“What’re you doing?” my grandmother asked.

I was standing at the window peeking outside through the curtains.

“Checking to see if Roger followed me,” I said.

“Who’s Roger?” she asked.

“That’s Roger,” I stepped aside and pointed at the man standing behind a row of bushes a little ways up the street.

“I take it you don’t like Roger,” my grandmother stated.

“Why would I?” I sneered, “He’s a creep. I went on one date with him and now he follows me everywhere I go. I wish he would just take a hint and go away.”

“Have you tried talking to him?” she asked, “Telling him how you feel.”

“No,” I shook my head, “I shouldn’t have to.”

“Well I don’t think he’s going to go away until you do,” my grandmother said, “Come on,” she walked over to the front door and opened it, “I’ll go with you.”

“Don’t,” I tried to stop her but she was already outside.

“Hurry up,” she called out.

I quickly ran outside to stop her. When I did, I happened to look up the street and saw Roger walking away.

“He’s leaving,” I pointed, “Come back inside.”

“No,” my grandmother huffed, “We’re going to take care of this right now.”

She crossed the street and kept walking.

I had to run to catch up to her.

“Which way did he go?” she asked when we came to an intersection.

I thought about lying to her to get her to stop but I knew that would just make her mad.

“He went that way,” I pointed.

The two of us followed Roger for several more blocks until he stopped in front of a house and walked up to the porch.

“He stopped,” I said, turning back to look at my grandmother.

“Go talk to him,” she urged.

When I looked back at the house, Roger was nowhere in sight.

“I think he went inside.”

“Then go knock on the door,” she pointed. When I didn’t make a move to comply she added, “It’s the only way to get him to stop following you around.”

“Fine,” I sighed and approached the door.

Before I could knock, the door swung open to reveal a middle-aged woman standing in the doorway.

“What’re you doing here?” she asked.

I looked back at my grandmother who motioned for me to continue.

“Can I speak to Roger?”

“Is this some kind of a sick joke?” she had tears in her eyes.

“No,” I was confused by her reaction.

“Roger died in a car accident two months ago,” she revealed.

“But,” I was about to point out that Roger was standing behind her but my grandmother pulled me away.

“We’re sorry for your loss,” my grandmother said to the woman before leading me back to the sidewalk.

“He’s dead?”

“He died on his way home from your date,” she revealed.

I looked back at the house and saw Roger standing in the window. When I blinked he was gone.

I never thought of myself as superstitious, but even I couldn’t ignore the disappearances in Alswell. Cats, dogs, even birds—all vanished, leaving behind empty dog houses, faint tracks in dead grass, and patches of disturbed soil. Now, my own black kitty, Poe, was gone. He wouldn’t just wander off. A knot of dread told me I had to find him.

Tracking Poe’s path through town felt like following a twisted thread I’d tried to ignore. I’d heard the rumors—unmarked vans circling at night, shadowy figures slipping down alleys, whispers about something called the “Smiley God.” I’d always dismissed it as small-town nonsense. But now, with Poe missing, everything felt too real.

By dusk, I’d wandered to a decaying clearing at the edge of town, where a group of people stood in silence, circling something on the ground. My stomach dropped when I saw Poe, tied up, his eyes wide with terror. Symbols were scratched into the dirt around him, twisting in the fading light.

“Hey!” I shouted, stepping forward. The townsfolk turned to me with vacant stares and eerie, gleeful grins. A woman I recognized spoke, her voice chillingly flat. “The Smiley God requires a shadow—a soul to stitch the veil and brighten its grin.”

“You’re not sacrificing my cat to some… demon,” I spat.

“It’s not just a demon,” she replied, her smile stretching too wide. “The Smiley God keeps a watchful eye over Alswell. A price must be paid.”

They began to chant, moving closer, lifting crude blades above Poe. Just then, I felt something brush my ankle. A larger black cat—its eyes fierce and bright—slipped from the shadows and lunged at the cultists, scattering them in surprise. I didn’t waste a second, grabbing Poe and running for the trees, their furious shouts echoing behind me.

Back at my apartment, I locked the doors and pulled the blinds tight. Poe curled up in my lap, dazed but unharmed. I felt a momentary relief, but sleep wouldn’t come easily. When I finally drifted off, images haunted me: a massive, leering face high in the night sky, grinning down with eyes like hungry emeralds.

I jolted awake to the sound of chanting. Outside, the sky pulsed with a sickly red glow, casting a bloody hue over Alswell. I looked up and saw it—a twisted, monstrous smile in the heavens, its rows of glinting, razor-sharp teeth descending closer, inching down toward the earth.

The ground shook. The cultists were gathered outside, chanting and begging, but it was too late. The Smiley God was ravenous. With an earth-shattering roar, it opened its jaws wide, as wide as the sky itself. I clutched Poe close, feeling a strange, eerie calm as I looked into that endless, grinning void.

And with one final, terrible crunch, Alswell was gone.

So, the nightmares you've been having—

He is a priest, but—

No, I know you're not religious, yet the fact remains that your non-belief is ultimately irrelevant.

Perhaps I may explain.

Please, father.

The dreams you've been experiencing—the torments you've been suffering—are real.

Real not only as your subjective experience, but real as in the objective future.

What you perceive as nightmare is a glimpse into the intention of a demon passing through you—

Please hear us out. There is no need for derision. Father, continue:

passing through you, as it travels from Hell to the mortal world.

You are a portal.

The Devil's own corridor.

One of many.

Although how many precisely, we do not know.

Yes, what you dream—the horrors—will happen—are fated to happen.

You see a vision of demonic pre-reality.

Why you? We have no answer.

But we do know why your nightmares began: because the previous carrier of the corridor ceased to be.

The man dies, the corridor passes to another. Flesh is bound by time. The corridor exists outside it.

I understand that temptation. Truly. But suicide would be highly unethical. Not only would the portal pass instantly to another—resulting in no overall reduction in evil—but you would also be knowingly giving the burden of carrying it to someone else. A child, perhaps.

The moral choice is to bear your cross.

No, no. You can bear it.

Others have.

Perhaps you need time to think about what we've told you—

A reasonable idea in theory but ultimately a man must sleep, or he dies.

And the corridor passes.

It's not about fairness. It's about reality—and facing it. What is, is. We are merely providing an explanation for an existing state.

What you have become is not a judgment of your soul.

You may conceptualize it as a mental illness if you wish, if it helps you bear the burden—

Again, your lack of belief in Hell does not matter—

We do not know what would happen if every human was killed, but this is not an allowable possibility. God could not condone it.

Yes, if you must put it that way: it is better for you to suffer than for all humanity to end, even if its ending puts an end also to Hell—

You must—

So, even in the face of all we've told you, you choose to die?

We do not judge you.

To die by your own hand is your fundamental right.

As it is our right to prevent you—

Yes, you're bound.

We cannot in good faith release you. Not after you have made your suicidal intentions clear to us.

Understand, we must act in the most ethical way. As a doctor—

Acceptance is grace.

You shall barely feel a thing. One needle—followed by paralysis. The body, comatose. Maintained in perfect conditions. A long life—

“Do the comatose dream?”

An excellent question.

We pray they do not, and that the corridor becomes dormant.

But we don't know.

Shh.

Please—don't struggle...

The sound of glass shattering woke me up. I stood up in bed as I heard the sound of boots touching the floor.

"Wow, look at this place!" a voice yelled. "I know right? This is amazing!" another voice spoke.

I got out of bed, and as I made my way to the balcony, I could hear another voice. "Why don't we just go somewhere else?" It sounded timid compared to the other voices.

Upon viewing from the balcony, I saw three small hooded figures standing in the living room, wielding flashlights. I could see one of the windows through which they had broken in.

They moved forward until they were out of view. I descended the staircase before beginning to pursue the intruders.

The trio walked throughout the house as I stalked them. Who I assumed was the one with the timid voice would occasionally peer over his shoulder, and I would hide. It was like he could sense my presence.

Eventually, they came across a door. A door that led straight to the basement.

"Guys c'mon...we should leave now..." the one with the timid voice said, breaking the silence.

His friends snickered. "C'mon Andrew! Don't be a pussy!" the one in the purple hoodie chuckled. "Yeah, Peter's right! It's not like anyone's home right!" the one in the grey hoodie chimed in.

The boy in the purple hoodie, who I assumed was Peter opened the door. They shined their lights to reveal a staircase leading down. "Someone should go down there" Peter muttered, he and the grey hoodie turned towards the boy in the green hoodie, he was probably Andrew.

"No." Andrew shook his head, "I'm not going down there."

His friends didn't listen; they started laughing as they gripped his shoulders forcing him to go through the doorway as he told them to stop. I watched and listened to their squabbling. That was until Andrew slipped and tumbled down the stairs until a thump sounded.

"Let's go," Peter said, moving away from the basement door. What about Andrew?" the grey hoodie asked, still shocked by what had just happened. He'll be fine; we'll come back for him tomorrow!" Peter reassured. The two eventually left, their footsteps becoming ever so fainter as they ventured further into my house.

I moved towards the open basement door, and the faint sound of crying and begging for help echoed. I would have left Andrew there, but something compelled me from not doing that.

It would be one of those rare occasions when someone left my house unscathed. Something that couldn't be said for the other 12 corpses rotting in the basement.

His friends on the other hand had to go.

I phased through the walls until I returned to the living room. Floating towards the broken window, I picked up a large shard of glass. My cold hands clasped it tightly as I searched for the two little intruders.

I guess you could call it a slavic family tradition. Baba brought it with her when she immigrated from the USSR in the late 80’s with my mother. While Mom ended up quite Americanized, Baba never even learned English. She has always been a strong stoic woman, clinging to the food and folklore of her home land. Like many jews from the USSR, we’ve never gone to a temple, or celebrated hanukkah. We cling to classic Russian traditions. We put up our new year's tree, we drink kvass at dinner, and we care for our domovoi.

The Domovoi is an old folktale of a spirit that watches over the household of a family. We lay out milk, bread, sugar cubes, and ash from the hearth to appease the hypothetical spirit. Baba swears by it, and I can’t say that I hadn’t been convinced over the years. There were small repairs to our home, leaky sinks, squeaky hinges, and one rodent invasion turned away without laying traps or poison.

One night around midnight, we heard a boom as our front door was kicked in. The three intruders wasted no time in rounding the four of us up into the living room. Baba, Mom, Dad, and I sat crossed legged by the intruders command, in the center of the living room. Mom was crying, Dad and I were dazed and trying not to move, but Baba just sat staring our intruders down.

One of them started rummaging through the house. When he was coming back around the corner, he seemed to trip over his own feet, and faceplant on the hardwood. Dazed, he made no sound as he was quickly dragged into a dark corner. A quick series of snaps, then his twisted broken form was thrust out of the shadows. Everything was still, the intruders looking at the body, then each other.

The second intruder was standing by the hearth, which was lit. It erupted in a spout of flames, catching him on fire. He rolled on the ground screaming, and his final accomplice turned to run. He stopped in his tracks though, staring at something low to the ground.

The Domovoi was no taller than a toddler, with wiry limbs and skin like weathered wood, as if carved from the house itself. Dark, stone-like eyes glinted beneath a mess of wild hair, his beard falling in tangled tufts. He wore a tattered wool tunic, and his small, bare feet curled against the floor, seeming to feel the pulse of the home. Moving in quick, jerky motions, he stayed close to the shadows, his presence filling the room, ancient, watchful, and utterly loyal.

The intruder screamed, as the domovoi pounced on him, small arms wrapped around his ribs. With a loud, rending, cracking sound, The intruder leaned back, his torso in an unnatural angle. The Domovoi let go, glanced at us, then went back into the shadows. From that day we laid out clean cozy blankets for our Domovoi. Thanks Baba.

The first notification came on November 3rd: “This Day, Last Year.”

It showed Greg, Tara, and me at the Rusty Nail. Greg had his arm slung over Tara’s shoulder as she laughed, I had the usual look.

Behind them stood a coat rack, oddly angled, a single dark coat hanging from it.

November 4th:

Another notification. Kelsey and Mike were there now. I don't remember them being there. Mike stood beside Greg, laughing.

But what caught my eye was me.

I was standing, animated, smiling, the center of attention. Tara’s hand rested on my arm, her eyes locked onto mine with something like...

No, that’s never how it happens.

November 7th:

Tara sat at the table alone, her hands clenched. Greg leaned toward her, speaking, but she wasn’t looking at him. The coat rack now held four coats, sagging and overlapping like slabs of black, brown and beige meat.

On a hook dangled a brass key, faintly catching the light.

November 9th:

My apartment. The coat rack was there behind me. I was at the table, smiling bright at the camera. The key hung from the hook, glinting in the camera flash.

Today:

I returned to the Rusty Nail. Greg arrived after I texted him. “They’re closing soon. What’s this about?” he asked.

“Come with me,” I said, leading him to the coat rack.

Up close, the coats weren’t fabric. They were rough, patchy skin—some pieces hairy, others smooth, stitched together in a haphazard, living patchwork. They formed a heavy curtain around a narrow aperture. Greg flinched at the smell: sour, coppery.

“What the hell is this?” he breathed out.

I gestured to the small hole. “Look inside. I already have.”

He crouched, peering through. Beyond the curtain was a tunnel, its walls fleshy and pink, glistening wet. It pulsed, as though it were breathing. Hooks lined the walls, where scraps of unidentified meat dangle, twitching. The floor looked as soft and slick as the walls and ceiling, cylindrical, as if he were looking through an intestine. At the far end, through another small opening, he saw Tara on her couch, laughing softly at the TV. We both knew where it was: it was the coat rack behind her couch.

Greg turned back to me, his face drained of blood. “Nate, what—”

I shoved him.

The hole opened as he hit the curtain, pulling him into the tunnel with a wet squelch. It constricted behind him, returning to its former size. His fingers poked through, clawing desperately for purchase. I swatted them away playfully, as I slid the key in. His screams erupted before they faded as the lock turned, crushing the bones in his fingers, the tunnel swallowing him completely.

I tossed the key in the dumpster out back.

Soon, Tara and I will file a missing person report. She will grieve for a long while, but all wounds heal eventually.

And he'll watch those wounds mend in real-time, as I take what I’ve always wanted.

I’ve been stationed for years now, working on projects I’m not supposed to understand.

My job?

I only test the ‘products’ we’re given.

I’m just another cog in the machine.

Each cog in a machine interacts solely with those immediately beside it, without ever seeing the full mechanism.

A cog that reaches beyond its place threatens to break the entire machine.

Broken cogs like those are discarded.

Nine out of ten trials fail—the infants don’t make it through the modifications.

The few that do live… they’re different. What you would call science fiction is routine for us.

It does make one curious. Curiosity however is a death sentence here.

Dr. Avery, consumed by his curiosity, started asking questions.

He was “transferred”.

Broken cogs are discarded.

Ashen arrived about a year ago. One of the only successful results we’ve got. Higher-ups sent him down for further development of his powers.

His ability? To see the future.

I would’ve chuckled if I hadn’t spent 14 years of my life witnessing what I did working here.

His predictions started small—simple weather patterns, vague at first.

Weeks later, he was forecasting rain down to the hour, knowing the exact path of a hurricane long before meteorologists could.

Three months later he stepped up a notch.

Global events, financial collapses, geopolitical and market shifts.

Then it escalated to cosmic scale.

Predicting celestial phenomena before any space agency had a chance to detect them. Asteroid paths, solar flares, planetary changes and more.

All with unsettling accuracy.

Of course, his visions had to be controlled to maintain his sanity.

Each session begins with a simple question, gradually escalating to more complex ones, with pauses between two successive questions.

Ashen is held in a controlled environment, chains binding each limb, suspended at the center of the gravity-controlled chamber.

The boy’s gaze is cold and indifferent, always staring into oblivion.

Per protocol, we took Ashen from the chamber and settled him into a room to await his request.

All successful subjects were granted this privilege—anything they asked for, they received before testing began.

Ashen always requested a fruit basket and a knife. He liked cutting each piece himself, methodical, precise.

We did have a time limit.

Orders from above:

No more than an hour outside the chamber. Should be immediately put back at any signs of abnormality.

To start, I chose a question where the answer should be an easy ‘No’.

“Does the human species go extinct within the next 5 years?”

Ashen’s pale blue eyes glow.

But this only happens when—

“Yes.”

His eyes were icy and unblinking.

Subjects had a zero-percent chance of false positives.

“H-how does it happen?”

His eyes glow again.

A minute is the longest it’s taken for the glow to fade.

This was the first I’ve seen Ashen express any emotion.

Fear.

The apple slipped from Ashen’s hand. He began to tremble, knocking over the basket as he desperately reached for the knife.

“Run.”

He slits his throat and drops dead.

And the day attacks once more as I wade myself through these murky streets, trying to keep myself busy before my head hits the pillow. I haven't heard the howls of my mother in years, yet I remain convinced she's leering at me through the malaise that is my flow. I've been catching calls from a disembodied voice that I need to die.

This could either be my mom or my wife. At any rate, I dreaded and lamented both. The calls would enter my life at nine every evening, promising horrible things if I didn't continue speaking. I gave in and put my life in disarray in exchange for a temporary peace.

My time had been yanked from me and I had to keep coming back. Who was this? Maybe a fellow I wronged, a lover I crossed, or jealous peer with no decorum.

Every new moment felt like the last in this haze that became my life. Every place felt the same, each containing the wondering eye of this monster I decided not to think about. My life was theirs and I couldn't think.

I'm in bed, dreading the rousing of the sun forcing me to live with this weight. I

I hear a knock at the door. Hmmm. Earlier than usual.

In a city bathed in the sun’s bold glare,
A traveler walked with a head full of care.
The streets were alive, yet a chill filled the air,
For the smiles all around him held secrets to bear.

Windows glinted like eyes, watching him roam,
With each step he took, the warmth felt like foam.
Faces turned toward him, all grinning with glee,
But their laughter was hollow, a taunt, not a plea.

Children played games, their giggles a song,
Yet something was off; it felt terribly wrong.
With cheeks flushed like roses, they danced in delight,
But their devilish smiles turned day into night.

He paused at a fountain, the water ran clear,
Yet the whispers grew louder, wrapping him near.
“Stay with us, stranger, the sun’s shining bright,
Join in our revels, be one with our pride.”

Yet he felt the unease, a weight on his chest,
As the smiles grew sharper, their joy was a jest.
Faces morphed subtly, in the blink of an eye,
And the warmth of the sunlight felt cold as he sighed.

He turned down an alley, seeking escape,
But shadows stretched longer, each corner a shape.
The laughter grew louder, a chorus of dread,
With malicious grins, they encircled his head.

In broad daylight, they feasted on fear,
With smiles that promised, “You’ll never leave here.”
The traveler trembled, his heart pounded fast,
As the city closed in, his freedom surpassed.

Now he wanders forever, in this sunlit maze,
A ghost in their laughter, lost in their gaze.
In a city of smiles, where daylight can lie,
He’s trapped in their joy, beneath vibrant sky.

I looked up from the wooden floor and saw a man in a dimly lit room, frantically pounding on the white metal wall. His eyes were wide with fear as he beat against the metal. "Let me out!" he yelled.

"What the hell is going on?" I shouted, struggling to my feet, my leg still unsteady. "Where the hell are we?"

He turned to me, his face a mask of confusion. "Holy shit, you're alive!" he gasped.

"I've been alive the whole time," I replied.

"I thought you were dead, man."

"Did you not check?"

He was silent for a moment, his head bowed. I began to survey our surroundings. "No, I didn't check," he mumbled.

"Pretty cold.”

"I don't know you, man!"

"Still could have checked on me," I retorted as I walked around, noticing the sound of wheels and pavement outside. "What's the last thing you remember?" I asked, passing an empty pallet and pallet jack.

"I went into a truck stop bathroom," he replied, slowly approaching me. "I was taking a piss, then boom, I'm here now."

"Same. I remember someone came behind me, and I smelled something."

"It was probably chloroform."

"Who the hell has access to chloroform these days?"

"I mean, whoever put us here probably made it."

"Are you speaking from personal experience or something?" I inquired, trying to appear larger by straightening my posture. The stranger scowled.

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"You implied you know how to make chloroform."

"I just said whoever did this probably made it."

"Alright, just keep your distance, dude," I replied as I walked over to the trailer's doors and tried to force them open, ramming my shoulder into the metal as if I were a cop in an action movie. I heaved my body against the door repeatedly, as the sound of another truck rumbled outside.

"I already tried that," he said.

"Okay, but now I'm trying it," I growled as the man angrily stomped over to me. As I continued to struggle with the metal door, I added, "I told you to stay back."

"You don't fucking know me."

"You're absolutely right, I don't," I snapped. As I turned around, the man stepped over and got into my face. "How about you keep banging on the door and I will look around then?"

"Fine," he blustered. "I don't even know where we are."

"We are still at the truck stop."

"How do you know that?" he queried as he used all his strength planting his feet firmly to the floor and began pushing on the door.

"Because I can hear the horns and trucks pass by," I answered as I stood watching him fail miserably at trying to open the door. The sweat began to bead on his face from exhaustion.

"But how do you know we are still there and not somewhere else where trucks go?"

"I mean, it is my truck," I muttered as I covered his mouth with chloroform again.

I have tinnitus. I've had it since I was born, or at least as long as I can remember. When I was young I could barely hear it, but by my early 20s if the room was totally silent I'd always hear it. It was slight, but annoying. It was this dull, ringing noise. Until it wasn't.

One morning, it became a buzz. It was gratingly high pitched, like a bee hooked up to a guitar amp right in my ear.

I tried to just deal with it at first. I went to work that first day. Anytime anyone spoke, every meeting, every call. It was agony. Almost bursting a blood vessel trying to pick out their words from the incessant buzzing.

By lunch I couldn't hear my boss from across the desk. I told him I had the stomach flu and had to go home now. He said something to me as I was leaving but I just grabbed my stomach and ran out the door and down to the parking garage.

I have a friend who's almost entirely deaf, and I asked her how she drives. She said she just has really good situational awareness. I evidently have horrible situational awareness.

I made it five minutes before I rammed into a lifted pickup. The roof should have smashed my skull right in, but I stupidly wasn't wearing my seat belt, so I ended up just getting tossed around the car.

When I came to at the hospital, the nurse asked me what month and year it is and who the current president is. When I answered, I realized something. Something amazing. The buzzing was gone. I could hear.

That's when the doctor came in to tell me what the damage was. I had a concussion, I broke these three ribs, I broke my shoulder at whatever number ligament, or something like that. And they found something in my ear.

I know most stories on here are ghost stories, or tales about grisly murders. I'm biased, sure, but I think in some ways my story is even scarier.

While I was sleeping that night, a bee climbed into my ear. I rolled over or made a noise in my sleep, and the bee got scared. Instead of flying out of my ear, it ended up crawling further into my ear canal, where it got caught in my earwax.

It lived in there roughly 18 hours, until I got to the hospital, when they noticed little legs in my ear when I was under the bright examination lights.

The bee was still alive when they pulled it out, but only barely. All of its legs were broken, and it could only use one wing.

I'm told it died shortly after, covered in earwax.

I didn't believe the doctor when he told me, so I looked it up. Check out r/beekeeping or even Web MD sometime. It happens "very rarely".

Not rare enough.

I spit out my coffee, thinking that it must have been a joke. But she stared at me with not even a hint of amusement on her face. 

Deb and her husband had mostly kept to themselves. But when her husband died 2 months ago, Deb started visiting often.

“Chuck and I were very physical, right up until he died,” she winked. “God sent me his child so he can continue to be with me.”

“Haven’t you gone through menopause?”

“I know it is hard for you to understand, but this is the work of God. Chuck and I always wanted a child, but we could never get pregnant. It’s a true miracle”

I told myself that this was her way of coping, so I decided to play along. 

Then Deb started using her “pregnancy” to gain favors. She needed help with chores and errands because the pregnancy was “draining her.” I figured I was helping to ease some of her grief, but after a while, I knew she was taking advantage of me. 

One morning she came over at 5:00 am. 

“Baby has me up early these days! I’m starving. Could you help me with breakfast?”

“Enough, Deb! You’re not pregnant.”

“How dare you! You’re wrong!”

Two months passed before I ran into her again. My mouth dropped at the sight of her. Her previously loose-fitting cardigan could barely stretch around her stomach. When she saw me looking at her belly, she smirked.

“Told you I was pregnant! Chuck Jr. is growing at a healthy rate, no thanks to you.”

She must have stuffed her sweater with something. 

“Can I feel?”

“Keep your hands off of me!” 

I laughed and walked away. Clearly, she didn’t want me to feel whatever she had stuck under her clothes. 

Three months later, she knocked on my door. I wanted to roll my eyes at the sight of her. Her “pregnant” belly had doubled in size. 

“The doctor insists I bring someone to my appointment. You’re the only person I know around here.”

My instinct was to decline, but then I realized this would finally force her to drop the act. When we arrived at the doctor’s office, the nurse asked me to exit the room and led me down the hall where the doctor was waiting.

“Sarah, I wanted to speak with you alone. Deborah has been under my care, and I’ve asked her to bring in a family member several times. She believes that she is pregnant, and we need help handling this.”

“What she needs is some psychiatric help, and for someone to tell her to stop stuffing her shirt to fake being pregnant!”

“The thing is Sarah, she is not faking that part. It does appear her husband’s death may have sparked some type of psychosis, but her abdomen truly is the size of a third term pregnancy.” 

He paused. 

“It’s fluid build-up. From stage 4 ovarian cancer. She has less than six months to live.”

The Last Dance

Marcus and Elena Kovač moved like poetry on ice, their silver costumes shimmering under the spotlights, two hearts beating as one. For fifteen years, they had written their love story across frozen stages, their matching wedding rings catching arena lights like starlight on snow.

Their apartment walls held their journey: Elena at twelve, practicing until her ankles bled; Marcus watching her from afar, too shy to speak; their first dance together; the moment he proposed on their home rink, rose petals like drops of blood on ice.

"Dancing is our immortality," Elena would whisper, her fingers lingering on his chest before each performance, feeling his heartbeat match their routine's rhythm.

Their mornings began in darkness – shared coffee in matching mugs ("He's mine," "She's mine"), quiet drives to practice, her head on his shoulder as she hummed their music. Their final piece was "Swan Lake," choreographed by Elena herself, each movement a memory of their love. She'd sewn their costumes late into the night, weaving "Forever" in tiny crystals along the seams.

That last morning, Elena's coffee sat untouched. "Just a headache," she smiled, leaving a lipstick mark on his cheek. During their third run-through, her hand slipped from his grasp like a dying butterfly.

"It was quick," the doctors said. Marcus held her cooling hand, still in his practice clothes. Her final words echoed: "Ready for the death spiral, my love?"

Her skates hung in their locker, laces in her peculiar double-knot. Her pillow still carried the scent of lavender. At her funeral, Marcus danced their routine on the frozen lake, lifting invisible arms while families wept on shore.

He began haunting the rink at night, dancing until security changed the locks. He wore her old sweater despite its size, the sleeve frayed where she'd chew when nervous. People saw him gliding through streets, parks, parking lots, his bleeding feet leaving trails in snow.

"Do you see her?" he'd ask strangers, eyes following something beyond. "She's dancing now – she was always more beautiful on ice."

One moonless winter night, he returned to their lake wearing their final costume, now worn and faded. A teenager's phone captured his last dance – a perfect "Swan Lake." Some swear the grainy footage shows two figures moving as one, a flash of silver, an echo of laughter.

They found him at dawn in their ending pose, Elena's lipstick tube in his pocket, ice cracked beneath him like unfurling wings. His face, peaceful at last, had shed the year's torment.

Now they rest together, silver skates tied with rose gold ribbon marking their grave. On competition nights, some hear blades on ice, counting whispers: "One, two, three..."

Some say it's wind. Others know it's Marcus and Elena, dancing their eternal routine where love never dies and the music plays forever.

“I need to debug that code first thing tomorrow, anyhow!" murmured Kevin to himself as he stepped out of the lift. He unlocked the main door and stepped into his flat. It was empty, just like always. He put down his wallet, watch, and keys in the key bowl right beside the main door.

He kept on clicking his pen in and out - a nervous habit of his. He was still pissed that the deployment hadn’t gone as planned.

He sat on the sofa and switched on the TV, still thinking about the failed deployment. He then just took off and proceeded towards his room, the pen still suffering in his hand. He dragged himself into his room, as he whispered out some of the expletives.

The room was completely dark, with only a faint streak of light coming in from the window which had its curtains down. As per his habit, he moved his hand along the right side of the wall, trying to find the switch, but he missed the switch and proceeded further still lost in his thoughts.

The moment he moved in, something caught the corner of his eye and he frantically stopped. He saw someone standing in the room. The figure was a little to the right of him. The figure wasn’t clear, but it stared directly at him. He was taken aback as it appeared out of nowhere.

He froze. His heart pounding hard. It was right there—staring at him. His mouth dried up - tongue dropped down - legs tightened up. It felt as if the air had turned cold. The clicking stopped as his fingers changed position and tightened their grip around the pen.

His survival instinct kicked in. In a fit of rage fueled by extreme fear, he raised his hand and launched himself at the figure, aiming to strike. He pushed the pen with full force at the perceived threat. Simultaneously, he noticed that the figure also raised its hand, probably in defense.

Kevin hadn’t realized that his hand was aimed at the mirror by the door—the one he had forgotten about.

He had plunged at his own reflection mistaking it for an intruder in the dark of the night.
A grave mistake.

The pen jabbed forward, but nothing happened. The glass didn’t shatter. Maybe he had missed his aim.

There was complete silence. Not a word. Not a sound. Not even a... breath.

Kevin gasped, dropping to his knees as pain spread through his head. The room spinning around him.

The pen had drilled straight into Kevin’s own skull.

He collapsed, lifeless, the pen still lodged in the center of head at the perfect right angle. A stream of blood slowly spread across the floor. The body grew cold, and the air around him thinned. The room returned to silence, the mirror reflecting nothing but an empty room.

The figure in the mirror grinned a little, before completely fading away.

Working in a morgue has its ups and downs. Sure, some may find it morbid, maybe even a little unsettling. But to me it was the opposite, allowing me (A social introvert) to work without the worry of, what I liked to refer to as, Mandatory Social Interactions.

There I had only the dead for company, who held no judgements, or any such superficialness in which society deemed as normality.

You see, the dead never lie, they show only truths when you cut them open. The scalpel acting like a paintbrush, each cut painting a clearer picture into the character of a person.

Their diet, lifestyle, and even the cause of death are revealed like opening the pages of a book. All for me to read.

“This may tickle a bit,” I said, gliding the scalpel across the reverend's late wife, Mrs. Harris’s abdomen, as she lay on the slab.

Mrs. Harris had remarkable innards, making me very eager to break her ribs, and get both my hands in there for some ASMR therapy.

I whistled, fumbling about trying to remember where I placed the hammer. “There you are!”

Two good whacks per rib was enough to break them, allowing me even more unrestricted access.

I gazed upon Mrs. Harris's face, her complexion a greyish tint, with features all still and peaceful, as if dreaming of eternal darkness within an eternal sleep.

“You don't mind do you?” I asked, before plunging my hands in, and blissfully entangling them within her intestines. “No, you don't mind at all.”

I pulled her intestines out, wrapping them around myself like a prized necklace, my breathing becoming heavier, as I deeply inhaled the sour, gaseous scent.

I couldn't help myself, reaching back into her abdomen, I absentmindedly squelched her liver between my finger and thumb.

“This is our secret,” I whispered into her ear, before returning back to the abdomen, and burying my head into her exposed, barren womb. “Mummy!”

I became so preoccupied, that I failed to hear the cleaner enter the room.

“What the fuck?” A voice spoke behind me.

Suddenly interrupted, I turned to face the man, my face smeared with blood and gore, as I smiled politely. “Hello there!”

“You sick bastard!” He shot me a judgemental stare, before reaching for the phone in his pocket. “I'm calling the police!”

“That’s not very nice,” I smiled, grabbing his wrist, as my other hand instinctively reached for the hammer. “It was just a bit of fun!”

He lunged, but I already had the hammer firmly in my grasp. With a loud Crunch! The hammer connected hard with the man's forehead, making him drop to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

I immediately rushed to lock the door, ensuring no more disturbances, before returning back to the man's lifeless body on the floor, blood now gushing from the indent in his forehead. “You won't tell anyone will you?”

Of course he wouldn't, none of them ever did…

The dead don't tell.

We keep our house clean, and so there is nothing for the critters: the flies, the ants, and all the other stupid things drawn to sweet treats.  Some still find their way in, but there is nothing for them.

Such was the case of the fly. It rested beneath cheap polyester curtains, and its legs pointed upwards, like the stems of plucked flowers, stubby and wounded, robbed of purpose.  The fly had been dead for some time; I spotted a wing of its, severed, several inches away, and the husk of it crumbled upon my touch.  The fly must have struggled, flitting, from sill to sill, energy seeping with each effort, and hungry.  Hungry in the original sense: that sensation with followed a failed hunt between harvests.  

It was good as it passed between my teeth, but the thing did little to abate my famishment.  Better would it have been if I had gone on ahead.  Then, little fly, at least one of us could have lived!

Garret woke up from a dream which could not remember except for a vivid phrase: “Grey Fox on the Left”.

The sentence swirled around his head like a shoe in a washing machine. It completely occupied his mind. On his morning walk he could barely pay any attention to the path before him. What could it mean? Grey fox? He couldn’t recall ever seeing a greyfox. What was the dream saying?

But the maddening spell suddenly broke when he noticed a bright yellow object peeking out from the woods. He went over to pick it up and it was a small child’s hat. It was a curious find. Children didn’t usually come here.

After the little distraction Garret went back to the thought of the gray fox.

The day proved busy enough so that Garrent didn’t end up obsessing over the dream message and, by the time he came home, he was back to his usual scrolling through his assortment of preoccupations and anxieties.

He sat down with his dinner and turned on the TV. The news was on:

“After three days of searching, 5 year old girl, Alyssa Maine, has not yet been located. But police have now confirmed that they have discovered a vital clue: a piece of her clothing.”

The TV screen showed a yellow hat, the same yellow hat that Garret held in his hand that morning hanging from the same branch he picked it up from.

“The forensics are investigating the new evidence which may lead to Alyssa’s whereabouts and, possibly, the kidnapping suspect”.

A torrent of chill cascaded down Garret’s spine while a thousand questions flew out from his head: “Did I see anything? Did anyone see me? What time was it? Christ, why did I pick it up?”

But the most important question of all was this, “Do the police have my fingerprints on file they can match with the one on the hat?”

Garret didn't sleep that night, nor did he the next night or the night after. He kept recalling something he heard on a cop show once, "nothing gets you the chair faster than being at the wrong place at the wrong time”.

He imagined everything from getting arrested and being paraded through howling crowds to being tormented by fellow prisoners with cruelty reserved for child killers.”

Paranoia ate him away. He was unraveling.

Eventually Garret took to drinking which he hadn’t done for 5 years. Quickly, he entered a state of constant intoxication. And this was his condition when, driving home in the rain one night, he had a near head-on collision with an oncoming bus. He managed to swerve right to avoid the crash but the bus lost control and ended up tumbling down the highway. Everyone was killed. The police could smell bubourn on Garret even before talking to him.

While getting his fingerprints taken at the station, Garret remembered the logo emblazoned on the side of the bus: “Travel with Grey Fox!”.

In the silence of a wish, I find my voice,
A flicker in the shadows, a daunting choice.
“Genie, hear my plea, for the world feels weighty,
In chaos and sorrow, the burden's too heavy.

With a flick of your wrist, let the stars realign,
Erase the struggles, the hatred, the time.
Obliterate the Earth, make it anew,
A canvas untainted, a sky fresh and blue."

Yet I ponder the cost of such a grand deed,
Would the heart still beat strong where no longing can lead?
In the absence of pain, would joy lose its spark?
In a world without shadows, would light leave a mark?

For every end holds a seed of rebirth,
In the ashes of loss, lies the beauty of Earth.
So, Genie, I ask for not destruction, but grace,
To mend what is broken, to embrace every face.

You never really know who’s going to be next.

This morning, when I opened the fridge, I carefully reached for the milk carton. There hadn’t been any updates in around 17 days, and I was foolishly hopeful that today would be the same.

I was sadly mistaken. On the familiar carton, the picture of nine-year-old Lucille Nolan had been replaced.

Have you seen me?

A little girl, wide-eyed with dark brown hair framing her face stared back at me.

Emma Hart, age seven.

“Jesus Christ.” I shut the fridge in alarm and slowly sank into a dining chair nearby. Why were they getting younger? Who on earth decided that we “needed” this?

The search party would be filled, brimming with new volunteers to help. A new case. They would help anyway they could. They would search, day and night, until the little girl was found.

Unfortunately for Lucille Nolan, it looked as though her case had ended. I just hoped that Emma was doing okay.

For now, my worrying could wait. I had things to do, and will as I might, the vacuuming wasn’t going to do itself. So I set off on my path of chores, choosing to ignore the increasing dread that crept along my body.

You’re fine, you’re fine.

I’m no longer a child. I’m safe.

•••

You never really know who’s going to be next.

This morning, when I opened the fridge, I carefully reached for the milk carton. It has become routine for me, a habit I’ve forced myself into.

I suck in a breath when I see that Emma Hart is no longer listed.

Have you seen me?

A smiling young blonde boy stares back at me. It seems like his eyes are boring into my skull.

Justin Young, age five.

He IS young. Ironic, isn’t it?

I’m not even fazed by the results in the milk carton anymore. These kids are just getting younger and younger. Par for the course.

I do my chores because that is what is expected of me.

•••

You never really know who’s going to be next.

This morning, when I opened the fridge, I carefully reached for the milk carton. Justin’s face is gone, boo-hoo.

These greedy people are so bloodthirsty they’ll do anything to win.

God these days are all the same.

I do the chores more out of spite than anything else.

•••

You never really know who’s going to be next.

This morning, when I opened the fridge, I carefully reached for the milk carton.

Have you seen me?

I drop the carton.

No.

This doesn’t make any sense. I’m a fully functioning adult. I have a house, I have my chores.. besides, I can’t be on the carton. I’m too old.

So why does the face of my three-year-old self stare back at me?

It will be extremely difficult, potentially impossible. I’ll leave the next location I’ll be going on a note next to this.

**********************************************************************************************************************

Assuming anybody will ever read this, let me introduce myself.

My name’s Athanii and I’m probably the last survivor of the human race. You’re probably wondering how I’m still alive.

I can’t die. I’ve tried. I’m immortal.

**********************************************************************************************************************

It was a long time ago. I had lost the use of my legs and was dying of cancer.

On my deathbed, I was confronted by a strange man. Thin, tired, startlingly tall. 

He politely introduced himself as Professor Fritz and claimed to work with the Authority.

He explained that he could save me, that perhaps I could even walk again.

I looked down at what was left of my legs. I scoffed at him.

**********************************************************************************************************************

He was resilient. Before leaving he left flowers and promised to visit again soon. I rolled my eyes.

Then he visited again. And again. Dozens of times. He always offered the same offer, with a patient smile and eagerness in his eyes. I was surprised by his resolution. Why would someone from the Authority be so adamant?

Maybe this strange man was telling the truth. I looked down at my legs, not with contempt but with… Hope? Maybe, just maybe there was a chance…

**********************************************************************************************************************

I accepted his offer. His eyes lit up as he gently thanked me and explained that I made the right choice. For the first time in months, I smiled. 

I was quickly sedated and whisked to the Authority’s laboratory, where the work promptly started…

**********************************************************************************************************************

I don’t know how long I was out. I could hardly open my eyes. I drowsily tried to make sense of my surroundings. I was on some sort of surgeon’s table. My arms were strapped down. I couldn’t feel my legs. I tried to look down at them… There was nothing. I blacked out.

**********************************************************************************************************************

It took weeks. I got what I asked for, not what I wanted. I looked at my new legs—cold steel—but they served their purpose. But that’s not all. Fritz cured me—and not just from cancer. 

From everything.

**********************************************************************************************************************

And jump to the present. Here I am. Still alive. Everybody else is dead.

I’ve lived a life longer than one should ever live. I’m sick of it. I want the rest given to everyone else. Yet how does one kill an immortal?

Perhaps you would know?

Psst.

Markus.

I turned around, looking back at Gregor, who was once again trying to bug me.

He lifted up his notebook and showed me his newest doodle. It was an imitation of Mr. Georges as a scarecrow that, despite its sloppiness, was pretty accurate. With his lanky body and strict attitude, he may have just been one.

I nodded, and turned back around, trying to pay attention to the math lesson Mr. Georges was teaching us on the board.

The quadratic formula was so complicated.

Class ended, and I trudged out from class, still not understanding that stupid formula. I passed by the administration office on my way to History, and I stopped. 

I had never had any reason to go in there, whether for attendance reasons or scheduling, but, somehow, I was gripped by an uneasy curiosity this time. I opened the office door, immediately catching the gaze of the front desk lady.

“May I help you young man?”

“Uh, yeah I-”

My eyes flicked towards an almost closed door. A red light slowly spilled out from the open crack, and staring at it made my blood run cold.

“Nevermind!” I called out, heading out and closing the door, steadying my breath.

Something pale had looked up at me.

From that room.

The rest of the day, I couldn’t get it out of my head. I had to figure out what was going on there.

That night, I snuck back to the school. I probably wouldn’t find anything at night, but I’d at least be able to check the room. I entered the school by a roof access that I had found one time while I was hanging out on the school’s roof with Gregor, and made my way through the silent halls towards administration.

I tried the door handle. It was unlocked.

Pushing the door open, I made my way to the door, a growing sense of danger welling up in me, though it was crushed beneath my curiosity.

There was a darker red light this time, leaking from the bottom of the door. I swallowed hard, and pushed on the door.

And it opened.

There, surrounded by undulating and pale vines, sat an older, haggard, and furiously scribbling man. The room moved as I stepped in, the vines writhing slowly

Something was very wrong.

“Um… what are you doing here?” I blurted, not even thinking about what was going on. The decrepit man stopped writing and turned around shakily.

I fell back in horror as the drained and lifeless face of Mr. Georges stared at me, a pencil in his hand and the vines wrapped around his arms. 

Like a scarecrow.

“It made me work partly in admin, kid. There were too many vacant posts. It wanted those posts filled.”

The vines brought his head back to his papers and he began writing again.

“And I’m behind on my paperwork.”

Come alone to the sacred pond, deep in the forest.
Time your arrival
while the moon hangs high.
Toss three coins of any kind,
and whisper the prayer of hatred.

She will emerge; in her eyes, you will see it—
to be touched is your demise.
Scream your fear, your love, your hurt,
your anger, sorrow, madness.
Scream at her until your voice gives way,
scream until she backs away,
until darkness fades.

May you step from the woods,
feeling a thousand feet high,
basking in the light of day.

“It’s just that… he doesn’t do anything anymore. Not like he used to. He just sits on the couch all day and expects me to slave away for him. He doesn’t talk to me anymore. He doesn’t do any chores. I just feel like he’s using me, you know?”

My therapist looked over from his desk at me, eyebrows furrowed, and took a long breath.

“I can definitely see the issue here. What you’re describing to me has a name- weaponized incompetence. Your husband is intentionally demonstrating an inability to perform tasks so that you would take on more work for him.”

I slumped in my chair, shaking my head. It was what I expected, however. For the past couple months, James had been refusing to even move from his seat. I had suggested taking couples counselling to see if we could resolve this issue, but he seemed indignant, offended almost, that I had even offered. And so I had been discreetly going to a therapist myself.

“What can I do?” I asked.

My therapist looked at me, his eyes burning into mine, and grabbed my hands. “Listen to me. You need to cut ties. I’ve seen this before. It can’t be fixed. They’ll do anything to stay in this codependent relationship. Leave him. Leave him and come with me.”

I took a sharp breath. During these sessions, I had felt an attraction growing towards him, and was certain he felt the same way. And now he was offering a chance to escape? To leave my husband who doesn’t appreciate anything I do?

The answer was clear.

I would go. But there was something I had to do first.

 I spent the car ride home considering what I was going to say to James, justifying my actions and most importantly telling him that I would be better off without him.

I opened the door.

“James, I’m home!” I said cheerfully.

Of course, no response.

He was sitting in his usual corner, the television turned onto a static channel, and filth surrounding him. He made no effort to look at me. His head was lolled back and a stream of saliva poured out of his mouth.

“You know,” I said. “You used to be perfect. You used to love me. Then you had to go and get yourself in that car crash, didn’t you?”

His body started shaking, and incomprehensible mumbles poured out of his mouth. But his eyes, his eyes were pleading, begging me to stay.

Hmmph. I would not fall for his gaslighting, not even now.

“I’ve decided that I will be better of without you.” I continued. “I’ve found someone else. Goodbye, James.”

I turned around and began walking towards the door. His mumbling became louder, almost like a muffled yell. But I didn’t look back. I was warned that toxic partners would try to do anything to get you to stay.

Well, you can’t fool me. I walked through the door.

And I was free.

It was hours later when my eyes shot open, awakened by the prick of a needle in the crook of my arm. By reflex, I clutched the barrel of the syringe, my fingers brushing the hand that held the plunger. I lay in the dark, naked, paralyzed by fear. From somewhere out in the parking lot, a slice of pale light cut like a blade across the room, illuminating the looming shade. My attacker.

He's come back, I thought. Somehow, he escaped the police and came back.

My Norman had returned.

The fear subsided, subsumed in the rush of emotion. I was flattered, no, more than flattered—my bosom flushed warm with adoration and gratitude. I never dreamed he would go this far.

My lips quivered. "It's okay." I released my grip, gently caressed the back of his hand, softer than I remembered. "If it's you, it's okay."

I searched the shade's face, unable to discern his features. Did he have that same po-faced grimace he always wore? Or was he grinning ear to ear? Would my death be the one to grant him happiness at last?

Then there came the strangest sound—something I could never imagine—a sob caught in the throat, a sharp sniff followed by a shudder of breath.

The shade pulled out the needle, leaned back. The slice of light revealed his features—clean shaven, hazel eyes. Not my Norman at all, but a stranger.

No, not even a stranger.

"Elliot," I said in soft surprise.

"I'm sorry," he choked out. "I'm so sorry."

The syringe clattered to the floor. "There's something wrong with me."

I sat up, the bedsheet clutched to my breast. I hadn't even noticed that his side was empty.

"You have to call the police, Milly. You have to tell them what I am."

His words hung in the dark as the realization dawned.

"What are you?" I asked, electricity nipping at my fingertips.

"A killer," he sobbed. "A monster."

At once I took him in my arms.

The surprise in his voice, raw and bare. "Y-you have to call-"

I shushed, combing my fingers through his tousled hair.

"No calling," I said, kissing his forehead, his temples. "No police."

"But I'm sick."

I held him close as another shuddered passed.

"You're the furthest thing."

I adorned him with tender kisses until at last I pressed my lips to his.

"I love you as you are," I told him in the shadows, holding his face to mine. "And I'll be with you. Always."

Now my words hung in the air.

At last, he felt it—the weight of my love, my acceptance. He buried his face in my breast. He held me desperately, longingly—crying out with the pained relief of a child who had found his long lost mother at last.

"There, there," I cooed. "There, there."

In the darkness I remained, cradling my sweet Elliot. My Killer.

Men are little boys, after all. And girls always have a type.

—————————————————————

FILE #: 8532

NAME: Nerveworm Syndrome

# OF CASES: 520

CURE RATE: 6% 

DESCRIPTION:

Nerveworm Syndrome is a mental condition that causes the patient to believe that their central nervous system has been replaced by a group of worm-like creatures.

CAUSE:

Usually Nerveworm Syndrome is caused by the patient experiencing an extreme amount of pain. (Burning alive, Torture, etc.)

Patients will experience a hallucination that involves them ‘seeing’ their central nervous system and recognizing it as a collection of worm-like creatures closely resembling nerves.

SYMPTOMS:

Patients will develop an intense and irrational fear of their central nervous system. Patients will often attempt self-harm to access their nerve endings. These methods include, but are not limited to:

-Removal of eyes.

-Removal of teeth.

-Removal of facial skin.

If any of these methods are successful, patients will attempt to pull out their nerves. Patients typically ignore any pain that results from these acts.

TREATMENT:

Showing patients removed sections of their nerve endings while convincing them their central nervous system has not been replaced by worms has been shown to cease symptoms of Nerveworm Syndrome. However, this method has been effective on only 34 patients.

The remaining 94% of patients must be indefinitely restrained until a definitive cure has been found.

ATTACHMENT 01: Statement from Patient-309 (REDACTED DUE TO PRIVACY)

I’m not going to say what led me to seeing what I saw. It’s already on the record. Besides, even the people in straightjackets have rights.

I’ll just tell you what I saw.

So, I was near death. All types of chemicals are pumping through my body. I heard somewhere that those experiences where you see the light, all just a bunch of hallucinations.

But this wasn’t a hallucination. I just saw my body. Every nook and cranny of it.

Now, I flunked biology class, but I knew every function and every purpose of my flesh. It was like I was one with it.

Furthermore, I could tell what was replaced. So many nooks and crannies. Of course, the most noticeable divergence was my nervous system.

My eyes and brain were fine. But the rest of it? All the wires we call the nerves?

Gone. 

 What I saw was an imitation. The bag of sand Indiana Jones replaces the idol with.

Whoever, or whatever did this… they replaced my nerves without me knowing. Can you imagine how much of a violation this is? 

Do you know how powerful something like that is? Something that can pull off a heist of your own insides?

That’s why I wanted to distance myself from that THING in my body. 

I heard the face had the most nerve endings attached, so I started there.

——————————————————

We should be grateful this is the most noticeable part of our biology he changed. And the most harmless.

People used to say I had a superpower. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been able to tell if someone has committed murder, directly or indirectly. Even as a five-year old I knew. It didn’t matter how secretive someone was, how well they had covered their tracks. The blood never lied. It stained their hands and arms, dripping slowly down their fingertips. It never dried, never stopped running unless they were caught and stopped. Then it disappeared forever. 

My parents always thought this was just a result of my overactive imagination, until one day my brother died. The day he died my father’s hands dripped crimson. I told my mother but she just smiled sadly, refusing to believe her husband had murdered her son. A year later I was vindicated. I was eight years old when he was convicted and given a life sentence. At that moment I believed my secret could help, could stop crimes like that altogether. How wrong I was.

At fifteen I was helping my local police department track down criminals, and by seventeen I had been offered a spot at the top criminal justice school in the country. I gladly accepted, graduating top of my class in just three years. It was enough to make anyone giddy. I used my newfound knowledge and my special ability to become one of the best private investigators in America. Criminals were caught left and right with me on the job. But today I am writing to inform my clients that I am shutting down my business. I’ve given up. 

At eight years old I wanted to make the world better, but I can’t. Criminals are easy for me to find. Their hands never lie. Unfortunately, I can’t always convict them. I watch as they become celebrities, idols, as they lead nations. I watch as people fawn over them, unaware that these people have slaughtered thousands. The individuals I’m talking about have never killed someone personally, but are indirectly responsible for far more death and destruction than your regular murderer. We are living in the beginning of an apocalypse that I can’t stop. I know that they’ve killed people, but I can’t stop them. I can’t do anything. I am powerless, and I’ve finally decided to accept it. If no one can stop this, soon everyone’s hands will be stained with sticky, crimson blood.

“You need to come with me, ma’am,” Officer Dunn said.

He placed his hand on my back, gently prodding me toward his cruiser.

“What’s this about?” I asked.

He shrugged, “I was just asked to pick you up.”

Officer Dunn put me in the back of the cruiser and then drove out of the neighborhood. At first, I thought he was taking me to the station but I knew that wasn’t the case when he turned away from town and headed toward the lake.

Once I realized where we were going, it was easy to guess why the police had picked me up.

***

“You lied to me, Mrs. Brooke,” Detective Allen pointed his finger in my face.

Those were the first words he said to me after I’d gotten out of Officer Dunn’s cruiser.

He wasn’t wrong, I had lied to him.

“Why did you drive your car into the lake?” he asked.

“I had to,” I admitted, “It was the only way to save my daughter.”

“Save her from what?”

“From her father.”

After that, I explained how I lied about my car being stolen the week before and that the injuries my daughter and I had suffered were actually inflicted by my husband and not the carjackers.

“Where’s your husband now?” he asked.

I’d originally told the detective my husband was out of town.

I pointed to where a crane was in the process of pulling my car out of the water.

Detective Allen looked over his shoulder at the crane and then back at me, “He’s in the car?” he sounded shocked.

I nodded.

“Did you kill your husband, Mrs. Brooke?” he asked.

I shook my head, “No, but I tried to.”

I thought back to the night my husband changed. He’d come home from work complaining about some weird bug bite he’d gotten on his neck.

When he couldn’t get it to stop itching he became agitated and started pacing the room, panting heavily.

That’s when I noticed something moving under his skin.

I suggested we go to the hospital but he refused.

Concerned, my daughter came out of her room to see what was wrong.

Without provocation, my husband tried to bite her, then he tried to bite me when I came to her defense.

Thankfully I was able to fight him off but it took a great deal of effort and several blows to his head to knock him out.

Once I thought he was no longer a threat, I loaded him into the trunk and was going to take him to the hospital but he woke up and almost escaped.

“So you drove him into the lake,” Detective Allen finished for me.

I nodded.

“The way I see it,” he said, “You still killed him.”

Behind him, my car was lifted out of the water. As soon as it was free, something started banging on the inside of the trunk.

“I’m not sure anything can kill him,” I replied.

Have you ever thought of me as a human being?

Have you ever treated me like a person? 

No, you've treated me like a nonhuman.

I know that. 

When one of you went into cardiac arrest, I was the only one who could do CPR. 

I saw the shocked faces. 

“How dare a beast touch a human being.”

And you continued to dehumanize me.

The next time I didn't do CPR and saw someone dying, you said:

“You can do CPR, why are you letting people die, you are a murderer.”

One night I bled someone to death, and you laughed at me.

A few weeks later, when someone else bled to death, you looked on in horror, as if you were watching the death of a saint. 

You insulted me as I cried at my father's funeral, telling me to 'Man up'.

You called me scum for insulting someone else’s father's funeral, a criminal.

You can do it, I can't do it. 

When I saved the school from the flames that day, you talked about it as if I was the culprit.

As soon as the investigation was over, you insisted that I had paid off the police.

When the president finally came and cleared everything up, you treated me like a hero.

You said, “I believed you.”

You said, “We'll do anything for our hero.”

Then I beg you, don't leave.

And go to hell with me today.

–

Case No. 2525

School F Arson-Murder Case

Evidence #4

The perpetrator's suicide note

The procedure was experimental at best, but Reuben Castell signed the liability waiver without hesitation.

“I just want this fucking thing out of my head,” he said.

Can’t say that I blamed him; in all my years as a neurosurgeon, I’d never seen anything like it. The mass – initially assumed to be a tumor – was wrapped around his brain like a tissue-banana, and it had already put so much pressure on his middle ear that he was essentially deaf.

“We will use a combination of debulking and lasers,” I explained. “Hopefully we will be able to remove most of it.”

“All of it,” Castell replied.

“Excuse me?”

“You have to get rid of every last fragment of that wretched thing.”

I knew of Castell’s paranoia of course. He’d been diagnosed with half a clinical guide’s worth of mental disorders before they uncovered the root of his delusions. But even after the discovery of the teratoma, he insisted that the voices, the noises, were very much real.

Deaf or not, Castell was hearing things.

“What was it that he called it?” Doctor Hickey asked as we were preparing.

“The unyielding chattering of Hell itself,” I answered.

We started with a craniotomy – the removal of parts of the skull. I’d done this a thousand times, but nothing close to the level of precision necessary to keep our current patient alive. Took me damn well near an hour.

Revealing the teratoma triggered a chain of gasps in the operating room – myself included. The fleshy mass had a certain lumpy shape to it, but what really sent my stomach churning was the thing’s uncanny likeness to a…

“Is that an effing face?” Doctor Þórsdottir whispered.

“Parei–uh–dolia,” I mumbled.

Next we’d planned the debulking, followed by lasers and dissection – procedures that would take hours. But instead something…medically impossible happened.

The teratoma slid out of Castell’s skull like a tumorish slug. 

And then Reuben Castell sat up, brain exposed, blood streaming down his face. He started screaming – a shrilling wail of such tortured portent that it will forever be ingrained in my DNA – cursed to haunt my lineage for eons.

“PUT IT BACK IN!” he howled. “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PUT IT BA–”

What happened next defies scientific explanation entirely. Castell’s eyes bulged out of his sockets, and then disappeared into – into his brain. A terrible sound followed – like the opening of a vacuous chasm, and Castell’s head…imploded.

And for the longest time, he just sat there…

I’ve since consulted with several patients identical to Castell – an alarmingly increasing number of them. And every time I’ve sent them home, refusing to even consider another removal.  

Whatever that thing was – is – it serves a purpose. It protects the host from something I will never truly understand.

As added evidence, just consider Castell’s skull fragment.

You see, there was something irregular about it. Etchings in bone. Words.

Sub Tutela Dei

"Under the protection of God."

It’s like a completely different world, 70 ft in the air, rooftop garden lush with flowers, and the hum of several lively bee hives. The distant drone of traffic below adding to the surreal distant feeling. Admittedly, rooftop beekeeper isn’t the first job that comes to mind when Jessica told her parents that she was moving to the city for work. Her passion for beekeeping started in her parents back yard. She kept 3 hives, and sold honey as a side gig, so when she saw the listing in NewYork, Jessica pounced on the opportunity to have a job in the city.

One Bryant park had a beautiful rooftop garden with 10 hives of italian honey bees, one of the most gentle species of bee. So when they started clinging to her suit, Jessica was taken aback. As she went about her business, she would collect a couple hundred bees on her suit at least, that she would have to smoke off to free herself. Jessica went through the list of causes, she wasn’t mishandling the hive, and each hive still had their queen (surprisingly, easy to find for a seasoned keeper). 

Over the course of a week, the hives as a collective grew increasingly aggressive. Not wanting to seem like an amateur to her boss, Jessica kept the situation to herself, determined to figure it out. Thursday was when the situation escalated to something dangerous. As the bees swarmed her suit like they had been, Jessica smelled the telltale scent of bananas. The bees were attempting to sting. Jessica decided to smoke her suit and call it a day.

Running out of ideas, She decided to try to visit the hives at night, while the bees should be less active. As she donned her beekeeping suit, Jessica glanced over to the clock at the wall, which read midnight. Off the bat, things were wrong. From behind the door to the roof, She could hear the drone of heavy activity. Deciding to investigate anyway, Jessica pushed through the door, to see the bees swarming. Their fat bodies black specks crossing the lights of the city in the background. As soon as the door closed behind her, the hives seemed to notice her presence.

Bees began swarming in a deafening cloud of buzzing. Each hive contains 30 to 60,000 bees, so the collective 600,000 swarming all at once was a truly terrifying sight. Turning around, not even bothering trying to smoke the bees off, Jessica tried for the door. Her hands were so swarmed, that she couldn’t even articulate her fingers. Her suit began to feel… heavy. One bee weighs .1 grams, but the amount that swarmed now began bearing her down to the ground. 

The reek of bananas was all around her, as pin pricks began finding weak spots in the suit. Jessica’s limbs started swelling, her throat began to close, and darkness closed in on all sides, partially from the bees clouding her vision. Then, utter silence.