and gagged victim onto the concrete floor. She was too exhausted to offer any resistance, and her hollow eyes just stared off into the distance, her mind barely registering what was happening anymore. “You’re extremely meticulous about keeping the inside immaculate, remember Mary Darling?”

“True enough, James Darling, but it’s not as if I don’t have experience in keeping blood from corpses and victims from seeping into the upholstery,” Mary argued, prodding the girl with her foot to test whether she was the latter or the former. “Plus, a sports car is a flashier status symbol than a caddy. Suppose we ran into Veronica and that silly little purple Porsche she has. Wouldn’t it make sense to be in something that can both outshine and outrun her?”

“But Mommy Darling; this is a family road trip, and the Corvette is not a family car,” Sara Darling sang sweetly as she stepped over their victim like she was a piece of luggage, excitedly casting her black eyes over the selection of vehicles on offer. “Besides; something about a sports car just screams ‘new money’. No, we need something with more seating and a softer-spoken elegance. The Bel Air and The Oldsmobile 88 are perfectly charming, and I do like them both, but Daddy Darling’s right. This is a special occasion, and only our very best vehicle will do. I think we should take the Cadillac, if for no other reason than it’s Daddy Darling’s favourite. He is the only one of us who can legally drive, after all.”  

“Looks like you’re outvoted, Mary Darling,” James smiled while consolingly putting his arm around Mary’s waist and leading her over to the winning vehicle. “Modern Cadillacs may not stand out much in today’s overcrowded luxury market, but a classic like this remains the pinnacle of luxury and refinement. Not to mention the presidential state car is still a Cadillac. That’s got to count for something.”

“The Corvette is still the more iconic car, but I’ll admit the Cadillac is more practical for our outing today,” Mary conceded. “But if anyone asks; my car is a Vette. Sara Darling, I’m riding upfront with your father.”

“Of course, Mommy Darling. Children and VIPs should always ride in the backseat,” Sara agreed as she held up her head in smug self-importance.

“Our guest will have to go into the trunk, though. She’s liable to attract unwanted attention in this condition,” James said as he slung her over his shoulder and carried her around to the back of the Cadillac.

“That’s fine, Daddy Darling. I’d like to keep a seat free in case we pick up a hitchhiker,” Sara chimed in.

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up, Sara Darling. Hitchhikers aren’t as common as they used to be,” Mary cautioned her. “Afraid of serial killers, I’d imagine. Which is ironic, since there aren’t as many of us around anymore either.”

“Damn modern forensics make it nearly impossible for an amateur to get started these days,” James lamented as he tossed the girl into the trunk, followed by a few suitcases which he arranged to keep her concealed. “A single mass shooting is the best any of them can usually manage. The plebs living in fear of mass shootings is better than nothing, I suppose, but serial killings inspire a more insidious flavour of paranoia. You know who the mass shooter is the second he fires off his gaudy assault rifle, but any of your neighbours could be a serial killer and you’d never know it.”

After closing and locking the trunk, James opened the back passenger side door for his daughter and the front passenger side door for his sister before popping into the driver seat himself.

“It’s been a while since we’ve made a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Moros,” he remarked as he turned the ignition key. “I can’t wait to show the Bile how much you’ve grown, Sara Darling.”

The eternally preteen girl smiled at him in the rearview mirror.

“Now don’t you get lulled into my sweet little girl routine, Daddy Darling. I’ve grown plenty in ways that you can’t see,” she boasted, her fluid black irises flaring slightly as her power coursed through her physical body.

James turned the dial on the control to his garage door opener, flipping through the preset destinations until he found a location relatively close to the shrine. He had never put a portal anywhere remotely close to it, let alone one by the shrine itself, out of fear of drawing unwanted attention to it.  

“Ah! This one appears to be in good working order. We should be able to make reasonable enough time leaving from here,” he said as the door clanked open, revealing a rainy November day on the outside of their playroom.

“Ugh! Why can’t the outside world ever be nice for once? We’re on a family trip!” Mary complained as she drew out her flask and took a swig.

“It’s just a little rain, Mary Darling. We’ve been through far worse,” James consoled her as he preemptively turned the wipers on.  

“I like the rain; it’s a necessity of life that people often fail to appreciate, and one that will occasionally escalate into a natural disaster,” Sara commented. “Isn’t it wonderful how even the most essential pillars of life can turn against it, wreaking death and devastation for no reason at all?”

“It truly is, Sara Darling. It truly is,” her father agreed as he slowly turned the Cadillac towards the open door. “Once more into the breach!”

***

To Mary’s chagrin and Sara’s delight, the rain did not let up. Sara was legitimately more thoughtful than her mother, and found a stark and somber beauty in the world under a grey, November sky. The leaves were gone, the flowers were gone, and the snow had yet to come, but such a seemingly bleak vista was not without its charm. The world felt silent, still, liminal; not a deprivation but a respite from its seasonal happenings. Everything beautiful about Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall would come again, and their absence was not always a bad thing. Nothing good could last forever, because too much of anything ceased to be good. Fleeting things must be appreciated while they last, and so too must the fleeting rest between them.

Sara refrained from speaking these thoughts aloud, as they weren’t sufficiently morbid.

As they drove down increasingly lonely highways, the sky grew darker and the rainfall more intense. Massive puddles formed within eroded potholes, sending up great splashes of dirty water as they drove through them.

“Aren’t you glad we didn’t take the Corvette now, Mary Darling? Roads like these are no place for a low-riding sports car,” James remarked. “Hell, I’m beginning to regret not taking Uncle Larry’s surplus army Jeep. Then again, with the size of these puddles, the amphicar might have been more appropriate.”

“The condition of this highway is an absolute indictment on the public roads system,” Mary insisted. “A classic tragedy of the commons. I would never let the roads in our playroom get any near this bad unless it was for a hunt. Are these parasites really so adverse to privatized services that they prefer this to the occasional toll booth?”

“I think the bumpy roads are kind of fun, Mommy Darling,” Sara said, bouncing slightly as they drove over another pothole. “Plus bad weather and bad roads make it more likely we’ll see an accident!”

“I don’t want to get your hopes up, Sara Darling, but I think I see somebody walking along the shoulder up ahead of us,” James said as he squinted ahead.

“Really!” Sara squealed as she shot forward.

Dead ahead of them was a man in a dark green raincoat with a matching duffel bag slung across his back, stalwartly trudging through the onslaught of pelting rain.

“In this weather? He must be a drifter,” Mary said. “Easy prey. He’s not hitchhiking though, so he’s a stubborn bastard at least. That could make him fun prey.”

“Can we pick him anyway, Daddy Darling? Oh please, oh please, oh please?” Sara pleaded.

“We can offer him a ride, Sara Darling, but if he doesn’t take it, I’m afraid we can’t go chasing after him,” James replied. “We don’t want to be late to the shrine, now do we?”

As they drove past the man, James pulled over to the side of the road in front of him. Sara immediately sprung into action, popping her door open and sticking her head out into the pouring rain.

“Hey there, mister! Want a ride?” she asked, loudly enough to be heard over the weather but still managing to come across as sweet and cheerful.

The man hesitated for only an instant before breaking into a jog and hopping into the Cadillac as quickly as he could.

“Thank you so much. If you could just take me as far as the next truck stop, I won’t trouble you any more than that,” he said as he pulled down his hood and shook the rain out of his hair.      

“Oh, it’s no trouble,” James assured him as he pulled back onto the highway. “You trying to make your way to Toronto, or thereabouts?”

“Thereabouts, yeah. Only place in this province that’s not a rural backwater, right?” the man replied as he reflexively reached for a seatbelt, only to realize that there weren’t any.

“Oh, it’s practically New York with poutine,” James laughed.

“I’m sure you can find poutine in New York, James Darling,” Mary said. “Not that we’d ever go looking for it, of course. Our family prefers homemade food due to our unique culinary traditions. You weren’t really trying to walk all the way to Toronto, were you, Ducky?”  

“If I had to. I figured that I could hoof it there in a few days, but I guess the weather had other plans,” the man said as he looked around the cabin in confusion. “Ah… are there seatbelts in this thing, man?”

“Of course not. This is a ’57 Cadillac, son. It was made in Detroit during the city’s golden years. You can’t tarnish a gem like this with modern safety fetishes,” James replied.

“Is that even legal, man? Especially with a kid?” the man asked.

“School buses don’t have seatbelts, and they’re normally full of nothing but children, so they can’t really be that important, now can they?” Mary argued.

“And even if they are, we don’t really believe in seatbelts,” Sara added. “People today are too risk-averse. Great men should confront danger, and weak men should be culled by it. Keeping the weak alive and the great restrained makes all of us worse off in the long run.”

“Uh-huh. Hey, are you two sure you’re comfortable with me sitting back here with your… sister?” the man asked, nervously appraising her strange eyes. “Because I’d totally understand if you don’t.”

“Oh, don’t you worry. Sara Darling doesn’t bite. That’s what Mary Darling’s here for,” James assured him. “I’m James, by the way. What’s your name, traveller?”

“Ah, call me Garland,” the man replied.

“So then, Garland, mind if I ask what circumstances possessed you to head to Toronto on foot?” James asked. “It can’t be that hard to scrounge up the money for bus fare, can it?”

“It was a kind of a spur-of-the-moment sort of thing, you know? I just needed to be on my way so I decided to pack a bag, pick a direction, and see how far I got,” Garland explained.

“Adventurous. I like that,” James nodded approvingly. “Hoping that a change of scenery would bring a change of fortunes as well, I take it?”

“Something like that, yeah,” Garland replied, gazing out the rain-streaked windows at the tall rows of pines swaying in the howling wind.     

“What do you think it’s like, to be a tree standing tall and proud for centuries, only to be snapped in half by a wayward gust of wind in a bad storm?” Sara asked. “To be so seemingly invulnerable for so long, only to be struck down by the chance movements of forces far outside your control and comprehension?”

“Ah… I don’t think trees think about that kind of thing, and a girl your age probably shouldn’t be either,” Garland replied.

“Oh, our little Sara Darling has always had a keen interest in philosophy,” Mary boasted. “For instance, Sara Darling, what do you make of our guest here accepting our invitation?”

“He was free when he was outside, but freedom was terrible, so he forfeited it for a modicum of comfort, scarcely even weighing the risk of putting himself at our mercy,” Sara replied dutifully. “And of course, one of the fundamental tenets of Western philosophy is that he who sacrifices freedom for safety deserves neither; hence the lack of seatbelts.”

“…You’re homeschooled, aren’t you, kid?” Garland asked.

“Ah, it’s obvious, isn’t it? The public schools are as bad as the roads, and never produce children anywhere near as erudite as our little Sara,” Mary beamed as she took out a cigarette and lit it with her Zippo lighter, quickly filling the sealed car with smoke. “And even the best of private schools wouldn’t have been able to give our progeny the specialized education that she requires. I shudder to think what would have happened to James and I if our Uncle Larry hadn’t stepped in to fill the academic gaps in our upbringing. Oh, I’m sorry. Where are my manners? Can I offer you a smoke, Ducky?”  

“Ah, I’m good, thanks,” he said awkwardly. “You know, I may not be sure about the seatbelts, but it’s definitely illegal to smoke with kids in the car.”

“That’s absurd! Do you expect me to put my sweet little girl outside, in this weather?” Mary balked. “How is pouring rain better than a few puffs of smoke? Honestly, people just don’t think things through these days.”

“Daddy Darling, even though I know the answer, my daughterly duties oblige me to ask at least once: are we there yet?” Sara asked.

“Our turn-off is just up here, Sara Darling,” James replied as he hit his turn signal.

Garland didn’t see a road up ahead, just a gap between two trees barely wide enough for a car to pass through. The one on the left had an old, rusty sign nailed to it that read ‘Private Property – No Trespassing,’ and the one on the right had a sign that said ‘Dead End – Keep Out’.   

“All these years, and no one’s taken down those signs,” James remarked as he veered to the left. “This road really has seen better days.”

As they passed between the trees, Garland was struck with an inexplicable shudder that took him so off guard that he didn’t immediately notice that the rain had come to a sudden stop. Despite this, the sky became darker and the tall skeletal trees little more than silhouettes in the gloom. Though he was quite certain there had been no road at all before, an overgrown dirt path meandered through the forest before them.

“Ah… where are we?” he asked as he leaned forward, trying to see as much as he could.

“Didn’t you see the sign? It’s private property,” James answered. “So private that only a privileged few can notice it or remember that it exists. Hallowed, I think is the term.”

“I’m not sure there are many people who would describe this place as hallowed, James Darling,” Mary said. “Our Uncle Larry first brought James and I here when we were just kids, and it was quite the macabre spectacle back then. It’s good to know that some things never change.”  

As Garland’s eyes adjusted to the low light, he saw that the upper branches of the trees were all impaled with blackened human bodies. Though most had no doubt been there for many years, all were encircled by fresh swarms of buzzing and bloated flies.

“What the hell, what the hell, what the hell, what the hell, what the hell?” Garland stammered as he threw himself back against the seat, his eyes flicking back and forth between the obvious horrors outside the car and the insidious ones within.

“I agree. It sacks subtlety,” James commented. “Our own playroom wasn’t much better when we first came across it. Thank goodness for Mary Darling’s remarkable homemaking skills. She really turned it into a proper home for us.”

“Oh, you’re too kind, James Darling,” Mary blushed. “Unfortunately, my gifts are rather limited outside of our domestic sphere, so there’s not much I can do about this place. Sara Darling, on the other hand, should be quite attuned with the Bile here. Any changes you’d like to make to the décor, sweetie?”

“It is awfully quiet, isn’t it?” Sara asked rhetorically, her fluid black irises pulsating as all the impaled bodies were simultaneously brought back to life.

A cacophony of tortured screams tore through the woods, boughs creaking as the flailing revenants spasmed in terrified agony.

“That’s better,” Sara sighed with a contented smile. “Corpses aren’t really scary. They can almost be serene, like a rotting log. It’s just part of nature. But living, mutilated victims kept in protracted torture against the very laws of nature? That’s… sublime. Don’t you agree, Mr. Garland?”

Garland desperately looked out the rear window, to make sure the path out of the cursed woods was still visible. Leaving his duffle bag behind, he threw open the door and jumped out of the car, breaking into a mad run as soon as his feet hit the ground.

He didn’t get very far before a tree branch in front of him broke, sending one of the screaming revenants crashing to the ground and blocking his path. He skidded to a stop, watching as it wildly thrashed about, trying to right itself. He heard other branches snapping, and realized he would soon be outnumbered by the wretched abominations. He spun around to see if the Darlings were pursuing him, only to see the Cadillac waiting patiently on the trail with its side door still open, and Sara’s smiling head poking out of it.

“Freedom or safety, mister. What’s it going to be?” she asked before retreating back inside.

The screams around him grew more ferocious, more vengeful, and he could hear them now clumsily crashing through the underbrush towards him. He ran for the Cadillac as fast as he could, diving into the back seat and slamming the door behind him.

“You chose wrong. Again,” Sara said flatly as she sat straight with her hands neatly folded in her lap. “But you are safe. I’d never let those plodding cretins vandalize my darling daddy’s darling caddy.”

“How? How the hell are you controlling those things? What the hell are you?” Garland demanded.

Sara smiled widely as her black eyes subtly shifted in his direction.

“It’s like you said, Mr. Garland; I’m homeschooled,” she replied in a sinisterly lilting voice. “It’s amazing what a bright young mind can learn when her home is a microcosmic basement universe between dimensions, isn’t it?”

Garland’s fear quickly morphed into frustration and anger, giving no credence to her words but instead trying to contrive some method of escape, or failing that, revenge.

“Uh-oh. You’re thinking of taking me hostage, aren’t you Mr. Garland?” Sara taunted. “So ungrateful. If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be walking out there in the rain. All I did was offer you a choice, Mr. Garland, and you made one. You have no one to blame for this but yourself.”       

“You know son, impotent or not, I don’t much care for it when someone threatens either of my two favourite girls,” James said coldly, glancing up at him in the rearview mirror. “I’m sure you can understand.”

“I… I didn’t say anything,” Garland muttered, placing his hands in his pocket and withdrawing as far away from Sara as he could.

“You were thinking about putting me in a chokehold and demanding that Daddy Darling turn the car around,” Sara insisted. “You thought you could break my neck fast enough to keep my parents from attacking you while I was in your grasp. You wanted to see me crying, to wipe this smug grin off my face. Is that all it takes to make you want to hurt a little girl, Mr. Garland? I think I’d like to see you crying, Mr. Garland, and my happiness is much more important than yours. Daddy Darling; floor it.”

At her insistence, her father slammed on the gas and the Cadillac went speeding down the forested dirt road with so much force that Garland was pinned against his seat. Above the roar of the engine, he could hear the ravenous howling of the revenants as they crashed through the forest, pursuing the vehicle without any sense of self-preservation.

“What the hell is going on now?” Garland demanded as he craned his neck to see the horde galloping after them on all fours like wild animals.

“I infused them with our addiction for human flesh, and nothing else, so now all they can feel is an all-consuming hunger that can’t be ignored until it’s sated,” Sara explained, never dropping her cheery tone or smiling face.

“And that’s how they behave? And to think, James Darling, you once said that I can’t resist temptation,” Mary commented. “I’m not reduced to such savagery at the mere prospect of fresh meat; the hunt has to be well underway before I descend into such heavenly primal madness.”

“Well, in their defence, Mary Darling, they are quite starved, whereas you made us all steak and eggs for breakfast this morning,” James said as he deftly wove around the trees, a skill that not all the revenants had mastered quite as well.

“They’re going to eat us? You’re crazy, kid! You’re all fucking crazy!” Garland screamed.

“Oh, calm down. They’re completely under Sara’s control, and she was telling the truth about not wanting to hurt the caddy. She’s too much of a daddy’s girl for such senseless vandalism,” Mary claimed.

“But Mommy Darling, suppose that Daddy Darling made such a sharp turn that Mr. Garland was thrown against the door with so much force he knocked it open and went flying out of the vehicle?” Sara suggested. “Then the revenants could eat him without ever laying a finger on daddy’s Cadillac.”

Seemingly by Sara’s command, and perhaps her mere desire, a sharp bend appeared in the road ahead of them, and James didn’t slow down in the slightest as he veered around it. As Sara had predicted – or ordained – the force was enough to slam Garland against the door on his side, knocking it open and sending him tumbling to the forest floor.

The revenants were on him within seconds, and Garland punched and kicked wildly without even aiming for any specific target. Each of his limbs was almost immediately immobilized by many firm revenant hands, and he braced himself for the agony of their fingers ripping him apart and their teeth digging into him with wild abandon.

But that didn’t happen. They were at the whim of their young mistress, and it seemed her whim had changed yet again. Instead, the horde began to chase after the Cadillac, holding Garland overhead and making sure he had no chance to escape.

They didn’t stop or even slow down until they reached an ancient glade nestled deep in the heart of the dying woods. In the center of the glade was a large well of crumbling black stones, measuring thirteen feet across with a staircase of seven uneven steps leading up to the rim. The Darlings had already parked and gotten out of their car, and Garland watched in horror as James took their earlier victim out of their trunk.

“Don’t feel bad, Mr. Garland. You couldn’t have helped her,” Sara assured him. “How could you? You couldn’t even help yourself.”

The revenants tossed Garland to the ground at Sara’s feet before instantly scattering back into the surrounding woods. He looked up in horror at the placid and serene face of the young girl, not daring to try to flee or fight back.

“That’s better,” Sara commented, flashing him a satisfied smile. “It was my idea to pick you up, Mr. Garland, which means I get to decide what we do with you. Feeding you to the revenants would have been a waste, but other than that I’m still mulling over my options. Dead or alive, you’d probably be more risk than you’re worth to take back to the playroom, but I’ll give you the chance to change my mind about that. Stay right where you are and be quiet while my parents and I conduct our business here, and I’ll see to you when we’re finished.”

She turned away from him in disinterest, making no attempt to secure him, and took her place by her father’s side.

“How’s our sacrifice, Daddy Darling?” she asked.

“When we didn’t get so much of a thump out of her, I worried she might not have survived the journey, but it seems she’s merely dead on the inside,” James replied as he hefted the catatonic woman up and down. “No use to any of us as a plaything now, and not enough meat on her bones to fret about losing. She’ll make a fine revenant for the Bile.”

Sara grabbed the woman’s cheeks with her right hand and forced her to make eye contact with her, probing deep down into the darkest recesses of her mind.

“We broke her so badly that only the Bile can fix her now,” Sara pronounced. “Since her life is no longer of any value to either us or herself, it is only proper that we surrender her to the one entity who can extract any further utility from her.”      

With purposeful strides, she ascended the short staircase to the edge of the well, with her parents following closely behind.

The well was too deep and too dark to see the bottom of it, but that didn’t matter. They knew what was down there, and it saw them easily enough. A chorus of hoarse whispers began echoing up its shaft, chanting in a dead tongue in anticipation of the sacrifice. Sara gazed down deep into the darkness below, the Black Bile in her eyes expanding beyond her irises and consuming them entirely.

“Moros the All-destroyer; God of Doom, Death, and Suffering. Scion of Primordial Night and Primeval Dark; Kin to Reapers, Valkyries, and the Fates themselves. Greater are you than the Olympians, the Titans, and all others who would seek the mantle of omnipotence,” Sara pontificated. “While Hope lay trapped within Pandora’s Box, Doom spread far to rot the World from within. While Moloch and his progeny gnaw at the roots of the World Tree from Below, and ravenous Yaldabaoth devours it from Above, your Incarnate Bile seeps in from all sides through whatever cracks in the Firmament there may be. We have come here today because we are once again in need of your largesse, Great Moros. Those who walk in the footsteps of the World Serpent have forsaken us, pledging themselves to Emrys, Avatar of the Darkness Beyond the Veil. He seeks to destroy us, and even now shards of a miasmic blade still lie within my father’s heart from a failed assault by his acolyte. Though Emrys seeks only the demise of our family, he has aligned himself with the god-slaying Zarathustrans, and they shall not be satisfied until they have fattened themselves upon your dark ichor, mighty Moros.”

A great unsatisfied rumbling reverberated from deep within the well, along with a pluming vortex of fowl wind, and it was a relief to the Darlings that their patron deity recognized that it had a stake in their conflict.

“The Wilting Empress has been unleashed, the Effulgent One walks where it will between the planes, and Witches again make covens with Cthonic deities. A battle of great Titans and their followers is nigh at hand, Moros, and we have come to assure you that in this greatest of iconoclasms, we are yours to command. We offer you this sacrifice to reaffirm our covenant, and in exchange, we ask that you purge my father of his miasmic taint, so that he may fight for us and you with all his strength. May all come to rot and ruin, corroded beneath the Black Bile of Moros.”

Sara bowed her head and took a step back, making way for her father to approach the edge of the well. With a solid heave, James tossed the nearly dead woman into the well. She plummeted through the dark for several seconds, before landing into the Bile with a sickening, squelching, splat.

The horror that overtook her as the Black Bile oozed into her body and began remaking her in its own image was finally enough to make her scream again.

“Don’t know what she’s so upset about. She was pretty much a zombie already,” James mocked.

His body suddenly went taught, and he could feel the miasmic shards in his chest being nudged loose with the utmost precision, the Bile in his veins guiding them with only the lightest of touches in short bursts to minimize the damage to his surrounding tissue. When each individual shard was oriented correctly, they silently and swiftly shot out of his chest and into the spiralling vortex to be swept down into the well.

Though James cried out in pain as he clutched his chest and dropped to his knees, it faded quickly as the exit wounds healed at a superhuman rate.

“Daddy!”

“James! James Darling, are you all right?” Mary asked as she and Sara knelt down to aid him.

“Yes. Yes. It’s gone. It’s completely gone,” James laughed in relief. “Emrys won’t have that hanging over our heads any longer.”

They hugged and cheered in triumph, none of them noticing that Garland had been slowly creeping up behind them while they had been focused on their dark ritual. It seemed to him that they had forgotten about him entirely, and now he was only a few meters behind them. His plan had been to only push the girl into the well, but with all of them so close together, he decided to go for them all.

As silently as he could, he pounced forwards with as much momentum as he could muster. His attack was met with a sharp wailing sound ascending up the well, and only an instant before he made contact with the Darlings, he was impaled through the forehead by a strange dagger.

It hit him with so much force he went tumbling backwards, and he was dead before he hit the ground.

The Darlings, though completely unperturbed by the attempt on their lives, gathered around the corpse to study the instrument of its demise.

“Is that…?” Mary trailed off, reticent to even say it out loud.

Sara tentatively grabbed the hilt of the dagger and slowly drew it out, revealing that its serpentine blade had been cobbled together by the miasmic fragments Moros had pulled from James’ heart. The shards were held together by vitrified and gilded Bile, the same substance as the hilt, now inert and incapable of reacting with either the miasma or the flesh of Sara’s hand.

“It’s beautiful,” Sara said, her black eyes wide in wonder. “Here, Mommy Darling. You should have it. You’re the best with knives of all of us, and it came from Daddy Darling’s heart, so it’s rightfully yours anyway.”

“Why thank you, Sara Darling,” Mary said as she graciously accepted the gift, studying it intently.

The longer she held it, the wider and more wicked her smile grew, until at last she could hold in her dark revelation no longer.

“This is the knife that I’m going to kill Emrys with.”

He was five feet of self-propelled metal, with a sort-of head (“where the processing takes place”) and two long limbs ending in fists padded with leather. “The BULL-E Alpha, world’s finest anti-bullying device, or”—The salesman flashed a smile.—“as we like to say: personal anti-violence device. With this guy around, no one will put a hand on your son again, Mr. DeWitt.”

“What do think, Tex?” Mr. DeWitt asked his son.

“I want him,” said Tex.

//

“What the fuck,” said Chad, seeing Tex DeWitt enter the classroom followed by a robot. “That your new girlfriend, freak? Bet it has a pussy. Pussy.”

“Language!” said their teacher.

Tex sat down, and BULL-E entered sleep mode beside him.

“Rich prick,” Chad muttered under his breath.

//

After class, Chad cornered Tex in the hall, but when he closed in to push him—BULL-E slid into the way, and when Chad followed up with a prospective, looping punch, BULL-E caught it in one of his gloved hands. “Oh, fuck off,” said Chad, followed by, “Ouch, Jesus!” as BULL-E squeezed his hand before letting it go.

//

“What do you mean he has a robot?” Chad’s dad said over the phone to the school principal. “My kid says this thing almost crushed his hand—well, that can’t be legal. Huh? Personal support automaton? You know that’s bullshit. Bullying? That’s just life, David. Kid should learn to stand up for himself.”

//

The next one caught Chad in the liver, and he keeled over, clutching his side.

Some of the other kids cheered.

//

“You know what, BULL-E?” Tex said one day at lunch. “I’d really like a piece of pizza instead”—and before he could add anything else, BULL-E was already moving towards the far end of the cafeteria, where he grabbed a piece of a little girl’s pizza, then—when she tried to protest—wrapped his hand around her throat and forced her to the ground.

//

“I wouldn’t call it a malfunction, per se.”

//

Chad’s face was already bloody by the time BULL-E’s next punch came in, smashing his jaw. Although the robot’s left hand was still padded with leather, its right was pure steel. Chad spat out a tooth. He was crying. “I don’t pick on you no more. Stop it. Stop it, please.”

//

“Whether violence is excessive is a matter of perspective, Mr. DeWitt. Is BULL-E not keeping your son safe?”

//

Even the teachers moved aside now as Tex and BULL-E passed through the hall.

Some bowed.

Others were made to bow.

//

“Listen, I’ll be brutally fucking honest with you,” said Chad’s dad to Chad. “You’re the son of a deadbeat dropout. Your future ain’t exactly bright. That kid—he’s got the whole world laid out for him on a platter. So, listen to me. You're still a minor. Understand? You do a few years to take away the rest of his. And, yeah, maybe I can’t afford a robot, but I can afford this,” and he passed his son a handgun.

Peeking my head around the alleyway, my heart dropped in my chest. My eyes wandered down the piss-filled alleyway. My friends struggled in a giant spider web. The blinking streetlamp tossed them in and out of the darkness. In their dresses made for clubbing, they humped the air desperate to escape. The contrast of the night was not lost on me. If we had made it to the rave, the flashing blue lights would have revealed drunk smiling faces and not crying mascara-stained ones. If we had made it to the rave, Charlie X would have drowned them out if they called my name. Instead, they were loud and clear.

Giant webs without spiders had invaded my city. Be careful—many are getting caught in them. Yes, you would have to be a fool to get in one, but never underestimate your own proficiency for foolishness. The webs weave lies that have ensnared my friends and enemies alike. Walk down the street of my town, and every mouth froths with the webbing's-words. Some mouths drool out the webbing itself. Sometimes the webbing can be felt. On occasion, the webbing can only be felt. And even rarer, you can be trapped in it.

"Nathan, Nathan help, please! I can't get out!" The words haunted the alleyway. I could have sworn they brought a chill with them. 

But they were my friends.

Their cries propelled me to action. Sweat soaked through my shirt on that blistering summer night. I yanked out my shears, a common weapon we all wielded for times like this. Stumbling with them in my hand, I was grateful for the embarrassing moments in darkness. Ce-Ce let out a small giggle I’d recognize her laugh anywhere partly because nothing could stop it despite how frightening the situation was. 

Regardless, shears set, I got to cutting.

Snipping, snapping, slicing, and even beating one string like the shears were a club—it was the only sane way to break even one string. The nearest string bounced and pulsed like a man breathing his last breath until it fell away. One down. There was more work to do to save the girls. 

My eyes teared with effort. I groaned in tired embarrassment. The small of my back burned in warning of overuse. My brain went numb. The satisfying snip was all I could hear. The girls and I were connected with the web; its destruction was our joy.  In a way, it was sort of like we were at the club right? It was a sort of dance. It took a lot of effort like dancing. Just no reward in the end I guess.

Finally, enough was cut. They could be free.

"You can drop down, it's safe," I called.

"Ugh, why?" one groaned.

The light flashed again, and I wished for it to be buried so I couldn't see them as they looked now. The girls swung like happy monkeys from webs, their faces twisted with demonic baboon smiles that wobbled.

"What's wrong?" one asked me.

"Why are you looking at us like that?" said another.

"Come down," I said, turning from their weirdness. I swallowed my fear and contempt, plastering a smile on my face.

The girls exchanged glances with the ground floor beneath them. It was not such a jump but a small leap of faith perhaps.

"I think I'll stay up here," one said.

"I'll stay up here as well," said another.

Thoughts of the past skittered in my head like a thousand roaches awakened in a cave. My mother was lost to the web. She still hangs in one. She tried to put me in one. She did put me in one. Sticking, smelling, dripping, burning, abrading, ripping my skin raw to the touch. I cried. No one cared. But I did escape before the wretched spiders came. My mother still swings there. I didn’t want the same to happen to them.

"We need to leave!" I yelled again.

"No, I think we're fine here. The web's keeping us safe from what's below us," one said.

"That could be a nasty fall," said another.

"Trust me, just drop. I'll save you."

"I... I don't know if I can trust you."

"We see the way you look at us. Like we're just something strange now," one of them said.

"Sorry, sorry, I'm not trying to—I just—" I paused, frustrated about having to break down this simple thing to them. Webs mean spiders. Large webs mean large spiders. Think, you idiots! Don't you get it?

"See," one said.

"You're making that face again. You hate us," the other said.

"You think we're idiots," one said.

"He thinks we're freaks," said another.

Yes, yes, yes, it was all true because they sat in their web repeating lies, waiting comfortably, while a spider would come to devour them. Did they think a web came from nowhere? That you could sit in a web and a spider would never come? I mumbled a lie hoping to soothe them, so forgettable I couldn't recall it to mention here.

"Let's go, Kayla," I guess Ce-Ce said.

"Yes, to the center of the web," Kayla said, and the two crawled away, all my hard work undone.

And there they wobble still, only leaving to let more webs leave their mouths as they nest in webs. Soon, the spider will come.

Part1

A strong sense of déjà vu washed over me as I followed the raven’s lead. The places I drove past felt eerily familiar, as if plucked straight from my dream, though the journey in reality felt far more longer. 

I drove for nearly two days straight, taking only brief naps along the way. 

Strangely, the raven seemed to sense when my exhaustion became unbearable and it would perch quietly on a nearby tree, waiting, as I rested. Then, when it was time to resume the journey, it would swoop near my car and let out a sudden, sharp caw, jolting me awake and back into motion.

After covering thousands of miles, I finally arrived at a small town that matched the vivid image from my dream. The raven guided me all the way to the house with the purple door, circling twice above it before flying off. 

The house was almost identical to what I had seen in my dream—the purple door, the neatly decorated foyer, and the tidy garden beside it. But one key detail was different - within the same compound stood another smaller building at the far end, like a guest house or quarters, with a "For Rent" sign hanging from its gate.

My heart raced as I sat in the car, staring at the purple door. 

None of this made any sense, yet here I was, in a strange little town, with no clue what to expect. 

Who would open that door if I rang the bell? I silently thought to myself.

 My mind spiraled with possibilities—half hoping, against all reason, that Ben would be the one to greet me, or fearing something far more sinister waiting behind it.

The more I thought, the more my nerves unraveled. 

Shaking off the chaos in my head, I grabbed the bag, stepped out of the car, and walked toward the entrance. 

With a deep breath, I rang the bell.

When the door opened, an older woman, likely in her late sixties, stood at the entrance with a curious expression on her face. 

She was of medium build and wore a floral gown that gave her an air of simple elegance. Her hair was neatly pinned back into a tidy bun, and large horn-rimmed glasses framed her inquisitive eyes.

"Yes?" she asked, her tone polite yet measured, as she peered at me through the thick lenses.

"Good evening, ma'am," I greeted her, with a small nod. "I'm Emily Moore. I happened to be passing through this town and noticed the 'For Rent' sign on your property." 

 "I'm traveling and was hoping you might consider renting the space to me for a short stay."

“Hello Emily, glad to meet you and please call me Martha,” she responded, breaking into a warm smile as I shook her hand. 

“ The guest house is certainly available for rent. How long are you planning to stay?” 

“I’m looking to stay for a month, maybe longer,” I replied, quickly fabricating a story about how I was conducting research on the local history and folklore of the town and its surrounding areas. 

She nodded thoughtfully, listening with genuine interest, before outlining the terms and conditions. After I paid a small advance, she disappeared inside to retrieve the keys and returned a few moments later, then led me to the guest house.

As we walked through the garden, I couldn’t help but admire the neat rows of vegetables that had been carefully planted, resembling a tiny market in its own right. 

Martha next inserted the key into the door and opened it, gesturing for me to enter.

The guest house, though small, was cozy and well maintained, offering all the essentials— a cot, kitchenette, attached bath, TV, and refrigerator. She placed the key in a bowl and wished me goodnight as she quietly closed the door behind me.

I set the Chanel bag on a nearby chair and sat down on the bed, just to momentarily rest my sore back. But the exhaustion immediately hit me like a tidal wave, and all I could think of was sleep. 

I removed the medallion from my pocket and set it on the bedside table, then lay down, drifting off into a deep, immediate slumber.

When I opened my eyes, I could sense that dawn had broken, but I remained motionless, unwilling to leave the warmth of the bed. 

Yet, something had jolted me from my sleep, and then I heard it again. 

A siren, distant at first, but growing louder and more urgent with every passing second. Panic surged through me, and I sat up, eyes darting around the room. Everything appeared normal, untouched, but the siren’s wail only intensified.

I rushed to the front door, trying to open it, but it was wedged tight, as though something was holding it shut from the outside. Desperate, I pushed through hard, managing just enough space to peek through. 

My heart stopped when I saw Martha lying on the ground, a pool of blood surrounding her.

I pushed the door with all my strength, and it finally gave way, causing Martha’s body to roll over the doorstep and into the garden. Stumbling out of the house, I watched in horror as her blood soaked into the soil. 

The sirens pierced the air as I stood motionless, waiting for fate to take its course, watching the compound fill with police cars, as officers spilled out of the vehicles, guns drawn.

My eyes snapped open again as I lay in bed, realizing I had just been jolted awake from yet another unsettling dream. 

 Before I could shake off the lingering shivers, I heard a knock on the front door.

I sat up straight, immediately pinching myself to ensure I wasn’t trapped in a dream within a dream. 

When the sting shot through me, I jumped out of bed and hurried to the door, my mind already racing with worry about what would happen next.

To my surprise and relief, I found Martha standing at the doorstep, smiling with a breakfast tray in hand.

“Good morning, Emily,” she greeted me warmly. “Sorry if I spooked you,” she added, noticing the look on my face. “I saw your car parked in the same spot since yesterday, and I wondered if you’d had anything decent to eat. So I thought I’d bring you something. Nothing fancy—just some stew made with our home grown produce and some hot coffee for you,” she said, extending the tray.

I accepted it gratefully, but my gaze drifted to a young man working in the garden—a boy about 16 or 17. The basket he held in hand was filled with tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini, and  bell peppers. Martha noticed my look and immediately explained.

“This is Alex, one of my neighbors. He’s a strong young man with a good head on his shoulders. He likes to help an old lady like me out,” she said with a fond smile. The young boy raised his hat at me before getting back to work.

“Thank you so much for this, Martha. I’m famished, I won’t lie,” I said finally to Martha as I held the tray.

She gave me a knowing smile and turned to head back to her house, but paused before looking back at me. 

“Tell you what, why don’t you join me for lunch later today? I know you haven’t had time to set up yet. Please, come by my place. Anytime after 1 is fine. And I am not taking no for an answer. Great, that’s settled then” She gave me a final smile before continuing her walk, leaving me stranded at the doorway before I even had the time to respond. 

I closed the door and set the tray on the bed, my gaze immediately drawn to the medallion on the table. So much had happened in the last five minutes, and it was all making my head spin.

After what happened at the bank, I didn’t want anyone else getting hurt, especially not ending up dead—much less bringing the police into my life again. 

Just the thought of it made my stomach twist, and I considered packing up and moving immediately.  

But something inside me kept me rooted. 

Maybe I was where I was supposed to be. After all, the raven led me here, to this town, and perhaps even to this house. Maybe, just maybe, I could pick up something on Ben. 

Then the image of the abandoned lighthouse flashed in my mind, and I wondered why I hadn’t passed it during my drive. 

It was the first thing that flashed in my mind when I came to this town in my dream. So I had to check it out, see if anything stood out, and then slip away quietly before anything went wrong.

Meanwhile the first spoonful of stew was heavenly. I couldn’t tell if it was Martha’s cooking or simply the fact that I hadn’t eaten properly in days, but it was pure bliss nevertheless. It just seemed to melt in my mouth and was easily the best thing I’d tasted in ages. I devoured the rest quickly, and washed it down with the hot coffee.

Afterward, I showered and dressed, then searched online for any nearby lighthouses. I found one just a few miles away. Before leaving, I hid my bag full of money in the lowest rack of the bedroom closet. I got into my car and followed the coordinates. It didn’t take long before I found it—and it was exactly as I had seen it in my vision.

An old, derelict building in ruins stood ahead, surrounded by a dense thicket of shrubs and overgrown plants. If Ben were here, this would undoubtedly be the kind of place he’d choose to hide.

Stepping out of my vehicle, my eyes caught a tarp partially visible through the foliage. I pushed through the underbrush and uncovered a Honda Civic, its surface thick with dust and grime, clearly untouched for weeks. The location felt odd—an unusual and deliberate place to park a car.

I turned my attention to the lighthouse next, pushing open the door and climbing the rickety stairs to the top.

There was a small, rundown cabin up there, and as I entered, I immediately noticed Ben’s watch and the boots he’d worn the day we parted ways. 

Around them were also empty cans of food, milk cartons, and a bowl that still smelled faintly of sour milk.

 But what truly made my skin crawl was the pile of snake skin in the corner, dried and crumpled, possibly remnants of a shedding.

Across the room, a small wooden cupboard stood with its door slightly ajar. I opened it fully and noticed a loose floorboard underneath. 

When I pried it open, I found Ben’s cell phone beneath, its display cracked, and his Colt Python revolver resting beside it—the gun he always carried. A chill ran through me as the weight of the discovery sank in.

On one hand, I was relieved to finally be getting answers about his disappearance, which had been bothering me for weeks. On the other, a growing sense of worry began to settle in, as it only raised more questions about his safety.

Where is he now? Why did he leave his stuff here? Why did he come to this town like me in the first place? Is he still continuing to hang around this town? Or is the medallion in its own way trying to unite the two of us back together? 

But is he still even alive in the first place?

My heart ached when I considered the last possibility.

 Looking around the cabin, it was clear he hadn't returned here in a while. 

 The cellphone was dead and gone. So I picked the revolver, stuffed it into the small of my back and made my way back to the car. 

As I started my drive back to the guest house, my mind quickly flashed back to the event at the pawn shop a few months back. 

“Elise… Elise… ELISE!” Ben’s voice had echoed through the store, startling me. I turned to see him standing frozen, his face a mix of horror and subtle amusement. 

His eyes darted between my face and my hands, and when I followed his gaze, I froze.

I was holding both medallions—one ruby-encrusted, the other emerald-encrusted. 

I didn’t even remember picking them up. Mesmerized, I simply stood there, oblivious to the store assistant’s warnings, clutching the auric seals of Teotihuacan. 

The emerald medallion, in particular, burned itself into my memory. It featured a serpent coiled around an hourglass—a detail that now struck me as disturbingly significant.

Then the memory blurred again.  One moment I was inside the store, and the next, I was sprinting outside with both medallions clutched tightly in my hands. 

In no time, the cops were in hot pursuit, with Ben desperately trying to outrace them.

“I’ll draw them away,” he finally said, as he pulled over near an underground tunnel, urging me to escape on foot. 

I hesitated, but as he kissed me goodbye, I shoved the emerald medallion into his hand, silently praying he’d make it. I watched as he sped off, the sirens growing louder in the distance.

Now, back in the present, as I made my way to Martha’s home, a hundred things were going on in my head. The revolver in the small of my back, the snake skin in the lighthouse cabin, and the medallions—all of it felt like pieces of a puzzle I wasn’t sure I wanted to solve.

Upon reaching the guest house, I quickly opened the bedroom closet and placed the revolver in the bag, but kept the zip open so that I could reach for it at a moment's notice. But I kept the ruby medallion in my pocket. After freshening up, I left to meet Martha for lunch.

When I rang the doorbell, Alex greeted me at the door, dressed in an apron and ushered me inside. 

“Martha’s still in the kitchen,” he said, leading me to the living room.

From somewhere in the house, Martha’s cheerful voice called out, “I’m almost done, dear! Just a minute—make yourself at home.”

I sank into a cozy couch and glanced around the room. The house was modest yet inviting, and decorated with care.

A large TV dominated the center wall, with a single armchair angled toward it. The setup suggested quiet evenings spent alone.

 On one of the other walls were framed photographs, some featuring Martha alongside a man of similar age, their smiles frozen in happier times.

“That’s Henry, my husband,” Martha said from behind me, her voice soft but steady. I turned to see her pointing at one of the photos. “He passed away five years ago,” she added, as she served me a glass of iced tea.

Martha then took the seat across from me and we chatted about small, mundane stuff. When the moment felt right, I showed her Ben's photo and casually asked if she'd seen him, keeping my tone light to avoid suspicion.

She shook her head, frowning slightly. “No, dear. No one’s stayed at my guest house for quite some time. We don’t get many visitors around here,” she replied.

We spoke a bit more before she suggested we start lunch. 

By then, Alex had already set the table, arranging an inviting spread: roasted chicken, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and a freshly baked apple pie. The aroma filled the room, making my stomach growl in anticipation.

“What will I do when you leave, kiddo?” Martha said, looking at Alex with a fond, wistful expression. “Our boy here will be heading off to Harvard this summer on a full scholarship to study law,” she added, turning to me, her voice filled with pride.

As we sat down, Martha served the food, moving deftly across the platters. The meal was as delicious as it looked, and the conversation flowed easily.

Then, as Martha reached across the table for more potatoes, something glinted at her neck.

I froze. The emerald medallion swung from a gold chain around her throat - its distinctive serpent coiling around an hourglass—impossible to miss.

My stomach clenched as my mind began to race.

Martha, even as she noticed the color draining from my face, calmly spooned more mashed potatoes onto her plate, her expression serene and almost nonchalant. Alex remained engrossed in his meal, while I shifted nervously in my seat. 

The food in my mouth no longer tasted as good, and was stuck at the back of my throat as I struggled to swallow, causing me to suddenly erupt into a coughing fit. As I tried to reach for my glass of water,my hand knocked it over sending it crashing to the floor. 

“Alex, why don’t you bring Emily another glass?” Martha intervened, gesturing toward the kitchen.

Before Alex could react, I stood up quickly, raising a hand to stop him. “I’ll get it,” I said, my voice abrupt.

I needed a moment away from them, away from the room.

In the kitchen, I gripped the counter, steadying myself as I reached for a glass. That’s when I heard it—clear and unmistakable.

“Elise… Elise… ELISE!”

The voice sent a jolt through me. It was Ben. It was Ben’s voice. My heart raced as I turned toward the hall.

The television, which had been off moments ago, was now turned on. A grainy video played on the screen, displaying security footage from the pawn shop.

My legs moved on their own, carrying me back into the living room where I collapsed into a chair, my knees almost giving away.

On the screen, the footage played like a nightmare brought to life.

There I was, standing in the shop, holding the medallions in both hands, my eyes locked in a daze, wild with desire as Ben started to speak louder and louder trying to get my attention. 

The shop assistant, Pete, looked alarmed, gesturing for me with his hands to put the medallions down.

But I ignored them both, my grip tightening as I stared at the medallions, mesmerized.

It wasn’t until Ben placed a firm hand on my shoulder and gave me a hard shake that I finally broke free from the spell.

Reluctantly, I set the medallions back on the tray, my fingers hesitating as if they didn’t want to let go.

When I turned to look at Ben, his expression was a curious mix of amusement and quiet resolve. 

But I knew him too well—behind that facade was the man I had fallen in love with, someone would do anything to give me what I wanted.

Even before he spoke, I could see it in his eyes. I knew exactly what he was about to do as he turned to face Pete.

“Okay. I think I’d like to buy these. What’s it going to cost?” he asked, looking at Pete.

Pete, already visibly annoyed, scoffed. “Oh, come on, Ben. I’m not in the mood for this. Just last month, you came here to sell your ring because you were short on cash.”

“I mean it,” Ben pressed, his voice unwavering. “I want to buy them. I don’t care if they’re cursed. Tell me what it’s going to cost.”

Pete glared at him, exasperated, before finally spitting out, “Three hundred thousand dollars.” His tone dripped with disdain as he eyed the two of us, clearly expecting Ben to back down.

I nudged Ben urgently, whispering that it was time to leave, but the air between the two men crackled with tension. As Pete moved to return the tray to its place, Ben and I turned eventually to leave the store—then he stopped abruptly.

What happened next was something I could never fully understand or admit to myself even after all these months. 

Ben’s face went cold, his expression vacant, like he’d fallen into a trance of his own. Without a word, he drew his revolver and fired.

The deafening shot echoed through the shop as Pete crumpled to the floor, lifeless. I gasped, my hands instinctively covering my mouth in shock.

Ben had always carried a firearm, but he wasn’t the kind of man to shoot first. He was not the trigger happy sort. In fact he had never aimed that weapon at another person before until that point. But now he stood motionless, his face unreadable.

“Pick up the medallions,” he said finally, his voice sharp and commanding.

Still in shock, I did as told, and together, we fled the shop, the medallions clutched tightly in my grasp.

The video suddenly came to a stop as the TV screen went blank. 

Except for the sound of my own breathing, the room fell silent and the silence became suffocating as I felt two pairs of eyes looking straight at me,waiting patiently for me to react. 

Summoning what little courage I had left, I forced myself to meet Martha's gaze. Her eyes were unwavering, cold and accusing, while her fingers absently fidgeted with the chain around her neck.

"My son, my only child is dead because of you," she said, her voice steady but quivering with restrained emotion. "My flesh and blood. He was all I had left in this world, and you took him from me."

"And all for what? For this?"

She lifted the medallion from her neck, its emerald surface faintly gleaming in the dim light. Her face twisted with grief and contempt as I sat frozen, guilt tightening around my chest, making me unable to respond.

"You came all this way looking for your boyfriend, didn’t you? So take it. Find out for yourself."

Her words chilled me, but I slowly extended my  hand, picking up the medallion. The moment my fingers closed around it, a sharp, searing pain shot through my head, blurring my vision. My head snapped back as a vivid, horrifying vision unfolded before me.

Ben appeared, his face breaking into a smile as he looked down where a serpent lay coiled on the floor with its hood up. He poured milk into a shallow bowl, and the snake drank from it. The scene quickly shifted—Ben was now driving his car, the serpent wrapped around his arm. Each time the snake raised its hood, pointing left or right, Ben followed its silent command, turning the steering wheel accordingly.

The vision morphed again, this time to Martha's home. She sat on her couch, tears streaming down her face as she watched the security footage of her son’s murder on an endless loop. The sound of a doorbell broke her from her misery, and she opened the door to find Ben standing there, smiling as he introduced himself.

I gasped as the vision ended, my body jerking back so suddenly that my head throbbed painfully. My temples pulsed as though they might split open.

Then, the scene shifted again—Ben was lying on the floor, clutching his throat, foaming at the mouth, while Martha stood over him, holding a half-consumed glass of iced tea.

At the same time, I felt something physically wrong with me as well. My body burned, like a violent fever was overtaking me. Blood trickled from my nostrils and mouth, and it dawned on me—I had been poisoned, too. My mind flashed to the drink Martha had given me before the meal.

Dazed, I tried to rise from my seat, but my legs gave way, sending me crashing to the floor.

Alex rushed forward, steadying me with his hands as I struggled to stay conscious.

The moment his hands touched me, another vision surged through my mind with brutal force. 

Alex stood in Martha’s living room, a cleaver glinting in his grasp. The blade arced through the air and came down with horrifying precision, striking Ben several times, who already lay lifeless on the floor. 

The scene shifted again—Alex, burying Ben’s remains in shallow graves dug in the barren patch beside the house. Days flickered by as Alex and Martha worked side by side, planting seeds in the freshly turned soil. Weeks blurred together, and the once-empty patch became a lush garden. The plants thrived, nourished by the horror buried beneath.

The realization hit me like a truck: they had used those very vegetables from that garden to feed me. My stomach churned violently as the nausea overwhelmed me. Staggering to my feet, I bolted for the door, desperate for air.

I stumbled into the garden, gulping in deep breaths, but the moment I took in my surroundings, the nausea returned with full force. 

Doubling over, I retched, vomiting up the food I had just eaten, my body rejecting the horrifying truth.

When I turned back toward the house, Martha was standing there, watching me with a cold stare. Behind her, Alex loomed, clutching a large knife in his hand.

“Finish it,” she said, her voice steady and without remorse, as though this were a task no different from any other chore.

Panic surged through me as I fought my failing body from losing consiousness. I threw both my medallions to the floor, staggered to my feet, and rushed toward the guesthouse, instinct pulling me toward the closet where I’d hidden Ben’s revolver. 

As I reached the closet , my hands trembled as I fumbled with the handle, throwing the door open. 

A wave of relief washed over me when I saw the gun still lying there.

But my relief was short-lived. 

Coiled inside the cupboard, hidden among the shadows, was the serpent. Its eyes glinted in the dim light before it lunged, sinking its fangs deep into my throat.

Pain erupted like fire, spreading rapidly through my veins. My body seized as the venom took hold, the strength draining from my limbs. The gun slipped from my grasp and clattered to the floor.

 Darkness crept in at the edges of my vision, and I collapsed, the world fading as my consciousness slipped away.

When I woke, I had no sense of how much time had passed. My body felt light, as if it had been restored to full health, as though I'd been reborn. 

Ben's revolver lay beside me, cold and waiting. I picked it up and stepped out cautiously, only to freeze at the sight before me.

Martha was lying face down in the grass, her throat slit, a crimson pool spreading beneath her. Nearby, Alex stood motionless, his expression distant, as though caught in a trance. In his hand, he gripped a bloodied knife.

As I emerged, his eyes flickered to me, and he dropped to one knee. “Your Highness,” he murmured, holding the knife aloft like an offering to royalty.

 My eyes however darted between the raven and the serpent lying still in the grass, their unblinking eyes locked on me, and the two medallions glinting on the ground between them. 

Then, piercing through the suffocating silence, came the sound of sirens in the distance.

“What is happening?” I demanded, my voice trembling.

Alex’s gaze remained fixed on the ground. “It is the police,” he replied evenly. “I called them.”

“But why?” I asked, unable to hide my exasperation. 

“You must make a choice, Your Highness,” he said, his voice calm yet unyielding. “The medallions represent the future and the past. When you touched them for the first time, you became the natural custodian of the Auric Seals of Teotihuacan.”

His words sent a chill down my spine. “What does that mean?” I slowly asked.

“The medallions cannot be apart for long. They will always find a way back to one another, no matter the cost—through whatever means necessary. ”

“ You hold the power now to decide how this story unfolds”

The sirens grew louder, closer, like a ticking clock urging me toward a decision.

“Pick up the medallions, Your Highness,” Alex said, his tone commanding yet reverent.

I hesitated before reaching down. My fingers brushed the emerald-studded medallion, and a sharp pain shot through my forehead. A vision erupted in my mind—a harrowing glimpse of what was to come. I saw myself sitting on the grass, having abandoned the medallions and waiting for the police to arrive. Alex’s face, once composed, twisted into something unrecognizable. Without warning, he lunged at me, plunging the knife into my chest. The pain was visceral, and even within the vision, it left me gasping. I shuddered as the image dissolved.

My trembling hand moved to the ruby medallion. As I grasped it, another vision surged forward. This time, I saw myself running—driving away from the chaos as Alex charged toward the police, putting himself in harm's way in a desperate bid to buy me time. The visions faded, leaving me breathless and shaking. 

“Have you made your choice, Your Highness?” Alex asked a moment later, his voice steady but his gaze firmly fixed on the ground.

I swallowed hard, nodding.

“Then give me the gun,” he said softly, extending his hand.

Reluctantly, I placed the revolver in his palm. Alex bowed once, solemn and final, before turning and sprinting toward the approaching sirens. 

Shots rang out almost immediately as he fired at the sky before aiming his gun at the vehicles arriving in front of him. 

I stumbled toward my car, the medallions clutched tightly in my hands. The serpent slithered onto the passenger seat, coiling itself with an eerie calm. 

Overhead, the raven soared, charting a path forward as if guiding my escape. 

I started the engine, the tires screeching as the car surged forward,  speeding away just as a firefight ignited in the backdrop. 

The road stretched ahead, an uncertain future waiting to unfold.

**************

“

For the previous five years, I’ve received a letter on November 20th from the state penitentiary.

He’s never forgotten my birthday—never forgotten anything actually. He has one of those memories—not photographic—I can’t recall the name off the top of my head, but it’s the one where you remember everything you’ve ever seen or read.

Anyway—a true genius.

And though I hadn’t been able to stomach a visit where I’d have to sit across from the monster wearing my brother’s skin, I still accepted his letters.

Because for a moment, while I poured over the neatly scripted words, I could repress what he did.

For a moment, I could just remember him as he was when we were children—the smartest person I’d ever known, and my best friend.

Not the murderer.

Not the devil.

I was only fifteen when they put him away for two consecutive life sentences.

That afternoon will be burned in my brain forever.

Coming home from school—the smell of iron when I entered the house—the sound of my brother sobbing in their bedroom.

The sight of my parents’ bodies, shredded beyond recognition.

It was the day I became an orphan.

He never spoke a word in his defense—never gave an explanation.

And I never forgave him.

But even considering I didn’t respond, he continued to write my annual birthday message—often recounting some happy memory from our childhood.

Filled with apologies I didn’t care to hear.

​

****

​

The first arrived after he’d been locked up for just a few months.

I moved in with my grandmother after my parents’ deaths and was struggling in school. It was hard to focus on anything other than… it…

Especially because I had no answers as to why it happened.

My brother loved my parents, and they loved him. There was never anger or abuse in our household—Richard was lined up to go to MIT in the Fall.

We were happy.

The only clue I had was that about a month before it transpired, Richard’s behavior changed. He stopped hanging out with his friends—retreated to his room right when he got home and would only come out for meals. And normally we’d play video games or chess together in the evenings, but we hadn’t exchanged so much as two words with each other in weeks.

Also, he was… jumpy.

Could be startled by a butterfly level jumpy.

My parents and I chalked it up to nerves about going away to college, but after they were gone, I wondered if he hadn’t known what he was going to do, and was just working up the “courage” to do it.

Maybe he’d always been a monster, or maybe something simply snapped.

Whatever the case, I hoped he would finally explain things in his letter as we hadn’t spoken since the day he was arrested.

But I was disappointed.

All it read was…

​

​

Happy Birthday Jason,

I wish I could be there.

It’s hard to believe still that I’ll never celebrate another one with you outside of here, and I’m sorry that it has to be like this.

There is so much I want to tell you, but for now, all that matters is that you’re safe.

And I’d rather focus on happier thoughts.

I still remember Mom and Dad bringing you home from the hospital. You were so tiny, and I was terrified that I’d drop you. I practiced holding bags of flour in the mirror to hone my technique.

You were such a gift to us—so precious—so small.

And now you’re a fully grown man.

Sixteen is such a fun age—Grandma told me she got you a car. Be careful out there (but also… tear it up a little bit).

I miss you, but I understand why you have not come to see me.

Please know how deeply I regret what happened, and how terrible I feel for the impact their deaths had on you.

I don’t fault you for your feelings towards me—I would not forgive me either.

But I love you, and I always will.

Richard

​

​

I’m not sure what I expected.

It’s not like anything he would have said would have “made it all better.” Yet, I still found myself hollow when I finished reading. Partially due to the bitterness I felt towards him, and partially due to the guilt I felt for leaving him to rot in there without so much as a “hello” from me.

For fifteen years—my entire life—Richard was my best friend. He watched over me, protected me from bullies, taught me more than I ever learned in school—he was everything I aspired to be.

No matter how much I wanted to hate him, and no matter how horrified I was at what he’d done…

I missed him too.

But I was sixteen—I had friends and a car. It was easier for me to paint him as despicable and deserving of his fate—my grandma quickly learned to stop asking whether I’d come with her to the prison.

It’s possible she said something to him about “giving me some time” to come around—it’s possible he inferred by my lack of reply that it was best to keep his distance.

Either way, it wasn’t until my next birthday that I heard from him again…

​

​

Happy Birthday Jason,

Another year gone passed—I hope you are well.

Prison life is a lot duller than they make it out in the movies. Mostly I play chess and board games with other men serving life sentences. As none of us have any hope of release, we just whittle away the days waiting for the end…

It’s tedious, but I’m okay. All I need is to know that you’re safe and you’re happy to get me through the long hours.

If you can never stomach direct contact, the updates from Grandma will be enough for me, but it would be great to hear from you.

I know it’s only been a couple birthdays, but it already feels like ages that we’ve been apart.

I mean, you’re seventeen already—soon you’ll be graduating! The little boy that used to stalk me and my friends around the neighborhood all day is nearing adulthood.

You’re going to go on to do something incredible, I just know it.

You were always the better of the two of us.

I love you,

Richard

​

​

I never understood why he, the most intelligent person to ever come out of our small town, thought so highly of me, but he used to say that smarts weren’t everything. His brains didn’t much matter anymore anyway—all of his talents were going to waste—his highest aspiration likely to be becoming the prison chess champion.

And I was doing my best on the outside to get back to some semblance of normalcy. Seventeen was an interesting age for me—I got my first girlfriend, had my first beer. Things I wished I could share with him. Especially once I managed to turn things around in school and pull my grades up.

I wanted to reach out—I wanted to have my brother back. But every time I even got close, the image of him smiling or laughing was rapidly replaced by that of him covered in blood.

And what happened next did not help.

Eight months after my seventeenth birthday, they found Richard’s cellmate ripped to pieces.

Even though there was a mountain of evidence against him, and even though he had pled guilty to the charges, I had always held onto some level of doubt that he had actually murdered our parents. Call me an apologist, but a little safe-space in my brain created scenarios in which someone broke in—committed the atrocity—and my brother was just too traumatized to recall it properly.

But there was no denying it now.

Same method—same man left alive afterwards—no one else with access to their cell that night.

He was a killer.

A cold-blooded killer.

How my grandma continued to visit him was beyond me, but she always said, “he’ll never stop being my grandson.”

Love is a strange thing.

In that same spirit, I couldn’t bring myself to throw out his next letter when it inevitably arrived. And so, instead I read…

​

​

Happy Birthday Jason,

I hate to start off with morbidity, but I’m sure you’ve heard what happened to my cellmate...

I don’t care what anyone else thinks of me, but I haven’t been able to sleep with the burning notion that you may be even more disgusted with me now than you were before.

I won’t make any excuses or claim there was a mistake. I just want you to know that what happened to him, and what happened to our parents, does not truly reflect who I am—I may be flawed, but I am not an evil person.

There’s not much more I can say in my defense—guilty and innocent are relative terms…

In any regard, they’re going to isolate me from now on—probably for the best—I told them not to put me in a double in the first place…

I wish I could take everything back, but as I can’t, I only wanted to wish you a Happy 18th Birthday, and congratulate you on getting into your dream college.

You killed it, despite everything. Finished with honors—a huge scholarship.

I’m so proud!

You being out there and living your best life is what keeps me going.

I love you,

Richard

​

​

“Guilty and innocent are relative terms…”

What a cop out.

Again, he didn’t deny his involvement, but he didn’t exactly admit to the act either. I found myself furious too that he’d effectively described my orphanhood as being due to him being “flawed.”

FLAWED?!

How about sick? How about fucked up? Or yea, how about evil? I couldn’t comprehend that with three bodies under his belt—horribly mutilated bodies—that he would try to claim that he wasn’t an “evil” person.

How the two of us had been raised in the same household under the same tutelage and come out with such wildly different moral compasses baffled me.

I didn’t want his congratulations or his pride in me—all of my successes over the previous two years were my own, “despite everything.”

I just wanted him to go away.

I wanted to never hear from him again.

That day, I swore I wouldn’t open anymore of his correspondence—swore I’d have Grandma tell him not to send any more mail.

But she wore me down over the next year.

She told me that he was not doing well in isolation—looked thinner every time she went up there. I brushed her off until she showed me a photo of the two of them from her most recent trip.

He looked like a completely different person.

The blue eyes that used to pierce through you were now sunken and dark—his deep-brown hair was now flecked with gray, unkempt, and thinning. It was hard to believe that the man standing next to Grandma was nearly sixty years her junior—he’d aged enormously.

Again, I felt the hollow guilt at refusing to give him even the dimmest hope that he still had a brother that loved and supported him.

And, as she told me it was the only thing he was looking forward to, I decided, at least, not to tell her to stop him from writing to me.

Away at college when the next came in, I received his letter a day late through the University mail, and I waited until my roommate left me alone before unfolding it on my desk.

​

​

Happy Birthday Jason,

Hopefully I got your new address right—Grandma was “pretty sure” she gave me the correct dorm room number.

There’s not much to update on my end. I’d be lying to say it’s been great for me, but I’m getting by—I read a lot. And at least the guards treat me relatively well, given what I’m in here for.

But today is a good day—writing to you is the highlight of my year.

It always makes me nostalgic for when we were kids.

Things were simpler then.

Sitting down to pen this, I tried to think of my favorite memory of you and I landed on when we found Buttons starving in the backyard.

A helpless little kitten, and you nursed her back to health—eventually made her the fattest cat on the block. You were so gentle—so caring—relentless in your efforts to save her.

Sounds like she’s doing well now living with Grandma—I’m glad for that.

Also, sounds like you’re doing incredible in college—I’m glad for that too.

Your last year as a teenager. I know your studies are important, but don’t forget to let yourself have some fun.

I really miss you bro. It’s been torture to spend these years without you.

I love you,

Richard

​

​

It was rich of him to use the term “torture” knowing what he’d put others through.

But rather than the fury I’d felt reading some of his previous words, I was surprised by my reaction.

I began to sob.

And sobbing turned into torrents of emotion long-overdue for release.

It was the cat—the stupid cat. My wonderful, beautiful, little baby.

If his goal was to drag up a memory that might spark deep-repressed feelings of compassion for him, he’d chosen well. He was giving me all the credit, but we’d worked in shifts those first few days to keep Buttons alive until we were certain she was healthy enough to spend even a minute alone.

Now, away at college, and away from her furry little face—I wept lonely tears. Missing her, missing my grandma, missing Mom and Dad.

Missing him.

But…

It was his fault…

It was his fault that he was locked up—his fault that Mom and Dad were gone.

His. Fault.

My sympathy waned quickly and I vowed again not to forgive him.

For another year, he’d receive only silence from me.

Being away at school, Grandma could not hound me as often to display empathy towards him—college was rife with distractions, and before I knew it another year passed.

Another letter was delivered…

​

​

Happy Birthday Jason,

Welcome to your twenties.

I’m not sure where to begin this year.

Since I wrote last, things have… deteriorated…

I know I’ve said in the past that it’s okay for you not to write back and it’s okay that you don’t visit, but… I just… I’d really like to see you.

Please.

You must be so angry with me—you deserve to be.

But, just one time, I want to see your face again—even if there’s only hatred in your eyes.

Maybe you could come with Grandma? Attached are the dates she plans to visit next year. Maybe you can match one of them up with a school break?

Please—I need you, Jason.

I love you,

Richard

​

​

Grandma warned me that this one might be different—the only word she could think to describe him anymore was, “desperate.”

She was worried about him—wouldn’t even send me the most recent photo they took together.

And it scared me.

Whatever my feelings towards him, I was not ready for him to die too. He was the last remaining member of my immediate family—the last remaining tie that I had to my life “before.”

Maybe it had been long enough? Maybe I would be able to put enmity aside to meet his wishes?

I checked the dates he’d provided and there wasn’t one that lined up well with any of my breaks. And I didn’t feel right, after all this time, writing him a letter—if I was going to communicate with him, it was going to be face-to-face.

For the next year, I really did plan to make it to the prison. But whenever Grandma went, I was busy with schoolwork, or finals, or at the internship that I was working over the summer.

Of course, part of me wasn’t trying very hard to move my schedule around—the part of me that was terrified to look him in the eyes.

It always seemed like there’d be more time—he was young, I told myself, he wouldn’t just waste away so easily.

Yet on my birthday this year—no letter arrived.

It had been delayed before, and I had moved to a new apartment, so I considered that maybe it’d been lost in the mail.

But on Nov. 22nd, Grandma received a call from the prison.

Richard was dead.

He’d hung himself in his cell.

​

****

​

They asked her what she wanted to do with the body—I was in shock the entire time she talked through the options with me over the phone.

Though it didn’t take long for my shock to convert to rage.

He’d taken my parents from me, and now he’d left me too.

Left without ever explaining—without ever telling me why.

I was empty.

And I didn’t care what they did with him.

Grandma asked if we should try to get him a plot close to our parents, but I convinced her that that was wrong—him having eternal rest near the people whose lives he’d stolen? It was egregious. I was all for throwing him in the prison graveyard, but Grandma wouldn’t have it—I’m not sure the prison would have agreed to it anyway given their limited space.

Eventually, we came to a compromise that we’d bury him in the plot next to hers and Grandpa’s as it was available, and we informed the prison that we’d take ownership of his body.

So, for the first time since he was incarcerated, I traveled with Grandma to the prison as there was paperwork that we both needed to sign for the funeral home to retrieve his remains.

The two-hour trek through windy, mountain roads gave me a new appreciation for my grandmother. For over five years, she’d made that drive countless times, alone, just to give a felon a little comfort. I felt the hollow guilt again that I’d always made her do it all by herself.

But it didn’t last long.

Soon, it was replaced with curiosity.

Because when they gave us the few possessions that he’d kept in his cell, they also handed me a letter…

My name was on the front, the correct address too—he’d clearly tried to post it to arrive on my birthday, as usual, but they’d never let it out of the prison.

When I asked them why they hadn’t sent it, they explained that, per standard procedure, it had been opened, and they needed to investigate it further before it was sent out.

However, given my brother’s passing, they no longer deemed it necessary to review.

Wondering why this letter would have warranted any further study than his previous birthday wishes, I opened it there in the office, and understood immediately.

It contained no words of apology or happy childhood memories—at least none that could be discerned right away.

It contained no words at all actually.

Scribbled on the neatly folded page in my brother’s handwriting was a list of numbers.

1-3

1-4 3-89 1-28…

It went on and on.

And, at first, I had no idea what to make of it. I could see why they’d stopped it as they probably thought he was trying to plan an escape or some other criminal activity using a coded message.

They watched me scan the lines for signs of recognition in my eyes—signs that I knew something they didn’t, but finding that I was just as confused by it as they were, they shrugged, and let us leave.

More pissed off than I was before, I cursed Richard for giving me gibberish as a final birthday wish before he offed himself—surmising that his mind might have broken from being in isolation for so long.

But while Grandma rumbled the car along, I opened the letter again and inspected it more closely.

The first number before a dash was always 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5, but the second ranged from 1 to over 200. They were clearly references to something—a cipher of some kind. But Richard hadn’t provided a key for it.

Unless…

He already had…

The letters.

Five previous letters.

Five keys.

Excitedly, I thought back to each of them and recalled that all five of them started exactly the same way.

Happy Birthday Jason

1-3

First letter, third word.

Jason

He’d left me a final message after all.

​

****

​

But I would need to wait to decipher the rest of it.

Luckily, in a bout of sentimentality, I’d saved everything he’d written to me, but three of them were at my grandmother’s house and two of them were at my apartment in college mixed in with my school things.

With helping Grandma get ready for Richard’s funeral, I didn’t have much time to start decoding the letter. And just as well, I thought, as with only the first three keys available to me, I could only partially reveal his note.

So, I tried my best to forget about it for the time being—I would be heading back to school after we interred him—I could wait for a few days while we said farewell to Richard.

I’m not sure why we bothered with all the fuss of holding a formal viewing and funeral services, though—Grandma and I were the only people in attendance. Seemed no one else deemed him worthy of their time.

It was a strange sight—him lying in a casket.

I hadn’t seen him, other than in my grandma’s photos, since they’d hauled him away following his sentencing. Back then, he still had life in his face.

They’d done their best to pretty him up, but there wasn’t much left of him to work with. The only remaining thing that allowed me to identify that it was even Richard was a small scar under his right eye from when he wrecked his bike once.

Grandma stayed back when I approached him—not ready yet to say her goodbyes, but I was eager to put him behind me.

And when I stood over his corpse, I expected my hatred to finally bubble over.

But I just felt sadness.

Crushing sadness.

Thinking about who he could have become, and how he ended up instead—it was tragic.

I reached forward and touched his hand.

And when I did, I felt…

Something.

Like a stranger watching me from the shadows. A darkness lurking just out of the corner of my eye.

Quickly, I pulled my fingers away, assuming my emotions had gotten the better of me in the moment.

But a weight remained.

Oppressive—suffocating.

I leapt a foot in the air when Grandma tapped me on the shoulder to ask if I was alright and I snapped out of it. But the next few days, the feeling of someone standing right behind me persisted at all times.

It made me twitchy…

Jumpy…

​

****

​

When I got back to school, the first thing I did was locate the remaining two letters I needed to decipher Richard’s final note. Laying the previous five out next to the most recent, I began to pick out the words he wanted me to find.

In its entirety and in its original form, the last communication I received from Richard was...

​

​

1-3

​

1-4 3-89 1-28 1-15 1-4 1-17 1-124 1-22

1-4 2-66 1-22 1-12 1-13 1-4 2-160 1-30 1-48

1-123 4-178

1-152 1-20 3-100 1-7 1-158

1-30 1-80 1-159 1-4 1-7 3-131 3-201 1-22 1-54

1-45 1-47 1-15 1-4 3-89 2-155 1-12 3-181 4-89

1-4 3-159 1-22 1-12 1-148

​

1-4 1-151 1-152 3-177 3-25

1-45 1-173 1-174 2-11 1-97 1-180

1-4 4-132 1-102 3-65

1-97 2-145 1-25 1-4 2-29 1-21 1-102 2-32

2-161 5-92 1-12 1-125

1-30 5-13 1-12 2-141 1-125

1-4 1-155 3-144 1-92 1-72 1-94

1-163 1-188 3-86

1-188 1-152 1-199 5-105 1-97 5-76

4-92 1-4 1-155 1-30 1-92 1-97 4-21

1-102 3-141

1-167

3-99

​

1-30 1-137 2-125 1-65 1-26 1-66

1-30 1-188 1-151 1-153 1-46 1-22 4-178

1-4 1-175 1-12 2-157 1-12 2-13

1-12 3-201 1-30 2-52 1-71 1-22

1-4 4-99 1-12 2-21 1-30 2-157 2-52

1-45 1-4 2-111 4-132 1-30 3-46 5-60

1-30 3-177 1-97 3-20

1-30 1-37 4-146

4-116 5-16 1-126 3-123 1-125

1-30 4-207 1-125 1-46 2-48

​

1-4 2-160 1-152 1-41 1-12 2-58 2-45 3-46 2-14

3-113 4-53 1-7 1-8 5-100

1-4 5-57 3-181 1-30

1-4 3-159 1-12 3-107 4-68 4-44 1-92 3-100

1-45 1-4 2-85 1-152 1-88 1-30 3-8 2-45 3-46

1-157 1-190 1-125

1-4 3-89 1-152 3-111 1-45 1-4 1-5 1-4 1-80

1-30 1-188 1-8 1-38 1-39 4-91

​

1-1 1-2

1-4 1-195 1-22 1-199

1-201

​

​

And using it with the five keys—working line-by-line—I slowly revealed the following, cryptic message…

​

​

!Jason!<

​

!I am sorry that I never told you!<

!I need you to believe I do it all!<

!Grandma too!<

!not one person could know!<

!it was how I could best keeps you safe!<

!but now that I am going to finished things!<

!I wanted you to understand!<

​

!I have not killed anyone!<

!but their deaths are my fault!<

!I made a mistake!<

!my friends and I play with a board!<

!something attached to me!<

!it begin to stalk me!<

!I see first in the mirror!<

!what would reflect !<

!would not always match my face!<

!then I see it in my room!<

!a double!<

!terrible!<

!evil!<

​

!it tear apart mom and dad!<

!it would have come for you too!<

!I had to go to prison !<

!to keeps it away from you!<

!I tried to make it go away!<

!but I only made it more angry!<

!it killed my cellmate!<

!it is relentless!<

!starving since they isolate me!<

!it torture me for release!<

​

!I do not want to end any more life!<

!innocent guards could be next!<

!I must finished it!<

!I wanted to say good by in person!<

!but I can not holding it off any more!<

!please forgive me!<

!I am not guilty but I wish I was!<

!it would be so much simpler!<

​

!Happy Birthday!<

!I love you always!<

!Richard!<

​

****

​

His intellect never failed to impress me.

Over five years in there, and if he was to be believed, persecuted by some sort of presence the entire time; yet, he still remembered every word of every letter he wrote me. Exactly.

I wasn’t sure whether I could believe any of it, though, and I was left with more questions than answers.

If that was what really happened, why did he go to such lengths to conceal it for all those years?

I supposed he thought the punishment he got was the best way to keep it away from everyone—wanted to avoid even a hint at an insanity defense. And maybe he worried that if he told me or Grandma after he was put away that we’d try to get him help—psychiatric or like an exorcism or something—and it could put everyone involved at risk. Although, I’m not sure they even allow that kind of stuff in prison…

There’s also a high likelihood that he specifically never said anything to Grandma because he was concerned that it would literally kill her (especially after all the strain he’d already put her through). It’s why I never plan to tell her—she has a healthy fear of spirits and a very unhealthy heart…

But why bother with encoding his final letter?

He knew they’d likely open it before allowing it to leave the prison—and he probably knew that with it being a code, they’d flag it. My leading theory is he thought that if they knew what it said, they would have taken measures to prevent him from finishing things—he couldn’t jeopardize the attempt.

And even if they hadn’t opened it—my guess is he assumed I wouldn’t have all five of the letters with me at school and wouldn’t be able to decrypt it the day I received it—keeping me from contacting the prison to stop him either.

Whatever his reasons for “explaining” things the way that he did, it all struck me again as a cop out—a way to deflect blame from himself. As his mind eroded in isolation, I wondered if he hadn’t conjured this “other” in his own head to dissociate himself from his actions.

Yet…

There was that darkness I felt when I touched him…

That weight that still hadn’t left me.

And, this morning, I swore—just for a second—that when I turned away from the mirror…

My smiling reflection lingered behind…

My husband, Mike, looked confused as a small man, dressed in a neatly ironed white shirt, navy blue tie, and tan trenchcoat, stood smiling in our doorway. A deep brown leather suitcase, matching his fedora, was gripped tightly in his hand. He seemed like a relic of the past.

"Hello, this is the Sampson residence, right?" he asked curiously.

"Yes, it is," I blurted out as Mike turned to give me an annoyed scowl. The man stepped inside, revealing his aged face and gray hair as he took off his hat. Mike's annoyance grew as the man barged in.

"The name's Rex Langford," he said, shaking my husband's hand firmly before turning to me. He shook my hand as well, never bothering to set down his briefcase. "Let me tell you how excited I am today---"

"Sorry, Rex, but we aren't interested," Mike interrupted rudely.

"I've driven quite a ways to offer you the best products that Mendax offers," Rex replied, pulling a postcard from his coat pocket. "It says here that someone in this household was interested in our services."

"Rex, no one fills out postcards anymore to ask for salesmen to come to their door," Mike said dryly. "It's 2024, my guy."

"Oh, I get that all the time, but let me tell you something," Rex bantered. "Sometimes you need an honest face to sell you high-quality products."

"Like fucking steak knives?"

"Stop being an asshole," I chimed in.

"I thought we agreed to a spending freeze, Lori," Mike responded curtly.

"Well, that's the great thing about Mendax products—they're quite affordable for everyone!" Rex exclaimed, with a confidence that made me uneasy. As he stepped closer to Mike, only inches away from his face.

"We still aren't interested!" Mike screamed angrily.

"Mike, calm down," I pleaded.

Rex's eyebrows curled as his smile widened unnaturally. My husband's face turned red with frustration as Rex took a step forward, saying, "But my postcard says otherwise, my good sir."

"We aren't spending any more money on some shitty products!"

"Let's just hear him out," I responded, feeling the tension in the air as Rex's smile returned to normal. "It can't hurt to listen, and I'm not the one who maxed out the credit card."

"Those were business expenses, Lori!" Mike snapped. "I'll be reimbursed!"

"For the CashApp transactions, too?"

"Don't be a bitch, Lori."

"What are you going to do, Mike?" I shouted. "Hit me in front of a fucking salesman this time?"

"I can see now I came to the right house," Rex smirked, looking at me. He dropped his briefcase, revealing a hidden staircase. My eyes widened as he shoved my husband inside, sending him tumbling into the darkness. "Let's talk in my office, Mike."

I stood silently as Rex smiled widely. "The postcard is never wrong," he said.

I recently noticed that in the past few years there's been a lot of construction happening in my city. Overhead cranes visible against the sky, non-stop sounds of jackhammering, construction vehicles constantly driving up and down the streets. New buildings going up. Apartment complexes, commercial highrises. Mostly downtown, but that's where the density is. I didn't give it too much thought, to be honest. It just seemed normal for a city to be expanding, growing. Development is a positive. Who wouldn't want to live in a place that's booming.

Then I noticed the rental prices in some of these apartment buildings. High, very high. To the point of being almost impossibly high. Like, who can afford to pay these prices? And the units aren't big. In fact, they're rather tiny. More than one small family couldn't fit into one, yet I don't know many small families who could afford to pay that much rent. So I got interested. I went around to a few of the buildings and asked about renting, about how flexible the prices were. “Oh, those are set by the home office,” I was told by one guy, “so there's nothing I can do. Take it or leave it.” Another told me to ask again in a few weeks “because the prices fluctuate on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. It's all controlled by the algorithm.”

The algorithm.

Someone must have made that, right?

One night, on my way back home, I noticed something else that was strange. Almost all the lights in these new buildings were off. It was 9 p.m. Dark. Who's asleep at nine? Moreover, who's not asleep but keeps the lights off? And if you can afford to rent a unit at these prices, surely you could afford to pay the electricity costs to turn your lights on.

All the new buildings were the same way. Rows of black, unlit windows. It was positively eerie, and once I'd seen it, I couldn't unsee it. I lay awake in bed that night trying to think of an explanation, but nothing came to me. Only nightmares.

I skipped work in the morning and went back, tired, to the rental offices. This time I asked about unit availability. Did they have a lot of empty units to rent? The answer was the same everywhere. No, only a few. “So you'd better act fast.” Was that the truth or was it a sales tactic?

When I told a friend about what I'd discovered, he suggested I look into the management companies, the construction companies. “But to me it seems like you're right that there's no one living there. The explanation, however, is rather simple. It's Chinese buying up property to secure assets outside China,” he said.

“Except no one's buying these units,” I responded. “They're renting them.”

But my friend's advice to check out the companies involved was sound, so that's what I did. I physically went to the worksites and noted the names on the signs, vehicles and equipment. All had websites, phone numbers, representatives. I talked to the workers too. They were all getting paid. All had bosses. The only thing strange, it seemed to them, was my interest. The property management companies were legit as well. None of it made sense to me, but I was starting to doubt whether I actually had any sense if no one but me was paying attention to this. Maybe I was the problem.

That's when I started getting those targeted ads online. You know the ones. You tell someone you're looking to buy a pizza oven, and suddenly YouTube is showing you ads for pizza ovens. You search online for unshelled pistachios a few times, and you start seeing nuts everywhere. Well, I started getting ads for condos, office space, and local real estate financing with oddly aggressive language:

STOP LOOKING IMMEDIATELY (and buy your dream home today!)

LOWER YOUR INTEREST NOW!

YOUR SEARCH ENDS HERE (with Sunvale Developments.)

Now, I consider myself a rational person, I don't get hooked by conspiracy theories, but even I was starting to get a little paranoid, looking over my shoulder whenever I went out into the street, taping across my laptop camera, shutting down and unplugging my electronics. No more television in the evenings. No more doom scrolling on my smartphone before bed. Just silence and books. The ticking of an analogue clock.

But outside—always, everywhere: the cranes and the construction noise, the scaffolding, the freshly poured concrete foundations, the construction workers, the steel beams and brickwork, the heavy industrial equipment and the buildings, so clean, new and seemingly so uninhabited. I'd even read that the buildings pretty much design themselves these days. The architects and the engineers simply look things over and approve.

With the office towers it was harder to tell occupancy than with the apartments, because you expect offices to be empty at night, but after sitting in front of a few for a few weeks I can say they seemed empty during the day too. There were security guards and cleaners and deliveries made, but where were the actual workers? I'll tell you: going into the old buildings in the morning and leaving in the afternoon, like it should be. Old, above-ground parking lots filled with cars during working hours. The new office buildings all have underground parking, controlled entrances/exits, with guards. “But don't you realize how weird it is that no one ever goes in or out of the parking lot?” I yelled at one as he escorted me off “building property.” I had managed only a quick look before he grabbed me, but I can tell you with certainty that it was empty. It was ten o'clock in the morning on a Tuesday and the entire underground parking was empty! Obviously, the guard didn't answer my question. “Ain't my job to notice stuff like that,” he said, threatening to call the cops next time.

That's when I met Andy.

I met him online on an obscure little forum for people who don't tow the mainstream line. I'd been posting my observations everywhere I could (from a library computer, of course) and that's where somebody actually responded. His message said he'd noticed the same things, was equally puzzled and wondered if we could meet. He wanted to show me something. Even as the message got me excited, I knew there was a chance it was a set-up, a way to end my interest for good. Maybe the security guard had reported me to the higher-ups. Maybe I'd caught someone's attention on the library's security footage and they'd matched me with the underground parking incident. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

I met Andy anyway, in a small hotdog place downtown, and I'm glad I did. He was legit. More than that: he had more information than I did because he worked as a handyman for one of the large management companies that owned a number of the city's newest and priciest apartment buildings. In other words, he'd been inside, and after talking to me for a few hours he decided he wanted to show me what he'd seen. “If nothing else, it'll let you maintain your sanity a little longer. The stuff we've noticed—it's real and it's damn weird.”

I showed up late at night at the building Andy worked in, and he let me inside. Then, together, we walked the halls from the first floor to the twenty-first, looking into the units. I swear to you, all of them were uninhabited. But they weren't exactly empty. There was nothing in the kitchen cabinets, the fridge, the dishwasher. No toothbrushes, towels or medications in the bathroom. The bedroom closet held not one piece of clothing. But in each unit there was at least one computer, usually more, plugged in and turned on. Locked. Humming. There was WiFi too, password protected, but no keyboards, mice, printers or peripherals of any other kind. So while there was no sign of human life, there was definite activity. The potential implications made my heart sink. I felt hot, then cold, then I got goosebumps.

“You said you looked into the companies that build and manage new buildings like these,” Andy said. “How far up the chain did you go?”

Not far, I admitted.

“Did you look into the people supposedly running these companies?”

Yes, I said. “If you're asking whether they exist, as far as I can tell they do. They all have a digital footprint.”

“Did you meet any of them?”

Some of the ones further down the chain, I said. Construction workers, security guards, rental agents. “Not the CFOs and CEOs, obviously.” Andy remained silent. “Why? Are you suggesting those don't exist?”

“Exist is a tricky notion,” he said. “I think you found ‘digital footprints’ because those are the only footprints they have. I think they're bit-based, not atom-based”—he paused, searching for a word—“entities. Or perhaps just one entity, with many digital faces.”

I felt then as if I were being watched, as if I were in a room filled with digital ghosts, passing through me, and I had to resist the urge to run down the hall, down the stairs and out of the building. “We should go,” I said.

“I know what you're feeling. Trust me, I've felt it too. I've been in these rooms so many times. But nothing ever happens. You go home, sleep, and then you get up in the morning and go to work again as usual. The fear, the anxiety, it never fully goes away, but it does become manageable. I've read that's normal in situations where you're dealing with things you don't understand. Things more complex than yourself.”

“You think they don't care we're here—that we know?”

“They used to turn on the lights, eh? Besides, what is it that we know?”

I couldn't immediately answer. That this is weird. That apartment buildings with no occupants should not exist. That people cannot rent at the prices on the market. That, therefore, whoever (whatever) owns the buildings doesn't want people living in them. That, as a business, the buildings are unprofitable and no company should be building more of them. Yet these things are. The computers hum, connected to the internet. New buildings are being constructed at an increasing rate. People work in them and get paid and go about their own, human, lives.

“That the city—it is now building itself,” I said.

The hum seemed louder.

“A bit-based entity building atom-based structures in the so-called real, atom-based world.”

But for what purpose? Are we like bees, herded into hive-like urban spaces, to produce something for the benefit of something other than us? If so, what is it: what is humanity's honey?

I shuddered, sitting in that apartment unit, and Andy, like he'd read my mind, said, “Lately, I've been considering they may not even have a reason to be at all. We have no evidence they use anything other than systems we've created.” I remembered the rental agent's mention of the algorithm. “They may be simply a merging of some of these systems, become more effective at doing, without us, what we created them to help us do in the first place.”

“We should go,” I said again.

This time, Andy agreed and we rode the elevator down to the ground floor, then exited by a back service door. All the way down I imagined—if not outright expected—the elevator to kill us, then the door to refuse to let us out. But none of that happened, and we walked outside, under the stars and the skyscrapers.

Then I went home, went to sleep, got up and went to work as usual.

After work, I wrote all this down in a notebook.

Then I realized the only way to share it widely enough is online, which means feeding it into the system, so that's what I did. I went to the library, scanned and OCR'd the notebook pages and posted the result to reddit. But before I posted it, I proofread it and realized I had to clean it up. There were obvious typos, ones any human would have caught, and I thought: maybe what's truly dreadful is not just being made a slave to one's own system but being enslaved by a system that's not yet ready to be in control.

She gets in the car and already I want to plug my ears. Her voice is a high-pitched nasal trill. The kind of voice where someone can say three words and you already know they have the IQ of a brick. She tells me she just finished a job interview to be a secretary at some engineering firm. She doesn’t want to get her hopes up, but she’s pretty sure she got the job.

I try to tell her that’s great, but she won’t stop talking long enough for me to get a word in.

“So like, at the end of the interview he told me that honesty is super important at their company, and he just needed to know if my tits are real or not. I said, ‘I promise they are’ and he said, ‘would it be okay if I ask you to prove it?’ I’m not embarrassed or anything, so I told him sure and he said to take my shirt and bra off. He squeezed them a couple times and said he believes me. So, I think he’s gonna call me with a job offer soon.” She paused, looked out the window and then at the floor. “I hope I get the job…” 

The funny thing is that, as stupid and annoying as this girl was, as she trailed off and looked down, there was a certain sadness in her voice, like she knew the truth but chose to be dumb. 

I don’t wanna be the guy to tell her that she got molested, so I just say, “Congratulations. I’m sure you’ll get it.”

She perks up and starts telling me about her birthday plans.

When you’re an Uber driver, it always feels like you’re a guest in your own car. People jump in, lean the seat back, and tell you where to go. They use your charger, decide what you talk about, or if you talk at all. Eventually, you drop them off and they go on to something fun, exciting, or important. Meanwhile, you go to pick up someone else. 

When she gets out of the car, she doesn’t even tell me to have a good day. It’s like she thinks her presence already blessed me enough.

The next guy wears an expensive suit and keeps his sunglasses on even after sitting down. I vaguely think about slapping them off his head, but I only say hello and confirm his destination. He starts to tell me about his law firm.

He speaks quick, as if it’s an elevator pitch. “We brought in seven figures last quarter alone, and we’re only getting bigger. You’ve probably heard of most of my clients. Sorry, but I can’t name drop to just anybody. You get it, right?”

“Of course,” I say.

“But the new receptionist I just hired is smoking, man. Guarantee she’d be the hottest girl you’ve ever seen. Blonde, blue eyes, big tits. She was so desperate for the job that she practically offered to suck my dick during the interview.”

I’m not sure why he feels the need to tell me all this. Maybe I just seem like a loser: the Uber driver who’s just lucky to be in his company. Maybe he just wants to fill the silence and he can’t think of anything else to say. Whatever the reason, people just have a tendency to spill their guts when they get in my car, and that’s alright with me. Long as I get paid.

“But I always wait to do that kinda thing until after they’re hired,” he continues. “That way she can’t say I made her do it to get the job. When you’re a lawyer, you think about those things. You play it safe.”

We come to a stop at a red light and I stare directly into his sunglasses. “And what happens if she says no after you hire her?”

“I can always hire someone else.” He laughs and puts his hands behind his head. “I always get what I want.”

I act like I’m genuinely curious—impressed even. “And what if she tries to sue you after you fire her?”

“Easy enough to explain that she got fired for poor performance. Not a hard sell when you hire shit-for-brains like I always do.”

“It’s no wonder you're such a success.”

He doesn’t catch my sarcasm. “Thanks, pal.”

Soon enough I’m dropping him off at some bar. He hands me a business card and steps out of the car. “For when someone tries to fuck you,” he says. 

I thank him and drive off. I decide that I have time for one more ride.

The last guest of the night is an elderly lady who plops down in the back seat. She’s going to the theater and she says that she’s going to see her son’s first movie.

“That’s cool,” I say. I should probably be more interested than I am, but it’s been a long day and I’m tired.

“He’s not an actor,” she says, holding up an open hand as if to tell me not to freak out. “He just helped with the special effects, but it’s what he’s always wanted to do and I’m proud of him.”

“Uh-huh,” I say.

Neither of us speak for a while, but every time I look at her in the rear view mirror I can see that she’s smiling. Something about that softens me, and I start to drive a little slower.

“Are you always this happy?” I ask.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“A lot of things in this world aren’t so great.”

“But a lot of things are so great,” she pauses for a second, opens her mouth and then closes it, as if hesitating to tell me something. Finally, she continues. “I’m going to have a granddaughter soon.”

I drop her off at the theater and tell her to enjoy the movie.

Instead of going home right away I just keep driving. No more guests, just me, alone. I go on back roads where I know there will be hardly any traffic; for a few minutes I drive so fast that my car shakes, then I slow down and go so slow that I’m not sure if I’m moving at all. 

I drive for hours, but as long as I drive and as far as I go I can’t stop thinking about that old lady and her granddaughter. I can’t stop thinking about what’s going to happen to that poor old lady if something happens to her granddaughter—if she interviews for a job with an evil man, or, God forbid, she get hired by one, or if she dates one, or has the misfortune of just being around one at the wrong time. Will that old lady still be so happy? Will she still be so content with her life?

After a while I start to get an itch for a habit I thought I kicked. That night I lay in bed and stare at the business card until I fall asleep. 

When I start driving the next day I find myself circling familiar streets. I look at all these tall, sleek apartment complexes in the heart of the city. I think about what kind of people live in them, what kinds of things these people had to do to acquire their wealth. I think about how they use their power and wealth. Most of all, I think about my dad. He’s just like them.

I pick up a passenger and before he can even sit down I’m talking. Nothing important, maybe not even anything coherent. I tell him that I ate cereal for breakfast, and I spare no details. I say that the first bite was heaven, the fifth bite was a little mushy, and that I ended up throwing away about a third of it. I tell him that I’m going to get a pizza for lunch, a large one just for me and that I’m going to eat the whole thing. I keep talking and talking, and when I realize I don’t have plans for the upcoming holiday, I make something up. 

“I’m going to my beach house for a nice getaway,” I say. “And maybe after that I’ll spend a few days abroad. I’m planning a trip to the moon for Christmas, and maybe next year I’ll go to see Antarctica.”

I keep talking until we reach his destination; he’s reaching for the door long before I come to a stop. I imagine that later he’ll tell his wife about the Uber driver who wouldn’t shut up; that I’ll be the main character in his story.

Not much later I get a notification to pick up a familiar name, and I practically race to his address. 

“Hey, it’s you again,” he says when he gets in the car. He’s still wearing those sunglasses, and he immediately starts talking about his firm, his weekend plans, and the expensive trips he has planned. I don’t say anything and he still keeps on talking, doesn’t even seem to notice my silence. I wonder if he knows that a conversation takes two.

He barely acknowledges me until I drive past his destination.

“Hey,” he says. “You missed my turn.”

I press harder on the gas.

“Turn around,” he says, and then, as if I’m dumb, “u-turn?”

I tell him that I’m going to the moon for Christmas.

“I’m calling the police,” he says. “This is ridiculous. You’re insane.”

But we’re already on my favorite backroad. 

As I’m pulling over I pull a knife from my pocket and stab him right in the stomach. I do it again and again until I’m sure he’s no longer breathing. I take his phone and use his face to unlock it. I dump him in a ditch and drive back to his destination, a sleazy bar. I click the button to confirm that he’s been dropped off, and then I throw his phone out the window. 

I know I won’t get caught; I’ve done this before.

People have a habit of spilling their guts in my car, and I don’t mind. But if they’re going to do so, it’s going to be on my terms.

The first time I heard it was at a parking lot.

I was out for a smoke, and then one smoke turned into another, and another smoke turned into a walk.

My phone screen, dimmed to save battery, blinked a tired 2:13 am before the screen went dark. 12% battery. Low power mode. I shrugged and kept walking, eventually I’d reach the turn that led into my neighborhood. It was just another late night walk.

Something happened then. I heard something.

I stopped to listen, head tilted, but I couldn’t make it out. I kept walking, and walking. Every few paces, I heard it. I went past the turn, there was somewhere else I needed to go, wasn’t there? It was snowing. Was it snowing before?

The cold seeped through my jacket, it nipped at the tips of my exposed fingers, it scuttled down my neck like a bug. There was a bend in the road, it seemed to stretch on forever. I kept walking, everything felt dim and far away. I just knew I had somewhere to go.

Then I stopped, reeling to a halt at unfamiliar surroundings. When I checked my phone an hour later, it was still 2:13 am. 4% battery. Cold had settled into every crevice in my body. With trembling, numb fingers, I called a cab with the last dregs of my battery.

That was the first time.

It kept happening after that. My late night walks seemed to get a bit longer each time. Sometimes, I didn’t remember going on one at all. I never told anyone, still haven’t. It’s… my secret.

At first, it was terrifying, losing stretches of time… but the more I listened, the more it made sense to me. You see, I’m meant to be somewhere.

My mind goes silent, and my body takes over. I walk, and the road just stretches on for me. Time slows down for me. All I need to do is walk. I don’t need to think about anything else.

I wake up now, in the middle of the night. My ears pricked, like someone’s called out for me. I never remember what they said, or what they sounded like. I just start walking, and then I keep walking.

Walking, and walking, and walking.

There’s an inaudible whisper as I walk. I hear it in the stillness of the air, but if I try to make out what they’re saying, it fades away. I don’t need to know the words to understand them.

I just need to keep walking. I’m meant to be somewhere. It doesn’t matter where I start, or what direction I go. I know I’ll get there. I just need to keep walking, and I’ll get there.

The streetlights fall away. The road bends. The world is silent and suspended like it’s been preserved in a jar. My senses are dull, but I’m calm. I’m alone in this silent stretch of road, but I know I’m meant to be somewhere.

Do you hear it too? Do you hear the call?

I think I’m almost there.

Table of Contents

To The Quiet Songs of Industrial Dreams

[The Daily (Now Eyeless!) Scribe - One Page at a Time]

Brief, folkloristic jingle.

Evelyn Paige: “Welcome back- this is One Page at a Time. I’m your host, Evelyn Paige, here to guide you through all things political, environmental, and sacrificial. The election cycle has officially begun. With the majority of the fundamentalists expected to hold their seats after renewed fervor from the Miracles- this battle is on the Industrial Progressives, who now have their seats threatened by up and coming fundamentalists. 

But even among a battle-scarred and divided landscape- two politicians from two different sides have come up with what they say- is a solution to maximize our blessings. Here I have Councilors Bienen and Sarai.”

Councilor Bienen: “Really glad to be on the show, Eve. Really glad. So we’ve been really getting into it, talking you know- and I’m an IndProg, and Councilor Sarai’s a Fundementalist.”

Councilor Sarai: “Yes, quite controversial, really. Of course, that’s just a buzzword now- controversial this, controversial that. These are just things keeping us from talking to each other, dividing our nation.”

Evelyn Paige: “I agree. So what’s the new bipartisan bill you two have drafted that some are calling- the Assisted Sacrifice Act.”

Councilor Bienen: “Well it doesn’t have a name, not yet. It’s more of a concept of a plan. It’s been called a bill, a draft, and an act, many things. But let’s get to the heart of it- Sarai?”

Councilor Sarai: “So what’s the one thing both peoples across party lines can agree on. Sacrifice. Although we measure the extent of our sacrifice differently- of course, I believe sacrifice is something we need to show full commitment to- one and done, an offering in exchange for blessings.”

Councilor Bienen: “And I believe sacrificing our time is more sustainable. Bits and pieces of our lives dedicated to the gods. So we both agree some form of sacrifice is necessary. And we agree that there’s people like the Unification Party and the centrists who believe we need less sacrifice- I mean, really, how will we get our blessings?”

Councilor Sarai: “Well put, Bienen. Now, we have this plan that will strengthen our city. With the advent of this sort of time sacrifice- people are living longer than expected, and our retiree and disability programs aren’t really able to handle this. So we have a plan to cut back costs- and benefit the Machiryan people.”

Councilor Bienen: “We’re thinking about raising the retirement age- and a cutoff age for how long these people who aren’t producing anything should be supported. Past that age- we’re thinking of a voluntary assisted sacrifice program. They choose the name of their god to be offered up- or pay for their own cost of living. We can really better incentivize working with local authorities and economic literacy with this program- and feed our nation with hopefully- more sacrifices to the gods of grain.”

Councilor Sarai: “Of course, this is only a concept of a plan now, we’re still really talking to everyone about it to lessen the division across our parties- and thinking about asking the new candidates their thoughts. But before rolling out this program to the public- we’re thinking about calling to test this out on the worst of our prisons there.”

Evelyn Paige: “Truly an interesting take on things. For years we’ve been struggling to support our disabled and elderly, as well as a migration from our side of the Grace seeking better opportunities- but sacrificing our food supply. Could this be the solution we desperately need?”

☈ - Cameron Bell

I have not seen daylight for a month. Or is it weeks? Or only days. I’m not quite sure. The time god marks obscure the length of my sentencing. But the false-faiths have sentenced me for thirty-four years on account for the damage and setting off the battle angels.

All my possessions were sold off to the highest bidder, and when I am free, I am told a cut of my income will be sent off to the families of the dead. I suppose it’s rightful, in its own way.

The case is quick. I am sentenced. A masked templar incites the name of a god of nothingness onto my skin, a brand to remove me from the casting of a spell. I am given one final chance to see my family- who all come out, sympathize, but they condemn my actions.

They are too afraid to fight back against corruption. About a week into my sentencing I am told by an official that my sister attempted to assassinate one of the councilors, possibly Bienen, and she too, is in jail.

I ask to see her, to move her in with me. They refuse. She has been sent to the farmlands at Tanem’s Grace- whether to be sacrificed to the gods or to be worked to they cannot tell.

I have received no communication from Nick Kerry and the Free Orchard. I hoped they would swoop in and save me- strength among siblings. But that passing thought has passed. I don’t blame them. Their names and faces are plastered even in the prison I’m in, and I pray they escape.

The prison I have been assigned to is about a three hour ride- I think- from the city itself. A great lurching black pyramid to justice northeast of the city, to the pine mountains. 

I can’t see outside the prison truck that takes me and a dozen high-offense inmates there, but I can hear the groaning of oil-angels and machines as they search the earth for black gold and coal.

We file into an assembly room. It’s large and has windows, but they’ve been tinted and shuttered. I see a map of the prison- it’s a pyramid, like every other temple to justice.

The warden of this prison emerges on a stage. I crane my neck. It’s too high. “Welcome,” he announces, his voice echoing through sound-sigils across the room. “My name is Rowan. You will not see much of me, but I am here to welcome you to your first step towards rehabilitation!”

“Right,” someone beside me mutters, “rehab.”

Warden Rowan continues. “Some of you may already be acquainted with our system. Some of you are new here. Regardless, this assembly will serve all who have just received a sentence, an extension of a sentence, or have been transferred over to this rehabilitation center.”

Sigils light up. The ground begins to shake, and we begin to all move downwards, deeper into the pyramid and into what I assume to be a massive underground complex.

The warden continues. “This is *Gospel Two,*” he announces, “a rehabilitation skills camp for specialized growth and integrity,” he introduces. The floor descends quicker into the deep. 

A woman beside him speaks. She has the logo of a new faith. “This prison is under contract with Graceplains Manufacturing as part of a work-release program.” A display appears on a large screen that shakes as we continue to descend. “You will work,. You will consecrate and sanctify. Put your effort into it- we’ve contracted Gospel Two for high-quality products.”

“Is that clear?” the elevation stops, and we’re dropped into a massive room. Great rivers run on top of raised platforms, inmates places around centered circular places where what looks like coal is gathered. “You will, in a moment, be assigned a shift. Get to know your friends. Work. Sacrifice.”

A handful of temple guards begin giving us clothes, and a tag with our shift number. I observe the circular platforms where the material stops briefly. The workers- soon to be me, read from a book, another draw the sigil on a sheet and covers the material with it.

A prisoner in priestly robes closes his eyes and blesses it, and the sigil glows, and then it’s let go, and another sum of material flows downwards.

“We’ve been put in a bloody labor camp!” someone shouts. “I didn’t do anything!” He’s running from the crowd now, to the masked templar. The templar pushes him away. “I’d rather die than be here!” 

No reaction. He reaches for the rifle the templar carries- and then he’s met with a brutal punch to the head. 

The warden notices. “There will be order in this facility!” he demands. “Disorder has no place- to the angel!”

And then there’s a pause. Three templars surround him, and he screams. He’s put onto an altar, and then one of the prison officials heads onto the podium. She reaches a finger into a pool of blood and presses it against the book resting atop the stand.

The templars retreat from the altar. The unruly man struggles against summoned bonds. “All clear!” the head templar yells.

The priestess speaks. And then there’s a hissing noise above the altar- and I look up for the first time. 

There’s an angel of some sort, an angel strung up and hung to the ceilings. An angel of many eyes and a mass of shifting faces. It looks feminine, almost, draped upside down from the ceiling- though it’s lower half is a mass of squirming flesh.

It is black and red, an inverted silhouette of Our Lady of the Peace, and a scale hangs from her neck. And the scales reach down and surround the unruly man.

It’s a sacrifice to their god of justice. Weighed, ruled, and devoured.

And with the sacrifice, the Just-Angel wrings herself back above. A stream of materials of all kinds lays above her, now rushing faster as ichor is bled out from her by sacral knives and chemicals. An automated consecration, liquid prayer and hope.

A sacrifice to justice to turn the wheels of her labor. A sacred concept brought to life. A literal, personal interpretation of what’s happening in this prison camp. 

There’s silence among the newcomers. 

The others keep working. “Either way- your sacrifice will boost productivity, and no doubt will that help your sacred city,” the Graceland Manufacturing executive promises. “Serve out your sentence and you’ll leave with your life. Otherwise- well,” she nods in approval, “it doesn’t matter. The Angel-Gears continue to turn.”

And she’s right. The Angel-Gears continue to turn.

[Recorded Lecture - University of Machiryo Bay - Experimental Theology]

Cardinal Rembrandt: “Hello! Welcome to your very first day of classes! I’m your Cardinal for this class and the department at large- my name is Harper Renbrandt- do call me whatever. I expect you all are here for Experimental Theology One?”

Chatter, agreeable.

Cardinal Rembrandt: “Perfect! Now keep in mind- I’m told the uh, audio of this semester of lectures is being recorded for training purposes over at the Department of Justice. I personally have a bone to pick with that- but keep it in mind when you ask questions. Don’t embarrass yourself, ha. Right.”

Lyra Pippin: “I’m Lyra, and I’ll be one of your aides for the semester. I’m also the student head of safety and ethical conduct and with the rise of illegal love-sigils, I have to tell you that in any emergency- please let me know and I’ll take it up with the office.”

Cardinal Rembrandt: “Awesome. Now, let’s get on to Experimental Theology!” Audio skips ahead. “-so really, an Angel is a sacred concept brought to life. Gods aren’t strictly singular beings- no, they’re more of concepts. They’re like concepts of a concept, really, and to summon- and more importantly, make a god, we draw marks, assign value to them, sacrifice, and essentially: help form a nebulous thing- into a concept.”

Audio skips forward again.

Lyra Pippin: “Thanks Harper- so my research is actually in making these radical, new, experimental sort of gods. I actually did an internship this summer with Sacred Dynamics on the application of a really cool experimental god they’ve been working with. It sort of acts as a total god-dampener. It’s like an anti-god. Yeah, but that’s something I’d be happy to talk about in my office hours. Now back to my point: experimenting with sigils- yes?”

Student: “Is an anti-god legal? Ethical? How do you summon something that goes against the rules of blessing? Before you move on.”

Lyra Pippin: “The application is designed to improve security, so yeah, I think it’s ethical. It’s been given a tentative license by the government, and we aren’t distributing its sigils to the public. And I can’t really talk about how it works since it’s a very new, post-modern brutalist kinda thing- and we are being recorded.”

Student: “Right. Do you think this sort of theology has the potential to be trained against the public? If it’s a new god- does it even have a prophet to guide it?”

Lyra Pippin: “Frankly speaking- any god has the potential for harm. That’s why we have regulations. And to the best of my knowledge, no, this god doesn’t have a prophet- it’s a new concept and we aren’t even sure if it’s a god, or that it can even choose a prophet.”

Student: “One more question- what’s the name of this new god?”

🝓 - Agent Mabel Song

I pause the audio lecture and pull to the side of the road. I inspect the slim, sturdy bullet in my hand. It’s light, and it sort of vibrates when I move it. With my other hand, I hold a minimalist black box with the logo of our city’s largest and most successful company: Sacred Dynamics.

I place the bullet into a circular depression on the box, and I press down. It hisses, and the box takes the bullet into it’s insides. I hear the world around me grow silent for a second, and then the box hisses, and the bullet comes back out.

It smells odd. Thick in an experimental god’s experimental angel blood. A new, experimental weapon, and I’m told, a god of anti-gods. Something to help me along.

The bullet is changed, fresh ichor already searing itself into the bullet. I put the box away, and it makes a sloshing, thick noise as I case it up. I slide the bullet into my handgun, a minimal, but occasionally bulky thing, and ready it.

I open my supply case and retrieve a vial of blood. It’s diluted with silver and basil, and I press it against an opening onto my gun until it locks perfectly into place.

*Click.* 

The sun and moon symbols on the side of my weapon swirl, then settle back into place. I sigh, take a drink of water, and step out of my car. 

I’ve stopped for a reason. 

I’m on the hunt for two terrorists responsible for two miracles that resulted in the deaths of thirty-four, and injured many more, as well as destroyed a total of about seven million Machiryan credits in property damage.

A witness to the crime, Arbor Moss set me on the trail and identity to one of the suspects, a Nick Kerry, and the Department of Justice suspects Clarissa Weyhound, a tattoo artist and girlfriend to a now-deceased-by-self-immolation Andy Weyhound.

I step outside the vehicle. A car passes by me. I cross the road and inspect the scene, my firearm in one hand, and my transmitter in the other. “This is Agent Mabel Song,” I speak, into the transmitter. “Former Sacrificial Crimes division,” I continue, watching my surroundings, “but I’m now in Unlicensed Miracles.”

I don’t like unlicensed miracles. Not the concept in general, but being on the team. Counter-terrorism.

But what I’m looking at right now is something that’s more of my division. It’s an illegal sacrifice, and I’m pretty sure I’m on the trail of my suspects.

I click on my recorder on my radio transmitter. “I’m about a few hours into the Grace, into the farmland and my sacrifice-detector alarm went off. It’s fresh, and I checked it against the licensed farm god sac’s we have here. The body is also,” I slip on gloves and flip over a rock marked with sigils, “pledged to the god Nick Kerry worships- the journalist’s god- the Eyeless Scribe.”

Yeah. This is Nick Kerry’s god all right. He’s gotten so much notoriety with plastered images of his face everywhere the company he’d worked for had to change their name and their god from eyeless to eyed.

I sit down. “The victim is stripped of clothes, and it’s been forced into the kneeling position.” I meditate on it, and then I pace around, inspecting it closely. “The eyes have been gouged out and-” I switch my gun for a knife, cutting a clear incision into the skin. “Yeah,” black liquid pours out, thick and oozing, “the victim’s been god-marked, pledged. His insides are all black ink.” 

It’s a standard sacrifice to the Eyeless Scribe. I open the mouth and more ink drips out. So does blood. “His tongue was also cut out,” I note. A Journalist’s God. Nick Kerry was dangerous because he could convince people, force them to answer, and no doubt, with another tongue marked to his deity- he could wreak more havoc.

Of course, initially, we assumed he used her servitude and worship to smoke out members of his cause- the far-faith Free Orchard, a terrorist organization bent on destroying the New Gods and the Unbelievers, citing a return to the old ways and to heal the earth.

But in the wake of the terrorist attack he and three others had bestowed, his devotion had gotten a lot darker. 

He doesn't seem to be anywhere nearby. The body is recent, but at least two or so hours have passed. “This is the third body I’ve encountered since I set out to find him,” I remind, noting it into the recording. I put my knife away and opt for my phone, scrolling the Department's tip lines. “Looks like this matches up with a tip saying they were in the area.”

His clothes are gone, but I identify him with my phone. I pray to the god of faces and eventually, his name comes up. “Zach Dulles,” I read aloud. “Yeah, this is the guy on the tip line. Said he saw them at a gas station- must've been the empty one I saw about half and hour back. Looks like Nick and Clarissa got paranoid and sacrificed him. Did a horrible job hiding the body.”

It was almost like they weren’t trying to hide the bodies anymore. The past two times when my detector went off, I’d had to go look deeper into the fields, or the pine forest to find them.

I map out the murder onto a map on my phone. They’ve been following this road. And this road leads straight to the border. And with Nick’s powers of persuasion, this was raising the stakes to a degree I was not comfortable with.

I’d been told to seize them, and if- like we rightfully suspected, stop them before they crossed the border into Tanemite land. “We can not risk an international incident,” my boss had said. “Kill them if you have to.”

And then they sent me and a team of us off to search for them. We stayed together, but after the first sacrifice we’d encountered, we’d fanned out to cover all the roads.

The Department was so concerned they even cut a deal with Sacred Dynamics. The use of an experimental anti-god, something to nullify the sacred. Nobody, I heard, was sure how it worked, and how an anti-god was technically even possible.

All the same, they’d given us the little black consecrsation cubes. Load in a bullet, sanctify it in the name of this new, unknown god, and go to town on Nick Kerry or whatever weird and sacred creatures we could encounter in the Grace.

Acres of unkempt, strange farmland no longer tended to by the people of the Grace. Too many had migrated over to the city, and every so often I’d pass by an abandoned barn, decaying crop, and most contrasting of all- great monuments and oil and coal-angels tied to machines drilling into the earth herself.

It was mostly safe. Our side of Tanem’s Grace- the great field and forest divided by the two cities, was safe. At least, that was the official state-sanctioned view.

But I knew better. There are things in these woods that are attracted to sacrifice. I’d lived a few years in the Grace myself before my parents moved to the city. And I knew nowhere was safe.

And right now, as I examine and document the sacrifice- I can feel something breathing in the brush, waiting, and watching, ready to attack. I whip out my pistol and ready my sights.

“Help!” a woman screams, rushing from the push. I’m confused, but I raise the weapon- and she drops to her knees, yelling. “Please don’t shoot-” and she notices the sacrifice knelt in front of us, “oh my god- what- don’t kill me, please-”

“I’m not going to kill you!” I assure, shouting, then immediately quieting myself. I certainly wasn’t expecting this. “My name is Agent Song and I work with the Department of Justice.”

“Oh good, good, you can help me save my boyfriend- please- they have him,” she pleads, shrieking and sobbing, dirt getting all over her knees. “Unless- you’re working with them-” she pauses, aghast at the sacrifice, “and you killed this guy too.”

I display my DoJ identification. “I’m not,” I promise. I use my phone to show her a picture of the suspects. “Was it these two?”

She nods, enthusiastically. “Me and my boyfriend were hiking,” she starts, turning back, “and then we saw them- he had a knife, it was covered in blood. And then-” she sobs again, wiping tears away. I kneel and pat her, calming her down, “then they saw us- and they ran after us.”

“Okay, and you say they got your boyfriend?” I inquire, switching my transmitter to record- and stream. “Deeper in the pine?”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “Please, you need to save him.”

I nod, and she steps up. Could this be the break I’m looking for? But I’d assumed they’d head to the border- why waste time this close, even sighted? “Lead me,” I tell, breaking the code.

We’re supposed to take them in and call for backup, especially when a civvy is involved. But I’ve been told to seize them at all costs, and this is a sacrifice I’ll have to make.

She begins to walk, crying softly. I carry the gun in one hand, and then my phone in the other, taking pictures of the scene. “He’s so nice, you know,” she murmurs, quiet. “We were just on a date together here, you know. Our third date ever, too. Brought all the anti-angel marks and everything.”

“I’m so sorry,” I reassure, trying my best to make her feel safe. 

She stops, and kneels, and so do I. Through the brush I see it- there’s a temple complex in the woods, a skeleton of one, ruins. Part of is collapsed, but I can tell it used to be an ornate, gorgeous place. “I saw them take him in there,” she sobs.

Something is off about this place. The temple, ruined as it was, wore no symbols to a god. “Okay,” I decide. “Inside?” She nods. “Stay here.”

I get up, and I begin to head over, gun in hand, then choosing for my knife in the other. I turn back to check on her. “Please,” she moans, “save my girlfriend.”

The wind has calmed. I’m about twenty seconds into the temple when I realize her final words. “Save my girlfriend,” I murmur. She’d said her boyfriend had been taken. She’d slipped up. “Wait,” I realize, turning back. 

But she’s gone. Nowhere to be found. I speak into my transmitter. “Okay, it looks like I’ve been tricked into some sort of trap.” I shrug. “I’m going to spring it.”

There is graffiti all over the complex. All the statues and murals to this abandoned god have been destroyed, obfuscated. It’s intentional, though whoever obscured it has left all the new things kids are into, trying to make it less sinister.

“Hey!” I shout. I only hear the wind, pouring in through a collapsed section of a wall. “I know this is a trap!”

I feel a sharp pain in my stomach, and before I can shout for the woman again, it hits me. Hard, a hammer to the stomach. I swear, and I catch myself, nauseous. “Damn it!”

I feel hungry. I feel pained. My head hurts and the world begins to spin- and then my lower stomach- my kidneys hurt, and then I catch myself retching, and I vomit several bottles of water- and my breakfast.

“Oh dear stars above,” I swear, but it comes out in garbles. 

I collapse on my back, and close my eyes, suddenly too tired to do anything. I feel like sleeping. I’m so tired. I can barely think. 

Her voice (voices?) echoes around the room. “You know, they warned me you law-dogs were coming this way.” I can barely hear her. I’m so hungry. My throat is dry. I need water. “You bluedogs are corrupt to the bone. You let people of the true faith die and let the New Faith heretics build factory after factory after building over once sacred, holy land.”

I want to combat her and tell her I don’t necessarily agree with the government and the domain seizures and the crackdowns on protests- but I’m starting to dream? I think? I’m so confused.

“Our city and the world is a garden, an orchard,” she recites, voice starting to sound ever more distant. I hear something creep in the distance, knocking over brick and stone. “It’s grown corrupt and disease has spread. A wounded animal fights back to survive- and that’s what I’m doing. Disease has seized the orchard. It’s time to free the orchard.”

I hear a heavy breathing, and then something drip on my face. It’s enough to break me out of my trance.

“Oh,” I croak, seeing what’s above me. “I get it now.”

The temple has been defaced. But above me is a mural and a sigil. It’s a sigil I don’t quite recognize, but the mural tells a story. A story of man and a village, caught in a drought when the rivers ran dry.

The farms failed. The animals died. The people began to leave- but not the man. He seemed obsessed with crude art. And he grew hungry and in the winds of night he prayed at the dry river for salvation to come.

My eyes are still blurry. Another drop of sticky yellow liquid drops onto my face. 

I know this story. An old Grace folk tale. I whisper it to myself. “And from the darkness came a whisper from a thing hidden in the trees. It told him to hunt and eat. It told him that flesh was flesh and it was the sacred ritual of all things to live.”

And the man hunted fellow man and changed in his devotion to his god, a god of flesh and blood and predator and prey and-

Above me, slithering through a hole in the roof is an Angel. It’s four legged, completely covered in brown fur, legs ending with webbed feet that stick to the roof, to the mural. 

The sigil still has me pinned down. I can barely move- but a squirm, desperately wanting to leave. The Angel’s neck is long and thick, with white dots of fur to accentuate it. It’s face is flat, a mouth hungry and open, dripping goo and saliva as it moves. Round, yellow eyes swivel- I can’t tell how many there are.

I try to move. My gun is nearby, but each effort comes with renewed, horrible pain. I scream- but it comes out as a dry whisper. A single horn protrudes from the head of the Angel, and it looks oddly like a severed foot.

I am being sacrificed to an Angel of a god of desperation whose name twists and changes through field and pine, squirming and itching like the desperate it clings to. It’s fur parts open, and a dozen hungry, bleeding mouths appear, clicking and snapping, read to devour me.

And it’s desperate. It gnaws at itself and blood pours from it. It needs to make my insides its insides. A sacrifice to a god of desperation.

I reach one, final, harrowing time- and I grab hold of my gun. 

The Angel is through the hole, and it’s neck reaches down, closer to me. It’s gluttonous, slothlike. Shivering in pain, I raise my gun, unable to get a true hold on it. My captor laughs. “You think your gun can kill my Angel?” she mocks. “Believe me. Your folk have tried and died in this hallowed place.”

I miss the trigger. I will try again. It’s face opens up into rows of body parts, squirming. Little baby hands reach out, grasping in and out. A river of blood drips through my face, as does chunks of meat.

“Try your best, law dog.” And the witch laughs. And that’s enough to set me off. 

I fire. My bullet strikes through the Desperate-Angel and leaves behind a trail of black nothingness adorned in starlight. Everything goes quiet for a second. Time seems to slow down.

The experimental god does its work. The Angel shrieks and then it falls- and the spell too, is nullified and that gives me time to roll out the way as the massive sloth slams down on the floor.

I face the Angel, still on the floor. It looks at me with greedy eyes and hisses- and I feel the pain, the hunger starts to return. “Not today, demon.”

And I shoot four times. The Angel collapses, breathes a final breath, and collapses. I get up- and little child-angels squirm out of its body, and I shoot, trying to stop the cycle.

“What the hell?!” the woman shrieks, clearly terrified. “How did you- that’s-”

I pistol whip her before she can raise up a knife at me. Though the hunger has receded- I’m tired, and I’m thirsty, the contents of my drink on the floor. She hits back- it *hurts.* 

“You think,” I slam a fist into her jaw, “they’d send me out unprepared?!” I snap, and I receive an elbow to the stomach. I fall atop her, then wrestle the knife and toss it away, and then roll back.

I fire once into the air, then aim it at her. “You’re coming with me. You-” I struggle to get my thoughts out, “who in their goddamn right mind worships a god *like that?!*” I growl. “A goddamn god of desperation. A god of hunger.”

She’s not listening. She’s just ranting. “Please don’t kill me, please,” she whimpers. “They made me do this-”

“No they didn’t,” I hiss. “You’re a terrorist. I’m arresting you in the name of Lady Justice. I don’t care if you’re not a formal member- a sympathizer is still a collaborator- and believe me,” I take a deep breath, “we live in times where that’s just as bad as any damn terrorist.”

I take one long look at the rest of the mural. Graffiti has changed the story somewhat. The farmer traveled to the city for food, but all they were interested in was great machines and the blood of the earth. He begged on the streets and prayed to an unjust government. Nothing was given in return.

And that was why he’d listened to the god- more likely- an angel’s whispers in trying times. That was why he let himself be caught up and changed into an angel himself, thinking of his hunger and need so much he became the very need itself. 

A wounded animal does all it can to survive. It kicks and it fights. It lives. It dies. I aim one last time, this time above me. I fire.

The stained glass mural shatters. 

As I stubbed out the last cigarette of the night and headed inside on the chilly evening, I noticed something peculiar at the fence line. This was odd, as I didn't have a neighbor behind me—just an empty lot.

I turned to see a figure peering over the six-foot wooden fence. It seemed to be a person staring directly at me. The silhouette had what looked like wild, unruly hair. "Hello?" I called out.

No response. The silhouette remained frozen, its face obscured in the darkness, but I had a nagging feeling it was watching me intently. "You alright?" I asked more loudly, taking a step forward. The figure took a step back.

"Staring at people in the middle of the night from their fence is pretty weird," I continued, taking another step. The figure almost robotically retreated again.

I kept walking towards it, each step met with a step back from the figure, who never seemed to take its eyes off me. It moved almost unnaturally as it retreated. Before I knew it, I was at my fence line and they were deep in the middle of the lot behind me.

"I'm going inside and calling the cops!"

I turned and began marching back to my back door to grab my phone. When I turned around, I could see the figure had moved forward, only a few yards from my fence. Even in the darkness, I knew we were locking eyes as I stood still; they became like a statue.

I glanced at my backdoor in the near distance. When I looked back, they were there, the figure's head poking over the fence line. I turned around, picking up the pace when I heard a sound. I turned again, this time half of the figure was hanging over the fence. Panicked, I stared at the figure, which was once again paused.

Locked in a standstill, me and the shadowy figure, finally seeing glimpses of details. Its arms were thin, covered in wrinkles, its skin almost sagged. I took a couple of steps forward and watched as it clambered up the fence, landing on the other side with a thud.

My feet and my eyes locked, I waited for a moment, hoping it would be the end of it, but I saw fingers curl along the wood of the fence, as the head poked itself above. I rushed to the door, turning back one last time before I entered the house. I could see an older man, completely naked, standing only yards away. The faster I moved, the faster he did.

As I entered my door, I locked it and looked to see my cellphone on the kitchen counter. As I dashed over to it, mere feet away, I turned one last time to see the door open. The man stood there, eyes wide and soulless, staring back at me.

I knew I couldn't escape. With both fear and defiance, I stepped towards it.

That question is not rhetorical, reader. This tale is for your edification as well as mine. In fact, if we choose to let the culture know about the Conference of Desires, we then must ask whether our neighbors should be allowed to enter it and choose from it what they please, regardless of the horrors they may purchase.

To first learn about the Conference, you must first learn about the world around it. The start should be at death because the end of a life births honesty.

Last week, my mouth dropped at the words of my bedridden mentor—no, the word mentor is too distant. Gregory was more than a mentor to me. Yes, Gregory was twenty years my senior, and on some days it felt like my notes app was full of every word he said. However... the belly laughs we shared and our silent mornings of embracing one another's bad news, that's more than mentorship, that's the sweetest friendship there is, and may God keep granting me that.

In a small no-name hospital on a winter night, Gregory Smith—such a bland name but one that changed lives and meant everything to me—broke my heart with his words on his deathbed.

Slumping in my chair in disbelief at his statement, I let the empty beep, beep, beep on his heart monitor machine speak for me. The ugly hum of the hospital's air conditioning hit a depressing note to fit the mood. I sought the window to my left for peace, for hope; both denied. The clouds covered the moon.

"Madeline, Madeline," he called my name. "I said, I wasted my life. Did you hear me? I need to tell you why."

"Yes, I heard you," I said. "Yes, could you please not say things like that."

"'Could you please not say things like that,'" he mocked me. His white-bearded face turned in a mocking frown. My stomach churned. Why was he being so mean? People are not always righteous on their deathbeds, but they're honest.

"Could you please not do that?" I asked.

"Listen to yourself!" Gregory yelled. Hacking and coughing, Gregory wet the air with his spit, scorching any joy in the room. He wasn't done either. Bitter flakes of anger fluttered from his mouth. "Aren't you tired of begging? You need to cut it out—you're closer to the grave than you think."

"Gregory, what are you talking about?"

His coughing erupted. Red spit stained his bed and his beard. His body shook under its failing power.

Panicking, I could only repeat his name to him. "Gregory, Gregory, Gregory."

The emergency remote to call the nurse flashed, reminding me of its existence. Death had entered the room, but I wouldn't let it take Gregory. I leaped for it from my chair. Gregory grabbed my wrist. The remote stayed untouched. His coughing fits didn't stop. The eyes of the old man told me he didn't care that he hurt me, that he would die before he let me touch the remote, and that he needed me to sit and listen.

Lack equals desire, and at a certain threshold that lack turns desire to desperation, and as a social worker, I know for a fact desperation equals danger. But what was he so desperate for? So desperate that he could hurt me?

"Okay, Gregory. I get it. Okay," I said and took my seat.

I crossed my legs, let my heart race, and swallowed my fears while my friend battled death one more time. That time he won. Next time was not a battle.

But for now, the coughing fit, adrenaline, and anger left him, and he spoke to me in the calmness he was known for.

"Hey, Mad."

"Hey, Gregory."

"I don't want you to be like me, Mad."

"I eat more than McDonald's and spaghetti, Gregory. So I don't think I'll get big like you, fat boy."

We laughed.

"No, I mean the path you're going down," he said. "The Gregory path. It ain't good."

"Gregory, you're a literal award-winning social worker. You've changed hundreds of lives."

"And look at mine..."

"Gregory, cancer, it's..."

"It ain't the cancer. My life wasn't good before. I was dying a slow death anyway; cancer just sped the process up, like you. I was naive like you. I was under the impression if I made enough people's lives better, it'd make my life better. Don't be sitting there with your legs crossed all offended."

I uncrossed my legs.

"No, you can cross 'em back. That's not the point."

I crossed my legs back.

"See, you just do what people say."

I crossed them again.

"What do you want, Gregory?"

"No, Mad! What do you want? That's the point."

Four honest thoughts ping-ponged in my head:

1. A million dollars and a dumb boyfriend, just someone to talk to and hold me, among other things.

2. A family of my own.

3. For this conversation to end; Gregory started to scratch at my heart with his honesty. I—like you—prefer to lie to myself.

I only chose to say my most righteous thought.

"I want to be like you, Gregory."

Beeping and flashing as if in an emergency, the heart rate machine went wild; Gregory fumed. He threw his pudding cup from his table at me. It flew by, missing me, but droplets sprayed me on their ascent to the wall.

"I'm dying and you're lying! It's the same lies I told myself that got me here in the first place. I never touched a cigarette, a vape, or a cigar, and I'm the one with cancer. Trying to help low-lives who didn't care to put out a cigarette for twenty years is what's killing me."

"You get one life, Mad. No redos. Once it's over you better make sure you got what you wanted out of it and don't sacrifice what you want for anything because no one worth remembering does."

His words made me go still and shut down. The dying man in the hospital bed filled me with a sense of dread and danger that the toughest, poverty-starved, delinquent parent would struggle with.

His face softened into something like a frown.

"Oh, Mad. Sometimes you're like a puppy," Gregory said and I opened my mouth to speak. Shooing me away with a hand wave he said, "Save your offense for after I'm dead. I'm just saying you're all love, no thoughts beyond that. Anyway, I knew this wouldn't work for you so I arranged for hopefully your last assignment as a social worker. Be sure to ask her about the Conference of Desires."

"Last assignment? But I don't want to quit. I love my job."

Gregory smiled. "Stop lying to yourself, Mad. When the time comes be honest about what you really want."

"But," he said, "speaking of puppies. How's my good boy doing?"

"Adjusting," I said. "I'll take good care of him, Gregory. I promise."

"I know you will. You're always reliable."

"Then why are you trying to change me?"

"I—" he paused to consider. As you should, dear reader, if you plan to tell the culture about the Conference of Desires. The Conference changes them. Do you wish to do that?

Regardless, he soon changed the subject, and the rest of our conversation was sad and casual. He died peacefully in his sleep a couple of minutes after I left.

The next day, I did go to what could be my final assignment as a social worker. It was to address a woman said to have at least twelve babies running amok.

Driving through the neighborhood told me this place had deeper problems.

Stray poverty-inflicted children wandered the streets of this stale neighborhood. Larger children stood watch on porches, their eyes running after my car. Smaller or perhaps more sheepish children hid under porches or peered out from their windows. However, the problem was none of these kids should be here. It was the middle of the school day.

Puttering through the neighborhood my GPS struggled for a signal and my eyes struggled to find house 52453. A few older kids started hounding after my car in slow—poorly disguised as casual—walks that transformed into jogs as I sped up. The poor children—their faces caked in hunger. Before Gregory trained it out of me I always would have a bagged lunch for needy children or adults in the neighborhood we entered.

Well, Gregory did not so much train it out of me as circumstance finally cemented his words. The details are not important reader, just understand poverty and hunger can make a man's mind go rich in desperation. Hmm, same for lack and desire I suppose.

A child jumped in front of my car. The brakes screeched to a halt. My Toyota Corolla ricocheted me, testing the will of my seat belt, and shocking me. The wild-eyed boy stayed rooted like a tree and only swayed with the wind. His clothes so torn they might tear off if the breeze picked up.

I prepared to give a wicked slam of my horn but couldn't do it. The poor kid was hungry. That wasn't a crime. However, I got the feeling the kids behind me who broke into a sprint did want to commit a crime.

The child gave me the same empty-eyed passivity as I swung my car in reverse. Adjusted, I moved the stick to drive to speed past him. A tattered-clothed red-haired girl came from one side of the street and joined hands with the wild-eyed boys and then a lanky kid came from another side and did the same. Then all the children flooded out.

In front of me stood a line of children, holding hands, blocking my path, dooming me. Again, my hand hovered over the horn but I just couldn't do it... their poor faces.

SMACK

SMACK

SMACK

A thrum sound hit my car from the back pushing me forward, my head banged on the dash.

"What's it? Where?" I replied dumbly to the invasion, my mouth drying. The thrumming sound bounced from my left and then right and with the sound came an impact, an impact almost tossing me to the other seat and back again. My seat belt tightened, resisting, pressing into my skin and choking me. It was the boys running after me. They arrived.

One by one, the boys pressed their faces up against the windows and one green-eyed, olive-toned boy in an Arsenal jersey climbed the hood of the car, with fear in his bloodshot eyes as if he was the victim.

The bloodshot-eyed boy was the last to press his face against the glass. And I ask that you don't judge me but I must be honest. Fear stewed within me but there was so much hatred peppered in that soup.

I was a social worker. I spent my life helping kids like them. Now here was my punishment. Is this what Gregory meant by a wasted life?

The bloodshot-eyed boy, made of all ribs, slammed his fist into the window. I shook my phone demanding it work. The window spider-webbed under the boy's desperate power. I tossed my phone frustrated and crying. Through tears, I saw the boy grinning for half a second at his efforts.

The boy could break the glass.

He then steadied himself and reeled back and struck again.

A clean break.

Glass hailed on me. I shielded my eyes to protect myself and to not see the truth of what was happening. This can't be real. And I cursed them all, I cursed all those poor children. If words have power those kids are in Hell.

In the frightening hand-made darkness of raining glass, I felt his tiny hand peek through the window and pull at me. I screamed. Grabbing air he moaned and groaned until he found my wrist. The boy pulled it away from my face and opened his jaw for a perfect snap.

Other windows burst around me, broken glass flew flicking my flesh. I smelled disease-ridden teeth.

A gunshot fired. The kids scattered. Writing about their scattering now breaks my heart, all that hatred is compassion now. It was how they ran. They didn't run like children meant to play tag on playgrounds, not even like dogs who play fetch, but like roaches—the scourge of humanity, a thing so beneath mankind it isn't suited to live under our feet our first instinct is to stomp it out. I am crying now. The scene was the polar opposite of my childhood. No child deserves this.

An angel came for me dressed in a blue and white polka-dot dress. She pulled me inside her house, despite my shock, despite my weeping.

She locked and bolted her doors and sat me on her couch.

Are you religious? I am? Was? As a result of the previous events and what happened on the couch, my faith has been in crisis. I didn't learn about the Conference of Desire in Sunday School after all.

Regardless, I'm afraid this analogy only works for those who believe in the celestial and demonic. It was miraculous I made it to safety. In the physical and metaphysical sense, I was carried here.

I knew I was exactly where something great and beyond Earth wanted me to be. I could not have gotten there without an otherworldly helping hand. Yet, was this a helping hand from Heaven or Hell?

My host got me a glass of water which I gratefully swallowed. And I took in my surroundings. My host was a mother who loved her children. So many of them. Portraits of her holding each one individually hung from maybe each part of each wall, and their cries and whines hung in the air where I assumed the nursery was. She had a lot of children.

"Thank you. Thank you. So much for that," I told her and then went into autopilot. "Are you Ms. Mareta?"

"I am," she said. The sun poured from a window right behind her, as if she really was an angel.

"Hi, I'm Madeline. I'm from social service and—"

"You don't stop, do you? I see why Gregory thinks so highly of you."

That did make me stop.

"You know Gregory?"

"Oh, he was my husband at one point."

My jaw dropped. She smiled at me and bounced a baby on her lap. Gregory never mentioned he was married. We told each other everything. Why did he never mention her? And there we stayed. I dumbfounded and observing the bouncing baby, dribbling his slobber on itself as happy as can be and Ms. Mareta mumbling sweet-nothings to the baby. The smell of baby powder lofted between us.

"You're supposed to tell me you got a complaint about me and my children?" she whispered to me.

"The complaint was from him wasn't it?"

"You bet it was. Yes it was, yes it was," she said playing with the baby and knocking noses with it.

"Why?" I asked. "Why am I here Ms. Mareta?"

"So, I could tell you all about the Conference of Desires. But to tell you that I have to tell you why Greg and I got divorced."

A brick flew through the window behind her. I leaped off the couch as it crashed to the ground. Ms. Mareta protected the baby and stood up.

"Oh, dear," Ms. Mareta said. "It seems like the kids are finally standing up to me. We better do this quickly. Come on, come on let's go upstairs."

"Wait, should I call the police or—"

"If you want to once you're gone but they don't come out here anymore. Those brats outside call them all the time. Come. Come."

And with that, I followed her to her steps.

Loud mumblings formed outside.

"Perhaps the most important thing to know about why Gregory and I got divorced was that after I had my second child I was deemed infertile. This sent me spiraling.

"My coping started off innocent enough but a bit strange. I bought the most life-like doll possible. It's niche but common enough for grieving mothers. My days and nights were spent changing it and making incremental changes to make it seem more and more real."

The screaming of the babies upstairs grew louder. I grew certain she had more than twelve children there.

"Until one day," she said and Ms. Mareta looked at me to make sure I was paying attention. "I fell sick. Gregory was out of town then so I was alone for two days. I struggled, worried sick for the doll. Once I was strong enough to get up I raced to my doll. It was fine of course it was it didn't need me. I was just kidding myself. A mother is needed, I was not a mother."

There was heavy banging downstairs. The kids were trying to break in.

"So, I sought to be a mother by any means. One day I waited by the bus stop and to put it simply I stole a child. Of course, this child didn't need me or want me. Therefore I was not a mother. Therefore, I gave him back.

"His mother, the courts, and the newspapers didn't see what I did as so simple. Can you believe it? Kidding, I know I was insane. Someone did see my side though and gave me a little map, to a certain crossroad, that brought me to the Conference of Desires."

"But," I asked struggling to catch my breath—these stairs were long and we finally reached the top—"Why'd he leave you for that?"

"He hated what I brought back."

"The Conference of Desires is a place where you can buy an object that fits your wildest dream. I bought a special bottle that could reverse age. A bottle that could make any hard-working adult who needed a break, a baby who needed a mother.

"Don't look at me like that. They all consented. Some even came to me. You'd be surprised how many parents would kill to just have a break for a day, just be a baby again. They can change any time they want to go back. All they have to do is ask."

The baby she held in her arms cooed.

"Do you understand what that baby is saying?" I asked.

Ms. Mareta just smiled at me.

"You better leave now. The children are at the door and boy do they hate me for taking their parents."

"Are you going to be okay?"

"Oh, I doubt that. There are only so many bullets in a gun and my little army is made of babies. This will be the end of me I'm afraid but I get to go out living my dream." She opened the nursery and I swear to you there were at least fifty babies in there. Baby powder—so much baby powder—invaded my nose. The babies took up every inch of that room from walls to windows, blocking out the light.

"Go out the back," she said. "Take my car, take the map, and make sure you live your dream, honey."

So, reader, I know how to get to the Conference of Desires. It can get you whatever you want in life but it can also damn an untold number of people. Those kids were starving all because it wasn't the desire of their parents to take care of them. Ms. Mareta gave them an out. Ms. Mareta made the adults into babies and the children into monsters. That's unfair. The moralist would call it evil.

However, Ms. Mareta was all smiles at the end of her life and Gregory feels he wasted his. Is it our right to deny anybody their desires?

The city of Orladu'ur lies upon a vast plain, bounded on the west by the sea, on the north by the dark blightwater marshes, and on the south by the desert of seven deserts, the arid span of whose sands no mortal has ever known, but to the east, Orladu'ur lies exposed, for to the east no sea or swamp or desert stands guard.

What has for generations defended Orladu'ur has been its fighting men, its honourable heavy cavalry, and it is to these men-at-arms that the king of Orladu'ur has paid respect by refusing to take, in his city's name, a god of protection. For it is in the noble hearts of men we place our faith, is written above the city's only, eastern, gate, and it is upon this gate, and thus upon the east itself, that the greatroom of the king looks out, so that it may be always on his mind: the direction from which the ultimate whelming of Orladu'ur must come.

But the times that pass are to the mortal mind immense, and the city, godless, stands, and though, from time to time, an enemy to the east appears, never has such enemy imperiled Orladu'ur, the rumble of whose sunlit, charging men-at-arms does even in the bravest foe cause trepidation, and always this cavalry returns victorious, wet with the blood of its enemies, and the city remains unvanquished. And it is with ease that men deceive themselves to think that all which they remember is all that ever was, and all that ever was is all that ever can be.

But long now have the years been good, and the seaborne trade fortuitous, conditions under which the very hardth of Orladu'ur has weathered, and although its men-at-arms still return triumphant, welcomed by the eastern gate, the margin of their victories is slimmer, and even they forget that all the foes which they heretofore have faced have been foes of flesh and bone.

Yet there are scourges of another nature, and in the east now stirs a doom of a different kind, whose warriors do not ride orderly with coloured standards but are chaos, ripped from the very essence of the night, and it is in these days, when the sea is restless, and the marshland thick with gases, and the sands of the desert lie heavily upon the land, that the king of Orladu'ur has died and his firstborn son has taken the throne.

Urdelac, he is called, and this is his legend, the legend of the myriad shadows, the weeping mountain, and the doom of Orladu'ur.

When he ascended the throne, Urdelac was forty years old, with a beautiful wife, whom he loved above all, and who had given him five children, four daughters and a son, Hosan. He was, by all accounts, a wise man, and had tested his bravery many times alongside his father’s men-at-arms. And, for a time, Urdelac ruled in peace.

It was in the fourth year of his reign, the year of the comet, that there came galloping into Orladu'ur a lone horserider. He came out of the desert of seven deserts, rode along the city’s wall and entered, nearly dead, by the eastern gate. He requested an audience with the king, which, on Urdelac’s command, was granted. “I come out of the east,” the horserider said, and explained that he was a mercenary, one who had fought, and been defeated, at Orladu'ur many moons ago, “and bring to you a warning, honour-bound as one who was fought against one, that there approaches Orladu'ur an army such as has never been seen, comprised not of men but of shadows, shadows borne by the very edge of darkness.”

Urdelac did not know of what the mercenary spoke, but ordered that the dying man be given food and water and a place to rest, and he convened a council of elders to discuss the mercenary’s warning. “He is wounded and delirious,” the elders agreed. “Whatever he believes he has seen, he has not seen, for what he describes could never be, and whatever is is and, as always, Orladu'ur must keep putting its faith in the noble hearts of its men.” And so, nothing was done, and the mercenary died, and his warnings were forgotten.

But less than four seasons had gone when what had been summer turned prematurely to fall, and a westward wind swept across the vast plain upon which Orladu'ur stood, and as it passed, the wind seemed to some to whisper that all who loved life should accompany it out to the sea, because an evilness approached, an evilness of which even the wind was afraid. But Urdelac, on the advice of his council of elders, stood fast and closed the port, and did not let any man leave the city, and those who tried were caught and executed and their heads were hanged on the eastern gate. But the wind continued to howl, and Urdelac spent many hours alone in his greatroom, gazing out into the east and wondering what could make a thing as great as the wind scream with such perturbation.

Then, one day, in the far distance it appeared, just as the mercenary had foretold, a sheet of night stretched across the width of the plain, and from its unseeable depth were birthed hideousnesses as cannot be named, armed with weapons made of the same unnature as they themselves, and when the people of Orladu'ur saw the sheet and the figures, they were filled with panic, and when Urdelac called to assembly his council of elders, none appeared, for all, in cowardice, had boarded a ship and sailed into the sea. And, for a time, Urdelac, in his wisdom and his bravery, was lost and alone.

Until there spoke to him a voice, saying, “Urdelac, king of Orladu'ur, hear these, the words of Qarlath. Bless your city in my name and pledge your faith to me, and I shall be your salvation.”

But Urdelac answered not Qarlath, and called together instead his men-at-arms, and in the hour of uncertainty, sparked in them a brotherhood stronger than fear, and after saying farewell to their families, the men-at-arms, with Urdelac at their head, thundered out the eastern gate of Orladu'ur to meet in battle the approaching darkness. In their eyes was bloodlust but in their hearts was love, and upon the vast plain of Orladu'ur they fought valiantly. And, valiantly, they were lost.

What remained of the cavalry of Orladu'ur retreated to the safety of the city walls, bathed not in the blood of its enemies but in the blood of fallen brothers. The eastern gate was closed, and preparations were made to defend the city against the impending doom. In his greatroom, Urdelac brooded, staring towards the east so intently not even his wife could lift his spirits. And in the quarters where the wounded warriors lay, and on the field of battle, and everywhere where there was any man who had been touched by the enemy’s blade, once-human bodies blackened, and parts thereof detached, and, slithering, they sped toward the depthless black suspended above the eastern horizon like snakes returning to a nest, and all living men thus marked were put to death in mercy.

Now, in the harsh light of disaster, Urdelac again heard the voice: “Urdelac, king of Orladu'ur, hear these, the words of Qarlath. Bless your city in my name and pledge your faith to me, and I shall be your salvation.” And, this time, Urdelac agreed. And there, in the greatroom beside Urdelac, was Qarlath, god-manifest of the blightwater and protector of the city of Orladu'ur. He loomed above Urdelac, and three times asked him, “Do you, Urdelac, king of Orladu'ur, believe in me?” And, three times, Urdelac said yes. Then Qarlath said: “If truly you believe in me, do as I command: send out, at dawn, a force of thirty men, and at their head let ride your son, Hosan. If you do this, Orladu'ur shall be saved.” But Urdelac refused, arguing with Qarlath that a force of thirty could not hope to defeat an enemy that had already destroyed a force of thousands, to which Qarlath responded, “Do as I command and Orladu'ur shall exist for a thousand years, and then a thousand thousand more, but do else and the city shall fall and be overrun, and all its people consumed and all its buildings ground into dust, and if you shall be remembered, it shall be as Urdelac the Last, king of a city called Orladu'ur, which once stood on a vast plain, between the sea, the marshes and the desert.”

And when he spoke his intention to her, Urdelac’s wife wept.

And, at dawn, when thirty men had been armed and armored and when Urdelac had bid his son goodbye, the thirty rode under Hosan’s command, thundering out the eastern gate, onto the plain, where valiantly they fought against the enemy. And, valiantly, they were lost.

“You have lied to me!” Urdelac cried at Qarlath, but the god-manifest of the blightwater, protector of Orladu'ur, was silent. “I have sacrificed my only son for nothing!” For seven hours, Urdelac raged thus, and for seven hours Qarlath was silent. Then, Urdelac heard soft footfalls approaching, and when he looked, he saw his wife standing in the doorway to the greatroom. Her breath was laboured and her eyes filled with sorrow. Without speaking, she crossed the shadowed length of the greatroom, until she was silhouetted against the window looking out over the east, through which the darkness could be seen, and upon the window sill she laid herself, and thereupon died, the empty bottle of poison slipping from her lifeless hand and falling to the floor.

Urdelac wept.

Upon the window sill, his wife’s dead body appeared strangely dark against the grey sky behind it, dark and peacefully still, and as he gazed upon it, it began to recede, as if through the window, towards the horizon. But even as it did, its absolute size did not change, so that as it moved further away from Urdelac it also grew, until it was the size of the eastern gate, and then the size of the city, and then of the plain, and then it was the size and shape of a mountain, and it was a mountain, and the mountain blocked out the sheet of darkness, standing between it and Orladu'ur, so that Urdelac could no more see the approaching doom, and he knew that the mountain was unconquerable and that Orladu'ur was therefore saved.

“It is done,” said Qarlath, appearing behind Urdelac, and all within the city emerged from hiding and climbed to the highest points they could, to, together, gaze upon the newborn mountain that was their salvation.

But even as Urdelac, too, felt their relief, his heart was pain and his soul was empty. His beloved wife and his only son, Hosan, were gone, never to be of the mortal world again. He turned his back on the window, and Qarlath said to him, “You come now upon the experience of power and rule,” and Urdelac detested both. Down, in the city, the people chaunted: “To Urdelac, king of Orladu'ur. Long may he reign! Long may be reign!”

The city of Orladu'ur lies upon a vast plain, bounded on the west by the sea, on the north by the dark blightwater marshes, on the south by the desert of seven deserts, the arid span of whose sands no mortal has ever known, and on the east by the weeping mountain, whose broken peaks nothing shall pass. Its protector god is Qarlath, and many temples have been raised in his name, in which many blood sacrifices are made. On the throne sits Urdelac, a wise and brave man. It is said that when Urdelac remembers what once was, storm clouds appear above the weeping mountain, and their waters rush down the mountainside, through the city and toward the sea. No longer may a man, friend or foe, approach Orladu'ur, except from the west. And then, it is said, a sheet of darkness will sweep down from the House of Qarlath, and swallow the ships whole.

Over the last week, I know you've all been scared.

If you're a teenager reading this, 13-18, I'm not writing this to scare you more.

I want to tell you the truth.

The televised press conference we all just watched terrified me, but I'm here to tell you the experts are afraid of telling you the truth. This isn't intentional—they're just as scared as we are. They're terrified:

Not knowing what this thing is—or how to stop it—terrifies them.

But this sickness affecting the teenage population is NOT new.

It infected my town this time last year and took my brother.

Those who do know what it is tried to burn us to the ground to stop it from spreading. I spent half a year in a facility in their attempt to extract whatever this is from my veins, cruel procedures drilling into me and testing my bone marrow.

But it's already around you. It's in the air, melded into your brains.

It's November 28th, so you're already feeling it. It's not like fomites, anything you can catch. It's deeper than that.

I don't think I can describe just how this thing spreads without sounding out of my mind.

This thing is going to spread. You've seen it on the news, right?

It's contagious, except not in the way you think.

But it's not going to kill you.

Kill you permanently, anyway.

If I'm honest, I wish it did kill us. I wish it killed me.

OC, California, was what my younger self had called a "sunshine state."

Our little town, just on the edge of the coast, was paradise.

Aside from winter weather and the occasional freak storm, I had grown up in the sun.

I had known the beach my whole life—the soft sand underfoot and between my toes.

The shallows I waded into every morning without fail, trailing after my older brother and his friends, chasing the surf under shallow pinks streaked across the sky.

I knew salt and sweat, Ray-Bans perched on my head, the grossness of sunscreen gluing my hair to my neck. The memories of sandcastles, and the relentless, yet beautiful scorch of the sun on my skin.

The heat clashing with the coolness of the sea as I dipped under—waiting for that one wave that would toss me into the air, sending me spiraling with the ocean itself before tumbling me back down into the depths.

The surf that eventually carried me back to the shallows and spit me out to where Mom waited with ice cream, always ready to lather me in Factor 50.

Presently, I bit back a hiss when my school bus took yet another sharp turn, jerking my head into the window.

I was slowly starting to regret my decision to come on this stupid school retreat.

Why was it snowing?

Leaning my head against the ice-cold glass, I could only stare outside, confusion and slight panic prickling up and down my spine. In the seat in front of me, Sara Lakewood had sneezed again, a violent wet-sounding sneeze, and refused to cover up her damn mouth.

I was used to snow sometimes. Like, maybe a sprinkle, or even just a few inches if we were lucky.

"In OC California today on Wednesday, November 22nd, 2023: sunny, with a high of 75°F and a low of 61°F," that's what Alexa had said. “Sunny, with cloudier conditions as we move into the afternoon!”

Pressing my face into the glass, I squinted through spiraling snowflakes that seemed abnormally large, thicker, already obstructing my view. I wouldn't exactly call this cloudy conditions.

This was freak weather—the type I would expect to be on the national news or fear-mongering TikTok pages.

I tried my phone again; still no signal. I did get one single bar when the bus stopped, and we got stuck in a snowdrift (I still wasn’t sure how we were still alive—let alone why this driver kept going), but it was gone before I could try Mom’s phone.

There was barely any visibility outside, and I was having a hard time believing our driver when he assured us that everything was going to be fine.

That slight shudder in his tone wasn't helping. This guy had no idea what the fuck he was talking about.

The blanket of snow outside shouldn't have freaked me out as much as it did—but staring out into what would normally be golden landscapes and endless ocean, I only saw... white.

With my cheek uncomfortably pressed against the pane, I wrapped my jacket tighter around myself, surprised by my breath dancing in front of me in sharp wisps.

I shouldn't have been shocked that the school couldn't afford heating on the bus.

We were a tiny town, and most of our funding went into our sports department.

However, the least they could do was supply half a dozen kids who were not used to this type of weather—this deep-rooted cold sliding into every bone in my body—with heat packs.

I wasn't dressed for arctic conditions.

That morning, I was pretty sure my wardrobe would only be light sweaters and jeans.

California weather could be spotty at times, but it was always a guarantee that we were never going to get a literal fucking snow storm.

Still, if I really strained my ears, I could maybe trick myself into believing the blizzard outside was, in fact, ocean waves crashing against a shore—where I once felt safe.

“Summer.”

The familiar voice barely registered. I ignored it, curling into my seat and willing my body to stop shaking.

“I know you're ignoring me.”

I kept my focus on the snow piling up on the windows.

The sheer amount that had fallen in just under an hour was almost impossible.

I could already sense my classmates' chatter shift from TikTok and Twitch streamers to "what the fuck is going on outside?"

I was also unlucky enough to get seated in front of Wes Cameron. I had to bite back a hiss when he kicked my seat yet again in an attempt to balance on his seat to get a perfect shot of the storm.

He was acting like he'd never seen snow before, jabbering to his seat mate, who was currently my other least favorite person on this bus.

“Summahhhhhhhh.”

That annoying voice had turned into a sing-song.

“Go awaaaaay,” I mimicked his taunt. “I’m trying to sleep.”

“You don't look asleep.”

I shifted in my seat, trying to get comfortable. “Key word, trying.”

“Mom says you're not spending the holidays with us.”

“So?” I didn't turn around.

“That's not very festive of you, sis.”

When I didn't respond, he sighed. “So, you're going to ruin Christmas for everyone.”

“Ouch! Jeez man, you didn't have to do her like that!”

I wasn't expecting Wes to chime in, poking his head through the gap in my seat.

He shot me a grin, and I shoved him away, with a finger-poke to the forehead.

“Ow!”

I wasn't sure what made me snap. Wes Cameron trying to squeeze his head through the very small gap in my seat, or the idea that my brother still believed in the magic of fucking Christmas– when he treated the holidays like spring break.

He wasn't even conscious for the special day a year prior, passed out on the beach after his holiday party went sideways.

Since Mom was too embarrassed to acknowledge Wes’s behavior (or admit it to our neighbors), I was the one running to and from our house, with a barf bucket and fresh cans of soda when everyone else was tucking into their Christmas dinners.

Ah yes, the festive cheer of cleaning up your brother’s puke!

Dislodging myself from the window, I lifted my head to find the Golden Child himself looming over me, arms crossed, eyebrows raised, mimicking our mother.

He was wearing a reindeer sweater, which was already a flashing red flag.

The light up antlers sticking out made me feel nauseous.

The sweater was too big for him, baggy and hanging off his slim frame—definitely an attempt to get on Mom’s good side. His bobble hat was a… choice. Mom was obsessed with holiday-themed clothing.

Fallon, or "Fall"—since, apparently, our parents were comedic geniuses with names—was exactly one year older than me.

And despite his growing list of almost felonies, according to Mom, still the ”golden child”: while I was the kid she avoided talking about during family gatherings. The socially awkward one who was just going through a phase.

Mom named us after the seasons we were born under.

While I was born in July, summer months, long days, and an increasingly painful pregnancy (thanks for the tmi, Mom), Fallon was born in the fall, under cozy red skies and fallen leaves.

My brother was the literal fucking Golden Child.

But I didn't blame her for giving up on me.

Unlike my brother, who actually had a life, I had ditched surfing and the beach when I found my individuality, choosing to stay at home all day playing Stardew Valley.

I didn't abandon the outside completely, but I did stop traipsing after my brother and his friends, finding comfort in my own room.

The last time I hung out with my brother, Fallon left to get takeout pizza. I wanted to go with him, but he was crushing on a guy, and apparently, having his little sister third-wheeling was social death.

I made the mistake of heading back to my brother’s friend's, who were complaining of my presence.

They didn't want a fourteen year old kid hanging out with them, and I guess they were too polite to tell my brother.

So, I distanced myself.

That was until I was forced to acknowledge his existence—on this stupid field trip. Since his friends were joining us for the entire holiday, Mom insisting on this huge party bringing all our families together, my brother’s friends were also invited.

Hence, I was planning on spending my holidays elsewhere. My plan was to ignore Fallon’s existence, and once the field trip was over, jump on a flight.

However, the universe had other plans. It was pretty hard to ignore him when he was clinging to my seat, our janky bus rocking him side to side.

Fallon and I were like carbon copies of our mother and father.

While I had inherited Mom’s brunette curls and darker complexion, Fallon was a pale redhead.

You could see the resemblance… if you squinted.

It was mostly in our eyes and the shape of our faces. According to someone in class, we had the exact same resting-bitch face.

The same one he was pulling at that moment, eyebrow cocked, lips pricked into a slight smile. I quickly decided that I hated his stupid fucking reindeer sweater, another ploy to get on Mom’s good side.

Fallon loved family interventions– especially when he was the one holding them.

I decided to humor him, trying to ignore our growing audience.

“I’m not interested in playing happy families,” I spoke through what I hoped was a gritted smile. I could already feel my cheeks growing warm, and it wasn't even a relief. It was uncomfortable warm, like sticking your head in an oven. “Can we talk about this later?”

“Mom told me to talk to you.”

It was always “Mom says” with him. Jeez, it was like talking to a toddler.

“I have nothing to say,” I said. “It's just two weeks. You can survive without me, Fallon.”

Fallon folded his arms. “So, where are you going?”

“Florida.” I said. “I have friends I’m staying with.”

I hated the way he smirked, like what I was saying couldn't be true. “Friends?”

“I met them on a discord server.”

He curled his lip– yet another Mom-ism. “You're fifteen.”

I rolled my eyes. “They're my age, Fallon.”

When the bus jerked again, this time setting off a cacophony of cries behind us, my brother was oddly calm, tightening his grip on my seat.

“Okay, well,” his voice wobbled when he was violently thrown backwards, only just managing to keep his balance. “Can you at least let me drive you?”

“Fallon Cartwright,” our driver shouted, tackling the wheel, snow pounding down on the windshield. “Please sit down!”

Fallon shot me a look, his eyes widening. I knew exactly what he was thinking.

Since when did a random bus driver know my brother’s name?

I think I was about to question it, amused and maybe a little panicked. Maybe this guy knew our mother? She was a well known name in the town, after all.

I remember reaching out and grabbing his arm, wrapping my hand around his wrist and tugging him into the seat next to me.

But in the corner of my eye, the driver fucking exploded.

I don't mean he burst into meaty chunks, a total gore-fest.

I mean one minute he was there, frantically trying to brush snow from the windscreen with his bare hand, sticking his head out of the window– and in a single disorienting moment, pop!, and he was gone, exploding into a vivid red mist.

“Summer?”

Fallon’s voice was barely scratching the surface of my mind, when I was staring at what almost reminded me of stardust, a crimson tide of red sparkles suspended in the air, lightly coating the driver’s seat.

It took me half a second to realize that somehow, this man had just spontaneously combusted— and it slowly began to dawn on me that nobody was driving the bus. The world turned mute.

Voices were ocean waves slamming into my skull.

Outside, I could just make out the jagged edge of a cliff we were careening towards, the bus swerving again and sending my classmates into a fresh panic.

In that moment, I wanted to be the hero, jumping forward to grab the wheel myself and steer us from the cliff face we were teetering on the edge of.

But I could only sit there, paralyzed, dazed. Watching the road get narrower and narrower, it reminded me of going through the tunnel in that old Willy Wonka movie.

No light, no hope, just darkness slowly enveloping us.

I never felt the bus tip over the edge. Initially, it was a single sharp jerk that slammed my head into the window.

I should have felt the lurch, the weightlessness as I was hurled forward and propelled off my feet, and the crushing force of fifty thousand megatons of steeI obliterating my internal organs.

I remember screams erupting and something wet hitting me in the face, followed by a blinding white light that grew brighter and brighter and brighter.

When I think back, it felt like living in a movie– except the movie was ending in one, vivid, fiery explosion so powerful that I was yanked from my body.

I should have felt my death—but whatever death was, it spat me back out. I remember distantly thinking it must not have liked the taste.

I awoke to wails and sobs and my body lodged between two seats. I couldn't feel my legs. I couldn't feel anything, only a growing numbing sensation severing my nerve endings.

I didn't realize my mouth was already open in a silent scream, and I was choking up blood.

When I managed to open my eyes, and keep them open, something was looming over me, swaying back and forth, back and forth. It was like a pendulum, hypnotizing me and lulling me to sleep, my eyes focusing and blurring, black spots growing big and small, big and small.

“Summer!”

Someone was shaking me, prodding my face. I felt their fingers try to find a pulse in my neck and wrist, but I still couldn't feel my legs.

I sensed someone's breath in my face, unusually warm, dancing across my cheeks. When they coughed, I assumed fumes– but I wasn't expecting something warm and wet to coat my face.

“Fuck.” The voice suddenly had an identity, my muddled brain briefly finding clarity.

“Summer, stay with me, all right?” Wes Cameron knelt in front of me, slapping my face, trying to keep me awake, and when I did open my eyes, I ignored his frantic gaze and blood speckled lips, focusing on the weird swinging object dancing above his head.

It was too big to be a backpack. Flickering in and out of view, I could see the twisted, mangled skeleton of our bus wrapped around me, crushing my chest in a suffocating embrace.

“I've got you!” Wes’s cry was laboured with sobs. I could feel his hands on me, another disorienting wave of dizziness, and then– “I did it!” His sharp breath barely grazed my ears before I could feel.

The numbing cold underneath me, blood pooling around the wreckage. Wes didn't hesitate, wrapping me into an awkward hug and violently wrenching me from where I was wedged between what was left of the crumpled seats and window.

Lying on my back, I saw the carnage from a different angle. I followed the intense red smear. It was so cold, and there was so much pain, coming in sharp pulses rattling my body.

But I could feel my legs—they were intact, folded underneath me. Wes gently pulled me into a sitting position.

Blood ran from my nose, my mouth, my ears, choking me. But I was alive.

When my gaze found the swinging shape looming over me, it hit me that I wasn't looking at an object lit up by the bus emergency lights.

I was staring at what was left of a bright green holiday sweater, illuminated antlers illuminating a reindeer nose that was now soaked in red.

Delusional, I remembered it hadn't been Rudolph before… I only saw the torso, and that was enough.

It didn’t fully register that it was my brother’s corpse swinging back and forth until someone—Wes—grabbed my shoulders and forced me to look at him.

Fallon was dead.

I wasn't sure what grieving was yet, or even how you were supposed to react to a death.

But in that intimate moment where it was just me and my tumultuous thoughts, that poisonous and selfish part of me could only think of one single word:

Finally.

And then it well and truly fucking hit me. Fallon was dead.

Fallon wasn't coming back.

Sound came in and out, like whooshes of air.

Wes’s lips were moving, but all I could hear was my frenzied heartbeat.

Before.

Whoooosh.

“Hey!” Wes’s voice was loud and invasive. “Look at me!”

I didn't look at him. I looked at my brother. Corpse. His corpse.

Somebody was screaming. It wouldn't stop. Distantly, I realized it was me; I was screaming.

The noise was horrifying, a shrill screech exploding in my skull.

“Summer, we need to get out of here,” Wes’s heavy breaths hit my face. Warm arms were already wrapping around me, pulling me like a doll out of the wreckage and straight into swirling snowflakes.

It was still snowing. The thought felt muddled and wrong as I sat on my knees, shivering and numb, at a loss for words.

Around me was a cacophony of my screaming classmates—some missing limbs, others barely alive, pleading for death.

Fallon was still in there, my thoughts screamed. I didn't see a head.

I didn't see his full dead body. So, maybe… I was already on my knees, crawling through blanketed white, before another pair of arms held me back.

I didn't know her name. Poppy, or Holly, or something like that.

The girl dropped down in front of me, her eyes wide and unseeing.

She had been on the track team.

I vaguely remembered her from our yearbook—always at the front of every photo, always smiling, her blonde ponytail swinging and doll-like smile perpetually picture perfect.

Now, her blonde hair hung in scarlet, tangled rat tails glued to her face.

“Did you see it?”

The girl’s words caught me off guard, sending me shuffling back.

The bus driver exploding into red mist. She saw it too. When she came closer, so close her breath prickled my face, I noticed blood seeping from her lips and dribbling down her chin.

The girl coughed, and I found myself with a face full of bloody mucus. She was ill.

She wasn't just shivering from the cold, if her feverish skin and bloodshot eyes were any indication. I didn't respond.

She slowly got to her feet, swaying from side to side as she stumbled away, muttering to herself.

Holly coughed again, this time covering her mouth, and then stared down at her blood streaked palm, her lip wobbling. Holly was sick, I thought, dizzily.

In a daze, I think I batted her bloody snot from my cheeks.

But I don't think I cared.

I sat there for a long time waiting for Fallon to appear from the wreckage.

Wes finally dropped down in front of me, grasping my hands.

I hadn't fully taken in his injuries until that moment, noticing the scary looking gash slicing through his forehead, his thick brown curls hanging in half lidded eyes. He was mostly intact, but each of his words accompanied a violent cough, his chest wheezing. Oh. The thought was like a wave crashing into me.

Wes was sick too.

His lips parted and then moved, shaping into what I could only guess was sympathy: I'm so sorry, Summer.

But I couldn't hear him this time.

Instead, I was wondering why his hands were so warm, slick and sweaty, tangled with mine.

While I was ice cold.

I found my voice, when I was able to stand, breathing into my hands to stay warm.

“You don't look so good,” I told him, and to my surprise, he laughed.

Then coughed, this time into his hands, and then wiping them on his jacket.

“Neither do you!”

There were approximately nine survivors, out of twenty kids on our bus. The majority of our class were dead, but that fact had yet to sink in. I was still looking for familiar faces among the shadows of the survivors.

It quickly became apparent that we were on our own. There was no signal, and when we did manage to find a single bar, 911 was disconnected.

Kids started to panic, but I just kept telling myself it was because of the weather.

This snow was unprecedented, not what our town was used to. So, of course our emergency lines would be busy.

Elizabeth Banks, however, made sure to keep reminding me that the emergency lines were not busy. They were dead.

Wes took over as our leader, announcing that we weren't that far away from home.

He was right. Even with the snow, I could still make out where our bus had toppled down a shallow embankment.

So, gathering as many resources as possible, we started the hike back to town while doing our best to haul the injured on makeshift stretchers.

I was lucky to be able to walk, driven by pure adrenaline.

I dreaded seeing my mother, and explaining that Fallon wasn't coming back. Somehow, she would make it all my fault.

I was already rehearsing the words in my head.

“I'm sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry I couldn't save him.”

There was no right way to tell my mother her son was never coming back.

And yet again, that selfish part of me didn't want to.

Why was it my responsibility? Why was I trying to fucking apologize?

Wes’s initial idea was to hitchhike back to town. But when we got back onto the main road, we realized that was not going to happen.

Traffic had simply stopped—cars crashing into each other, jamming the road.

It's because of the snow, I told myself.

Wes and two other guys were already checking each car, their faces growing progressively paler.

We could have blamed it on the treacherous conditions; in fact, we tried to, at first.

Our town had never experienced snow like this. The type that grounds entire cities to a halt and freezes people in cars.

I was knee deep in snow drifts, wading towards a flipped over ranger, when Dom Hudson voiced my thoughts. “Where is everyone?” he spoke up, cutting through that unnerving silence and voicing what none of us wanted to acknowledge.

I poked my head into each car and found exactly the same thing: the seatbelts were still in place.

Wes was already losing his cool, his voice breaking.

“We’re okay,” he announced, his tone saying the opposite. “It's probably because of the storm! I'm sure everyone's… evacuated.”

He didn't have to voice his conclusion after checking every car in the vicinity, because we all knew it.

None of these drivers had left their seats.

It wasn't until I stuck my head in a fancy Prius, did the magnitude of the situation truly hit me. Just like with our bus driver, I found myself staring at sparkling red mist splattering the steering wheel.

Wes had an answer, or at least what he thought was one. He was trying to find logic and science, when I was pretty sure we were looking at spontaneous human combustion, on a catastrophic scale.

I had no idea just how widespread it was until we reached home in the early hours of the morning. I couldn't tell what time.

It was still snowing, and by then, we were up to our knees in it. The whole town had come to a grinding halt.

I went straight home in a panic that turned to dread at the sight of our wide open front door.

Alexa cheerfully greeted me with “Welcome home! The time is 3am on Thursday November 23rd, and the temperature is currently 15°F with a real feel of 7°F.”

Water was running upstairs. When I stumbled up to the landing, I stepped straight into suds flooding the bathroom.

I turned off the faucet, my hands shaking. Mom was running a bath.

I could see exactly what she was doing in what was left behind. The TV was still switched onto the weather channel, her laptop open on the coffee table, our school’s website on display.

Her phone was on the floor, the screen shattered.

But I saw my name between the cracks.

Summer ♥️

She tried to call me 54 fucking times.

Hesitantly, I followed the trail, backtracking into the main hallway where a glass of wine lay shattered on the floor.

Dropping to my knees, I dragged my fingers across the carpet; the same red smear clung to each fiber.

I didn’t want to admit that the scarlet smudge on our hallway carpet was my mother and not her wine—or that, before she exploded, she had been desperately trying to contact me.

Going into shock again, I did everything I could to distract myself.

I checked the refrigerator and pantry, taking note of every item.

We still had power, so I grabbed my mom’s phone and tried, once again, to reach an emergency line.

I washed my face once, twice, three times, four, scrubbing at my face until my skin was raw. I felt like I was caked in him.

When I pulled out my ponytail, I could feel him stuck in my hair and glued to my neck. Fallon was dead.. Mom was dead.

I spent hours in the shower, hours I don't even remember, sitting with my knees to my chest, trying to imagine if I had only pulled Fallon into his seat sooner.

He would be with me, trying to calm me down– the logic in this fucked up mess. The survivor's guilt was eating me alive.

I was alone. Still though, I found comfort in my usual bedtime routine, trying to ignore the excited screaming from outside. Younger kids were running in the snow way past their bedtime, happy or hysterical, and still not fully registering that their parents were dead.

Hours passed by and I was already expecting my mother to come yell at me for not being asleep, or placing warm milk with honey by my bedside.

But I was alone inside a freezing cold house that was no longer home.

I started to break apart. I tried and failed to sleep in my room.

It was supposed to be my safe place, but it felt simultaneously too big and like the walls were closing in. I tried Fallon’s, and I couldn’t even step over the threshold.

Everything was still exactly where he’d left it, like he was coming back. I hadn't been in his room for a while, and he'd revamped it. Fallon’s personality was lit up in every Marvel movie poster, in his surfboards hanging from the walls.

His bedroom didn’t make sense against the backdrop of the storm outside—heavy, blanketed white clashing with his beaded curtains and multicolored beach towels.

I could see unfinished college applications on his desk, his laptop still open, frozen on the Minecraft menu screen. Before the field trip, he'd stuck his head through my door.

“Yo, do you wanna hang out? I'm setting up Minecraft right now.”

I ignored him, corking in my headphones.

I never told him about his friends because I didn't want to fuck up our relationship.

But I had fucked it up, I pushed him away.

Closing my brother’s door, I went back to the dark red stain on the hallway carpet.

I don't even remember curling up, passing out right there.

When I woke up, it was daylight, and it was still snowing.

I was almost snowed in, stepping straight into untouched white.

I was trying to make coffee when there were three singular knocks on the door.

Wes, still in his pyjamas, and carrying a bag full of Dunkin Donuts.

“Want one? They're fresh from yesterday, so I'm handing them out.” he thrust the bag in my face, his mouth full, chocolate dribbling down his chin.

I noticed significant perspiration glistening on his forehead, soaking strands of hair glued to his skin.

His eyes were… bigger, somehow, the proportions of his face were different. I had to be hallucinating, or maybe concussed.

But no… when I blinked rapidly, the boy's face was somehow narrower.

He was either delirious from his fever, or was slowly splintering apart mentally. When I hesitantly took a rainbow sprinkle donut, his smile started to falter.

He was trembling, barely able to keep himself upright.

“There's a meeting in the school auditorium,” he smiled, handing me a caramel donut too. “It starts at twelve, so don't be late, all right?”

I swallowed down donut barf. “Meeting?”

He nodded. “Yep! There are around two hundred of us. Thirteen to eighteen year olds. Whatever this thing is, it's sparing teenagers.” He shrugged.

“Well, that's our hypothesis, anyway. Everyone over the age of eighteen, and under the age of thirteen have…” Wes mimed an explosion with his hands, his eyes growing manic. “Bye-bye!”

His words felt like knives pricking into my back.

“Everyone.” I managed to spit out.

“Yep! Everyone!”

His expression darkened, and I started to see the splinters in his mask, his lips curling. “I found my parents reduced to red sludge, and my baby sister was her own flavor of strawberry shake in her crib.”

Wes’s eyes widened, and he startled me with a choked laugh.

“Wait.” He ran his hands through his hair. “Do you think that's what it is? What if it's aliens turning us into milkshakes?!”

Wes laughed, holding out his palms– slick with red– “So, that's what this is, right? My little sis. She just turned into fucking Nesquick, man.”

I wondered if his fever was doing all of the heavy lifting. He was speaking in tongues.

“You're sick.” I said, laying my hand on his forehead.

I had to pull it back, biting down on a hiss. He was burning up.

Literally. I could barely touch him.

When I tried brushing soaking strands of hair out his eyes, he wafted my hand away.

“I'm not sick,” Wes mumbled. “It's from the crash.”

I took a slow step back, suddenly very aware of him being contagious. “You're burning up.”

“I’m fiiiiine!” he rolled his eyes, but then he coughed, which surprised even him, a startled, choked splutter sending him stumbling off balance. I pretended not to see the slew of red seeping down his chin.

He inclined his head, and I caught something in the slither of his iris.

Wes had brown eyes. I knew that because I had a silent crush on him all the way through my freshman year, before he started dating Tommy Fields.

I used to get lost in his eyes, warm coffee grounds with flecks of orange.

But right then, I couldn't ignore the unmistakable green streak bleeding into his iris. “It's just a cold, dude.” he spread out his arms, doing a clumsy twirl.

“What do you expect? It's snowing! We’re all gon’ be a lil’ sniffly.”

To demonstrate, he swiped his nose, pretending not to see the scarlet smear.

“Oh fuhhhhck, maybe I'm the one turning into strawberry Nesquick.” Wes giggled, and his laugh turned into a cough, this time into his hands. He held up the bag of donuts, offering me a two fingered salute.

“I'll be…”

Another spluttered cough choked his words, his chest heaving.

“Fine!”

I thought Wes was going to collapse when he swayed left and then right, his eyes flashing, before Wes seemed to catch a hold of himself, finding balance.

He pivoted on his heel and waded back down my driveway, struggling through growing snow drifts. “Seeya at twelve, Summer!”

I didn't end up going to the meeting after the snow officially locked me inside.

But thanks to a mass-text sent to our parents' phones (smart), I was informed we were a group of two hundred kids, aged thirteen to eighteen years old– and we were well and truly alone.

According to several senior kids, our town was cut off from the rest of the world by the freak weather. I checked the news, and somehow, there was nobody talking about it. The huge snow storm that had hit a small californian town?

There was nothing.

Instead, the rest of the world was gearing up for the holidays.

It almost felt like we had been yeeted from reality itself.

The Internet was acting weird. I could see what was happening, but I couldn't post anything. When I flicked through TV channels, they were always the same ones.

The mass text also detailed that, starting that afternoon, we had to report to the school auditorium for daily crisis meetings.

Like every other kid in town, I was numb from losing my family and life itself crumbling around me in a single afternoon—and yet the underdeveloped part of my brain still wanted to take advantage of zero adult authority.

Retail therapy it was; I went shopping.

I forced myself through towering snow-drifts, lugging a wheelbarrow with me, and stocked up on ramen, soda, all the fresh goods that were still there, and of course, candy. The rest of the store had been stripped of every branded soda and candy you could think of– an army of thirteen year olds leading the charge.

I was supposed to attend the crisis meeting, but in my head, what was the point? We were all going to die anyway, so what was the point of trying?

So, I went home, and slept away twelve days.

I didn't eat or shower, and the fresh food I’d dumped on my bedroom floor was starting to smell.

Day 1: I slept for most of it, only getting up to down a bottle of water.

Day 2: I was barely conscious, only half aware of the lights flickering out.

Day 3: Loud banging woke me up, and I dragged myself downstairs, opening the door to two boys. I vaguely knew them. Henry Mara and Dalton Atlus.

The two of them were shivering, and when I peeked past them, the snow had let up slightly.

“Freddie Fawner and his group of freshman freaks took over our house.”

Henry held up a bag of apples. I think he was offering them as a gift. “Do you mind if we stay here for a while?” his hopeful expression and frostbite lowered my barriers.

I nodded and let them in, offering them blankets and letting them have the living room.

I went back to bed, crashing onto my pillows, the world tilting.

Day 4: Henry and Dalton were arguing over cereal. I ignored them, and went back to sleep.

Day 5: My Mom’s phone woke me up at 5am. Wes Cameron is dead, the words headed my notifications.

His body was found inside a pharmacy.

Something ice cold slipped through me. Wes had a cold, right?

I sat up in bed, suddenly very conscious of the dryness in my throat.

I remembered that slither of green creeping into his iris.

His clammy forehead.

Day 6: I was woken up by another text. This time, ten fifteen year olds were found dead in their homes. All suspected of the flu.

Day 7: Henry started coughing downstairs. I jumped out of bed and taped my door shut. I opened my window, and took three tylenol. Another text vibrated my phone: three more fifteen year olds dead.

Day 8: I couldn't get out of bed, my bones felt like lead. I coughed up something onto my pillow, but I didn't look at it. There were three texts on my phone.

The first one was alerting us that they were going to stop reporting deaths, the second was that they felt sick, and the third was that they wanted their Mommy.

Day 9: I was burning, rolling around in sweat-soaked sheets with a mouth full of blood. Henry had stopped coughing.

I could hear the boys moving around.

I hallucinated my brother standing over me with abnormally pointy ears, a grin splitting his mouth wide.

I felt his ice cold fingers tip-toe across my clammy forehead, and when I looked at him, blinking rapidly, I could have sworn his eyes were... different.

But he was beautiful. Grotesquely beautiful, like a fairy.

Wes climbed through my window, followed by the girl from the crash.

Holly.

Day 10, I think I died, my body no longer mine.

Day 11: I was still dead, on my bedroom floor, choking up wet, slithering red chunks. I couldn't speak or breathe, or eat, my body was scorching, my screams strangling through my lips after bypassing my cooked vocal chords.

Day 12:

I could move again. Not well, but well enough to stand. My body felt strange, too light and yet also heavy, like I was both floating, and dragging myself.

Calling out for the boys, I headed downstairs, covering my mouth with a soiled pair of pajama pants, and stepping straight into sticky red pooling across Mom’s prized rug.

Henry lay on his back, choking on bubbling scarlet dribbling down his chin.

Dalton was vomiting in the sink, his trembling body convulsing—lumps of fleshy red splattered on the floor.

Henry’s face looked sharper, paler, his eyes sunken, ears pointier.

I found myself choking down hysterical giggles that were choking me. Before the thought could graze my mind, my brain was suddenly on fire. I dropped to my knees, coughing, red filling my mouth.

My limbs contorted, my head swimming. The sickly stench of peppermint seeping into my nose. Bells rang loud and invasive in my ears.

A voice echoed through my skull:

“Don’t worry, children. The transformation is painful, but only if your body rejects it. Right now, your human tissue is converting to elf tissue. I know it hurts! But I lost quite a lot of my workforce this year! So, I have no choice! The show must go on!” he boomed.

“Human children aren't quite ideal, but they should do the job. I need at least 500 of you to compete with this year's demand.”

He laughed, and Henry collapsed, his head smacking on the edge of the sink.

“I'm sure your parents will become fine meat-scraps for my reindeer!”

I screamed, my body contorting, his words forcing me onto my side.

I choked up what I was guessing was my internal organs.

All I could think about was my brother.

Did this thing work on the dead too?

Wes.

Was he a failure, or was dying just the start?

When my body lurched onto its side, and I choked up something wet and slimy, the floorboards creaked behind me.

Henry and Dalton stood. They didn't speak.

They just walked out of the door, straight into a blizzard, stardust dripping from them.

I waited for my body to twist, just like theirs.

But I kept bleeding, all over myself, sticking my hair to my neck.

My eyes flickered, Santa's laugh bouncing in my skull.

I waited to die, or at least become an elf.

But I didn't.

I still felt light and wrong, and when I looked in the mirror, my face was twisted out of shape, my ears too pointy, too sharp.

I resemble fae, almost.

When I was well enough, I left my house, finding a wasteland of snow and bodies, kids who rejected the transformation.

Santa had taken the others, and left me.

When the snow did start to melt, I had people in masks banging on my door. I let them throw me in an unmarked van and take me out of town.

I spent the next several months being experimented on.

The man who tested me said the experts has known about Santa's existence for a while.

But they hadn't seen what they call a conversion on this scale.

Dr Mycroft, the man who prodded and poked me every day, told me the conversion is the process of human cells and tissue being forcibly transformed.

The only way to stop it is to reject the idea of Santa Clause.

So, that's what I want all of you to do. Right now.

Before this thing spreads globally, please.

Stop believing in my friends, who forcibly became elves against their will.

Wes, Holly, Dom, Henry and Dalton, all the kids he took away.

Stop believing in this psychopath who murdered my parents.

Stop.

Believing.

In.

Him.

"And…what, we’re just supposed to stare at it?” Reggie muttered, each syllable dripping with a childish irritation.

I tried not to let the initiate disturb my own focus on the maypole. By my estimation, the speaker system that ran the perimeter of the town had chimed no more than two minutes ago. At the very least, we had another fifty-eight minutes before the next chime would sound and signal that we should break our gaze. As a restless whistling started to stream from Reggie’s lips, I got the distinct feeling that Yvette’s twenty-something-old replacement wouldn’t be able to put in more than five minutes with the maypole. That being said, Reggie was under no obligation to watch it. The chimes, the reverie, the maypole - they all simply represented a strong recommendation from The Bureau, but they weren’t a demand. No pistol-totting enforcers would arrive on scene if he decided to go twiddle his thumbs somewhere else. They were able to mine useful data about the convergence no matter what Reggie did. In essence, he was free to do as he pleased.

It was for his own safety, though. I can say that from experience, having spent the entirety of the last four years within the confines of Tributary.

”Yes. Think of it like meditation, but with your eyes open”  I responded curtly, hoping that my standoffishness would quiet Reggie.

After a microscopic pause, though, he continued: ”I mean for how long, though?”, underhand tossing a rock the size of stopwatch at the base of the maypole as he said it.

Lacy physically grimaced as it thudded loudly against the wood and the plastic. Out of the five of us currently living in Tributary, she had been here the second longest, about half as long as me. In my experience, there was a definite correlation between total time spent here and respect for The Bureau’s guidelines. Given that, Lacy and I had a very short fuse when it came to disrupting the morning reverie.

”For at least an hour, kid” Lacy snapped venomously, her face contorted into a gaunt snarl like a starving mountain lion. She stood next to me in the semi-circle we had formed around the maypole, on the end of the group and the farthest from Reggie. This struck me as an intentional choice. The four of us - Lacy, Alexis, Harmony and I - were still shaken and on edge after what happened to Yvette. Lacy, having found Yvette's overlapping cadavers, was the most shaken, and likely not ready for someone to come in and replace her.

”Longer if you’re smart” Alexis added, with her twin, Harmony, nodding silently in agreement.

She had followed all the recommendations to the letter, never missed a dose of medication despite the side effects, and she was always on time and present for the reverie. In spite of that, Yvette still amalgamated. Horribly, too. Worst instance of it I've seen since being here.

When she wasn’t at the maypole five minutes after the first morning chime, Lacy took it upon herself to check on Yvette. When thirty minutes had passed and Lacy hadn’t returned from Yvette’s cottage, which was approximately a three minute walk from the maypole, I then reluctantly left to find Lacy. Call it experience or intuition, I knew she was gone long before I found Lacy kneeling over what remained of our Yvette.

If you survive long enough at Tributary, you get plenty desensitized to the tangled, sanguine aftermath of spontaneous amalgamation. But there was something about Yvette’s death - maybe it was the way that Lacy’s long blonde curls were blood-stained from having been draped into the overlapping, repeating viscera or maybe it was the veritable spectrum of terror evident on Yvette’s intersecting faces. Whatever it was, I felt fear form a heavy cannonball in my stomach like it had the first month I was here, the weight of the feeling making movement and thought difficult.

Showcasing his boredom proudly like it was a badge of honor akin to a Purple Heart, Reggie began pacing boisterously around the twenty-foot tall totem, speaking loudly as he did: ”Help me out here Ted - you look old as sin, so I’m supposing you’ve been here awhile and will know the answer. I get paid no matter what I do, correct?” 

I took a moment to pause and consider my response. Initially, I found it difficult to locate the words I wanted to use. With no language hanging in the air, though, I was distracted by Tributary’s profound baseline silence. The town was nestled between two large, forested hills, but there was no natural white noise - no birdsong, no wind through the trees, no distant car horns - nothing. Most of the silence was likely due to seclusion from civilization. The lack of birdsong, however, has always been a little less naturally explainable. Somehow, I think The Bureau keeps animals out of Tributary. Despite being in Vermont, I’ve only ever seen one animal in my tenure here - a deer, or what remained of it. One part of it was dead, its head resting limply on the ground under a pine tree at the periphery of town. The other part of it was in the process of dying, with its head visibly writhing and twisting from inside the first’s over-expanded jaw. As I turned away, stunned and retching, I witnessed various minute but unnatural looking movements coming from inside the original’s abdomen and limbs. I imagine these movements likely represented the superimposed copy of the deer being strangled and exsanguinated from within the restrictive confines of the original.

After a prolonged silence, I finally responded:

”That’s correct, Reggie, but they must have mentioned the impor-“ cutting me off before I could say more, the brown-haired, blue-eyed boy resumed his self-important pontification:

”Great, as advertised. Excuse me then if I don’t erotically gawk at this second-rate modern art piece, like the rest of you sheep. Don’t want to see myself featured on some Japanese prank show a few years down the line with whatever footage they're currently recording” he decreed, gesturing broadly at the many, many video cameras fixed on our position in the dead-center of Tributary, Reggie still obnoxiously treading circles around us and the maypole.

Seemingly every inch of the town was under surveillance. Not that there was that much space to cover. Tributary was essentially one street lined by abandoned buildings with a small park in the center, where the maypole was erected after the disappearance of the people who used to live here. It’s unclear what this place looked like in its heyday - all of the business signage had been removed from the weathered establishments before I arrived here four years ago. The only structure that looked relatively new was the maypole, but even that was starting to show some age and erosion.

Despite his infuriating pretension, Reggie was right about one thing - “modern art piece” would be a very reasonable description for the maypole. At its center was a wooden cylinder with a diameter about the size of a frisbee. It stood approximately two-stories tall in a small patch of grass that interrupted the asphalt at the half-way point of Tributary's one street. The post had been adorned chaotically with thick plastic that shifted in color dramatically every few inches, which protruded from the wood asymmetrically depending on where you looked. Closer to the ground, the plastic looked like dragon scales, oblong and rough. As the material wrapped around the pole and spiraled upwards, however, it transmuted to look more like spikes or stalactites, poking a few feet out from the core. Then, it transmuted again to a glossy sheet with a few thin, centimeter-long tendrils sticking straight up here and there. Then, it looked like ocean waves, and then like stick figures holding hands, so on and so on - innumerable shapes seemingly without coherency or intent in design, from top to bottom. Or, alternatively, maybe the disorder was the design - no matter where you looked, and at whatever angle you looked, the maypole offered a wholly unique image. When I was briefed by The Bureau before arriving at Tributary, the welcome coordinator had mentioned that the maypole was theorized to “counteract the surrounding convergent leyline through its nearly irreplicatable uniqueness, grounding subjects firmly in our current thread through focused perception”, whatever that means. The coordinator, muscular and decked in camo like a drill sergeant, implied that this measure may have saved the original inhabitants of Tributary if they had access to it.

Me and my initial group were not told what had happened to those original inhabitants. That being said, I’m not sure any of us explicitly asked.

Although, sometimes I’m not so sure I’m recalling the words or phrases from the briefing correctly anymore. It’s just been so long. Not only that, but every newcomer I’ve talked to in the last year deny having had a formal briefing before arriving at Tributary, unlike me. Enticed by the ludicrous financial compensation, they did not want the offer to be revoked by asking any prying questions - no briefing required.

Part of me believes that The Bureau stopped briefing people altogether - perhaps it was effecting the data in a way they didn’t anticipate. Alternatively, maybe there was never any briefing and I'm housing a false memory - some retroactive revision of my own internal narrative to make what happens at Tributary even remotely digestible.

”I’m just here to get quick cash to pay-up on a gambling debt. Once I have enough, I’m out. I'm going for a walk, enjoy your shared psychosis.”

With that proclamation, Reggie started to walk away from the maypole. I heard Lacy take a monstrous inhalation, clearly planning on chewing out the young man. Before she could unleash her tirade, I placed a soft palm on Lacy’s shoulder and numbly shook my head side-to-side, which extinguished her fury. Reggie turned back to us when he heard Lacy’s colossal sigh, but only for a fraction of a second.

Implicitly, Lacy, Alex, and Harmony understood - Reggie would not be with us long, and arguing him was not worth the risk. Strong emotion is destabilizing and can make you vulnerable to spontaneous amalgamation.

All of us were promised release once the experiment, referred to in my briefing as the Webweaver Protocol, was completed. Attempts at voluntary early discharge from Tributary, before the completion of the experiment, were met exclusively with rifle-fire and death. Four years into this, I’ve started to believe that The Bureau has no intention of ending the experiment. Whatever they are gleaning from us, it’s clearly valuable - hundreds of spontaneous amalgamations later, the experiment still presses on.

Maybe his replacement will be better.

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

”Love you sweetheart. I’ll give you another call in a month or so. Say hi to your mother for me” and with that, I heard the call disconnect before I even put the phone back onto the receiver. After confirming my granddaughter, Remi, was no longer on the line with a few pathetic “hellos?”, I let the phone slide out of my hand to its normal resting place on the end table. I closed my eyes and leaned back in my recliner, letting the crackling embers in my cottage’s fireplace soothe me.

The first of each month, we’re granted ten minutes of uninterrupted phone time. A privilege that The Bureau certainly doesn’t need to provide, but it helps everyone keep their heads on straight. I use it mostly to confirm that Remi is still getting the deposits from my bank account, coordinated by The Bureau. Originally, I signed up for this to help her pay for college. Now, the compensation is helping fund her wedding. Breaks my heart that I haven’t met her fiancé, and that I have to lie to her about my absence. The salary given for my continued, honest participation is the only thing giving my life purpose, though. No reason to loose my grip now.

Feeling sleep coming on, I make myself vertical, fighting through the warm vertigo caused by the rum still slushing around in my gut. Lumbering over to the bathroom, I start performing my nightly inspection. Staring at myself in the mirror, I smile for about half a minute and watch for discrepancies in my mirror image. Once I’m convinced it is only me in the mirror, I do the same with a neutral expression. Then the same with a frown.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I turn the faucet, allowing me to splash cold water on my face to help relieve the tension inherent to that inspection.

There was a moment, years ago, when I thought I might be about to amalgamate. I woke up in the middle of the night due to my entire body throbbing with an intense, searing pressure. It was like tiny grenades were exploding in my limbs, clawing into my muscles with microscopic shrapnel. I passed the bathroom mirror on the way to the maypole, momentarily petrified by the crowd of different reflections staring back at me. The images weren't spread out across the mirror, they all inhabited the same position I did, but I could see all of them separately. It was like seeing double, but with complete visual clarity. There was at least ten, each taking a turn to become the most prominent reflection. The more I watched, the more alarmed my reflections became - which, of course, only served to alarm me further.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. 

My recollection of that night was shattered by manic pounding on my front door.

”TED. HELP ME - PLEASE HELP ME. SOMETHING…SOMETHING IS...”

Reggie’s voice, bellowing and coarse with strain, started to permeate the inside of my living room. Panic sparked like a live-wire through my chest and down into my legs, mobilizing me.

Without saying a word, I frantically pushed my recliner against the door as a barricade. Then, I used a small bookshelf to block the only window present on the front of my house, in case he tried to break it and enter the living room. Judging by the sounds coming from outside my home, I could tell he was destabilizing and too far gone for my help.

At least, that's what I told myself at the time. Trying to assist Reggie was a risk I wasn’t willing to take. Spontaneous amalgamation is a brushfire - if I got too close, it could just spread to me as well.

As I stepped away from the makeshift palisade, Reggie’s pleas intensified and degenerated from sentences, to singular words, and finally to guttural noise. His screams were eventually joined by other, nearly identical screams. Some of them started muffled, as if they were vocalized from some place deep underwater. But when the pulpy sound of tearing flesh layered into the cacophony, the extra voices became clearer - more audible. By the time his one scream had grew into an unbearable, hellish choir, I had managed to close the bedroom door behind myself. As I did, the screams grew fainter, and fainter, until they became mercifully absent, replaced by Tributary’s uncanny, baseline silence.

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In the morning, I wearily pushed the recliner away from the front door, dreading the scene that was undoubtedly waiting for me on the other side. To my relief, however, I found evidence that someone from The Bureau had visited my home under the cover of darkness. There were no bodies propped against the cottage, only a few patches of barely perceptible, recently cleaned blood-stains.

As I approached the maypole, I noticed Reggie had already been replaced by another young man. He eventually introduced himself as Matt, only doing so after the second chime had sounded indicating our protective morning reverie had come to an end, choosing to forgo a formal introduction until after spending that hour intently focusing on the prophylactic totem.

I smiled weakly at Matt's compliance to the recommendations, feeling a flicker of hope as I did. Maybe we would all be afforded some peace, for however briefly that could be possible.

My smile waned as my thoughts drifted back to Yvette - someone who followed every guideline but had still spontaneously amalgamated. Before anxiety captured me completely, I steadied myself with an imaginary photo-collage of Remi’s wedding playing through my mind. She’ll be married by the first of next month, and I need to be alive to hear about it.

"One day at a time", I whispered to my reflection in the mirror that night.

For a second, I thought I saw the barbed curves of a grin overlap my neutral expression, a macabre cosmic friction heralding something even worse than spontaneous amalgamation.

But as soon as it had come, if it had been there at all, it was gone again.

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