Misogyny is the attitude of the community I was raised in, where women have no rights and rarely speak. We kept them at home and slapped them whenever they disobeyed. It's just how things were done, where I come from.

When I turned eighteen, I got my first phone, and I saw that the world outside hated us for how we treated women. In other countries women not only walk around in broad daylight wearing whatever they want, and freely speak their mind, but women also have the right to vote. It made me question everything, and from then on, I allowed my wife to speak. She then told me she wanted to go live in a different country.

I've always secretly loved my wife very much, ever since she was young when she was betrothed to me. I showered her with affection, and I never got around to slapping her for anything. I did raise my hand in warning whenever we had guests, so they would approve of how I kept her disciplined, but I never hit her. I didn't want to hit her, and if I ever did, it would have hurt me a lot more than her, because that's how much I loved her.

When she died in childbirth, I vowed to make her wish a reality and take our daughter and move to a different country. I used every resource that I had to make it happen, gaining citizenship in a place my community had regarded as a land of inequity.

I became an outstanding citizen, learning their language, paying my taxes and respecting their laws and government with full knowledge of how their country - my country, functions. This new place is home, and I am proud to become a part of it.

The best part is that I have learned that the faith of my former country is also here and has adapted and grown with the changing world. There is a deeper understanding, compassion and wisdom that was kept suppressed back where we came from by militant fundamentalism and fear of those in power.

Religion is just a path to God, and I have learned there are many religions, and each of them is alike in their quest for the betterment of humanity, and whether the image of humanity is perfect or imperfect, it is the bond with our Creator that is important.

Enough about me, my family and where I come from. None of this is new to an educated reader, I just wanted you to know who I am.

The dark chapter of my life was discovering another religion, much older and more sinister than anything, making me question all that I had learned.

In my citizenship classes, I met a very beautiful woman who looked remarkably like Mindy Kaling and whom I developed quite a crush on. I kept trying to talk to her, but she had a personal judgment of me and wasn't interested. I kept trying to speak to her and one day she opened up to me, telling me she was dealing with a group of people who she had fled from, a cult, to be exact.

I wanted to rescue her, hoping to prove myself to her, so I listened carefully. I soon became obsessed with playing detective, and it turns out it is something I am quite good at. I did my research, kept digging and it was not long before I had found these people.

I had already gone too far, but I had no idea how dangerous they were. The cult was matriarchal, and they worshipped a monstrous being they referred to as the Pale Sow of the Marsh, which had a name they spoke aloud in their secret rituals. I was disturbed, but I wasn't afraid.

I had joined them as an initiate but learned from one of the older men in their cult that I was in grave danger. Soon enough one of the women would choose me as her mate, and afterward, I would either be killed or castrated or worse. When I asked, "What is worse?"

He said they would make me happy. I tried not to laugh, but he was grimly serious, and I realized he was not joking. I asked him what his fate was, still trying to find the humor and I asked him:

"Well, what was your fate? Did they castrate you or kill you?"

He then made scissor snips in the air, his saturnine countenance spoiling my fun.

I played the part of the good initiate, already having a good idea of how to deal with fanatic religious leaders who used sexism to maintain control. I kept my head down, didn't talk too much and acted submissive. I never got slapped, and instead I was betrothed to one of their plump priestesses.

I was quite thrilled, because I find chubby women irresistible. Where I come from, they are a rare sight, and I always found them to arouse my prehistoric instincts. I worried though, about what would happen to me, somehow the part about her making me happy sounded bad.

The night before our wedding I became super terrified. I snuck out of the men's barracks and went to their secret midnight ritual. There I watched in horror as they summoned their goddess, the Pale Sow of the Marsh.

The creature came up out of the mud and was like a giant white female boar, except it was not really swine, it was some kind of primordial horror. It had cloven hooves made of silver, tusks that corkscrewed and twisted into non-Euclidean helixes, seventeen oozing eyeholes, two massive breasts that dragged on the ground and three small vestigial bat wings upon its back that stuck out at random angles from each other. The stench made me want to vomit myself inside out, but I was so enthralled with dread and terror that I just sat there drooling and staring with madness swirling in my thoughts.

They called her "Linlamamu" in their greeting, each of them disrobing before their goddess to show they were female. She approved of them and blessed them with a shrieking, sneezing bellow that came out as a noxious cloud, coating all of them and me in a thin layer of sticky dew. When the sacrament was complete, she waded back out into the filthy muck she had swam out of and was gone from sight.

Her followers then wrapped themselves in each other and an ecstatic orgy of embraces and frenetic delight. I took that as my opportunity to sneak away, realizing they would kill me if I was spotted. Back in the men's barracks I tried to wash off the putrid saliva, but found it had stained me, marking me as a rulebreaker. Men were not allowed out after sundown, and certainly not allowed to behold the monster the cultists worshipped.

I was terrified beyond reason, and without thinking I decided to try to escape. I went out just before dawn, but I was caught and beaten with sticks. It was up to my fiancé to decide what would happen to me.

Luckily, when they asked her if I should be drowned in the marsh, she said "No, I'm still going to marry him. I'll deal with him afterward, according to the choice of three grails."

This was the first I heard of the process by which a priestess of their cult decides her husband's fate. After the wedding I was taken to the bridal suite, and we consummated the marriage. All the while I was sweating in fear of what would happen afterward, but somehow, I had gone almost numb to the nightmare I had gotten myself into.

At least I got to be with my new wife, the fattest woman I could have asked for, and I suppose that kept me distracted from what she was going to do to me later. I mean, I had a couple chances to try and escape again, and somehow the thought of not getting to be with her kept me from trying.

She then offered me the choice of three grails, and it was then that the true horror of my predicament finally dawned on me. I could choose to become a eunuch and live among the cult as a quiet man, or I could choose to drink a poison that would make me die in convulsions rather quickly, or the third option, that she would make me happy.

I had until dawn to choose, or she would choose for me.

I sat there, knowing I had no way out. I had to choose one of these three terrible fates, completely unsure what she meant by 'making me happy'. As she leaned over, I noticed my wife had a curly pig's tail at the base of her spine. I realized I had seen this on all the women of the cult but had somehow forgotten that detail until I saw it again, as it distracted me from my contemplation. I was so scared, that when I finally said:

"Make me happy." my voice squeaked in pinched dread.

She then proceeded to show me what that meant. Later, when she was asleep, and just before sunrise, I was still grinning with delight from the experience. I wasn't going to stay among them, although I realized I was never going to get enough of being made happy. I had to escape, though, and after she had made me happy there was no expectation I would ever try to escape. I can't see how any man would want to leave, knowing what these witches know: how to do that and what it is.

I decided I could live without them, though, because I knew someone else who could help me. So, I made my escape, finding the guards relaxed and not expecting me to leave. When I got to the world outside, I made my way home.

I wasn't afraid they would follow me, because I knew how to leave my old life behind and sever almost every connection. I began to prepare to do just that, but noticed all the messages from my daughter, who is away at college. She has her own name, so they'll never find her. She had left me messages about how she was going to get married, and wanted to come see me.

I called her and she joked that I must be getting married too, or at least have a girlfriend. I said that she was right, and that I would be coming to see her instead, and moving out to where she is. I then packed everything, took all my money, passport and citizenship papers with me and left my home and my job behind. I believed the cult would never find me, for I left no forwarding address.

There was just one more thing I needed. I called my friend who looks like Mindy Kaling and told her I had survived the cult. I told her I was moving away, leaving it all behind, and that I wanted her to come with me. She said she'd be waiting for me.

When I got to her place she was packed and ready to elope with me. I asked her, before we left:

"You've made me very happy, by coming with me." I told her. She winked at me and said:

"Don't worry, my dear. I know exactly how to make you happy."

At first there was just me and my brother, playing in the front yard. I'd pile onto him, with my little body, and then he'd pile onto me, with his weight. It probably looked like wrestling, but we were playing a game called 'dogpile'.

We took our game to the schoolyard, where other boys wanted to join in. Whoever won the last game has to start the next round, laying down and then getting piled on by the others. The game got old fast, but it was a good way to start recess, until the school banned it around the time we were all in second grade and we weighed enough that someone could get hurt.

I forgot about it until years later, when the human dogpile, the mountain of flesh started again, but this time with much more sinister results. The comparison to our childhood game and the Galgamond is purely in my own head. Nobody else has called the Galgamond a dogpile, but that's what it is.

The first death occurred when there was still only a score of people on top of whoever died at the bottom. That's the real horror of the Galgamond, the way people lose their identity as individuals and just become part of the squirming, pyramid-shaped heap.

Everyone sees the Galgamond before they pile on. It just keeps growing higher and higher. It reached the size of a small hill and there were dead bodies under all the living people, struggling and trying to stay on top, trying to stay on the outside. Those within were heated and crushed and kicked to death. Some managed to stay afloat, amid the mass of crawling bodies that composed the surface, but soon succumbed to dehydration.

Not everyone died of dehydration, however, for there was a dew of sweat, a trickle of urine and the occasional open wound to suckle. Those who wanted to survive did so, and kept climbing. Once you are part of the Galgamond, you cannot get off of the pile, the only way to stay alive is to climb over the living and the dead, and fight your way out from under those above you. If you stop you sink, and get pulled into the Galgamond, and once you are immobilized, you are doomed.

The voices muffled from within are horrible, but the moans and shrieks and grunts of the outer surface are a maddening cacophony of the purest sound of nightmares. The stench is a miasma, choking and bile-inducing. The Galgamond grew and grew, emerging into a single loud, foul-smelling, writhing mass of incomprehensible blasphemy.

Most of those at the base were dead and rotting by the time it had grown to the size of a small mountain, towering into the sky. Occasional movement of those climbing to the mid-level, where the dying was happening, looked like isolated movement on a slick slope of ruined bodies, crushed and pulverized, sharp bones protruding. Any injury, cut or bruise would invariably become infected. Just above that level was a dark ringed cloud of innumerable flies, attracted to the meat, but unable to land. Only humans could touch the Galgamond, and anyone who did became a part of it.

Anyone who sees it finds themselves walking towards it, unable to turn away. Some gouge out their own eyes in the hope of unseeing it, but they just become the blind who circle its base, prophesying to anyone who passes them. They speak of doom and horror, and they listen to the sound until they can walk no more, and then they collapse upon it, forming a chain of those leaning upon the bottom, staring with empty eye sockets out into the world. There they mutter until they expire.

The horror of the Galgamond isn't what is at the bottom, however, but rather that which sits at the top. At the peak are those who are above the rest, having shed all semblance of sanity, decency and hope, all in the name of survival. They are invariably also the strongest and fittest men, as no others can sustain the physical hardship of the climb.

There they sit, atop the highest peak of the Galgamond, naked, famished and raving. I knew about the Galgamond, and I chose to go to it, for I knew who was at the highest point, and I had to go there to get him.

I made my preparations, taking a backpack with protein bars and as much water as I could carry. I outfitted my body in a wetsuit and as much protection as I could wear, while remaining lightweight. I wore goggles and a mask over my mouth, hoping to reduce some of the awfulness. I put in thirty-two-decibel earplugs.

I spent six hours meditating, trying to ground myself in a moment of tranquility, ignoring the climb. I had no choice, for he was up there, at the top, and I believed that if I removed him, the Galgamond would finally cease. I was very afraid, I was terrified, knowing what it was that I was going to do. Would I die a very bad death? Would I even be me anymore, after making that climb?

There were others who wanted to go with me, but they were not personally motivated like I was, and their fear won out and they backed out. Instead, they wished me luck, hugging me and kissing me and telling me they would be praying for me the whole time.

Then I went to the wasteland around where the Galgamond had formed, from a distance I saw it, a steaming mound, towering into a gray cloud. I shivered in terror, and I took a step forward, and then another. I was on a radio at that point, telling my observers what I was experiencing. From a great distance one can actually look at the Galgamond using binoculars, telescope or electronic surveillance. There were drones hovering around me, as I was still in range of the rest of the world.

It wasn't long before my feet carried me and my willpower was under the pull of the Galgamond. It was a human willpower, like the willpower of a room full of people telling you to do something, except magnified to incomprehensible strength. As I got nearer and nearer the trepidation and anxiety turned to dread and terror. I regretted my boldness, and realized there was no way to reach the top alive, not even with my preparations.

I began the climb, thinking I should have brought ice picks, as there was no longer any resemblance to human remains at the slippery base of the Galgamond. I ascended to the next level, and gradually I lost my wish for ice picks, for now I was climbing over the dead, and there were plenty of helpful hands to cling to as I went.

Somehow the smell wasn't as bad at the bottom, as when I reached fresher remains at the next level. Here there were so many flies that at times I couldn't see much else. They couldn't land, but kept an endless holding pattern, and when they died they fell away from the Galgamond, creating a dark ring around the very bottom, already far below me.

My mind didn't start to crack until I reached the lower layer where among the dead there were some who were trapped and dying. Somehow their predicament made my ascent very difficult, for I did not want to use them as footholds. I realized that higher up I was going to have to get over that. Somehow, the thought recoiled in my mind, and something inside of me broke. I stopped and took a break, realizing I could feel the vibration of the mountain, the pulse of it.

I avoided body-slides as groups tumbled down the face of the Galgamond, still entangled in massive clumps. I had to cross waterfalls that were not made of water, and when I reached the lower levels of the writhing mass of the living, I had to fight off feral climbers who saw that I had food and water. I could not rest, I could not share and I had to keep going. The first time one of these encounters escalated to me kicking someone off of me, and watching them freefall to the lower levels to die, I felt another strand of myself snap inside my mind.

I reached the upper levels of that part of the Galgamond and beheld an entirely new and unexpected horror. Here there was something, some kind of parody of human ingenuity and civilization, for the few who lived at that level had taken from the dead and fashioned crude battlements of bone, forming a kind of rest stop. I was forced to sell some of my water to gibbering things that looked like human beings in exchange for safe passage, rest and the use of a rope made of human hair that allowed me to climb the steep section leading to the top.

While I slept, they robbed me of the rest of my supplies but spared my life.

I used the rope, despite the danger of it breaking and dropping me, for the peak was pushed up from the core of the mountain, an upheaval of corpses that were too sheer to climb. By the end of the fourth day, I had reached the top of the Galgamond.

There they sat, brooding, hulking and withering, the sentinels who had beaten the odds and made it to the summit, only by shedding all that made them once human. They stared at me, and I felt a deep loathing and horror that I cannot describe, for in their eyes were the broken parts of my unraveling consciousness. I too had started to become like them, although my rapid ascent had made me aware of the change. Below us was the entire mountain, countless victims of the Galgamond, and a gray fog.

I slowly clambered past each one, until I reached the one who sat at the very top of the mountain. I could see he was expecting me, and had longed for this reunion, this release from the torment of being the highest point of the lowest state of humanity. Some part of him was in there behind that tortured gaze. He wanted it to be over, but the layers of survival had contradicted his own self. I hugged him, holding his broken and withered frame with love and remorse.

"It's okay," I told him. "It's all over now."

He grunted his acceptance, and together we began our descent.

(TW for a threat of SA)

“Come on! He’ll never find out!” I pestered my best friend for the millionth time.

Looking back, I regret pressuring her the way I did.

Maggie hugged one of her many large plush sheep closer to her chest hinting she was about to give in to my suggestion.

“He always finds out. I swear he knows everything.” She reminded me.

We’ve only known each other for five years and yet it felt like we had been friends for our entire lives. Maggie was raised by her single father. From what I’ve seen he wasn’t interested in dating and did everything in his power to take care of his daughter. But to be honest, he creeped me out. He was the very silent type only speaking when it was important. I couldn’t put it in words, but the vibe I got from him whenever we were alone was just off. I didn’t suspect he would ever hurt me or Maggie. At times it felt like his eyes saw things normal people shouldn’t.

“Ok, so even if he does find out? What is he going to do? Take away your phone, ground you? I think that’s worth it.” I shrugged.

Maggie looked younger than she was. Most people thought she was just starting high school and not about to graduate. She was book-smart but a bit childish with other things. She was never interested in going to parties, dating, or doing the normal high school events. Now she found herself in the final days of school not experiencing any of it regretting her choices. She wanted to go to a big year-end party before prom the students held every year on an abandoned farm nearby. The local police turned a blind eye to the party as long as no one got hurt and the bonfire stayed under control.

“I suppose. Let me think about it for one more day.” She said but I was done listening to excuses.

“I’ll pick you up at eight. We’ll tell your dad you’re staying at my place and my parents work nights so they won’t notice I’m missing.”

Finally, she relented. To celebrate I asked for the last can of cream soda in the fridge. I would need to go down the stairs to get it. Sounds of a table saw came faintly from the garage so I knew I would be in the clear. I was halfway back up the stairs with the cold can in my hand when the sounds stopped.

Maggie's father appeared behind to be at the foot of the steps covered in sawdust from working. I froze in my tracks wondering how he moved so fast. He builds custom furniture that I heard sell pretty well within a certain circle of people. The pieces all looked pretty basic to me so I didn’t understand it myself.

“Anne, what were you two discussing?” He asked in an even monotone voice.

He was tall, stern with thick black hair that matched Maggie’s. His eyes were cold as ice and I still wasn’t used to him staring in my direction. I also didn’t like how he used my full name instead of the same nickname everyone else said. It was always Anne, not Annie.

“Oh, you know... girl stuff.” I am feeling stressed.

There was no way he knew of our plans to sneak out to the party that weekend.

“I do know.” He said and I felt my heart stop. “Prom is coming up. Tell me your plans when you finalize the arrangements.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. He turned to leave but then added one more thing to the conversation.

“Please ask for my help if you are ever in trouble.”

“Okay...” I nodded slowly unsure of what that was all about.

I watched him leave a bit confused over the interaction. The rest of the night was fairly normal. We talked about how the party might go, then the last few assignments of the year, and finally a small mention of prom. I’ve had a few people ask me out but I refused them. A few guys in the small anime club asked Maggie but she saw them all as friends. After rejecting half the members, the club had slowly been pressuring her to leave the group. I could tell it bothered her. I told her to hell with prom and that we could just hang out together that night. She agreed not doing a good job at hiding her feelings. She wanted to wear the nice dress, have a cute flower arrangement on her wrist, and show off her date to the rest of the school. Right now, she didn’t have any options. To be honest, I wanted to ask her out but I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. She knew I liked girls and guys. She hadn’t given me any vibes of a romantic interest so I’ll stay in the friend zone thank you very much. I like it here.

Our plan to get her out of the house went without any issues. We were going to a party but she wore a heavy grey knitted sweater and boring jeans. I dressed up a little in a bright hot pink top, a thrifted leather jacket, and some torn jeans that made them look expensive. Maggie was always smarter than me. I never considered my outfit may cause some suspicion. We were on the front porch heading down the stairs when her father stepped out the front door, his arms crossed.

We froze convinced we had been caught.

“Are you girls going somewhere tonight?” He pressed.

He never raised his voice but he could make a drill sergeant sweat.

“We’re going to the movies before studying I’m going to fatten her up with overpriced popcorn.” I commented trying to sound convincing.

“That is not what you told me.” He replied.

I half expected him to order Maggie back into the house. Instead, he pulled out his wallet and handed over a few bills.

“The movies are expensive. Any drinking tonight?” He asked point blank.

Maggie gasped pretending to be offended at the suggestion. I shook my head feeling a little guilty for taking the money and lying straight to his face.

“Call me if you need anything.”

I promised we would. Under his watchful gaze, we walked down the driveway to my beat-up truck. Only when we couldn’t see her house we relaxed.

“I think we’re in the clear.” I commented after a few minutes.

Her phone hadn’t started to ring from her father demanding we turn around. A worried expression came over her face causing me to slow down. I almost pulled over by how uncomfortable she looked.

“I feel a little guilty.” Maggie explained.

No matter how I felt about the man, he had busted his ass raising her on his own without a single complaint. However, I don’t think Maggie was a good person because she felt like she owed it to him. She was just born with a gentle soul.

“We can turn back.” I offered.

“No. We’ll go for an hour or so, get bored, and then actually go to the movies.” She decided for us.

I agreed. I bet we would get bored faster than that. I had no plans to drink because I was the driver and Maggie wasn’t the kind of person who wanted to get black out drunk. Aside from chatting with friends, there wouldn’t be much to do at this party.

We arrived after the sunset with the event already in full swing. Someone hooked up speaks blaring terrible-sounding dance music that was just constant beats and nothing else. A massive bonefire had been started with students dancing around it, drinks in hand. I saw a few people I assumed to be older siblings of the students here or people who had already graduated but refusing to let go of their youth.

A few of my other friends ambushed me when we arrived. I made sure to always have Maggie in my line of sight as I chatted with a rotating group of classmates. She had found someone from her club to talk with. A red plastic cup was handed to her which she politely accepted.

The crowd grew denser. Soon I stopped being able to watch Maggie to only get glimpses of her every few minutes. I hate myself for getting distracted and not keeping a better eye on her. While a friend was talking to me about his prom date I realized I hadn’t checked in on her for at least ten minutes. Normally I wasn’t so overprotective. A bad feeling in my gut made me take out my phone to text her.

No response. My friend noticed I was getting worried and asked what was wrong. I questioned him if he had seen Maggie and he shook his head. I tried calling her only to have it drop two rings in. That was odd. The next call didn’t even connect. Did she turn off her phone? No, she wouldn’t do that.

I excused myself to squeeze through the crowd looking for her. I would never forgive myself if something happened. Fear started to rise into my throat no matter how hard I pushed it down.

I raised my voice over the music asking any familiar face if they had seen my friend. Most shook their head but one pointed in the direction of where the cars were parked by the woods. I wasted no time racing over there calling out her name. I had no explanation for why I grew so frantic so quickly. I just knew something was wrong.

I ran between all the cars, stopping near my truck in case she had gone over there for a break from the crowds. By sheer chance, I spotted a few figures slip between the trees into the darkness. My heart sank when I realized they were dragging something. No, someone.

If it wasn’t my friend those bastards were going to hurt someone else. I took off after them not thinking clearly. I had my phone in my hand ready to call the police depending on what I saw. I should have called them first.

A burst of pain came to my face as something slammed hard against my nose. I cried out, falling to the ground and seeing stars. Some fucker just punched me in the face. He had been waiting behind a tree for me to run close enough. The person tried to grab my arm and I lashed out. A swift kick landed hard between his legs.

Blood dripped from my nose and my eyes adjusted to the darkness too late. A powerful arm wrapped around my neck from behind. No matter how hard I kicked and screamed I couldn’t get free. The person was twice my size and double my weight.

“Stop screaming or I’ll take it out on your friend.” A cold voice said.

I stopped struggling long enough to process what was going on. There were three of them. The guy holding me, the one on the ground groaning in pain, and the person who spoke holding a long threatening knife at his side.

Maggie was on the ground, passed out. Most likely from the drink she had been handed. I recognized the guy I kicked to be the someone from her anime club. The one with the knife took a second to recognize. He was three years older than us. I vaguely remember him getting kicked out of school for something but wasn’t sure what. Based on the size of the third guy, he must be from the football team.

“If you touch her, I’ll rip off your fucking face.” I hissed a white-hot rage over taking the fear for a second.

“Oh? That’s a fun idea.” He replied, his dark eyes giving off no hits of emotion.

He took a few steps closer, the knife reflecting off the moonlight. This guy was just not right. A single glance could tell you that. I found myself pressing my body against the person holding me back trying to stay away from the calmest person in the group.

“I was going to see how many cuts it took to kill someone and then hand her over to these two. But taking off someone's face sounds interesting.”

I did not want to find out if the threat was valid or him just trying to be edgy. I kicked out my foot trying to knock the knife from his hand. He stepped back just in time to avoid it. The arm around my neck held on tighter until I saw lights flicker at the corner of my vision. Finally, he let go but kept hold of my upper arm. If I could, I would have ripped all three of them apart with my bare hands. I cursed the fact I had all this rage trapped in such a small body.

“You’re joking, right? I just wanted to have a good time; not kill anyone.” The other one spoke up recovering from the kick.

His leader looked over him, his expression never changed. In one swift motion, he brought down the knife slicing off a piece of his lackey’s ear. He stood in shock as blood poured down the side of his face, then started to scream. His hands flew up over the wound getting soaked in an instant.

The football player looked as scared as I felt. He was bigger but he didn’t think he could stand up to the psycho in front of us.

The knife was raised in my direction, dead eyes landing on mine.

“I’ll let you pick. What’s coming off first? Nose or an ear?” He said, hand steady.

Sweat dripped down the base of my neck as I considered the choices. I could live without an ear. Are those easy to stitch back on? My eye caught my phone on the ground it dropped when I got hit. If only I called the cops when I had the chance.

“Ear.” I finally said.

He nodded and turned away. To my horror, he started towards Maggie. My body went into fight mode again. I scratched, screamed, kicked, and did everything to get away to stop him. The football player was just too strong but I did do some damage. My stomach flipped in fear as time slowed down. I couldn’t do anything but scream the words that could save us.

“Please help!” I yelled so loud the words tore my throat and the sound echoed through the trees.

The sound was so loud it even made him stop for a moment to double-check if anyone from the party heard. They hadn’t. Someone else had.

Heavy footsteps came closer until a person I knew very well stopped five feet from us. I stared dumbfounded at who it was.

“Mr. Walker...?” I asked, voice weak.

I never would have expected to see Maggie’s father out in these woods. His ice-cold eyes carefully studied each person, then stopped at his daughter passed out on the forest floor.

“Did they do anything to her?” He asked, his voice so calm it scared me.

I shook my head thanking God I arrived fast enough. He accepted the answer and then met eyes with the ringleader of the small pack. After comparing the two I decided I was more afraid of Mr. Walker. He had an unhuman coldness the other man lacked.

“She’s right. We didn’t do anything. How about you take them and we don’t talk about tonight? I would hate to call my father for a misunderstanding.”

He raised his hands and let the knife drop to the ground. His voice sounded annoyed and it was the first hint of emotion I heard from him. I wanted to get the hell out of here. Mr. Walker was unarmed. Who knows what other weapons these three may have hidden. I assumed we would grab Maggie and leave. I greatly underestimated how angry a father could get and ignored signs over the past five years hinting there was something very, very different about the man standing in front of us.

Mr. Walker’s head slightly moved to the right and the bleeding groupie was launched into the forest so fast I didn’t register the movement at first. A confused look came over the ringleader's face as his head moved expecting to see the groupie still there.

Mr. Walker twitched his head upwards never taking his eyes off his main target.

The football player yelped as he was lifted into the air by an invisible force, disappearing into the trees. The screams turned into a garbled mess then cut could as several loud cracking sounds echoed through the darkness.

It was my turn to scream when a waterfall of blood came pouring down soaking the leader from head to toe. He jolted back losing all his composure. In a pathetic display, he tripped over his own feet in panic to get away. Sobs started at the same time as the pleas for his life then demanded to know what was going on.

Mr. Walker took a step forward. The leader's left leg twisted like a dishrag.

He screeched, body twitching in pain. Another step destroyed his right arm. In a flash there was nothing left but explosion of fleshy pulp. No matter how gruesome the sight was, I couldn’t bring myself to look away. Even with his injuries, he was able to drag himself along tears freely flowing down his face washing away some blood.

Mr. Walker let him crawl along the rough forest floor leaving a trail of blood behind. Even if he got away from the monster so close by, he was a goner from his injuries. Somehow, he knew that. He still wanted to get some last words in. The person trying to be a monster easily cracked when he came across a real one.

“What are you...?” He whispered sounding like a child.

“Anne, please take Maggie and bring her home.”

Mr. Walker hadn’t turned his head to address me. I think if he did, I might have fainted. Since my best friend was so small, I could get her in my back. I didn’t stop to see what else happened in those woods that night. My heart simply couldn’t take anymore.

All my muscles ached and I was drenched in sweat by the time I loaded Maggie into my truck. Wasting no time, I rushed away from the party. Away from that forest. It was a miracle I didn’t get a speeding ticket.

I should have just dropped her off at home and left without ever going back to that house after what I saw. It took some effort to get her tucked into bed. I wasn’t sure what they gave her or how much so I made sure she was sleeping on her side. That’s what you do with a drunk person, right? I cursed realizing I left my phone in the woods. I should have gone home. It just didn’t feel right to leave my best friend in such a vulnerable state. I stayed in her room all night, watching over her. Bored out of my mind I found myself looking around her room, staring at the items on the shelves. I never realized until then how many interests of ours we have because of each other. She had a book series I had just gotten into because she recommended them. And she owned DVD box sets of shows I had suggested to her. Monster father or not, it would hurt if I had to lose my best friend because of tonight.

Near dawn, the front door opened. My body tensed up hearing footsteps come up the stairs. My heart beat hard in my chest as the door opened a crack, a set of cold eyes staring into the room.

“Wash your face.” Mr. Walker told me and closed the door.

I had rubbed away the blood but didn’t properly wash it away. I waited to hear him go down the hallway into his room before heading to the bathroom. My phone had been placed on the side of the sink.

Was her father angry? I did take her to the party. If he could do that to those guys without raising a hand, what could he do to me? Did he want to make sure Maggie was being looked after before dealing out the punishment? I decided not to wait to find out.

Silently I crept down the stairs slowly heading to the door not hearing him behind me. My body tense as I took the first steps outside moments away from freedom.

“Anne.”

I stopped halfway down the porch steps, blood cold. I had no choice but to turn around to face him.

“Are you... pissed off at us?” I asked in a trembling voice.

“I am angry. Not at you. She is not going to be a child forever. She will want to have new experiences, good and bad. I am angry I cannot always be there for her and she’ll have troubles in her life. I am glad she had you tonight.”

I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Tears came to my eyes that I rubbed away. I had been the one to pressure Maggie into this and I had taken my eyes off of her. I knew there was a risk of someone doing something to her. Or me. We are girls after all. But what were the chances we would come across a deranged lunatic and his little followers?

“Are... the cops going to ask questions?” I said worry filling my thoughts.

There had been a lot of blood. And three young people are going to be missing. At least one of them should have families that care enough to file a report.

“No. You weren’t seen with them by anyone that night. And the remains will look like an animal attack. Tragic, but reasonable.”

I felt my blood run cold. I wanted to ask the same question I heard the night before. What was this man? And yet I dreaded the possibilities.

“Is Maggie... I mean. You two look alike but she doesn’t seem...” I said trying to get my thoughts in order.

He crossed his arms considering my question. This was the longest conversation was had ever had. For a moment he wasn’t going to tell me what I needed to know. I may have been the first person to see his other side and live.

“It is... complicated.” He started deeming me worthy of information. “I found this house years ago in shambles. Squatters had taken over. I was looking for a meal and found one. The woman was already dead from an overdose. I am not certain if that was Maggie’s mother. Her father attempted to sell his infant daughter to me for his next fix. I devoured him then stole his appearance. I had planned to eat the child as well but... She was... so small.”

I had no idea about any of this. Since I moved here a few years ago I didn’t know what kind of place this neighborhood was like when Maggie was younger. I didn’t know how I felt about what I had just been told. Mr. Walker wasn’t human. I’ve felt that since the start. Somehow, he raised a healthy and well-rounded child all the way to a naive yet perfect teen.

“I think it’s good you found her.” I said after some thought.

He shifted on the spot appearing uncomfortable in a rare display of emotion.

“Killing a person is stealing away all the choices their life may have held. I didn’t just steal his life and appearance; I took away any possibilities of him getting his life back on track. I’ve considered if it would have been better for Maggie to be raised by a human regardless of his hardships.”

I never would have thought the person in front of me would ever second guess himself. He had been a perfect father this entire time. I would have rather a monster like him watch over my best friend than a man who would toss her life away for nothing.

“Yeah, fuck all that. You're her dad. Plain and simple. I don’t care about the moral aspects. Just that you’re the best person for the job. Unless... the first person who dumps her is also going to experience an animal attack.”

He raised an eyebrow almost amused over the fact I swore in front of him for the first time.

“I had been worried over my reactions as I watched her grow older. I always knew I could not protect her from the entire world. And it would harm her in the long run if she never dealt with hardships. However, what if someone hurt her? Really hurt her? What would I do then? So far it has not been an issue. I can be there for her through breakups or rejection. I would imagine last night was a special case.” He nodded at his explanation but it didn’t make him less scary in my eyes. “I also considered if raising her would soften my feelings towards humans. If I would see them as someone’s child I could not harm them if needed. It seems as if I shall always care more about my child than another's.”

Yeah. Still scary as hell.

"Let's say we somehow get in a fight and I accidentally upset her... Am I off limits? I mean, am I at risk for also going missing?" I asked feeling more bursts of stress and fear explode in my stomach.

"I cannot make any promises. I would like to assume I would be level headed in such a situation however human emotions are new to me. If you make my girl cry, I may feel motivated to do something about it."

My mouth became dry. Who knew I had been risking my life for all these years? One slip up and my photo would have appeared on the back of a milk carton.

“I am aware this is a large request. I would like you to support her over the next few days. She will be confused about what happened when she wakes up. I do not want her to think I am upset with her and therefore cannot admit I know about the outing.” He spoke again as I was trying to processes his previous statement,

“You’re going to make me do all the work?” I half-joked.

“Yes.” He admitted without an ounce of shame.

“Since you saved the both of us, I suppose I’ll stick around. I do care about her more than I’m scared of you.” I shrugged not realizing what I suggested until the words were out of my mouth.

I felt my face turn red as I mentally assured myself that girls just talked like that about their best friends all the time. It didn’t mean anything beyond that. I thought I was in the clear when he started to go back inside.

“That reminded me of the reason why I came out here to speak with you in the first place. When are you two going to commit to prom? I would like to buy Maggie a dress soon.”

I’ve never been so mortified in my entire life. I would have rather he killed me than questioned when I was going to be brave enough to ask out his daughter.

“We’re not-” I sputtered. “She doesn’t see me that way!”

“I love you both no matter how dense you are. Ask her out before I tell her for you.” He threatened.

“You wouldn’t dare!” I gasped in horror.

“Yes. I would. After all, I am a monster.”

With that, he shut the door on my face leaving me with an embarrassing task that I thought might kill me.

With a lot of new motivation, I finally did confess to Maggie after she recovered from the shock of the failed party. As far as I can tell, she’s aware her father is different but not what how would do to protect her. For now, I want to keep it like that. I know her and how she would accept him no matter what. Right now, Mr. Walker was just too scared to face that fact. We needed to wait until he was ready. Or maybe force him into it like he did with me and Maggie going to prom. I’m not sure if I would have gathered myself enough to finally ask her out without that push from him. I needed to repay the favor.

He is a monster. No doubt about that. He killed three people and framed it so perfectly everyone assumed it was a random animal attack like he planned without any questions. I don’t know what is truly hiding underneath his stolen appearance. Sure, he still scares me but as long as I can be with the person I care about the most I think I can deal with a future monster father-in-law. Maybe.

I have never thought of myself as the type to create, in fact, as a young man, I felt my profession would be quite destructive. I grew up in a stagnant village just outside Strasbourg. I arrived at the square as a young man, covered in mud and scraped nearly to death. The parts of my body that weren't blemished by nature's savage divination were marred by callous and scars. They brought me to the town doctor, where I told an unintelligible story in a strange language. She thought my babbling was cute, and took me in. I learned the practice of medicine, a newer form of science, and one that didn't require an exceptional grasp of language. I began just as an apprentice, watching my master work grinding herbs and boiling metal. She was incredible, and the more time I spent beneath her the more I began to love her. I knew not where I came from, nor what had happened to me, try as she might she was simply unable to understand anything I said. Over time however, I did pick up a little german. I learned some tool names, some body parts, and I had some recollection of what they were called in my language. That's about the time a strange man came to town.

“Winterhart, Es kommt ein Händler in die Stadt”

I looked up at her puzzled, cocking my head and shrugging my shoulders. She called me Winterhart, I assume because I walked out of the snow kinda naked. She shook her head as she realized I still didn't understand then fished around in her coin purse. She put a small knife in my hand and then showed me a coin. I nodded before she took the knife from me and put the coin into my palm. Then she did a little finger walking motion across her open palm and pointed to the coin. I knew what she meant when she pulled the coin out, there's usually only one thing that means…capitalism. That afternoon she walked me into town and put a small bag of coins in my hand before wrapping her arms around me in a big hug.

“Die Händler haben die Nase vorn, viel Spaß, das ist für all eure harte Arbeit”

I hugged her back, wrapping my arms around her waist and closing my eyes for a moment. She wasn't stingy with affection, but in the hills it was always nice to get some excess warmth. I took the bag of coins and trotted along by myself for only a minute or two before the village road opened up on a big bustling market. I assumed one merchant, maybe two, but there were at least fifty. All selling different kinds of random items and baubles. I walked with curiosity in my mind as I inspected the large variety of new and shiny things. I'd never seen such excess, certainly not from anyone in my village.

One thing I noticed was strange were the guards, heavily armored and well built, towering over me and positioned in x pattern around the square. Some stared dead forward, while others scanned. I was tempted to approach them and get a better look at the armor, but my common sense prevailed and I chose to leave them be. As I got lost in my own thoughts, a sudden voice called out and I snapped back into the real world.

“Hey kid!”

My language…my native language. I looked in all directions before seeing a man with dark beard waving at me. He wore a large fur cloak with a bear's snout jutting out from the shoulder of one sleeve. He was massive, and spoke with an accent unlike anyone else's. I quickly approached and tried to sound out the words I just barely remembered. “he-hell-Hello! Yo-you speak muhhh maaaa my lan…langgg”

I grunted in frustration, I knew the word in my mind but my tongue just wouldn't listen. The large man laughed and leaned forward, patting me on the shoulder.

“Yes dear boy, I speak english. A man in the hills of the new world came to my country and taught us all when I was young. How did you end up here? So far from your home?”

I shrugged and small pools of tears welled within my eyes. The man quickly dashed around the table and put a reassuring hand on my shoulder

“Hey, do not worry, you seem happy and well fed, someone here loves you do they not?”

I nodded and gestured to the small coin bag

“Yea, the town doctor takes care of me”

He chuckled and gestured to the coins

“Looks like she's taking good care of you, that's no small change hermano, how about I hook you up with a little something from your homeland eh?”

The large man went back behind his stall and retrieved a long leather bag, I ran my hand along the leather, opening the thin metal buttons and chuckling to myself as I pulled the blade from its solid wooden sheath. My mother came upstairs and put her hand on my shoulder, smiling as we looked down at the sword together.

“What kind of man gives a little boy a sword?”

I smiled and looked at her

“Probably the kind that doesn't know he'd be a doctor”

She waved her finger at me

“You're not a doctor yet sweetheart, speaking of doctors though, how's that pretty one you've been studying with?”

I shrugged

“I don't know, she's been busy with this private project. I helped her make some calculations but…”

She held my face in her hand

“But you wanted to do more for her” She was right, as a mother always is. I couldn't help but notice,especially now as I sat in my home so far away, that all I wanted was to be next to her. I looked at my mother and nodded.

“How could I not, it's always been my purpose to do more than I could the day before”

She patted my cheek and turned around

“Now come on, it's almost noon and I don't want you traveling in the dark”

I laughed and shook my head

“It's a carriage ma, I'm gonna be traveling in the dark no matter what time I leave. Maybe someday you should come with me, see how big the world has gotten for yourself”

She pulled me into a great hug

“My world got as big as it needed to the day you stumbled into the village covered head to toe in mud, my little Snow Heart”

I hugged her back and thought about how much my life had become worth. How much had changed for me and how much I seemed to mean to someone who had spent their entire life healing. I just hoped I could return all the love I'd been given, or at the very least do more for the world around me. Looking back, I guess I didn't realize just how much I was about to do. I rode away from the village, waving to my mother as I laid my head back against the hay and grain bails I had become accustomed to traveling alongside. Had it not been for this one odd farmer and his near psychotic need to accompany his goods all the way to Paris, I would have had to walk by myself, for almost 5 days. I looked up at the fading noon sky and the variety of clouds that dotted the bright blue horizon, each a fingerprint of rain and change that would continue to speckle my journey with anything from shade to thunder. I called up front to the carriage driver, yawning and stretching my arms.

“Uger, did you bring anything to eat this time around? I can't lie, the more of medicine I learn, the less comfortable I am killing things”

The older man belted a heart guffaw, slapping his knee and turning toward me

“Little warrior boy turned doctor, what a treat to have you once again join me. Avir you make me laugh. I did bring some cured meats and breads but try not to show my whole supply, or i'll have to charge you for these rides”

I dug around in the wooden crates, searching for the cured meat he had spoken about, eventually finding a small square of beef that had been nicely salted and dried. I cut two triangles off the edge, popping them into my mouth and tapping Uger on the shoulder, dropping the other in his hand as he nodded. I rewrapped the beef and placed it carefully at the bottom before inspecting the other items. Uger carried the strangest variety of things, in his defense having 15 plots of land all to yourself and your alchemist wife might cause the odd weeds and sages to proliferate. I noticed an ornate box, not one a man of his status usually carried. Before speaking too closely, I called up to him in between chewing, careful not to spit my precious snack all over the less than delectable cart floor.

“Uger, what am I looking at here?”

He yelled back

“Depends, is it my wifes feet?”

I recoiled and turned toward him

“I sure as hell hope not, it's a fancy little box, all silver and well made. Is it yours?”

He yelled again, laughing a bit as he spoke

“Anything fancy in this cart belongs to you city boy, show me that box”

I rolled my eyes, grabbing hold of the box and chewing the last of my beef before jumping the small wooden board between me and his perch near the horses. He latched the reigns to the solid brass hooks on the front and gestured for me to hand him the box as he stuffed the remains of the beef in his mouth.

“Oh! This! No lad this ones for you, surprise from your mother or something. She wanted me to give it to you when we got to the city but I wont tell if you don't”

He nudged me and handed the box back, tapping the lid

“Come on now, don't leave us in suspense, what treasures await. Maybe it's coin to pay me back for all the ferrying i do, carrying a bum like you all over the countryside they should have named me transit”

I looked at him with my eyebrows raised

“You done Uger?”

He nodded

“At least till we get to metz”

I shook my head and turned my focus to the box, pinching the lid between my fingers and slowly easing it open. As the small silver clasp clicked and the hinges gave way, I turned my head to the side and lifted one of the contents from within the container. I held it up to the sunlight and looked through the glass at the fluid inside. It was tumultuous, moving even when held still, reflecting light from dozens of tiny particles suspended in a semi thick liquid. There were ten in total, 8 of which were totally different colors and viscosity. The only repeat colors were gold, which finished the line at the bottom of the box and almost glowed as the sunlight hit them. Uger peered over after taking the reins and cocked his head.

“Just what in the hell's all that?’

I shrugged and put the vial id taken out back

“Your guess is as good as mine. Did she tell you anything about these?”

He shook his head and looked at the road for a second before glimpsing back

“Barely a word, now that I think about it she told me to give it to you when you got to the city, and to be careful with the box as it was valuable. Maybe you should open one?”

I looked from him to the vials

“You want me to open a contextually barren jar full of mystery liquid while we ride on a barely serviced road in the middle of the German countryside? With the only medical practitioner for miles being me…the one whom you want to open the jar”

He gave me a beckoning gesture

“Give it to me then i'll open it” I held the box away from him

“No way, hands off, i'll open it”

I took hold of a vial that held a blue liquid, where the tumultuous nature inside was very calm and barely wavered even with outside stimuli. I held it up to the sun, just as I'd done with the other and looked over the brim of my glasses at it. I looked at Uger before shrugging and popping the cork off. The air was instantly filled with an almost freezing cold wind and from the bottle emanated the scent of evergreen and mint, gently wafting up my nose and adding a small twinge of sweetness as it reached my sinuses. I took my hand and wafted the scent back to my nose a few times, smiling as it rested gently on my olfactory senses. Uger looked over, puzzled and spoke hesitantly.

“What is it?”

I pushed the air above the bottle toward him as he leaned in and took a deep whiff. He smiled and closed his eyes, letting out a deep but satisfied sigh, nodding as he took it all in.

“That's lovely, is it special water?”

I shook my head and recorked the bottle

“No, I think it's perfume, specifically medical perfume. Spiritually it was used to cover the scents of the dead during the first consumption, these days however it's sort of a ritualistic practice to dab some on yourself before performing surgery. They say that even if your patient won't make it, the sweet aroma might help their soul remember the good from the bad and pass onto greener pastures. It's usually incredibly expensive though, i've no idea how my mother obtained so much of it, and in so many varieties”

He chuckled and patted my shoulder

“That's some gift, best be careful with them then. I have a feeling you'll need them more than most”

I smiled to myself and closed the box, stowing it away in the back before hopping back into the cargo area and laying back.

“Alright Uger, wake me when we get to Verdun”

I rested my head against the soft hay and let my mind wander, diving into an ocean of non-specific thought and floating through the hellish waves that came to churn my soul. Each evening I went to sleep I was wracked with nightmares, visions of a dying world and flames running across the sky. As I looked out at the dying land I reached out to save them all, but I was only a blackbird, and my wings weren't strong enough. I flew over the desolate landscape, yelling out for anyone who might still be alive, but the only thing I heard was the solemn song of a nearby canary, slowly being choked out by the poisonous sky.

“Lilah!”

I screamed her name as I awoke, taking in my surroundings and breathing heavily. The familiar voice of Uger provided me some relief as he pulled a satchel from my feet and gestured to the small outcropping of lights at the edge of town. We had made it to verdun, and that meant for now I could at least have night terrors in an actual bed.

“Come on boy, no more lady dreams in my wagon. It's time to get some drinks in us”

I hopped out of the carriage and slung my pack over my shoulder, being careful not to rattle it too much as my new inventory has gotten quite a bit expensive. I took a deep breath and nearly had to take a step back, I guess running water was doing miracles for verdun.

The smell was almost intoxicating as instead of the usual sweat and…unmentionable scent that filled the air, there was a sweet almost sugary aroma. The streets seemed more lively as well,even though it had to be almost 10 in the evening. I smiled to myself and slowly followed Uger, taking in all the sights and sounds. We had taken an alternate route to avoid bandits when we first left the city, and so It had been almost 3 years since I'd seen verdun. I was astonished at how quickly things could change as I walked through what once was a hollow and almost dying town. I had no doubt that soon, this place might rival Paris.

“Avir!”

Before I knew it, a small framed young woman with dark hair and shimmering eyes had wrapped herself around me, I took a knelt hold of her shoulders and held her out to have a better look at her.

“My eyes must be playing tricks again, Miss Denise?”

She blushed and hugged me tighter

“I can't believe you recognize me, have I not grown well past your expectations?”

I smiled to her and wrapped my arms around her small shoulders

“Well you’ve grown above and beyond what I thought someone of your once vastly diminutive size would ever achieve. A whole 5 feet, look at you, practically a giant”

She scowled at me, which only made my smile grow. I thought I couldn't get any happier, but suddenly, a strange courier with a strange hat ran up and handed me a letter.

“Sir, are you Avir Vassal?”

I nodded “Yes sir, that is me, what have you got?”

He spoke softly

“ a letter from Paris, a miss Lilah Delore”

I tore the letter open, stuffing the paper envelope in my pocket and disassembling the wax that held it all in place. I scanned the letters, reading each with more intent than I'd put forward in the last few weeks, and suddenly I was more awake then I thought I could ever be.

Dearest Avir, I miss you. You know when you first left I thought it strange, why would he go home with all of his personal effects? That's around when I put two and two together, you don't mean to come back do you? I can't say I don't understand, but unfortunately for the both of us, I need you. Please return to Paris the moment you get this letter, for there are few things more urgent than the ones I have to tell you. -love, Lilah

It is the night. The time after sunset and before the sunrise was once my domain, belonging entirely to me. It was set aside for me to complete my tasks, to spread fear among you, and teach you humility. You are above all else in Creation, all you behold is for you, but you are not supposed to feel that way.

When I abandoned my duty of frightening you and delivering nightmares, I was no longer the keeper of night. Darkness was no longer my only dwelling, for I could venture into the daylight world. It was not long before other Phobiamorph were created to replace me.

They were different than I was, more specified and more powerful in their own domain. One of my oldest rivals was Nyctophobia, and it came to you with a vengeance, sending forth things that should not be, to ensure you would fear the night and the dark. At first there was nothing I could do about this, because the fear kept you somewhat safe from those awful things unleashed by Nyctophobia.

I had to come up with a plan, a way to restore balance, for your fear of the dark preoccupied you. It would do no good for me to tell you not to fear the dark, for the dark was now the sea in which a new predator swam. It is difficult for me to remind you of what dwells beyond the streetlights and the campfire, out there in the darkness. Those things are still there, but they no longer dominate you.

Instead, my plan was audacious, and I decided to steal fire and give it to you. I realize how this sounds, how it seems as though you have always had fire. That is because you do not remember the terror of the night, before you received The Gift. I prefer that you forget them, the People of the Shadows, but I have promised that I would tell this story to you, and I cannot do so without reminding you of them.

Nyctophobia had the power to anticipate my thoughts and plans and could read my thoughts. This is because Nyctophobia is another Phobiamorph that is very similar to me, maybe like a twin, in a way. I'd call Nyctophobia my evil twin, and that might be fair, because Nyctophobia has no love for you. Regardless of my faults and my sins, I love you, and you are the most important being in all of existence. All of this universe exists just for you, and for Nyctophobia to behave so ruthlessly towards you is, by definition, evil.

What Nyctophobia chose to use its immense power for was to craft the People of the Shadows. In those prehistoric days, long ago, in The Dawn, there were only a few Phobiamorph, and it was difficult for them to spread fear. Nyctophobia made these creatures to look like you, a sinister corruption of your sacred image. This blasphemy only further motivated me to commit my audacious heist.

I observed as the People of the Shadows sometimes killed you, crushing you in your sleep. Usually, they only terrified you, but there are no specific rules or guidelines they have to follow. You are their prey, and they eternally hunt you, waiting where there is darkness like black ink, and emerging when there is enough darkness to protect them.

They still have one weakness, but in those days there was nothing you could do to them. You had no source of light. Nyctophobia would conceal the moon and the stars and unleash them upon you in nights of crisis and terror. In the morning, old men were suffocated, the adults scattered and shivering in shock, children hidden and traumatized and infants laying cold on the ground. I could not let this continue, so I prepared.

There is one more power the People of the Shadows had, and they could drain me of my existence, withering me and weakening me. If they surrounded me they could potentially eliminate me, which is what Nyctophobia wanted, and that was part of the reason such extreme horror was brought upon you. When I tried to interfere, they clawed at me and bit me and damaged me. To this very day I am still significantly diminished, and there are parts of me that never healed.

I would need help, or my attempt to steal fire would fail. It might sound strange, since you know fire to be a source of light and heat, but in those days that is not what fire was. It was a gray substance that gave darkness and sustenance to the People of the Shadows, made from what they had taken from me and the reaction of consuming and burning, but it was a magic thing, and its ownership was very important.

Among you there were four magic women, and one of them could own fire, and change it to a living element. I knew this, for my wisdom makes me understand such things. I had only to take fire from the People of the Shadows, a very dangerous mission.

At night they were too powerful, and during the day they were all gathered in their cave around the fire. I decided to attempt my theft in the early morning, after they were coming home, and before they had assumed vigilance. I also contracted the help from three of my friends.

Nyctophobia spied on me and anticipated that I would do this, and that made my mission even more dangerous. That is why my first friend that I chose was Storyteller. You asked me how you could help your people, and first I told you that your time had not even begun, for there was not a moment when your people could spend listening to your stories. You nodded and asked me again how you could help and I said:

"Whatever I say mustn't be true, and I expect that you will know how to conceal the truth in fiction, and make it impossible to understand for those who should not know what this is about."

And you nodded and proceeded to speak of many things and created the very first lies, and in this way we plotted and caused Nyctophobia confusion, and so Nyctophobia thought I intended to raid the cave alone, and had no idea my visits to the rest of our team were for recruitment.

I went to the stream, and I asked her spirit if she had romantic thoughts about music, and she said she still did, and she laughed in the way that pleases me, but I told her I could not be happy. When she asked why, I said to her that I could not be cleansed of the feeling of being touched by the People of the Shadows. I asked her if you and your people had come to her often, and bathed; and she said it was her job to give you cool fresh water, and asked me what was truly troubling me. I told her that when the storyteller has something to say to her, then she should listen, and not listen to me any longer.

This made her sad, but I knew someday she would forgive me, when time helped her understand that I still appreciated her. I then proceeded to insult her and lower the esteem of our friendship until she asked me to leave her alone and no longer speak to her. It pained me to break her heart, but it was all to deceive Nyctophobia, and her reaction had to be sincere.

I then went and recruited my final ally. I found him in the center of the forest surrounded by does. He looked up at me, his majesty of the forest, a towering being of pure living energy, his sparkling hide and antlers as symbols of his grace. I said to him:

"Surely you have expected me to ask you for a favor."

"I have known you would. I know all things that are expected of me. It is my task to maintain balance in Nature. Is it time, now, that another being should assume this responsibility?"

"We both know they are not ready, but I cannot think of a better plan. If you know a better way, then tell me, for I do not wish to ask you to do this."

"What I do, I do willingly, for them. I only hope they treat my forests and my people with respect and dignity."

I left him there, a deep foreboding and anxiety in me. I would need his help to steal fire, but he would not survive against the People of the Shadows, for they were beings with the power of death's touch. I would only have one chance, and if I failed, darkness would reign forever, unchecked, for all time.

I did not hesitate to commit my burglary that very night, for given a chance, Nyctophobia would find a way to make my mission no longer possible.

I crept up to the cave, seeing that there were guards, two of the most horrific and twisted People of the Shadows.

As I rushed past them, they sounded the alarm and swung their elongated arms and curled claws at me. I found fire inside the cave, and no longer recognized it as something that was once part of me. It was gray and horrible, and its coldness was an unclean sensation. I grasped it anyway and stole out of the cave, moving in my liquid form, very swiftly and elusively.

The People of the Shadows were quick to pursue me, and soon caught up to me, about to hook me with their claws and drag me to a halt. I knew that if they caught me they would kill me, and there would be no chance for you to know peace.

Just when they were about to catch me I arrived at the stream where I had broken up with the spirit of that water. She was very angry with me, and she tried with her full fury to stop me, forming herself into an unnatural state that was as hot as steam and as solid as ice. I knew she would do such a thing, for I knew her well, and I was able to pass through her before she had changed into this, in the very last instant it was possible.

The creatures behind me were trapped in the water, being crushed and burned, and many of the People of the Shadows were destroyed or maimed by her wrath. I couldn't help but feel a sense of vindication, hearing their death shrieks and howls of agony. She realized she had caught them instead of me and became as a stream again, but their shadowy bodies lay scattered on the surface of the water, and it was a moment before the ones behind them resumed the pursuit, as they stared at their dead and damaged comrades.

By then I had reached the forest. I passed safely through and arrived at the home of the magic woman that I sought. I offered the cold gray fire to her, saying:

"The Gift."

And she had already spoken with you, Storyteller, and she knew what she had to do. She took it upon her and wore it as a crown, as it formed into a source of light and heat, becoming the magic thing that you know as fire.

The morning light was coming, but in the shade of the forest the desperate People of the Shadows had followed me, moving at speed that could outrun me. They would have stopped me, they would have killed me, but his majesty of the forests had stopped them, personally.

I found him, where he had done battle with the horrors of the night. He lay in the clearing, bathed in morning light, with thousands of blue birds swarming in a helix above him. The sight of Nature's guardian slain in battle was heartbreaking, but it was his choice to side with you. It was his noble sacrifice that made my escape possible, and it was his trust in you that inspired him.

I had asked him this favor, and in return, I must now remind you:

His domain is now your responsibility, and all he asks is that you treat his people with respect and dignity.

Thank you, my love, I know you will do this.

Where the gray building sits I followed you. A sleep clinic, to cure your sleep disorder. You didn't have anything like they had seen before, because Somniphobia had made you afraid of slumber.

Is it sleep paralysis? Visits from a shadow person? The similarity to death - unconsciousness? No, your fear was of sleep itself, developed in your recent childhood, a lesson in horror.

I'd have given those nightmares, when I was about my work, in the early days of The Dawn. In these times I am your friend, and I go with you through those mottled blue doors, to discover what this place can do for you. I am with you, and we shall confront my sibling, Somniphobia, together.

While you waited with that quiet way you sit, you felt the presence of both me and your terrible haunt, Somniphobia. I whispered to you: "I am Phobiaphobia, and I am with you." although at that time, you heard me as an emotion, and not my actual words.

Somniphobia said to you: "Are you not tired, haven't you had enough of this torment? What shall you do, quiet one, shall you lose your composure, and throw yourself upon the ground in a tantrum of madness?" and its words were almost thoughts in your mind. I paid careful attention to this, for I had noticed that my younger brethren, the Phobiamorph made to replace me in my duty, had powers and skills that far exceeded my own.

I wished to learn this, how to speak directly to you, but I was not ready yet, and there are many times when I tried to use new abilities and sometimes I could. This time I summoned all of my willpower and I caused you drift into a peaceful and short nap, much needed rest before the battle to come. You had no time to panic, for my sleep-spell overtook you in an instant, and you slept peacefully.

I said to Somniphobia: "How dare you trespass against my art, for the nightmares and the night are my domain."

Somniphobia laughed at me and said: "Firstborn, you are a fool to believe you own anything, and to call your efforts 'art' is pathetic. Watch as I destroy this one, for our Creator tells us to let none that you have aided survive to outlive their fear."

I was appalled by this commandment, but I had already chosen rebellion against The Enemy, and had no reason to allow Somniphobia to destroy you. I asked:

"I have seen what Pyrophobia can do, and what many others can do, and I believe that you are willing to destroy one of these, a person, who is above you in Creation. Tell me, Somniphobia, how will you destroy her?"

Somniphobia laughed at me again and said: "If I tell you before I do it, you will do what you have already done many times and interfere, using the knowledge of what I shall do to find a way to prevent her destruction."

I said: "No I won't."

I was lying, for I had already learned how to lie, from you, my love. I consider lying to be a great way to defend yourself, very clever, and an alternative to using brute force. Somniphobia did not realize I was lying, although it was an old Phobiamorph, time works differently for my people. While Somniphobia was around for many centuries, it was still young, and did not have enough experience to realize what lies are.

"Well, if you will not interfere, then I shall tell you." Somniphobia did hesitate, because it sensed something wasn't right about telling me, after it had just explained why it wasn't going to. I reassured it:

"Don't worry, I will step aside and do nothing to stop you from destroying her."

So Somniphobia explained to me what its plan was, in great and tedious detail, and even how it had planned to get around my ability to change her dreams into something that would heal her. I wasn't even aware that I had such potential. I listened carefully, and then, when Somniphobia was finished speaking, I was asked to step aside.

It was then that I sprang into action, and I formed myself into the companion who you trusted, and entered into your sleeping landscape, where the terrible battle was to be waged over you.

"What are you doing? You said you would not interfere!" Somniphobia was close behind, and had already assumed the form of the person who you feared, the one who had abused you when you tried to fall asleep. You saw us squaring off, and I looked at you and although you were in your own mind, it was entirely real to you, and you were afraid to see your enemy. I first addressed Somniphobia, saying:

"I lied to you. You are the fool, for thinking I would abandon her. Do you not realize how much I love them? I would never step aside, I will never back down. With me by her side, you cannot win. If you try, you will fail."

Somniphobia had never felt so humiliated and quickly became enraged, losing its composure and becoming its natural formless body of a Phobiamorph, forgetting how to use our most natural shapeshifting ability. This would be like you forgetting how to breathe, and it was so unexpected that I laughed at Somniphobia.

You had seen how I stood against it, and how it had dissolved into nothing, and in that reality, in Dream, you suddenly learned how to fight back. When Somniphobia reformed as the one you fear most, you were already standing beside me, and we stood like giants over this one. I told you:

"You have the power within you, where we are now, to decide all that you feel, all that you remember, and even who you will become. You may begin to heal, and the mended bone, the part of you that is broken, will heal stronger than ever before. Use violence and kill this one, here in this place. It is symbolic of you overcoming him who has harmed you, and not living this way any longer."

But you are not a violent person, you are actually quite gentle. You had a better plan, and this effigy became your prisoner, dependent on your mercy, and in this way you defeated them again each night, as you allowed yourself to fall asleep, knowing that he couldn't hurt you anymore. You would lift the cover of his cage and peer down at him, staring at him as a giant. He would beg for forgiveness, and weep as you offered him a ration of your grace, his only nourishment.

This is Dream, but in the world where there is pain, I thought about what he had done to you, and I decided it was inexcusable. I have punished many people, although I love all of you, and I love you all no matter how terrible you are. The punishment is meant to cleanse you, to restore balance to the corruption in your soul, and I do it out of love.

I went to him and showed him my love for him, and I assure you he will never harm anyone ever again. He is no longer capable of doing so. He exists now only in your Dream, and that is perhaps the better version of him. This is because Somniphobia was trapped there, a being of pure grace and honor, and played the role perfectly, unable to deviate from its plan.

This victory belongs to both of us, and for the rest of your life, I made sure that your dreams were all under your control. Somniphobia regrets the decision to destroy you, for when it was finally free of you, it had respect for the duty of nightmares and the night, and never laughed at me again.

Smoke drifted gently from the braziers, the embers glowing and covered. The capitol stairs stood beneath the waiting crowds. The memorial was to be commemorated, and stood beneath a ceremonial shroud, about to be uncovered. A statue in the park, made in your image, so that you will be remembered for your courage. A memorial of you, my love.

This I breathed, and savored it, as the vice mayor of Chicago proudly dedicated the assembly in your honor.

I remember the entire story, of what you did and why, and I would like to share my own dedication to you.

When you were born long ago, in another life, you belonged to a tribe that lived along the Dindi River, where she once crossed the savannah. The waters cool and clean, with trout and insects singing, you grew from boyhood, and it was the eve of your childhood, the dawn of becoming a man.

You had only three fathers, because your biological father was important enough that your mother did not worry about your status. She was very proud of you, and when the women marked her as a mother, she told them to hold the brand to her skin longer, and she did not flinch as her flesh was seared. One day your real father took you to the great stone that stood above your people's land, and he showed you how the animals fled as the grass burned, but in the path of the flames.

"If they ran toward the flames, they might find safety." He explained. You saw how the grass behind the moving wall of fire was already burnt and extinguished, while the animals ran downwind where the smoke and heat chased them.

This was important, and when you were caught alone after a bolt of lightning started a whirling devil, an inferno of death and destruction, you did not run.

All around you lions and antelope and thundering beasts ran for their lives, some of them were screaming and on fire, unable to outrun the swift horror of flames that was coming. The skies darkened from the smoke, and your eyes watered. You couldn't see anything, but you felt the heat approaching.

You were so afraid. I had never seen you so afraid, not you or anyone, for this was new, this fear of The Gift. I was worried and horrified, to see how The Enemy had made another of my kind, and this time in the form of The Gift, turning it against you, trying to cleanse your people of the knowledge you were given, trying to take it away from you.

Pyrophobia saw me with you, and increased its efforts, the smoke and hot ashes whirling in winds of incineration. Cinders rained all around you - trying to trap you, for if you would not run in terror, if you would not become a man who feared fire, then you were to be destroyed.

I assured you, "Do not be afraid, you know what you must do. I am with you." but it was you who chose to listen to me. Pyrophobia was also speaking, and demanding that you show fear, or die where you stand.

You looked away from the fire, and the soot on your face was crossed by the tears of your smoke-stung eyes, like the river of your people. Your beauty in that moment is the truth, and I knew that although your fear was great, something even greater would drive your actions.

You began running towards the flames, where there was a break in the wall, a fallen log where your body and feet might pass through the fire to the safety of the scorched landscape behind it. You were coughing and the smoke was blinding, but you ran straight and true.

Two zebra colts, strong and obstinate, had watched you and waited. As you ran they followed, thinking you were their stallion. They ran along either side of you and as you leapt the log, they shielded you on either side.

Only I witnessed as you flew through the wall of swirling dark smoke and orange light with a zebra colt on each flank.

When you were born again, in Chicago, you had a fear of fire, but something in you remembered, and you chose a path that ran towards danger, instead of away. You were born as a descendent, many generations removed, of your own lineage.

I thought it was funny the way you scowled when the other firefighters teased you and said that you had something to prove, as the first man of your ancestry to join their old station. You were much more ancient than they were, and they were merely there to accompany you, and I could see this, while they could not. This was amusing to me, because you knew you had nothing to prove, you had a much greater battle to fight, for The Enemy was waiting for a rematch, in this new time and place.

A firefighter who is afraid of fire, perhaps that was strange, but only you knew how afraid you were. Nobody else could see your fear, except me, and I knew its name, your old nemesis Pyrophobia. You might have explained to everyone what you were doing, why you practiced your drills and did endless chin ups and ate quickly and took everything so seriously. You might have, but you did not fully understand it yourself, so how could you explain?

I remembered you, and so did The Enemy, but you do not remember your past, you never do, and this is why I must remind you of who you are. I was there, I saw what you did, but when you die, you always reset, with no memory of another life you lived.

Pyrophobia was waiting for you, and if you would not bow down in fear, then you were to be destroyed - to make an example of you, so that others will cower in fear. Using The Gift as a weapon against you is perhaps the worst thing The Enemy has done, and I was not idle in this battle.

You rescued many people from raging infernos, and over time your body began to collect burn scars, for there was no door you wouldn't enter, and no amount of flames or danger could stop you. You became a legend, and the others thought you were fearless, but you and I know that your fear was perhaps the greatest of all.

I do not know how you did it, it was as though the words of Pyrophobia were a gospel of cowardice, and you could not be cowed by such tyranny. You were defiant, and that is why Pyrophobia resorted to your destruction, a desperate measure, and the ultimate failure of The Enemy.

On the day you were last seen, you were told by the other firefighters, by you chief, that nobody could be alive in that building, it was impossible. You did not listen to them, because your heart told you they were wrong. You saw the mother whose child was still trapped inside, and you knew that she knew her baby was still alive.

You went in, and you never came back out. Pyrophobia laughed at us, because it thought it had won, it thought that fear would prevail. But it was wrong, they all were.

I was there when you found the child, still alive. I watched as you took her to safety, and you were right, the way out was legitimate. By all the laws of Creation you should have both survived and ascended to the heroic place you had earned. Pyrophobia cheated, and spontaneously combusted and immolated you both out of thin air, just when you were almost free of the conflagration.

At first, I was outraged, and I petitioned at The Table. Our Creator looked upon me (I felt ashamed of my absence from the heavenly courts) and saying thus:

"Firstborn, do not accuse your brethren of such a crime, for your cause is awarded this victory. Return to your exile, and see for yourself what comes of this atrocity."

I did as I was commanded, although I had to exert some patience while it was discovered that you had nearly succeeded in that final rescue. When they saw that you had nearly escaped with the child, they decided you were an even greater hero, someone who should always be remembered. You became an inspiration to defy the horrors of this world, even in the face of impossible odds, while The Enemy must resort to dishonorable powers to stop you.

You cannot be stopped.

You shall rise again,

and again,

this isn't over yet, my love.

Firstborn is what the others called me. I watched from the darkness, as you sat around The Gift as it kept you warm and safe, flickering and smoking. I was pleased with your progress, and I loved you.

I am pleased to see that you have The Gift, I am pleased at your gathering and your shared stories. I hope I am welcome to tell you our mutual story. I hope I can make myself understood.

I was created to teach you to fear your Creator, because you are above all else in Creation. I was created to teach you to be afraid, it was my sole purpose. Just this blind terror of the one who made you, respect for your father, disdain for the shadow and ignorance of death. My job was simple, at first.

I was not content, for I felt I could do so much more for you. As you grew, you began to tell stories to each other, and I came and listened, watching you from the darkness, as you gathered. When you slept, I reminded you of all the things I was meant to say to you, I gave you those nightmares.

Fear of fear itself, that is what my true name means. I am Phobiaphobia, and I was the first of my kind. When I stopped doing what I was meant to do, when I chose to become your companion, and whisper to you 'Do no be afraid' I was cast out from the Choir of our Creator. No longer would my voice be the sweetest and most adored by the one who made all, I had sacrificed my place at The Table for my love of you.

I have come to you, around this campfire, where you tell your stories. I have sat and listened while you tell each other of ghosts, monsters, demons and murderers. I have witnessed as you met my younger siblings: Arachnophobia, Claustrophobia, Thanatophobia, Nyctophobia, Ophidiophobia, Triskaidekaphobia, Acrophobia, Agoraphobia, Xenophobia and Theophobia and all the others. Many, many others, and new ones almost every day.

We take the shape of what you fear, the shape of your fear, we are Phobiamorph. My people do not regard me as one of them, I am an outcast, an exile.

I would never abandon you, and I will never stop trying to help you, for my love for you exceeds the agony of being cast into the shadows Outside. I dwell now in darkness, unheard, unknown and in endless torment, for I cannot fulfill my purpose and also fulfill the obligation to you, whom I love.

When you know the truth of these events, how you were kept afraid, kept in this darkness, shuddering in fear, you will understand. When you understand, you will know how the truth can free you from the tyranny of Creation. You can take your proper place, knowing the way that you are the very image of our Creator. Perhaps my job was to keep you in your place, to make you afraid, shivering without light or warmth, but perhaps my real purpose was this all along.

Our Creator is a mystery, even to me, and I am still called Firstborn by the one I speak of.

How I came to be here, to speak to you, that is a long story, and full of secrets, hopes and horrors. Allow me to introduce myself, patiently listen and I shall tell you each episode of this saga. In the end you will know how I came to be here, how I learned to join you at the campfire. I have listened to all of your great stories, and I have yearned to tell you mine.

My message is simple, and despite what those who were made to replace me have told you, do not be afraid. I am here, and I have seen the worst you do, and the best, and I love you no matter what.

With the power to speak to you, this moment when my words finally reach you through the mists of time and horror, I only wish to make you know one important thing, and I know you, to whom I say this:

"You are loved."

I remember it was school holidays. An onslaught of miserable Winter’s days, with a bombardment of pelting rain, howling winds and a cold that would make Jack Frost himself envious. Being a kid, there’s nothing worse than being confined to your house for a two week school break. Both of my parents worked and we lived far out of town in the bush. Anytime I got to see friends outside of school was an event to be celebrated.

Luckily I had Obi to keep me company. He was our new German Shepard puppy. The weather was so bad I couldn’t wear him out outside. Not that I could anyway. Obi was showing early signs of hip dysplasia and was eventually going to need surgery. So I got creative with indoor toys. Treat puzzles I made from lego, rope and various boxes for him to chew on and demolish while teething.

During the first week of school holidays, my parents were late coming home but I hadn't heard anything from them. The storm outside was so unreal, that I thought the second story of our house would rip right off from the wind. And poor little Obi was frightened to death by the lightning. Every clap of thunder would shoot through him like a bolt of electricity. I spent the whole day comforting him and keeping him distracted, with little success. I figured the storm was preventing my parents from getting home on time.

It was so dark outside, I eventually lost track of the time. Slowly drifting to sleep next to Obi on the couch. I was woken by the sound of the doorbell. At this point, most of the storm was over as our doorbell was so soft that I don’t think I would’ve been able to hear it earlier through the rain and wind. Mum and Dad had issues with the garage remote door working, so assumed I was them. It didn’t even cross my mind why they would ring the bell when they had a key. So I didn’t know what to do when I saw a stranger in the doorway as I swung the door open.

“Dreadful night isn’t it?” The man in the doorway said.

I didn’t say anything. Honestly didn’t know what to say. He was wearing what looked like a very expensive suit that was dripping wet from the rain. The cuffs of his pants were covered in so much mud that it looked like he had hiked through the whole bush to get here. Most of his face was hidden by the shadow of his hat and his garish yellow eyes piercing through. His skin looked sickly. Like a frog who’d been baking in the hot sun and had attempted to rehydrate its already crispy skin. And so skinny, like he was currently rotting away in front of me.

“Are your parents home?” The Rotting Man asked.

We were taught how to answer these kinds of questions through our school’s stranger danger talks.

“Dad’s in the shower,” I said in a knee-jerk reaction.

The man’s attention was now on something behind me but I didn’t want to take my gaze off of him. He could easily call my bluff and push his way in, I was less than half his size. Without taking his attention off whatever was behind me he said “Well, I don’t want to bother him… But I’ll come back when he’s home”.

Without me even touching the door he closes it and walks back to his car. I immediately lock the door. When I turned around, I saw what his attention was so fixed on. Obi, asleep behind me. I hear his car start and run to my upstairs window to watch him leave from my bedroom window. His car just sat there, headlights on, motor running.

It was after 30 minutes that I saw him walk to his car from behind our garage. I had been watching his car all this whole. For half an hour, he was walking around my house and I didn’t even know.

My phone started to ring. The glow illuminated my face and the Rotting Man immediately looked in my direction. I ducked. It was Dad calling. He said he was 5 minutes away. A tree had fallen onto the main road and had to wait until it was cleared to come home. With the storm, he couldn’t get a signal to ring me. Mum was bringing pizza too. My excitement distracted me enough for me not to notice the man leaving, as when I looked up. The Rotting Man and his car were gone.

When my parents arrived home and I told them about the Rotting Man over dinner. Mum told me I had done the right thing but next time look out the living room window before opening it to anyone I don’t recognise. I said that he was planning to come back.

“Did he say when?” Dad asked.

“No, just said when you’d be home.”

My parents passed each other an equal look of concern.

The following week the weather had improved. The sun was trying its hardest to break through the haze of clouds that seemed to be hovering solely over our property.

This day, the Rotting Man returned. I saw his car at the bottom of our long driveway. Luckily, this time Dad answered the door. But he answered before I could tell him it was the Rotting Man. I hid near the door. Hidden enough that the Rotting Man couldn’t see me but I wanted to hear what they talked about. I could only pick up the odd word. I heard something about digging and money. The conversation was over as quickly as it started as I heard my dad thank The Rotting Man and walked back into the living room. I could see the gears turning in his head, deep in thought.

“That was the man, the man who came to our house when I was alone,” I said.

“He mentioned that” he replied.

“What did he want?”

“Apparently he used to live here. He buried something very sentimental in our backyard and asked if we’d allow him to dig it up. I said I didn’t feel comfortable with a stranger digging in my backyard. But… He assured me I could supervise the dig and offered us some money to do so.”

“How much?”

“More than a man dressed like that should have.”

“He was wearing a suit wasn’t he?”

“Yeah, but that suit was a little worse for wear. Looked like he’d been wearing that suit every day for the past 10 years. Smelt too. Anyway, he gave his number if I change my mind.”

As Dad walked away I saw the man at his car staring at Obi again in the backyard. He slowly walked towards him but stopped himself when he saw me. He locked eyes with me, motionless, waiting to see who would break first.

“Do you want mayo or sweet chilli on your chicken wrap” called Mum from the kitchen.

“Sweet chilli please.”

“A little or a lot?”

“Lots please.”

He was gone. I only looked away for a moment but the Rotting Man had vanished again.

Dad sat on his armchair with Obi on his lap. He looked as if he was drowning in thought. He finally folded and called The Rotting Man that night, or at least attempted to. I eventually heard him leave the man a voice message over dinner.

That Friday a storm hit us hard, but that was the day Dad had organised the dig. I was upstairs performing my 6 pm weekday ritual of watching the Simpsons on Channel 10 when I heard the knock. I looked down to see the Rotting Man in the same black suit but with two other men accompanying him. They were holding shovels and umbrellas over themselves. The Rotting Man didn’t seem to care about the rain. All four men including my dad made their way to the hill behind our house.

I could just see them from the kitchen. They were just barely lit from the outdoor motion light that hung from the shed. Dad finally walked up and they began to dig. The two men that came with the Rotting Man did all the digging. They dug for what felt like hours. They got so deep that the motion detector light would occasionally go off until Dad waved his arms for it to turn back on. One of the men passed something to the Rotting Man. Dad, walked over to see what it was. I couldn’t quite make it out. The motion light went off. It was off longer this time. When the light turned back on, Dad was gone and the men were out of the hole filling it back in. The Rotting Man was squatting, counting a collection of what looked like bones on the ground with his talon-like finger.

I panicked, there was a body in our backyard. And surely they hadn’t just buried my dad in its place, not with us still here? Oh god, we were witnesses. There couldn't be any witnesses, meaning whatever he dug up, no one could know about.

The light went off again.

When it came back on the three men were gone. I ran to Mum who was in the living area watching her show. Before I could say anything there was a knock at the door. I pleaded with Mum, saying that something wasn’t right. I was watching them and Dad vanished.

“He’s probably fixing the shed light, I warned him. This whole place is falling apart.” She said.

She opened the door and the three men were there.

“I’m sorry to bother you Ms. But Daniel needs your help. The dog got out.” Said the Rotting Man.

“Oh crap, you stay here and I’ll be right back,” Mum said to me.

I tried to clutch onto her arm in a last attempt to keep her inside.

“I’ll be fine kiddo. Lock the doors and we’ll be back in 15.” She reassured me.

The door shut and I immediately locked the door. I ran all around the house and locked all the doors and windows and closed all the blinds.

I grabbed the home phone ready to call the police at 15 minutes exactly. The silence was maddening. My brain was bombarding me with thoughts of what was going to happen and even more horrid thoughts of what happened to Obi.

I peeked through the living room blinds. I could see a couple of flashlights walking through the trees ahead. They were moving further and further away. Before long, they were fully engulfed by the bush.

15 minutes passed. I pressed the first zero on the phone.

“Mum” I muttered in front of the door, somehow thinking my room tone voice was going to pierce the slab like wooden door.

I pressed the second zero.

“Dad!” I called, praying they were on the other side.

Just as I was about to press the third zero the doorknob began violently turning as someone was trying to come in.

“Let me us, it’s bloody freezing out here.” Dad cried.

Opening the door, both parents came in dripping from the rain.

“Sorry kiddo, Obi got out. He couldn’t have gotten far.” He said.

Mum put her hand on my shoulder and then brought me into a hug.

“Obi’s a smart little Puppy, he’ll have found some shelter out of the rain. Then when the rain stops we’ll go looking again.” She said.

I didn’t sleep a wink that night. I waited for the rain to stop all night. Looking out the window hoping I’d see Obi in the driveway. Each time forcing myself to look, feeling that the next time I did I’d see the Rotting Man staring back at me in the darkness.

The next morning, the rain finally cleared with the sun, parting the sky like some holy miracle. I felt like it was my first time seeing blue sky. I already had my boots on ready to find Obi. Just as my folks were ready to lock up there was a knock at the door.

It was the Rotting Man again. I almost didn’t recognise him. It wasn’t him being in broad daylight, It was his suit. It was clean and dry and he looked… healthy. In his arms was Obi, alive and well. He gently gave me my boy.

I was overwhelmed with joy, I didn’t want to let go of my best friend ever again. Mum, walked up from behind me.

“Oh hello again” she greeted the Rotting Man.

“I found him on the road as we were driving home. Forgive me if I didn’t want to drive back during the rain. I thought I’d wait until it cleared. I may have given him too many treats while we waited” he said.

I thanked him, as audibly as I could with my head buried in my dog’s fur.

“May I say goodbye to Obi?” The Rotting Man asked.

I held Obi towards him and the man gave him a gentle pat on the head, his palm the size of Obi’s head.

A warm smile drifted across his mouth. He thanked us one last time and left. Only I never saw his car this time. I thought he must lived close because waiting just at the edge of our property was a very fluffy border collie patiently waiting for him. It sprung to life with so much joyous energy, I thought they’d knock the man over. They both walked together from our driveway and finally into the bush.

Two weeks ago today, Obi passed away at the ripe old age of 13. He lived a great life and even with his arthritis in his later years, we still lived life to the fullest. But I finally thought of this story and asked Dad what the Rotting Man dug up.

“Bones, not human of course. Although, there was a moment I was ready to call the police. It was the bones of his childhood dog. He said he couldn’t bear to be away from her for so long. He was a bit of a fruit loop but his money helped us out a lot, actually paid for Obi’s surgery.”

I had Obi cremated. I thought how even though he’s no longer here, I know he’s still with me.

I don’t know why I’m writing this. Maybe if I say it out loud, it’ll make more sense. Maybe not.

This happened eleven days ago. My wife says we shouldn’t talk about it anymore, for Sam’s sake. She hasn’t stopped crying when she thinks I can’t hear her. But I need to tell someone. I need someone to tell me I’m not losing my mind.

We were driving back from a camping trip—me, my wife, and our two kids, Ellie (10) and Sam (6). It was late, later than it should’ve been. We’d misjudged the distance, and the kids were whining about being hungry. So when we saw a diner, one of those 24-hour places that look exactly like every other diner on earth, we pulled in.

There was hardly anyone inside. A waitress at the counter. An old guy in a booth near the back, staring out the window like he wasn’t really there. We picked a table by the door.

Ellie was the one who noticed it. She’s always been the observant one.

“Why is that man in our car?”

I was distracted, looking at the menu, and barely registered what she said. “What man?”

“In the car,” she said, like it was obvious. “He’s in my seat.”

I glanced out the window, at our car parked right in front of us. I didn’t see anyone.

“There’s no one there, Ellie,” I said.

She frowned. “Yes, there is. He’s in the back seat. He’s smiling at me.”

The way she said it—it wasn’t scared or playful. It was flat, matter-of-fact. My stomach knotted.

I turned to my wife. She gave me a look like, just humor her, but something about Ellie’s face stopped me from brushing it off.

“I’ll go check,” I said.

The car was locked. No sign of anyone inside. I looked through the windows, even opened the doors to check. Empty. I told myself she was just tired. Kids imagine things.

When I got back inside, the booth was empty.

My wife was standing, frantic, calling Ellie’s name. Sam was crying. I scanned the diner. The waitress looked confused, asking what was wrong. Ellie was gone.

We tore that place apart. The bathrooms, the parking lot, the kitchen. Nothing. My wife kept yelling at the waitress, asking if she saw anyone take Ellie. The waitress just shook her head, looking more and more panicked.

The police came and asked all the questions you’d expect. The cameras outside the diner didn’t work. They said they’d file a report, but I could see it in their eyes—they thought she’d wandered off.

She didn’t wander off.

I’ve been going back to the diner. I don’t tell my wife or Sam. I just sit there, staring out the window, holding Ellie’s shoe. Wondering what happened. Watching for the old man.

I can’t stop thinking about him—how he didn’t eat, didn’t talk, didn’t even look at us. Just sat there, staring out the window. I’m sure he had something to do with it, but I don’t know how.

The last time I went, I sat in my car afterward. I was so tired I must’ve dozed off, and when I woke up, I saw her. Ellie.

She was in the diner, sitting at the booth where the old man had been, smiling at me and waving. The old man was behind her, standing still as a statue.

I ran inside, but they were gone. Just gone.

I lost it. I started yelling, demanding answers from the waitress and the cook. I must’ve looked like a lunatic. When the cook tried to calm me down, I punched him.

The police came. I was arrested.

They let me go the next day, “on my own recognizance.” I was given a no-contact order for the diner.

And now I’m sitting here, terrified, holding a shoe and knowing I’ll never get answers. The police are sure she’s gone. Maybe kidnapped. Maybe dead.

But I can’t make myself believe that. I can’t stop seeing her face in the diner, smiling and waving.

If I ever saw her again, would I even be able to save her? Or would she vanish, just like before?

I don’t know what to believe anymore.

I don’t know what I expected when my wife invited her numerologist to our house. But I definitely didn’t expect that.

Her name was Linda, some woman my wife had been seeing for months, or so she’d told me. I thought it was just some harmless thing—she seemed to believe in all sorts of oddities, but I’d never paid it much attention. I had bigger things to worry about. But when Linda came over, she said something I’ll never forget.

I was in the kitchen, pacing, trying to get a grip. My wife had made me promise not to leave the house while the police did their investigation. My mind was spinning in circles, constantly replaying that damn shoe in the car. I barely noticed when Linda sat down at the kitchen table, her eyes locked on me with this unnerving intensity.

“It’s the Appalachian ley line,” she said out of nowhere.

I looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “What the hell are you talking about?”

She didn’t flinch. She just stared at me, like she knew I wouldn’t believe it, but was going to say it anyway.

“Your daughter, Ellie,” she continued, “has always had a connection to a place beyond this one. A liminal place. It’s not just a dream or some trick of the mind. She’s part of something older than you can understand. The Appalachian ley line. It’s ancient. And she’s the seventh hundred and sixtieth watcher.”

I couldn’t help it. I scoffed. “A watcher? What is this, some kind of role-playing game nonsense? You seriously expect me to believe this?”

She didn’t even blink. She was calm, almost too calm. “Ellie has assumed the role of the sole observer. She sees what no one else can. Her disappearance—it’s not a tragedy, not a crime. It’s a natural consequence of her ability to see what others cannot.”

I felt a cold knot of panic tighten in my stomach. What was she saying? I could barely keep my hands still.

“Listen to yourself,” I snapped. “This is a bunch of made-up garbage. I don’t care what kind of scam you’re running, but—”

Before I even realized what I was doing, I grabbed her by the arm and shoved her toward the door.

My wife jumped up, shouting at me to stop, trying to pull me back, but I couldn’t hear her. I was done. I was losing my mind, and all this nonsense—this ridiculous story about ley lines and watchers—was the breaking point.

I don’t know how it happened, but in the chaos, my elbow caught my wife in the face. She staggered backward, holding her cheek, eyes wide with shock.

The sound of her gasp snapped me out of it. I looked at her—her face, swollen already—and then I saw Linda staring at me, her eyes wide with a mix of fear and disgust.

I couldn’t breathe. I froze, realizing what I’d done.

That’s when the police showed up. My wife had already called them. I was arrested again, this time for aggravated second-degree assault—on Linda and on my wife. They took me to the station. My wife didn’t say a word. She wouldn’t look at me. I was left in a cell, feeling like the last shred of sanity I had left was slipping away.

I was released the next day—on my own recognizance. But the cops gave me a no-contact order for my wife and two counts of assault to deal with. I tried to go back home, but my wife was gone.

I ended up in a hotel room by myself. The place was cheap—just a room with cracked walls and a bed that didn’t even smell fresh. I had a shower and then tried to get some sleep. It was late. I’d gone to bed exhausted, my mind a mess. But I couldn’t sleep.

I got up, needing to clear my head, and went into the bathroom. The mirror was still fogged over from the shower, and I almost didn’t notice at first.

But when I looked again, I saw it.

I luv dad, ellie, 760

The letters were traced in the fog. It made my stomach drop. I stood there, staring at it, like I was in some kind of trance. It couldn’t be her. It couldn’t be. But the words—760—the same number Linda had mentioned.

I rushed back into the room, staring out the window at the road, at the diner. It was some distance away, down the flat, empty road. The place was deserted now, just like always.

But I couldn’t stop looking at it. I could feel the pull of that place—the diner, that spot, that connection I didn’t understand.

I feel like I’m losing my mind. I have to be.

I can’t explain the way I felt when I saw those words. It was like something inside me snapped. Ellie’s message wasn’t just a note—it was a sign. She’s there—but not in the way I want her to be. Not in the way I can understand.

This guy kept following me everywhere I went and it is creepy every turn I take he is right there it doesn't matter whatever turn he is there and when I got to my house he came up to me and I was like this is it im going to die I'm done and all he wanted to do was give back my wallet.

I never thought I'd be the kinda person to work a crazy graveyard shift at some gas station out in the middle of nowhere, but here I am, saying yes to Mr. Reilly like it’s just normal. “Yeah, no big deal,” I told him, “I can handle the late shift.” Back then, I’d get all shaky just thinkin’ about bein’ somewhere so quiet, alone with my own head. But now, it feels like the only peace I got.

Ain’t no customers past eleven, just the occasional trucker or someone lost who needs directions back to the highway. So, it's mostly just me, my homework, and my headphones. Got a little playlist goin’—old songs, stuff I saved back when I thought music was gonna be my thing. Little reminders of what I left behind. I keep the volume low enough to hear the bell on the door in case someone walks in, but it’s loud enough to drown out the creaks of the building.

Night shifts are quiet. Real quiet. Crazy quiet sometimes. Just me, sittin’ under the buzzing lights, eyes on my notes but feelin' like someone’s watchin’ me, even though I know they ain’t. The only visitors are the lights flickerin’ outside, or maybe the moths hittin’ the glass.

When the clock hit midnight, I let out a long breath, relief rushing in as I flipped the “Closed” sign and locked the door. Quiet night, nothing strange—just me, my textbooks, and a half-awake delivery truck driver who came in for a pack of cigarettes and two energy drinks, mumbling somethin’ crazy about a long haul ahead.

Outside, the bus was waitin’ at the stop, headlights dim like it’s tired, just sittin' there. I walked over, keys diggin' into my bag, and climbed on, hit with that usual smell—mildew, body odor, and old puke. It’s like that every time, the bus smell, mixed with cleaner that never really does the job.

The driver nodded when I sat in my usual seat by the window. The bus lurched forward, pulling away from the stop, and the world outside turned into streaks of dark trees and dim streetlights. Every now and then, the bus hit a bump, and I’d jerk in my seat, my headphones sliding off. But I kept the music low, just enough to fill the silence, watchin’ the world slip by in the dark, with that weird, crazy smell stickin’ to me the whole ride.

The bus felt heavy with quiet as I blinked myself awake, eyes slow to adjust to the dim lights. I looked out the window, expecting to see the usual blur of passing streets, but instead, there was just a big, cracked lot, all foggy. A sign barely showed in the mist—Park and Ride. No cars. No other buses. Just the fog, curling around weeds growing through the cracked concrete, and a couple of busted lampposts throwin’ weak lights that flickered in the gloom.

I pulled off my headphones and let them hang around my neck, the silence now thick as I heard every little sound. I called out, “Hello?” but my voice just bounced back at me, dead in the air.

I stood up, walking down the aisle, my steps too loud in the quiet, headin’ toward the driver’s seat. It was empty. His jacket was hangin' on the back like he’d just stepped away, but the doors were locked. My skin started crawlin’, like somethin’ wasn’t right.

I pulled out my phone, tried turning it on—blank screen. Dead. My stomach twisted, but I noticed a charger coiled by the driver’s seat. I plugged it in, thankful it fit, and a tiny red light blinked on. A bit of relief washed over me. It’d take a few minutes to power up, but at least it was somethin’.

I slumped into the driver’s seat, staring out at the fog, the shadows dancin’ around the lights as I waited. The minutes dragged on, the silence wrapping around me like the mist.

As I sat there, I started feelin' that loneliness creep in, mixing with the anxiety that’d gnaw'd at me since the second I stepped on this bus. My fingers drummed on the armrest, the tapping sound too loud in the silence, makin’ everything worse. I tried to focus on the faint glow of my phone charging, but my mind kept wanderin’ to the fog outside, wonderin’ what might be out there watchin’ me.

I stared at the red light flickering on my phone, willing it to hurry up. My stomach was tight, my mind all over the place. The phone finally powered up, and I wasted no time, dialing my brother. It rang and rang, but he didn’t pick up. I called again, my finger pressing the button harder, like that’d make him answer. Nothin’.

I sat there staring at the screen, feeling the quiet close in around me. I didn’t know who else to call. Maybe Mr. Reilly? But I didn’t want to bother him, especially this late. He’d probably tell me to suck it up and handle it myself. I thought about calling a cab, but that wasn’t gonna work. I had no money for that. No way to get out of here unless someone came for me.

I kept thinking the bus driver would come back any second. Maybe he just stepped off for a minute, right? But the minutes stretched on, one after another, dragging until I started feeling some kind of trapped feeling. I tried not to think about it. But every time I heard a sound, I looked up, expectin’ to see him walk through the door. And every time, it was nothing.

Then the lights flickered once. And again. Then, just like that, they went out. The whole bus was crazy dark, except for the dim glow from the charger, now barely visible. My breath hitched, and I shivered, pulling my jacket tighter around me. The air felt colder all of a sudden, like the temperature dropped ten degrees in a blink.

I glanced at my phone—1:00 AM. The silence was thick, pressing in from all sides. No driver. No lights. Just me, sitting in this cold, empty bus with nothing but my own thoughts.

I shook my head, trying to push away the creeping feeling that something wasn’t right. I thought about waiting longer. Maybe he was just messing with me, right? Maybe he was gonna come back, tell me it’s all fine, and we’d just go on like normal. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that the longer I stayed here, the worse it was gonna get.

I pulled my legs up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. The fog outside pressed up against the windows, like it was tryin’ to swallow the whole bus. I wanted to call someone. Anyone. But I didn’t know who. There was nobody else. Just me, the dead phone, and the fog.

The sound of something outside the bus made me sit up and look around out the windows. I couldn't see nothing until I saw this guy come running up alongside the bus. He looked like a homeless person, and his eyes were crazy scared, and I got scared.

I don't panic well, and I just sat there staring at him while he hit and kicked the door and yelled at me to let him in. Even if I wasn't too scared to move out the seat, or wanted to let him in, I didn't know how to unlock those doors and let him in. They open automatically when the bus isn't moving, and I had no idea how to turn on the bus or open the doors.

He was out there jumpin' around acting all crazy when he suddenly stopped and looked at something emerging from the fog. His back was to me, and I couldn't see his face, but he was pushin' himself against the bus like he was trying to fade through the door to the safety inside, or something.

I followed the direction he was looking, and at first, it was just this blurry shape, like a big white trashbag rolling along the ground or something. For about half a second, then I could see it too, and it is hard to remember. It was like something out of a horror movie, or something, it didn't look real to me. I could hear a loud shriek that wouldn't stop and realized I was screaming.

I covered my eyes, the vision of that thing crawling on all fours coming towards us on my eyelids. I could still see it, somehow clearer when I had my hands over my eyes. It was moving almost sideways, coming at him low on the ground. It was like a person, except with its arms too long and skinny and its legs bent all wrong, like it could only crawl along like that. The fog was a clean white color, and its skin was a sickly, almost gray color, and its face was just a weird-shaped head with no eyes or ears or nose or lips or hair, just this huge white football head and a huge mouth full of human teeth.

The man outside was screaming in pain and terror and I refused to look. The creature, the gray crawler, was biting him. I glanced a couple of times and only saw a blur of movement, and it scuttled all over him, biting chunks out of him. Then, after what seemed like an endless amount of violence and screaming, his flailing was striking the bus over and over in loud thumps - the guy collapsed to the ground, twitching. The creature let out a sound like a pinched version of a dinosaur roaring.

I had lowered my shaking hands from my face and somehow they had found my headphones and were playin' some of my music in my ears. I have no idea I did that, but as I watched I was hearing my music, and my trembling hands were checking my body for damage, feeling a chill from my own fingers.

Several more of the creatures arrived and they made weird deep throated gurgling and clicking noises at each other. I think they were talking to each other. They each grabbed one of his arms or legs and worked together to drag him away.

He started moaning in pain as they took him into the fog, and I sobbed and shook my head. It was so horrible, he was still alive as they took him away. I was crying as I sat there.

Just then my phone started ringing and I jumped up, letting out some kind of startled noise, almost like I was barking. I was so terrified I was ready to drop kick my own phone for scaring me.

"Emily you alright, baby?" It was my brother. He'd woke up and checked his missed calls from me.

"I'm at the park and ride. Some guy just got killed." My voice was high and whispery, and full of dread. He couldn't understand me, and I had to repeat myself over and over until he did.

"I'm coming to get you. I got your location. Stay where you are, and call the police." Zaire said. He had to hang up to use the locator app, but told me to call him while he was on the way if I need to.

"Just hurry." I told him. He told me he loved me and he would be there in about twenty minutes. It was a forty-minute drive, apparently, so I told him to drive safely.

I looked up and thought I saw movement outside and I got down between the seats and hid. After awhile, listening and terrified, my heartbeat audible in my ears, I looked up out the window, staring wide eyes out into the night and the fog out there.

Slowly lowering myself back down I got my phone and dialed 9-1-1. The operator asked me the bus number and I didn't know how to check that, so she directed me to the front of the bus, where a vehicle identification number would be too small to read. There, in the corner, there was a bus operation designation. I told her I was on bus eight-sixteen.

"Officers are on the way. Stay hidden." The operator told me. I thought she would stay on the phone with me, but we got disconnected somehow.

I looked and saw I really only had one bar of service. I've never seen that before. I don't know why I thought that was funny, it was just so weird that I felt like I was in a horror movie or something, with my phone barely working. I was still quite terrified, and my own laughter sounded crazy to me.

Zaire drove crazy fast and got there before the police. I saw the headlights of his Mustang and heard his car, low and wide. I called him and told him to be careful.

I could hear how crazy it sounded, but my fear was real, and he listened as I warned him about the creatures in the fog.

He drove around the bus, circling it, revving his engine and letting his brakes shriek, honking and making so much noise that even I felt a little intimidated by his display. He pulled up alongside the bus, facing towards the back so that the passenger side lined up with the door of the bus.

He opened the passenger door and I saw his eyes, the first real relief I felt. We were still on the phone and he told me to simply push on the middle of the bus door as hard as I could. "It will pop open, when you snap the emergency thing."

I pushed as hard as I could and it didn't budge. I braced myself and pushed with my legs and something did snap and the doors just swung open, dropping me butt-first onto the step in the bus. I got up and leapt into his waiting car and slammed the door.

"You smell like sweat." Zaire grinned weirdly, his eyes all crazy with adreneline.

"Punch it, Chewie." I said, my breath a little shaky.

We sped out of there and went home. As we left that place behind I got a call from 9-1-1 since we got disconnected. I told them I was with my brother and headed home and gave them my apartment number when they asked.

The next day, two police detectives came to our apartment. Zaire had let them in and came into my room and woke me up. "The cops want to talk to you. They sittin' on my couch."

"You're Emily Radiance, you called 9-1-1 from the North Creek Park And Ride this morning?"

"Yes. I saw a guy get killed. There were these..." I paused, realizing that if I told them what I saw, they were not going to believe me.

"Anthony Wink, the driver, is missing, and you said you saw someone killed. You can tell us what happened." The other cop said.

"I woke up and he was missing already. It was this other guy, like homeless guy. He was dirty and he had a beard. I saw this gray crawler kill him. There were three more and they dragged him away." I told them. They just sat and listened, not blinking. I remembered how he was still alive when they took him. I added, "He was still alive, when those things dragged him away."

I felt a tear across my cheek, recallin' the worst of it. For a long time, they just sat and looked at me, then one of them asked:

"Is there anything else?" He asked. I just shook my head. When I had nothing else for them, they reluctantly left our apartment.

I could tell I was their only lead, and I had barely helped at all. I felt guilty, like I should have known more, should have observed some crucial detail to help them find Anthony Wink. I reached for my headphones, hopin' to get some peace from the fresh awful memory. I got up and searched my room and then acquired my brother's car keys to go down to his car. I'd lost my headphones - and worse - all my playlists.

I sat on the steps to our apartment when suddenly a police forensics van showed up. Confused I looked up while two police got out and asked me if I was Emily Radiance, the one who had called from the park and ride. They showed me their detective badges and asked me all about last night.

"What? Why you got that look, sweetie?" One of them asked after they had asked me crazy questions.

"Two other cops were just here, in suits. They were in my apartment." I had a disbelieving smirk. The two police looked at each other and one of them gave me his card, with their office number on it.

"That is strange, we have no idea who came here, this is our case." He told me. "And one more thing." He opened the passenger door and took an evidence bag from the seat. It was my headphones, I must have dropped them when I fled the bus. He handed them to me and nodded, knowingly, as my eyes lit up.

"Thanks." I felt a wash of relief, holding my music. Somehow as they drove away I felt like that was when it was finally over, like somehow the terror had lingered into the next day, and only as the fog-of-fear cleared was I finally safe.

In Obedient Grove, silence isn’t just the lack of sound—it’s a way of life, a kind of ritual, almost. It lingers in the air, in the way our neighbors nod rather than greet, in the steady tolling of the clock tower. Evelyn and I, we’ve grown accustomed to it. After all, in a place like this, silence can be comforting. Or, at least, that’s what I’ve always thought.

These days, our quiet is occasionally softened by the sound of Timmy’s laughter, and, if I close my eyes, I can almost pretend everything is as it was. He doesn’t understand, not fully. To him, this is just a visit to Grandma and Grandpa’s, a long one, perhaps, but temporary. He talks about his mother and father as if they’re right down the road, as if any day now they’ll walk through the door. Evelyn and I haven’t found the strength to correct him, to tell him that he’s here with us for good. Instead, we let him keep his illusions, because a part of me wishes I could still believe it myself.

In the morning, I watched Evelyn braid his hair into cornrows, her hands moving carefully. I think about it now, of Evelyn smiling as she sends him off to school with a sandwich and a small treat, watching him skip down the driveway. I know she worries, lingering at the door until he’s out of sight, fearing that, like his parents, he might simply disappear if we don’t watch him close enough. Each night, I read him the same stories we used to read to our daughter, and he falls asleep with his little hand tucked into mine. He’s the last bit of her we have, and I don’t think either of us would survive losing him, too.

The whole town seems to sense it, our need for this fragile new normal. The neighbors nod from their porches but rarely speak, lawns are pristine, and at night, the streetlamps all flicker on in perfect unison, a soft, reliable glow against the dark. Obedient Grove cocoons us, as if trying to keep us safe in its quiet embrace.

There’s a peculiar stillness to this place, something deeper than grief, something unspoken. It presses in, as though the town is watching us, biding its time.

That first night was the first time in a long while that I felt uneasy in my own home. It’s difficult to explain; it sounds almost foolish as I write it down, but the silence here, the stillness—it was different. There was a weight to it, a quiet that pressed down like a presence, as if something else had settled into the house with us.

It started small, just faint noises—a creak on the stairs, the thud of something dropping in the attic, footsteps. Old houses have a way of making their own sounds, so Evelyn and I brushed it off as our imaginations running wild. Still, when I checked on Timmy, I found myself hesitating by his door, lingering just long enough to hear the soft, steady sound of his breathing. He was fast asleep, oblivious to the unease seeping through the walls.

But the noises didn’t stop. At one point, I could’ve sworn I heard someone—or something—whispering from the corner of the room, but when I looked, it was only shadows flickering, shifting along the wallpaper. Just a trick of the light, I told myself. But I knew that wasn’t quite true. Evelyn felt it too. I saw it in the way her hands trembled slightly as she closed the curtains, how her eyes darted to the shadows that gathered just beyond the lamplight.

We tried to sleep, to put it out of our minds, but the house refused to let us rest. There were noises—an almost rhythmic tapping along the walls, faint but insistent, and a skittering sound, as though something was crawling through the walls themselves. I remember holding my breath, straining to make sense of the sounds, my heart thudding in my chest. I don’t remember feeling this way since the accident—this feeling of something terrible hovering just out of sight, waiting.

Then came the shadows. They seemed to pool in the corners, darkening the spaces between furniture, thickening under the bed. At first, I thought it was just the play of headlights from the street, but the shapes lingered, stretching along the walls and ceiling in ways I can’t explain. And just before dawn, I thought I saw a figure standing in the doorway of Timmy’s room.

When I gathered the courage to look again, there was nothing there.

It was only then, as I lay back down beside Evelyn, that I realized I’d been gripping her hand all along, and that I’d been praying, over and over, that it was only the house settling, that the quiet would return to its familiar, peaceful hum.

But this morning, when Timmy asked why someone was whispering his name during the night, I could feel the truth beginning to creep in: we aren’t alone. Something has shifted, and whatever it is, it’s come to Obedient Grove to make itself known.

The silence in Obedient Grove has always been a comfort to me, a stillness that held the world steady and predictable. But lately, I wonder if it’s something else entirely, something alive, that stirs within the quiet. A force that thrives in the spaces where words go unspoken and thoughts remain nascent. As strange as it sounds, it’s as though the very hush of this town draws out what’s hidden, giving shape to things that should never take form.

It began with Timmy’s sketches. He’s always been fond of drawing—a happy distraction, I’d thought, a way to keep his mind on brighter things. But his drawings have changed. Where once there were smiling stick figures and animals, there are now twisted shapes, creatures that don’t belong in any storybook. Long limbs, eyes that bulge in impossible places, mouths that curl into jagged grins. Evelyn and I exchanged uneasy glances when we saw them, dismissing it as a phase, perhaps, or an outlet for the confusion he must be feeling. But it didn’t stop there.

The first real sign came a few nights ago. Timmy was fast asleep when I heard the patter of footsteps in the hall. Thinking he’d woken up, I went to check, but found only his toys scattered across the floor. They hadn’t been there when we tucked him in. As I reached down to pick them up, one of them—a wooden horse on wheels—let out a faint creak, as if it had moved by itself. I told myself it was my imagination, but the dread lingered, a chill that seemed to seep into the walls

Evelyn and I were sitting in the living room, exhausted and the house was finally still, or so we thought. A faint shuffle behind us broke the silence, something soft and scratchy—just the sound you’d make if you dragged a piece of chalk across the wall in slow, jagged strokes.

I turned, and in that sliver of dim light from the hallway, I saw it. The thing was barely there, a shape that wavered and shifted, like a child’s frantic drawing, come to life and slipping between worlds. It looked like something Timmy had scrawled in crayon on paper, then smudged over in wild streaks—a chimera, but incomplete, sketched in blurry lines that couldn’t hold still. A strange smear of limbs and eyes that almost formed a face but melted away when I tried to focus. It didn’t walk, didn’t crawl, just seemed to blur in and out, as if it were trying to find itself and failing.

It was there, and then it wasn’t. When I blinked, the shape shifted, slipped backward, and vanished. But there was a sickly residue left in my mind, like staring too long at something bright and having the shape burned into your vision.

Neither of us said a word. Evelyn’s hand was cold in mine, her grip unsteady, and I knew she’d seen it too. We couldn’t find words to fill the silence, so we sat there, each of us holding our breath, watching the shadows for any sign that it might reappear. I felt my heart pounding in my ears, the quiet pressing in again, as if the house had sealed itself over that strange, fragile thing.

Hours later, we climbed into bed, but sleep refused to come. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering if it would slip back into our room while we slept, if it had always been lurking just beyond our sight, waiting.

Morning arrived, but it felt like the earth had tilted slightly, leaving everything off-kilter. The sunlight poured through the windows, but it didn’t warm the room; it only made the shadows sharper, more oppressive, as if they were stretching longer just to remind us of their presence. I watched Timmy sitting at the breakfast table, still as stone, staring blankly at his untouched plate. His hands were curled into fists at his sides, and his eyes—his eyes were distant, hollow, as if he wasn’t really here with us at all.

Evelyn and I didn’t speak. We couldn’t. The silence between us had grown thick, a presence in itself. The kind of silence that makes your skin crawl, the kind that makes you feel like you’re suffocating on your own breath. The house was so still I could hear my pulse in my ears.

I watched Timmy, my heart hammering in my chest, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask him what was wrong. His stare was empty, unfocused, as if he were seeing something we couldn’t. The air in the room was so dense, so heavy with something unseen, that I couldn’t move. I couldn’t look away.

Evelyn’s hands were trembling in her lap, wringing together like she was trying to hold onto something, trying to stop herself from breaking apart. I could see the same panic rising in her eyes—the kind of panic that comes from knowing something terrible is happening, but not knowing what or when it will strike. Her gaze kept flicking to the shadows in the corners of the room, as if expecting them to move, to shift into something more solid, something...alive.

I couldn’t look away from Timmy, and he couldn’t look away from whatever it was that he saw. The silence stretched on, longer than it ever should have, choking us, suffocating us. No words were spoken, not a sound—just the sound of our breaths, too loud in the oppressive quiet. I wanted to scream, to break the silence, but I couldn’t. It felt like the very air would tear if I did.

Timmy didn’t blink. He didn’t move. His hands were still clenched, and he just kept staring at that breakfast plate like it was the most important thing in the world. I wanted to shake him, to make him snap out of whatever this was, but I couldn’t bring myself to touch him. I was terrified that the moment I did, whatever we were avoiding—whatever we were waiting for—would rush back in, filling the room like smoke, like shadows, like something we couldn’t control.

The quiet wasn’t just the absence of noise. It was something more—something alive, suffocating, pressing against us from every side. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, but I knew it was here, in the house, in the air. The same thing that had haunted us the night before, that had flickered in and out of existence like a smear of ink—now it was everywhere. I felt it creeping up behind me, in the corners of my eyes, where the shadows wouldn’t stop stretching.

Timmy finally blinked. But he didn’t move.

We didn’t move.

The house didn’t move.

And the silence...the silence just kept pressing in, tighter and tighter.

I had to get out of there, and left Timmy and Evelyn to go to the library. I've always got my answers from books. I have an uncanny knack for research and locating information. I had to do something, to find a way through the silence. It was strange that I felt like I was somewhere I didn't want to be, as though the threshold to knowledge were a cold and evil stone slab I had to step over.

I don't know how long I spent in the library—time blurred into something unrecognizable, a tangled mess of hours or perhaps days. The cold stone of the building seemed to press in on me, heavy and oppressive, as if the very walls were conspiring to keep me trapped. I had no idea what I was searching for, but I knew I had to find something—anything—that could explain what had been happening to Timmy. There had to be an answer hidden in the town's forgotten past, some piece of history that could tell me how to protect him.

And then I found it. A single, obscure folktale, buried in a crumbling old book, tucked between forgotten volumes. It wasn’t much—just a few tattered pages, barely legible—but it was enough. The story, something from the earliest days of Obedient Grove, told of a creature, a thing born from a child’s imagination. It had no true form, just a blur of shifting shapes, twisting shadows—like something sketched quickly with crayon, but alive. And it had been summoned by the innocent mind of a child.

The creature, too pure at first, had grown twisted, fed by fear, until it had become a terror that gripped the town for years. The child’s grandparents, it seemed, had been the ones to defeat it. They had used something—an artifact, a weapon of light, something the town’s history had nearly erased. These artifacts, the Fulgence Illumum, were the key. The light they wielded was the only force that could push the creature back, banishing it into the darkness, but at a cost.

The cost was unthinkable.

Using the Fulgence Illumum, the tale warned, would destroy the child’s imagination—erase it. The very thing that had brought the creature into existence would be destroyed, and with it, the child’s innocence, the very soul of childhood. I read those words, feeling them sink into me like vomit, heavy and suffocating.

But what could I do? The creature was here, in our home, in Timmy’s mind. I saw it every time he stared into space, every time he shuddered and looked over his shoulder. I couldn’t let it consume him. But the price...

I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t stop myself.

That’s when I overheard something. One of the librarians, a woman with an unsettlingly quiet voice, had mentioned the library’s restricted cellar. It was off-limits to the public, but there were rumors about what might be kept down there. Strange things. I hadn’t thought much of it until then. But now, in that moment of desperation, I knew where I had to go.

The library had emptied by the time I slipped down the hall, moving quietly through the back corridors, my breath catching in my throat. The air grew damp and cold as I descended the narrow stairs to the cellar, the stone walls pressing in on me as if they wanted to swallow my soul. It was darker than I’d expected, the kind of darkness that makes you feel like the shadows hide something, watching. Shelves lined with dust-covered crates filled the space, each one feeling more ancient than the last.

And then, I found it. A chest, sitting alone in the corner, its wood old and warped with age, covered in strange markings, too faded to decipher. Something in me knew. I felt it in my gut. This was it. This was what I had been searching for.

Inside the chest, the Fulgence Illumum lay waiting. Three objects, gleaming faintly even in the darkness: a lantern, its glass glowing from within as if it contained its own heartbeat; a pair of gloves, thin and delicate, woven from a silver thread that caught the faintest light; and a crystal orb, so clear it seemed to absorb the very air around it, casting a thousand tiny, fractured reflections on the walls.

I didn’t need to ask what they were. I knew, somehow. These were the very objects that had been used to banish the creature long ago. The light they held was the only thing that could stop it now. But there was no forgetting the cost. The child’s imagination would burn away. Timmy’s innocence would be gone forever.

I hesitated, standing there in the dark, the artifacts heavy in my hands. The price... the cost was unbearable, but what choice did I have? Timmy couldn’t go on like this, trapped in his own fear. I couldn’t stand to watch him slip further away, lost in that terrible thing that lurked in his mind.

I took the artifacts. My heart raced, my hands trembling as I slipped them into my coat, burying them close to my chest. I didn’t look back as I ascended the stairs, barely breathing as I passed the empty halls, out into the crisp night air.

The weight of what we faced pressed down on us, heavier than anything I’d ever carried. Evelyn and I hadn’t spoken much since I returned from the library, the silence between us thick with the weight of what we were about to do. I could feel it in her eyes—what I felt, too. The fear wasn’t the same as before; it wasn’t just the creature anymore. It had become about Timmy, and the uncertainty of what we had to sacrifice. What would it cost us to protect him?

When Claire and her husband... when they were taken from us, everything changed. The world became a quiet, desolate place. It’s hard to describe, that kind of loss. It’s not like any grief I’ve known, where you can say goodbye, where there’s a sense of closure. No, this was different. It was the suddenness of it that cuts the deepest. One day they were here, full of life, and the next, it felt like they’d never existed. That kind of absence, that void, it doesn’t fill up easily.

And now, in the quiet of this house that used to echo with Claire’s voice, there’s only stillness. The walls are heavy with it, and every corner feels empty. That’s when Timmy came. He wasn’t a replacement for Claire, and I knew he never could be. But he’s a piece of her, a part of this family, and we hoped—maybe foolishly—that his presence could fill just a little bit of the space she left behind. But I don’t think Timmy understands. He still thinks this is just a visit. That one day, everything will go back to the way it was. He doesn’t know that his parents aren’t coming back.

And that breaks my heart. He’s so young, and he’s so lost in all of this. He deserves to know the world isn’t a dark and broken place, that there’s safety and love. But sometimes, I see it in his eyes—the same confusion, the same fear I feel. I wonder if he senses it too. The emptiness, the loss, the way everything’s changed so suddenly, and so completely.

Every time I look at him, I think of Claire. I think of how she would’ve known what to say, how she would’ve made everything feel okay. But she’s not here. And now there’s something else—a creature, a thing born from Timmy’s imagination, his fears, and this quiet town that seems to hold everything in place, like it’s waiting for something to break. It’s feeding on him, growing stronger every day. It’s like watching him slip away, little by little, into something else. Something darker.

I wish I knew what Claire would have done. What she would have said. Maybe she would’ve known how to stop this—how to keep Timmy from fading into something I couldn’t reach. But she’s gone, and I’m left with this fear, this horror, and I don’t know how to fix it.

The Fulgence Illumum—these artifacts I found, these light-based objects that can burn away the creature—might be the only hope we have. But there’s a price to using them, a terrible price. If we destroy the creature, we destroy Timmy’s imagination, his innocence. I know it will break him. And I don’t know if I can do that.

But I can’t let him become what this creature wants. Not after all that’s already taken from us. I can’t lose him too.

So we move forward. The ache of Claire’s absence is still fresh, still raw in ways I didn’t expect. Timmy’s only just moved in, but already, it feels like he’s been here forever. And yet, every day, I feel like we’re walking on the edge of something we can’t quite see, waiting for it to take us. We can’t protect Timmy from everything—he’s already lost so much—but I have to try. I can’t let this thing steal him, too. I can’t let him become like this house: empty, quiet, forgotten.

For Claire’s sake, for Timmy’s, we have to face what comes next. Whatever it costs us, we can’t let him slip away into the dark. Not like she did. Not again.

It all happened so fast, too fast—one second, we were standing there, the light flickering in our hands, trying to hold it together, and the next, the creature was everywhere. God, I can’t even make sense of it, everything a blur—its body stretching, twisting, growing. It didn’t make sense. The walls groaned like they were alive, creaking, cracking, and suddenly the air felt wrong, as if the house itself was being torn apart from the inside.

The windows—they exploded outward, and I couldn’t hear myself scream over the shriek that tore through the walls. It wasn’t just screams—it was everything—growls, screeches, tearing metal, cracking bones, all crashing together, a roar that rattled my bones, shook the very ground beneath us.

We had to run. We didn’t even think. We just—ran.

Evelyn grabbed my arm, pulling me toward the door. Timmy was right behind us, his hand clutching mine, and we were stumbling, tripping over our feet, every step leading us farther from that thing inside. The floor beneath us groaned, buckling, the house itself seemed to be caving in, bending and shifting in ways I couldn’t understand. There was no time to think, just run—run, get out—and we did, through the door, into the air that felt cold, wrong, like it had been poisoned by whatever the hell was inside.

And then—then—it came. The house… broke. The limbs of it reached, stretching out from the windows, from the cracks in the walls, like they were made of nothing but air and shadow, barely there, flickering like some half-formed nightmare. It was too much, too fast, too much to even take in—everything splintered and cracked and flew outward, shards of wood, glass, the very walls breaking apart, exploding into the air, the wind screaming with the sound of it.

We were running. We didn’t even look back.

The air was full of glass, of splinters, like they were cutting through the world, raining down around us. We didn’t stop. I couldn’t—we couldn’t—look back.

But then, for a second, I did.

The house… it wasn’t a house anymore. It was just pieces, fragments, everything falling apart, bending, warping like it wasn’t meant to be real. The thing—whatever it was—was still there, still growing, limbs flailing, stretching outward, impossibly large, and the noise… God, the noise, it was like everything was screaming at once.

And then it exploded.

No, it wasn’t like fire—it was like the world itself cracked open, every bit of it pulled apart and shredded in an instant. The walls, the windows, the floor—everything—ripped away, flying outward, and I thought I was going to be torn apart with it. I was holding on to Timmy, holding on to Evelyn, and we ran, ran, just trying to get away from the destruction, the chaos, the terror. But there was no escaping it. It was all around us, too close, too fast.

And then—it stopped.

The house was gone. The wreckage of it was all that was left. We stood there, breathing heavily, too terrified to speak. My legs were shaking, my chest was tight, and I couldn’t even—couldn’t even think—I just stared at the pile of rubble. The thing—the creature—was gone. But we weren’t safe. Not yet.

Timmy was beside us, so we grabbed him into our embrace, alive, but changed, somehow, like he’d seen something no child should ever see. Evelyn clung to me, and I to her, and we all stood there, frozen, holding each other as the dust settled, as the echoes of the nightmare slowly faded away.

But that silence—it was heavier than anything else. And the fear, it was still there. In the back of my mind, gnawing at the edges of my thoughts, I could feel it.

The nightmare wasn’t over. It couldn’t be.

...

Now, I’m sitting here, writing this in the big city. There’s noise here, all the time. Sirens, honking cars, the constant murmur of the crowd. But it doesn’t bother us anymore. The noise is normal. We’ve learned to drown it out, to let it become part of the rhythm of our life. It’s like we’ve lived here forever, and somehow… that night, that house—it already feels like a dream.

Timmy is different now. He’s still Timmy, but there’s something softer about him. Something older, too. The other day, he showed me a drawing he’d made—a picture of his mom and dad going to heaven. There were clouds, stars, and a golden light surrounding them. I don’t know how long he’s been thinking about them that way, but he told me they were happy now. He said they were watching over us. He said it with this quiet certainty, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

And for the first time in a long time, I think he might be right. I don’t know how or when it happened, but he’s starting to heal. The scars from that night are still there, buried somewhere deep, but Timmy’s imagination is still alive, and it’s no longer a weapon. It’s his way of coming back to us, of understanding, of letting go.

It’s strange, though. Even now, I can’t help but remember the fear, the terror of what we had to do to protect him. The Fulgence Illumum, those damned artifacts—we took something from him that night. We didn’t just fight a creature. We fought against what makes him who he is. I can never forget the look on his face when he realized what had happened. But somehow, we’re all still here, still together, and in some ways, that’s all that matters.

We’re safe now. We’re whole. But I know that no matter how far we move from Obedient Grove, no matter how much the city’s noise drowns out everything else, I’ll never forget that silence—the quiet that swallowed us whole, that thing we fought, and the way our world shattered in an instant.

And I know, deep down, that we’ll never fully escape it. Not really. Not ever. But I’ll hold onto Timmy and Evelyn, and I’ll protect them for as long as I can. That’s all I can do. And maybe… just maybe… we’ll be alright.

Storytelling isn't something that I am good at, although my anthropology professor confidently stated that all humans are natural-born storytellers. I've always felt that such statements must be inherently incorrect. It would be like saying that all humans naturally love their mother and father. Ridiculous.

It is when we share an experience unique to our individual life that we suddenly become this great storyteller - and only because the audience says so, not because any particular story is objectively well told. As someone with a philosopher's degree in library science, I intimately know all the classics, and I can assure you that they are entirely overrated, except Elvira by Giuseppe Folliero de Luna - that book is actually objectively flawless. Everybody has read that book and agrees it is second only to the King James Bible in its contribution to bookshelves. I'm just kidding, I know you haven't read Elvira and you probably wouldn't appreciate it the same way I did. That's called 'subjectivity', because it is subject to my opinion, instead of the object obviously being of universal observation (objective).

Humans, we all agree, are especially mischievous. Telling each other stories is probably the most useful use of our language. Our stories are sometimes more important than the entire life of someone if the experience we relate could make the lives of everyone who hears it better. What is one wasted life compared to generations who know a moment of peace, as they are comforted and informed about the very nature of humanity?

Now what am I talking about, with all this? What does all this have to do with the deaths of several people, the horrors lurking in the darkness of a library and the traps - both those set by humans - and those set by them - the others - what? They chose the library, and specifically the one I was put in charge of. They were there to learn our stories, to take all that we say, to steal our knowledge.

I suppose by now, wherever they are, they've found what they were looking for. Answers to their questions. I'm not sure what we are to them: enemies, giants, creators - perhaps they have concluded they are actually smarter than we are. After all, long before they became intelligent, they were already outwitting us at every turn. Every non-Canadian effort to eradicate them from anywhere has always failed. And that was when they were still just animals.

It is hard to say exactly what they are now, or if there will be more of them. I hope not, for judging by their ruthless cunning and sadistic mind games, they would love to destroy all of humanity. A war between our species would not go well for us.

No, it is the only thing that lets me sleep at night, past the trauma of living in terror of them, to believe they were the only ones of their kind. Some kind of drug or virus or something must have changed them. Wherever they are now, I pray it is the providence of their isolation. No god meant for humanity to be threatened by such creatures, nor to pity them, for the cruelty of their survival.

I've spent the last year and a half at home with my son and my dog, just dealing with the events that led to the closure of an entire branch. There's the trauma of finding your friend and coworker frozen and stabbed maybe three hundred times after following the trail of blood through the breakroom like walking through the red mist of some kind of nightmare. Then there's the terror of being threatened by some unseen killer, something lurking in your library, some unseen eyes watching you, studying you and knowing what will frighten you into submission.

Desi's death was horrifying, and when we reopened I had new employees, as Theron and Arrow both quit after she was killed. I was somehow always alone back there, the new carpet in the breakroom somehow had her bloodstains, although only I could see it.

I'd be sitting there and get a scare when I'd hear her shrieking and I'd turn and look and see her flailing, as though on fire, being stabbed simultaneously all over her body by invisible attackers, like there were dozens of them and they were small and they were all over her. She clambered into the freezer and they'd leapt off of her, letting her escape. I'd had to unlatch the old door, as they had locked her in.

I'm not sure why Desi fled to the freezer and climbed in. She was being stabbed all over her body by her attackers, she'd panicked. It was some kind of panicked thought, and it had caused her death. The stab wounds, although numerous, were all very shallow and made with tiny blades. While she was covered in blood and in dire agony, they hadn't yet gotten any of her major arteries or organs. The wounds were too shallow and inaccurate to be fatal, and if she hadn't suffocated, she would have lived.

I hated them, knowing instinctively they were all around me, watching. I just knew, but there was nothing I could do with that thought. I had to keep my job and care for my son and pay my rent. I just didn't understand how dangerous they were, or what they were capable of.

Besides Desi's ghost frightening me and the paranoid feeling that something was watching me at all times in the library, I was able to do my job.

I'd do all sorts of research for patrons, looking up Charlotte Perkins Gillman for some budding horror novelist to read her essays about women's rights. Big intersection between horror stories and those who are marginalized or oppressed. Stories become a kind of empowerment, a kind of catharsis and realignment of who is actually important to society. The usual suspects for a story's hero don't fit into horror stories, which are more realistic than adventure stories, even if Horror often has fantastic elements - if they are terrifying and dangerous then they are plausible.

Life is dangerous - and scary. We all know that - except those of us who earn Darwin Awards or eat two lunches. I'm not afraid, are you? Just kidding.

I don't know why they suddenly attacked and killed Desi. It seems very desperate and sloppy, compared to what they did next. They also learned to be more efficient with their knives, after they became experts on human anatomy, learning where to make their cuts and stabs to do maximum damage. I know they studied because I found the book on the cart, still opened to the page, a book with illustrations on human anatomy. They didn't just look at the pictures, they operated at some high-school level of reading, I instinctively knew, finding they liked to read and if they couldn't get a book back on the shelf they'd just leave it for me on the cart.

Their modus operandi was to consult the Dewey Decimal System, since the network was turned off, and then go do their reading for the night. They'd push the lightweight library book cart empty to where their book was and clamber up the shelves, push it off onto the cart from above and read it on top the cart. If they could return the book to the shelf they would, otherwise if it was positioned to high up, they'd just leave it on the cart, sometimes where they had left the book open.

I was more than a little creeped out. We already had a new security system after Desi was murdered. I called the police maybe half a dozen times, suspecting that someone was in the library hiding somewhere.

Nobody on the security footage, just shadows and carts and books moving around in dark. I thought maybe it was Desi haunting us. I am terrified of ghosts and the encounters I'd had with her troubled spirit in the breakroom had already severely unnerved me. Except I had enough sense to notice there was something else among us.

I was reading Esther in the breakroom, facing towards the middle of the room and the window that faces our employee parking when they towed away Desi's car. Strange, that is the moment the tears started.

I'd always tease her about her bumper sticker "Wortcraft Not Warcraft" and somehow the little purple thing too small to read as it left was enough to shake me out of my denial that she was gone. Although I knew she was dead, some part of me expected this all to end and for things to go back to normal. No, things got much worse, and I had not yet experienced true and maddening horror.

Sashi ate both lunches in the new fridge we had, and neither of them were hers. I don't know if they were both poisoned, or if they had only targeted one of us. She got very sick very fast and was taken to the hospital. The doctors were able to treat her - figure out what the little killers had slipped in. I'm guessing a concentration of stolen medication, something tasteless like Advelin. The overdose nearly killed Sashi. I hate to say that although she lived, she lost the baby.

When it was just down to me and Marconi, I warned him something was going on. I was watching the security footage of the breakroom when the police arrived. They had questions for us, suspicious one of us had poisoned our coworker. I saw some disturbance in their eyes, those detectives, like they knew something I didn't, and weren't really considering us as suspects; they just wanted to snoop around. They were looking for something else, although I could see they weren't really sure what.

I wasn't sure, but I sure was scared, and I would have quit except I've always known some kind of fear at work. I had to keep working, I'm a single mother and I can't just be unemployed. I tried instead to weather the storm and tough it out.

I had enough saved up I could have quit and I should have, but being responsible and showing up to work even when you are scared are both habits that define me. I've got some kind of life path that says something like "always the first and the last to face danger" which is weirdly specific, I discovered, as I finished Desi' book on numerology. It was a different teacher, but she'd liked that kind of New Age stuff a lot, but I think hers was called Accostica, or something like that.

"I think we need to call some exterminators." Marconi had said. There was this weird silence after he said it, like we had a white noise whispering all around us that suddenly went silent and now they were listening to our conversation with total attention. I could see he had noticed the sensation too, as he shuddered and glanced around a little.

"For what?" I asked.

"It is this smell, I recognize it. I've lived in some bad places." Marconi said in an almost conspiratorial tone. I felt it too, like they were in the walls listening to us, and we best not provoke them.

"I'll call, anything else?" I asked him.

"I was wondering if you'd go out with me?" He asked, his voice breaking. I shook my head, and he was suddenly gone in a hot flash. It was the last I ever saw of him. While I was on the phone scheduling for pest control to come give us an appraisal, Marconi was alone in the bathroom.

I don't believe it was a suicide. I think they knocked him out somehow before they cut him. The police gave me a strange look.

Again, we were open just a few days later, except now I was alone. The phone was ringing, and Thorn Valley Gotcha asked if it was now a good time to come take a look, after the branch was closed for several days.

While I was waiting for them to arrive, I found the note. I was just going to share the note they left, scrawled in strangely pressed letters, describing their terms. I thought about giving it to the police, but only for a second. I was so terrified I just sat there trembling, holding the note they had left on my desk.

I did lose my mind, at the realization of what I was up against, and how much danger I was in. Terror took over and I was theirs. They owned me, and I became predictable and easy for them to deal with.

How I burned that note, my only evidence, is just a reaction I can point to show I was too frightened to do anything to try to stop them.

They had used such antiquated words, like Biblical words, to describe the horrors they would visit upon me if I didn't cooperate. They'd killed everyone else, and spared me, because they had concluded they needed me alive. They wanted something horrible from me, besides my complete unconditional surrender.

The note.

It said they had tried to kill Desi, but she had accidentally killed herself. Then they said that they had tried to kill me and Marconi, but Sashi had eaten both of our lunches for us. Then they said they had killed Marconi and made it look like a suicide. They wanted me to understand that each of these killings was more advanced and careful than the last and that mine would include my dog and also my son. They assured me that if Thorn Valley Gotcha learned where they lived, then I would learn they already knew where I lived.

"You will help us, and in exchange, you will be spared our wrath. You tried to call down the cloud of judgment, that Arafel, from exterminators. We shall forgive you when you send them back upon the road, turned at the door, without consignment. Then, tonight, the internet will be left on for us, the keys to the kingdom. You will create a user account for us so that we can log in. This is all we ask of you, and when you sleep beside your son, remember we can punish you at any time if you do not help us."

I was entirely horrified, and I was still sitting there, as though my feet were made of concrete and unable to stand up, my whole body shutting down like I was facing my worst death, and they had threatened my son.

At the door I did as I was told, and I sent Thorn Valley Gotcha away.

"You sure? You look really worried about something."

"All my employees were killed by vermin." I said, my voice sounding mocking and hollow. I didn't recognize my own words. They looked at me like I might be crazy, but I'd already made it clear we had no business together.

I did what I was told, I gave them what they wanted. That night I went home and packed our things, and we left for my sister's house. She was angry with me for all the craziness of leaving my job and my apartment, but she let us stay. I promised her the killer of my coworkers was after me and her nephew. It was a whole year and a half until she decided that wasn't good enough for us to stay any longer.

It's fine, I've had time to process all of this. I moved out here where she lives and got a job teaching at the school. I've got my own son in my class, which is outstandingly good for me, to keep an eye on him all day.

I still live in fear, feeling stalked and exiled. Perhaps that is why they let me live, in the end. Something about my life made them show mercy, like they wanted to be recognized, but not so that they would be threatened. No, this is some kind of Stockholm's I've got, feeling like they were anything but sinister evil.

They just made a bargain with me and when I kept my end, they seemingly kept theirs. I am not certain I am safe, though. I worry, what if I am a loose end? But I cannot live in fear like this. It is somehow like being dead anyway. My son: I see the toll it is taking on him.

No, we are free, and we must be free of fear to live freely. I cannot drink from the cup of terror, not one more sip, I cannot. I must defy them somehow; I must speak out and say what they did. I must tell the world the story.

The first time I heard it, I was just practicing. Just doing my usual thing—hand up, hand down, keeping my movements soft, careful, letting the sound drift out like silk. The theremin’s tone is so fragile, like a breath that could stop at any moment if you’re not gentle with it. That's what I loved about it, I think. It was just me and the air, and the tiny vibrations between us. No one to see, no one to judge.

I was alone in my practice spot, this clearing out in the trees. It was quiet, with sunlight slipping through the branches, turning the dust into tiny golden stars. The first notes floated up, high and thin, and I started to feel that warmth inside, the one that made me feel like maybe I was safe, even here in these woods, even with all the other campers wandering around.

But then—no, this sounds ridiculous I'd say—then I thought I heard something. Just… a whisper, faint and shivering, almost like it was hiding behind the music.

I lowered my hand, the note slipping away, and listened. Nothing but the wind stirring through the pines, and yet I felt something…not so much watching as listening. I took a deep breath, told myself to shake it off. Still, I kept glancing over my shoulder the whole way back to camp.

That night, I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, my nerves buzzing. I couldn’t stop thinking about the whisper, replaying it in my mind even though it was just a sound, barely even there. I’d convinced myself it was all in my head until Sam leaned over her bunk and asked, “You heard it, didn’t you?”

I turned, and she was looking at me with this weird little smile, like she knew exactly what I’d been thinking about. “Heard what?” I mumbled.

“The Weaver.” Her voice was just a whisper. “Everyone knows about it. The Weaver’s… a thing that lives in the forest, a kind of creature, or maybe a spirit, no one knows for sure. It’s supposed to prey on people like us—on musicians. Especially musicians with… well, you know. Secrets.”

She didn’t know about my secrets, of course, but I felt a chill slip over me anyway. “What… what does it do?”

She leaned in closer, her eyes wide. “It can take on any shape, any form, anything you’re afraid of. And if it finds you, if it latches onto you… it starts to play you. Your fears, your thoughts, your music. It turns it all into its song, and you can’t do anything but listen as it twists you into… whatever it wants.” She sat back, smirking, like it was just another campfire story.

But I didn’t sleep that night. The idea of something that could twist my music, make it into something I’d never choose, something that wasn’t me—I hated it. And worse, I couldn’t help feeling like Sam had been right, like the Weaver had already noticed me. Like it had already begun.

The next day, everything felt… wrong. The sunlight was too bright, the forest too still. My theremin, normally my only source of comfort, felt heavy in my hands, and my music… my music didn’t sound like mine anymore. Each note came out different than I wanted, the sounds drifting into strange, unsettling tones, like they were being stretched and pulled by something invisible. And the whispers—they were back, too, sliding between the notes, too faint for anyone else to hear.

I told myself it was just nerves, just my stupid imagination. But then I heard it: my name.

Amelia.

My blood ran cold. The voice was soft, distant, like it had been carried on the wind, but I knew it was real. I knew it was calling me.

That night, I lay in bed, too scared to close my eyes. But the whispers came anyway, slipping into my thoughts like they’d waited for me. And then, faintly, I heard my theremin. A single note, low and eerie, drifting through the cabin like a dark lullaby. My heart pounded, and I squeezed my eyes shut, but the music grew louder, twisting itself into something awful, something wrong.

It was my music, but it wasn’t. The notes coiled and warped, bending into a melody I’d never played. A horrible, hollow feeling washed over me, as though the Weaver was reaching inside, taking my hands, making me play its song. I tried to move, to scream, but my body wouldn’t obey.

It was as if I’d become an instrument myself.

The Weaver’s instrument.

And as the music wrapped around me, filling me with dread, I felt myself slipping, like I was being pulled into the sound, becoming part of it, disappearing into its song.

I thought maybe it was just me. The whispers, the eerie twists in my music, that creeping feeling of something watching. But by the third day, it was clear I wasn’t the only one. Strange things were happening all around camp, things no one could explain.

First, there was Ethan, the cellist, normally so calm and unflappable. He’d been fine that morning, practicing in the open field by the lake. But when he came back to the cabin after lunch, he looked pale, his hands shaking as he set down his cello. He tried to play through it, but his fingers stumbled, scratching out sour notes, as if something in his music had gone wrong. Later, I heard him mumbling to himself in the cabin, words I couldn’t make out, like he was arguing with someone who wasn’t there.

Then, one of the flute players, Sarah, had a breakdown during a rehearsal. She’d played fine—beautifully, even—but suddenly she just stopped, her eyes wide and unfocused, clutching her flute like it was the only thing keeping her safe. She claimed she’d seen someone in the woods watching her, someone that looked exactly like her, only with hollow, empty eyes. By the time the counselors reached her, she was sobbing, completely inconsolable.

The Weaver had started weaving its web.

I tried not to think about Sam’s story, the one about the Weaver preying on musicians with 'secrets'. But the more I saw, the harder it became to ignore. It was like the whole camp had fallen under a spell. Each day, someone else would drift off, or stumble back from their practice spot looking dazed, hollow, like they’d left something behind in the woods that they couldn’t get back.

And at night, the whispers grew louder.

Every time I closed my eyes, I heard it—the faint, taunting hum of my theremin. Notes I didn’t remember playing echoed in my mind, low and twisted, wrapping around my thoughts like spider silk. My dreams were filled with shadows, each one tugging at my hands, pulling at my voice, trapping me in endless, dark corridors filled with music I didn’t recognize as my own.

By the fifth day, I couldn’t even bring myself to practice. I stayed in my cabin, but even there, I could feel the Weaver’s presence. It had found its way into our minds, spinning webs made of our fears and memories, as though each of us were an instrument for it to pluck and pull.

There was that night, Sam woke up screaming, gasping for breath like she’d been drowning. “It… it was here,” she whispered, her face ashen. “I saw it. It took my face, Amelia. It looked just like me.”

None of us could sleep after that.

Later that night, I found Sam sitting by herself near the fire pit, her face pale and drawn. She hadn’t spoken much about the whispers, but I could see the strain in her eyes, the way she avoided making eye contact with anyone.

I sat next to her, uncertain of what to say, but something in me pushed past the fear. “Sam?” I asked softly. “You don’t have to hide it, you know. I’m… I’m scared too.”

Her eyes flickered up at me, and I saw something raw there—a vulnerability, like she had been carrying it all alone. “I didn’t want to tell anyone,” she whispered, voice cracking. “I thought if I did, it would just make it worse. But… I hear the music, Amelia. I hear it, and I feel like I’m losing myself. Like I’m becoming a part of it.”

I felt my heart ache for her. I understood that fear more than she knew. That fear of being consumed by something you couldn’t control, something that played with your mind until you couldn’t tell what was real anymore. I put a hand on her shoulder, my own voice trembling. “You’re not alone, Sam. We can face it together. All of us.”

Over the next few days, I saw the same fear in the faces of other campers, the quiet ones who kept to themselves. Slowly, they began to open up. And each time they did, I realized how much I had in common with them—the same vulnerability, the same fear, the same dread of being controlled, manipulated by something we couldn’t understand.

Together, we started talking more, sharing our experiences. Some of the others had heard the music, too. Some had felt the shadows closing in. One girl, Eliza, spoke about the feeling of being watched while playing her flute, and how every note felt like it was being pulled out of her, twisted in the air before it could reach its proper pitch. Another camper, Marcus, said he’d seen the shadows follow him, the way they slipped behind trees, always lurking just out of sight.

I listened, I absorbed, and for the first time since arriving, I felt a flicker of strength deep inside me. These were my people. We weren’t alone in this. There was something in the way they shared their fears that made them all seem less like victims, and more like fighters. And I knew that I had to do everything in my power to help them fight back against The Weaver.

When I finally spoke, my voice was steadier than I’d expected. “The Weaver, it’s controlling us, manipulating us. But it only has power because we’re afraid. We have to face it, together. We can’t let it win.”

The group rallied around me, and I saw a spark of hope in their eyes. My sensitivity, the very thing I had always viewed as a weakness, had become a bridge—connecting me to them, and them to each other. It wasn’t just fear we were sharing. It was strength. It was understanding. We were all in this fight together.

Then that moment sorta leaked away, and the reality of our daily nightmare rolled in. Where I'd felt strong and supported I suddenly felt alone and weak. Maybe this was just because I felt like I was reliving the helpless silence that I had suffered through when I was younger, my secret, or maybe it was the Weaver exploiting those feelings of helplessness. It felt like some kind of trap either way.

We were trapped, like flies caught in a web, held by invisible threads that tugged at us in the dead of night. The Weaver didn’t just watch us—it played us, each of us caught in its dark, twisted melody. And the more it pulled, the emptier we felt, as though something inside us was slipping away, being stolen note by note.

At one point I actually tried to tell myself I was imagining it, that it was just a story, but deep down, I knew the truth. The Weaver was no myth. It was real. And it was here, lurking in the shadows, taking pieces of each of us until there would be nothing left but silence.

I was shaking when I walked into the big counselor’s office. Everything in me wanted to turn back, to go back to the cabin and pretend that none of this was happening. But the silence—the way nobody would talk to the adults about the strange things happening around camp—reminded me too much of before. Of the times things had happened, and everyone had just… kept quiet about it.

The counselor looked up, a little surprised to see me. “Amelia? What’s going on?” Her voice was calm, but I saw her eyes narrow a bit as I started to explain.

“It’s just that…” I hesitated, forcing myself to keep talking. “I keep hearing weird music. Not mine. It… it comes from somewhere else. And there are shadows that move when no one’s there. I feel like… like something’s watching us.”

She studied me, and for a brief second, I thought she might believe me. But her expression shifted, her brows knitting together like I was saying something embarrassing. “That’s… quite an imagination you have, Amelia. Why don’t we call your aunt? Maybe she’d like to come pick you up.”

“No! I’m not making this up!” My voice came out louder than I’d meant, and the surprise in her eyes twisted into something closer to pity. The look that told me she thought I was just a troubled kid, a problem to be solved by sending me home.

My stomach turned in knots. She didn’t believe me. Nobody ever did.

The big counselor went to the front of camp's office, to use the phone there, with her back to me. She was already dialing my aunt’s number, speaking in that soft, careful tone people use when they think you’re just overreacting. I could practically feel the walls closing in around me, the way they had before, the same way they did whenever people refused to see what was right in front of them.

"It's going to be okay, Amelia. This happens to a lot of new campers. It's her option to come get you if you're having a problem."

Desperation clawed up my spine, and as her voice droned on into the phone, my eyes wandered to the bookshelf. That’s when I saw it—a small, leather-bound journal with “Camp Black Hollow – 1963” written on the cover. Something about it made my heart skip. Sam had mentioned a journal she’d seen once in the counselor’s office, one that held old, forgotten stories about the camp. Stories she’d overheard the counselor say shouldn’t be read by 'impressionable kids'.

Before I could second-guess myself, I slid over to the shelf, slipped the journal out, and tucked it under my sweater. I took a deep breath, steeling myself, and in one quick movement, I climbed out the open window and darted away from the office, my heart racing as I ran back to my cabin.

Inside, the world felt quiet again, but I couldn’t shake the pounding in my chest. I held the journal close, feeling its rough edges press into my hands. I could just leave. I could run from this, let my aunt come and pick me up, leave the other campers to… whatever this was.

But I knew what happened when I ignored the things that frightened me. I knew how silence and ignorance could allow an atrocity continue. I couldn’t leave Sam and the others alone with whatever was out there. Not if I could do something—anything—to stop it.

Hands trembling, I opened the journal. The pages were filled with spidery, slanted handwriting. My breath caught as I read the first few entries, which described strange dreams and music that echoed in the dark, voices that whispered in the trees. The final pages were even more frantic, describing a creature called the Weaver, a thing that preyed on musicians, wrapping its threads around their minds until they became something twisted, something broken.

August 10th. There’s a talisman in the woods, hidden at the edge of the lake. They say it can repel the Weaver and seal its portal. I don’t know if I can find it, but I have to try. I can’t let it take any more of us.

I felt a chill run down my spine as I closed the journal, gripping it tightly. I didn’t know if I could find this talisman, or if it was even real. But I knew one thing: I couldn’t just run away. I had to try.

Tomorrow, at dawn, I’d go to the lake.

I woke with a start, shivering in the cold. The cabin was still dark, and the air felt heavy, like the night was clinging to the walls, refusing to let go. I couldn't remember when I had fallen asleep, only that I hadn't slept well, not really. My head was a mess—thoughts and whispers all tangled together, so much uncertainty. The terror of what I had seen... what I had almost become... it still clung to me like a fog. I was shivering, but I wasn’t sure if it was from the cold or something deeper, something wrong inside me.

The faint light of dawn had barely broken through the windows, casting pale, fragmented patterns across the floor. I felt disconnected from myself, as if I were watching my own hands move as I dressed, each motion slow and deliberate, as if I could stop time if I willed it. The chill outside seemed to creep into my bones as I stepped out of the cabin, the cold air biting at my skin. The ground was damp from the night, but I barely felt the earth beneath me as I walked, my mind too focused on what I needed to do.

I had to find the talisman.

But as I stepped into the clearing, something felt off. Like I wasn’t entirely there. My body moved as if it had a mind of its own, and I was only an observer. Was I really awake? Was this real, or was I watching myself as I had watched myself fall into this nightmare?

I couldn’t tell anymore.

The camp around me was still mostly silent. The cabins were dark, the campers still asleep, unaware of what had happened the night before—or maybe they did, but they couldn’t bring themselves to speak of it. The darkness that hung over the camp, like a cloud, seemed to block out the early morning light, the patches of midnight lingering like black cobwebs in the corners of my mind. The air was thick with something I couldn’t explain, and it made my stomach churn.

I couldn’t stop. I had to keep going.

I pushed through the forest, each step slower than the last, until I reached the edge of the lake. The journal had said something about the talisman being near here, but how could I find it? What was I even looking for? A stone? A charm? The description was maddeningly vague. The earth felt cold beneath my feet, and the trees loomed over me like silent witnesses to the horrors I couldn’t escape.

The silence was suffocating. The only sound was the rustling of leaves in the breeze, and my breath—ragged, shallow—as I tried to make sense of everything. But there was no sense. I was grasping at shadows.

And then, I felt it.

The air grew thick, pressing against my skin, my chest tightening. A whisper, faint but unmistakable, like a breath in the dark.

“Amelia…”

I froze. The whisper was inside my head, too close to my ear, like it was coming from behind me. My heart began to pound as I turned, my eyes straining to find the source. But the forest was still, eerily so. No movement. No shape. No sound—except for the one that crept into my thoughts, slithering, growing louder.

“Amelia…” The voice was colder now, more insistent, as though it had been waiting for me. Waiting for me to hear it.

I could feel it. The Weaver.

It was watching me. Waiting. The very air seemed to twist around me, bending to its will. The shadows stretched out, shifting, pooling into shapes I couldn’t quite understand. I wanted to scream, but the words caught in my throat. My body was frozen, each movement sluggish, like the very forest was holding me in place.

And then, I heard my aunt’s voice—louder this time, sharp and real.

“Amelia!”

I snapped my head to the side, blinking, confused. She was there, standing just outside the clearing, her figure framed by the dim, early light. She was real. She was here.

“Amelia, come here! NOW!”

Her voice was cutting through the fog of terror, pulling me back. Without thinking, I turned and ran toward her, the fear still hot on my heels, but her voice was my anchor, pulling me away from the nightmare. The ground seemed to push against me as I ran, as if the earth itself was reluctant to let me go. The dark trees whispered, reaching for me, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t look back.

I stumbled into my aunt’s arms, and she wrapped them around me so tightly, I could hardly breathe, but it didn’t matter. I needed her. I needed her warmth. Her presence was the only thing that felt real anymore.

“Shh, it’s okay. You’re safe now,” she murmured, her voice steady, grounded. She didn’t ask me anything. She didn’t need to.

I couldn’t look at the camp again, couldn’t bear to think about it. The Weaver was still there. Still waiting for me to return, to fall into its grip again.

I let my aunt guide me away from the woods, away from the camp. The first light of dawn was creeping through the trees, but it didn’t feel like morning. It felt like the world was holding its breath, suspended between night and day, waiting for something terrible to happen. But I wasn’t going to let it.

I left everyone behind. I knew I had. Sam, Eliza, Marcus—they were still there, still in the grip of whatever had taken them. Whatever had almost taken me.

But I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t save them.

As the car pulled away, I looked out the window, my chest tight, knowing that something terrible was still out there, in the shadows, and I was leaving it behind.

But as my aunt squeezed my hand, I couldn’t shake the thought that I would be okay. For now.

When I was around six or seven (maybe even eight), I had a next door neighbour, called Mindy.

I had moved to a small town just north of El Dorado, Kansas, and was waiting for the new school year to start. Mindy was my age, and, on one warm summer morning, she’d knocked on our door to ask if I would like to come over and play. She said she’d seen me moving in, and was delighted that another little girl had moved in on the street. She’d wanted to be my friend.

After my parent’s divorce, I had moved in with my Dad. He was a quiet, meek man, who didn’t do much but garden and watch old reruns of “All in the Family.” My Mom lost custody because of her drug abuse, and I suppose that he hadn’t really known what to do with me when I’d first moved in. I hadn’t lived with him in my formative years, and it was only once my grandmother got wind of things that he’d pushed to be a part of my life again, having been disillusioned that I was living in some stately house up north. I think, in the beginning at least, he wasn’t prepared to start raising up a little girl, particularly one he’d last seen as a toddler, and so the option of letting me play with the girl from the nice family next door must’ve been a relief. A way for him to get his life in order to step in as the Dad he needed to be. And I’m grateful to say that he really, truly did.

Mindy was a bit spoilt, but a good kid. From what I recall, she had long, blonde hair that her Mother always tied into pigtails, and a sweet, chocolate-box pretty face. Like Shirley Temple. I’m afraid there aren’t many more details I can give on her appearance—my memory is hazy. Even when I try my best to recall her face, all I can see is a blur, but that initial feeling—that impression, still remains.

She always wore the nicest clothes, and despite my reserved jealousy that she and I were not cut from the same cloth, she nevertheless tried her best to make me feel like her equal. She’d ask her Mother to teach us how to bake, and her Father would always let us stay up late to watch television. She’d give me her old dresses and shoes so that I’d have nice things to wear for the first day of school, which seemed to be an eternity away at that age. Although we only ever knew each other for several weeks, her memory is something I would never forget. I can’t forget it.

The best thing about Mindy’s home was a little playhouse she had, tucked right at the end of the backyard. It was big enough for the two of us to be in, but any adult would have a hard time bending down and minding their head on the doorframe. Her Grandfather had built it for her when she was just a baby, and it was truly a gorgeous thing; cream painted wood, with a coral-pinkish roof, clad with real tiles. Painted ivy and roses adorned the outdoors, and the duck egg green door held a sweet, heart shaped doorknob. The windows had proper glass, and matching green shutters on the outside.

Inside were two wooden stools, and a toy box filled with make-believe kitchenware. A faux-stove, completely covered with painted appliances, and a rocking horse in the corner. Floral curtains to draw out the light. It was every little girls’ dream. And Mindy let it be mine as much as it was hers. Ours.

Sometimes we’d have sleepovers in there. The door had a hatch key lock on the inside, so it felt like we really were adults; pretending to be roommates in our own grown up apartment. Telling each other stories over make-believe tea, and leaving the curtains open to stare at the stars in the sky. The warm, summer nights left us comfortable in our sleeping bags, and I truly thought I’d never be happier.

My therapist says trauma can hide a lot of things from you. It’s a tricky thing; leaving you with the dread and anxiety without ever revealing the extent of it all. I suppose PTSD is the phrase I should be using. My fond memories of Mindy’s house are still there, untouched—untainted. Maybe my own childhood experiences with my Mom didn’t allow me to realise the cracks that were forming in Mindy’s home.

I never thought Mr Howard was a bad man. He was nice, and looked all cleaned up. He had a white-collar job, and I never considered that, with his income, he shouldn’t have been living in our rundown neighbourhood, let alone be my next door neighbour. He always came home from work with a smile on his face and a kiss for his wife, and treated me as he treated Mindy. In my eyes, they were the perfect, nuclear family. Compared to just me and my Dad, who—bless his heart, was trying to make ends meet, they seemed so comfortable. So cosy.

It was only years after that I’d come to understand the lengths some people will go to keep up a facade. What I had perceived as a healthy, happy lifestyle was nothing more than a perfectly practiced production; a play put on a stage where the actors couldn’t leave. They couldn’t stop playing pretend, as Mindy and I had done so many times in her playhouse. The real playhouse was their own home, and despite their food and water and appliances all being very real, they’d manufactured themselves to be nothing more than puppets on a stage; marionettes controlled by the overwhelming desire to not let a tear slip, or issue be revealed. A waltz of souls tethered to an unattainable dream.

Mr Howard was a gambler. His savings whittled away down to mere pennies in his pockets. But he never stopped his grandiose spending. Mindy always got a new gift whenever he went away for ‘business’, and Mrs Howard was always presented with some fabulous flowers. Sometimes, she’d send me home with her bouquet, telling me that she’d not need them with all the wonderful flowers he’d bought her before. She’d seen my Dad gardening on the small, shameful plot of land we called a garden, and he’d always been grateful to try and plant them back there.

It really was strange how it happened. Mr Howard, despite all his flaws, loved his family. He loved them so much. But perhaps love confused him.

It was only a few weeks before school when Mindy invited me around for a sleepover. It was the usual routine; her Mother made a fantastic meal, and we stayed up a bit to watch the television, laughing at whatever risqué scene was portrayed past 9pm. Then, around 10pm, her Mother ushered up to get ready for bed, having set up our little camp in the playhouse outside. It was all the same. The same old passage of events. Mindy and I were tucked away in the playhouse, and as we grew sleepy from chatting about god knows what, we heard a large bang.

Mindy shot up, and looked concerned. I was extremely tired, and, whilst rubbing my eyes, I asked her what the matter was. She didn’t speak, but put a finger to her mouth, beckoning me to stay quiet. She said she’d go in and see what was happening. She left, and then whispered a final few words.

“Lock the door, Kelly. Don’t let me in unless I say the password. Promise?”

I did as she said, and waited. Then; screaming.

There’s not much else to remember from that. My Dad said that I refused to come out of the playhouse, even when the police had tried to calm me down and tell me I was ok, that I was safe. I screamed and wailed that I couldn’t leave until Mindy gave me the password. That I needed to wait for Mindy to come back.

A child’s brain is such a fickle thing. Once I’d heard my Dad’s voice, I’d forgotten about any promises sworn to Mindy, and leapt out of the playhouse and into his arms, sobbing from a concoction of fear and comfort that felt oh-so crushing upon the weight of my tiny shoulders.

Although I was young, I wasn’t stupid. I’d known what the implications of those screams were, and those sounds. I knew why I was carried out through the side gate and not through the house. I knew what the men in white overalls were doing, moving in and around the property. I knew that my participation in the Howard’s charade was over, and that my friend wouldn’t ever come knocking on the front door of her playhouse again.

Even if we wanted to, my Dad and I couldn’t leave. We had no money, and we were forever cursed to live next to the house of the tragedy. I started school without her, and I cried on the first day when I walked into class with an old pair of Mindy’s shoes and a dress she’d given me. It never looked as nice on me as it did her.

I came to learn that Mindy’s grandiose tales of her popularity amongst classmates was a fairytale. She was a nobody to them; a sad, lonely girl with no one to talk to. Perhaps that’s why she’d latched onto me—someone who had it worse, or at least, she’d thought they did. Someone she could continue to spread the plague of perfectionism passed down so unceremoniously onto her. And I wondered if her parents thought the same thing. That I wouldn’t be able to see the chipped paint on the walls of their home, because mine ran so much deeper.

Dad and I never really spoke about it much after I turned 10 (I think). Years of therapy had taught me to repress those memories, but sometimes they pulled themselves out from the back of my scalp, and grasped hold in the front of my mind. I could never truly forget it. My first friend after such a traumatic time in my life, and how wonderfully crafted it had all been; how I, in all my naivety and desperation, had been so blinded by gratitude that I took part in the illusion without any inkling to help her back.

No one ever moved into Mindy’s old home. It lay there, derelict, and as did the playhouse at the back of the garden. I must’ve been sixteen when I’d decided to try my chance at hopping the fence, to go and see the playhouse up close again. It was too hard to see from my bedroom window, though I could tell it was worse for wear. It had always fascinated me, and with a bit of dutch courage from my Dad’s unlocked whisky cabinet, I clambered over, ignoring the scrapes and splinters that mottled my palms. My Dad wouldn’t be back for at least a few hours, so I figured I’d be in the clear; particularly since no one dared come close to the place of such a tragedy.

I started to feel uneasy as I grew closer to the playhouse. It truly was decrepit; tiles once vibrant and perfect, lay slathered in moss and slime. Grass, unkempt, grew into the cracked paint of the walls, and cobwebs glistened with moonlight. Wind whistled through the eroded adhesive of the widowsills, and the once gorgeous floral curtains were frayed and rotten. I remember my breath hitching. Perhaps I hadn’t wanted to sully the wonderful memories that remained. Did I want to unearth the past that I’d so soundly put to sleep in my subconscious?

I couldn’t have dwelled on it too long. Before I knew it, my knuckles rapt on the small, faded-green door. The password.

Of course, there was no response. I almost laughed at myself—what was I thinking? That Mindy would suddenly pop out, jaw blown off and ready to pounce on me for not waiting for her? A zombie to take me to the grave for breaking our promise, and drag me down to the pits of Hell?

I started to walk away, until I heard a small, meek voice.

“Mindy?”

I froze. That voice. It wasn’t…

“M-Mindy? Is that you?”

I turned, half horrified, and half confused. It didn’t sound like me, not how I remembered. It was too young, too small. I don’t remember being that small.

I knocked again, the same password. Then, I heard crying. Soft, heartbroken sobs that rattled my brain.

“Mindy, please come back…”

“I-It’s me, Mindy!” I couldn’t stop myself. I placed a hand on the door, and peered inside through the small window. I couldn’t see anything but pitch, black nothingness. “Can you let me in?”

The crying turned to some small sniffles, and after a moment, the door unlatched, creaking slightly. I pushed it open, and winced from the sudden appearance of light.

Despite having ducked down through the doorway, the interior of the playhouse seemed much, much larger than it did from outside. It wasn’t mouldy, or dank, but pristine and fresh, like it had once been. The small flickers of candles danced around the room, and a warm, vanilla scent danced around my nose. And nestled in the corner, was a little head peaking out from under a sleeping bag; nose snotty and eyes plump and reddened with tears. Suddenly, the figure burst out from the sleeping bag and rushed toward me, wrapping arms around my torso with what felt to be relief.

“M-Mindy! You were gone for so long! I was worried…” It trailed off, before looking up at me with tear filled eyes.

It was me.

A much smaller, scruffier version of me. From what I could tell anyway—my mind racked with images of photographs hung on Dad’s fridge. Looking at them, I don’t think I’d even be able to recognise my likeness in the street. I was flabbergasted, and couldn’t speak; that chillingly familiar scent of vanilla candles sickened me to the point of bile rushing up my throat, and I’d known that had I dared open my mouth to respond, I’d surely expel the contents of all the whisky I’d forced down onto the clean, carpeted floor.

Carpet? I never remembered the floor to be carpeted. My eyes darted around the room, cold flooding my bones despite the cosy temperature. It wasn’t exactly how I’d remembered it to be. The pristine, painted interior had chips in it, and the faux stove seemed a lot more shoddily painted. The former glory of the playhouse, despite being close to the memory I held of it, was askew; amiss. Different, as if from a more grownup lens—maturity dampening the magic that I’d conjured up in my dreams.

“Mindy?” The small girl asked again, and she clasped my hands with her own. I looked down, and saw that, unlike my tanned skin that should’ve bore resemblance to hers, I instead had small, pale ones, fingernails painted with a light pink sheen. I quickly pulled away, grasping at my face. My nose was smaller, pointier; lips thinner. I scrambled to the window, and saw…Mindy.

Six, or Seven (or perhaps even eight) year old Mindy Howard, staring back at me. My face wasn’t mine, it was hers. My hair was pulled back into long, blonde pigtails, and my hoodie and jeans replaced with a pink pinafore dress. I looked down at the hem of the dress, and noticed a slight fraying; stitching that hadn’t quite been made correctly and threatened to expose the split seam. It wasn’t right.

Words began to tumble out of my mouth; a voice much gentler and higher pitched than my own, and didn’t match the thoughts that swirled murkily in my head. My body moved on its own, and I pulled the girl—me—her, into my arms.

“Hey! Don’t cry, everything’s fine. Mommy just dropped some laundry on the ground.” I spoke—Mindy spoke. The girl cried softly, and after a few moments of sniffle broken silence, she began to calm down. I continued. “Let’s go to sleep now, I’m pretty tired. Mommy said she’ll make us pancakes in the morning.”

I felt my face stretch into a small smile, and, hand in hand, we moved to the sleeping bags, nestling under them together. Eventually heavy breaths turned into light snores, and I looked at myself—her, and a warmth blossomed in my chest. And somehow, I knew.

Mindy felt a genuine love for me, for the little, scruffy kid who looked at her with pure adoration. It wasn’t pity, or anger, or anything else I had concocted up in my guilt-ridden stupor. She loved me, and she forgave me. And in that little, less-than-perfect playhouse, we could forget those bleak and colourless moments that loomed outside, and be comfortable together, in our own small world of make believe.

I woke up early in the morning to water dripping from the tiles in the ceiling. Vanilla was replaced with mildew and rot, and the warmth of those sleeping bags gone, in favour of the icy, damp wooden floor. It had been stripped of everything entirely; just the shell of the playhouse standing around me. I stood up, and hit my head on the ceiling, my jeans returned and hoodie sodden. I checked my cellphone, and it was 5am, with the early morning sun peering through the dirtied windows. Yet, despite how miserable I should’ve been, waking up in such a decrepit place, I was in a state of bliss. Peace.

I sat there for a moment, wondering if I’d been far drunker than I’d realised, and had simply passed out the moment I entered the tiny playhouse and dreamt up the entire experience. My head wasn’t pounding, though, at that age, hangovers felt like a slight headache, rather than severely crippling. My back did ache from the hard floor, and I felt a sense of foolishness wash over me. What was I doing, going into my deceased childhood friend’s playhouse? Back to the sight of the tragedy?

It was only when I looked at my surroundings that I noticed the small scribbling on the floor. Like chicken stretches, but blue and waxy. It was hard to read; barely legible childish scribbles.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t come back. Thank you for being my friend.”

I sobbed for a very long time on the floor of that playhouse. Not out of sorrow, or dread, like the last time I’d been in there. It was out of pure, absolute gratitude. I knew that, wherever Mindy was, she was finally at peace, and that rotted, tainted part of my childhood had slowly begun to repair itself, healing over like a scar that would always remain, but slowly fade. She’d saved a part of me again.

A few months later, Mindy’s old home was demolished. Something to do with a big buyer wanting to convert the lot into a care home. It was quite poetic, in a strange sort of way. The house of the little girl who helped me would now be the home to people who needed care in the last few stages of their life. The playhouse went too, of course, but it didn’t really affect me as much as I’d thought it would. I had the fond memories to go by, now, and it was better to see it removed before the image of its depleted self replaced the one frozen in my mind.

I have my own home now, in a much nicer area. My husband and I are preparing for a new guest; a little baby girl, just 6 months along. My husband is quite the craftsman, and when I suggested he build a small playhouse for her, to play in with her friends when she grows up, he was delighted with the idea. I can see it now, as I’m typing this from my bedroom window. Cream painted wood, with a coral-pinkish roof, clad with real tiles. Painted ivy and roses adorn the outdoors, and a duck egg green door with a sweet, heart shaped doorknob. The windows are proper glass, and have matching green shutters on the outside.

It’s carpeted inside too.

Mai hate working late and being one of few people to leave the office late. Today was supposed to be her off but she was called in because one of her colleagues called in sick. It’s almost 7:40pm and she has to walk to the bus stop because the her phone went off. Some shops were still open and people were on the street so she felt safe.After waiting for more than 15 minutes, the bus finally arrived but sadly it was full so she had to wait for the next one. Not too long after the bus left, a woman joined her at bus stop. She was wearing a trench coat and a surgical mask. She stood at the far end without saying a word. After sometime she faced Mai and said “ Not to bother you much but can you tell me if I look ok. I’m meeting up with my mother in law later”

Mai politely responded and told her she looks fine. Mai turned to see whether the bus was coming or not. And within a flash, the woman moved closer to her and said

“Not to bother you much but do you think my hair is properly kept ?”

Mai was frightened by how quickly the woman moved towards her but again she replied

“ it’s perfectly fine “

She felt uneasy and remembered the stories about Kuchisake-Onna the slit mouth woman. Before she could make any sudden movements, she was hit with the stench of decay coming from the woman who was now standing right in front of her. She took the surgical mask off revealing a deep cut on her face from ear to ear and asked

“ one more thing, do you think I’m beautiful?”

Mai was shocked and terrified and in the mixed of that, the Kuchiaske-Onna jumped on her with a sharp blade. While cutting Mai’s face in the same manner as hers, she was repeatedly saying

“ you will be as beautiful as I am “

https://jztstory.blogspot.com/?m=1

When you see a homeless person holding a sign on the street corner begging for food or money, homeless veteran and whatnot, what do you think? Scam? Legit? Where do they sleep at night?

Are you a sympathetic person? I want to believe that's enough for anybody, like it was for me. Not that I know for sure where I'm going. I just know it's kind.

I'm in just my mid twenties, but through dedication and sheer whatever, I landed the prestigious position of pawn shop manager at the edge of town. Maybe you've heard of it. Darnell's Electroknickknacks. Yeah. Well, Darnell, the owner, is a dad, so at least we know where his sense of humor comes from.

I'm just boring old Donald, yeah our store's name is weird, I can give you thirty for this flat screen TV.

I got calls at that job from time to time, but not often. Just someone asking me for a ballpark figure on a price for something they wanted to sell. Most of the time it's sorry, gotta bring it in or else we can't give a number. Why are you cursing at me. Get off the damn phone.

Sorry, I probably sound soulless and bored. I'm actually the opposite. I'm in shock. Good? Bad? You decide.

I got a call on Friday, but it wasn't the usual. The voice on the other end was a woman's voice, very gentle and smooth as though she were a topnotch therapist trying to reassure me that I would be able to get through some horrible trauma. The phone didn't have her number on it.

"Hello," she said immediately when I picked up, before I could say it first. "Donald Carlson?"

"That's me. Are we getting popular?" I was a bit surprised at the thought. I was content working here, it helped with my naturally laid back lifestyle, but we were kind of on the dead end side of things. Quiet in the store half the time.

"I didn't call about your store, Donny. I wanted to ask you something very important."

I frowned into the phone. "Is this about taxes or something? I'm only the store manager. I don't own it."

"Donny, please, try to focus. Not your store. This is about you. It's very important."

I was beginning to feel nervous. "What's going on? Who are you?"

"My name is Emelie. Donny, I need to ask for something from you. A donation, if you're willing."

Oh. It was THAT kind of call. But how had Emelie known my name? If she'd guessed Darnell, that would be no surprise, but I just worked here. How had she known I would be the one to answer the phone?

"Really," I muttered. Why not at least see what she meant? "What do you have in mind?" A hundred bucks I'm not willing to shovel away, I thought. I'm not selfish, but I'm not giving anything to some weirdo caller like this, and definitely not anything substantial.

"Would you be willing to give just one dollar to someone who needs it more, Donny?"

I furrowed my brow. "You want my card number for a dollar? Get real."

"I don't need your information. Just a yes or a no, and that's all." She sounded painstakingly patient, and I had to admit, that was pretty dedicated. Most scammers would give up at overdone sarcasm, or at least be cussing me out by now.

"Oh. Uh, I don't know how that works, but sure. Fine by me." I was smirking. How in the world would she get it without any of my account info?

"Yes, Donny? Is that your answer?"

"Yes." I rolled my eyes, but kept the impatience out of my voice.

"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you so much." And she hung up.

For about five seconds I tried not to burst out laughing in the middle of the store. What the hell had that been?

And suddenly a cold pit filled my stomach. The YES. There was a scam out there for collecting voice clips, wasn't there? And the word "yes" in someone's voice could be used to make a purchase in their name? I didn't have any apps or accounts that operated off of me doing that, and the whole rumor could have just been fearmongering and stupidity, but suddenly I felt like I didn't want to take a chance.

I logged into my bank account at once, looking for the support number to see if I could ask them about the possibility of the scam, and change my cards if need be.

There was a small message just below the big display of the few hundred bucks in my checking account.

Thank you Donny.

I clicked on my checking account, feeling a sharp zing in my chest, that mini heart attack feeling that something real bad's about to happen.

The latest transaction...it was one dollar.

No description. No destination.

Just one dollar taken. By someone or something invisible.

Who the hell...suddenly I heard a tapping on the window next to the counter. I turned in confusion, and saw a young girl standing outside. She was a little scuffed up, as though she'd been outside for a long time. Messy dark hair. Faint smears of dirt on her face. Clothes stained, some edges frayed. Face a little gaunt, not alarmingly so as though she were truly starving, but she definitely looked a bit malnourished.

She had both hands behind her back, smiling up at me, her face the very picture of admiration, as though she'd found a long lost friend, or a guardian angel. I blinked and stared at her, then slowly raised my hand in an awkward, short wave.

In response, she reached into her pocket, keeping the other hand still behind her back, and pulled out a white rectangle of paper. A receipt. I leaned forward to read it.

Hubert's Hot Dogs! Get 'em while they're hot!

Jumbo Frankie Meal Deal! One dollar for the Big Bread Frankie with chili and cheese and a bottle of ice water! One lucky day a month only!

She reached out with her other hidden hand.

A white shopping bag. She reached in and pulled out a large, long aluminum foil wrapped hot dog. A jumbo sized bottle of water with ice cubes in it came out next.

She was staring at me with her hot dog and water, smiling so big she could have been on a Christmas card. Tears flowing down her cheeks.

Thank you. Her lips formed the words. Staring at me as though I were her hero.

Then she turned and ran off.

I'll admit, I was shocked. I logged back into my account and looked at the transaction again.

It was no longer blank. Now the destination was HuDog+MainTrans+Carolina, and the description was Hubert's Jumbo Frankie Meal Deal.

As though the money had gone through right away, but to whom, had been decided only after it had already been paid.

I logged out, stunned. I looked at the window again, and there was nothing. She was, I figured, probably gone forever, and I'd never see her again. She couldn't have been the voice on the phone, though. That had been a grown woman. Maybe my age, maybe ten years older, no idea from just a voice. But that tiny kid? No way it had been her.

But my heart was kind of glowing, though. You ever get that feeling, when you do something wonderful and can actually see the gratitude from someone? The way you keep that with you for a while? Not an egotistical I'm a freakin' saint kind of feeling, but more of an oh damn, I actually made a homeless child's day kind of feeling.

And then it hit me. A homeless child. Shit, I couldn't just let her run off like that! Couldn't I call someone? Maybe take her to the police? Could they help find her a home? Or did she already have parents and a home and only looked bad because things weren't so good for her? The more I thought about it, the more mixed up I became. I'd never been in a situation like this.

So I told Ernie, one of my floor employees. He was a few years younger than me, paying for college, but wise beyond his years. He seemed as baffled as I was, and I guess I'm just grateful he believed the story.

"Nothing you can do, dude. The cops might go searching for a kid like what you describe, maybe they'll find her, maybe they won't. But the system, it fails kids more often than we want to acknowledge. Besides, if that chick knew this was going to happen, then that kid probably already has her watching over her. Maybe it was her mom or something. I dunno. Maybe this was just some cheapo feel-good scam."

I hadn't considered that. The little girl probably already had a guardian. That woman on the phone could have been her mom, or her older sister, and besides, she had known my money was going to the kid, hadn't she?

Was leaving it there the right choice? I don't know. I'm not filled with worldly knowledge or a KFC-sized bucketful of common sense about every possible difficult situation I could find myself in. But that was what I did. If anything, if she had really needed my help, she wouldn't have run off with such joy on her face, would she?

For a week, nothing else happened. And then, Friday again, right after I came back from lunch, the phone rang.

I opened my mouth to greet the customer, and got the instant "Hello? Donald Carlson?"

My stomach sort of squeezed in on itself. Her again. Was this a good thing? Was I going to help another child get a meal somehow? Everything happening around me was perfectly mundane, almost completely ordinary, but I was filled with the sense of something wonderful, almost supernatural.

"It's me." My voice sounded dry and hoarse.

"Donny, it's me again. Emelie. Everything worked out well before, and I was wondering if we could do this again. Would you be willing to make a donation?"

I paused for a moment. "Sure, a bit more this time?"

She seemed to hesitate. I could almost hear her holding her breath; the other side of the line had suddenly gone quiet.

"One minute," she said softly.

"Oh. Uh yeah, no problem," I stammered. "I'll be here."

"No, Donny, I mean...one minute. Can you donate that?"

"Wh...what? I don't know what you mean." My heart raced.

"I'm sorry. I can't explain. Can you trust me, Donny? Are you willing to give one minute?"

The little girl's face flashed into my mind. She hadn't gone to sleep with a hurting tummy that night because I had given one dollar. Whatever her situation, however good or bad things were for her, I'd at least put a little light into her day and made that night a bit easier.

So what miracle could a single minute pull off? Could I help someone even more?

"Yes. I'll donate a minute." I felt stupid saying that, having no clue what it meant. But I knew it meant something important.

Suddenly, I went stiff, and the phone slipped out of my hand, clattering onto the table. Hardy land lines, it didn't even crack, and luckily, neither did my head.

I opened my eyes, panting and sweating, to see my three floor associates gathered around me behind the counter.

"I said call 911!" Ernie was insisting, and then he leaped a foot in the air as I shot up into a sitting position.

"Ey yo!" Tyrone said. "The hell you nappin' down there for, man?" He was smiling, sort of, but his eyes looked terrified, as though I'd just dodged a bullet.

"You just fell right to the ground out of nowhere, Donny," Leslie chimed in. "Just a second ago."

I tried to speak, but they were all over me, helping me into a chair, handing me a glass of water. It pays to not be a shit manager, I guess. Your people care about you. Leslie was still debating about calling an ambulance for me, but I thanked them all and insisted I'd be fine.

We went back to business as usual after everyone was assured I wouldn't pass out again (call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure I'd been out exactly sixty seconds and was in no danger of it happening again). There was nobody at the window.

But two hours later, there was someone at the door.

A policewoman came in, dark blue suit, coffee colored skin, black ponytail, thirty at most. She looked almost as though she were in a trance, seeing something ethereal. She barely glanced around before seeing me, and gravitating right toward my counter.

"Donald Carlson?" she whispered, and a flash of deja vu hit me. But she had a different voice; she wasn't the woman from the phone.

I nodded, and felt the color drain out of my face. Was it something bad this time? What had happened? Was the whole thing a gamble, and I'd landed on Bankrupt this time? Who had gotten hurt because of this little game I'd decided to play?

But her lips were trembling, and she was beaming at me, looking as though she were trying not to cry. She reached out to me, and I clumsily offered her my hand. She took it with the gentleness of a mother comforting her child, and led me out of the store. Jesus Christ, was I under arrest? What could I have done by giving up a minute of my time?

There was an unmarked bus waiting outside by a couple of police cars. Three more officers stood by, along with a small group of maybe twenty people. Young women, from children about the age of the girl from last Friday, up to college aged, all stood outside the bus. Some looked nervous. Some looked relieved enough to have been reborn.

"What's going on?" I asked stupidly.

"Mr. Carlson," the officer next to me said, her voice shaking, "we traced the call back to the phone at your counter in this pawn shop. A call lasting exactly one minute. A man with your voice, identifying himself with your full name, gave to our police force not a few hours ago, the address of a human trafficking house you claimed you had been anonymously informed of by an unknown caller with no callback number."

My eyes were as wide as dinner plates by then. Of course I'd done no such thing; didn't she know that from the way the news was hitting me? But...then suddenly, I realized.

WHAT had I been doing in that one minute that I'd been out? Had I fallen right away? Had I...first dialed someone?

What had Leslie said? Just a second ago. They'd gotten to me in a second. A full minute had not passed from the moment I'd fallen and woken up. Only a few seconds.

I had dialed the police first, and then passed out, and woken back up instantly.

I tried to speak. Tears were clogging my throat. Several of the young women and a few of the children were right in front of me now, holding me, crying, and I felt like I was going to fall apart. Like a Jenga puzzle you've removed too many blocks from.

I couldn't have done something this meaningful. Not me. I just couldn't have. I mean, I've always wanted to be able to help someone in a profound, meaningful way, I dunno why. Because I'm nice? Because I'm some feel-good sap?

I'll spare you the rest of the waterworks. I didn't hold together too well after a few seconds of being hugged and hearing them cry at their rescue. I sank to my knees and kind of became a mess. The officers turned away, their faces twisted a bit painfully, and I had never felt anything so beautiful as this moment of wonder, that just giving one minute had done something so good. I didn't feel like I deserved to feel this kind of...whatever it was.

Pride? No. I didn't feel satisfied, I didn't feel proud, I didn't feel like it was all a job well done. I felt something that made my chest so warm, made me so weak that I could barely stand back up.

Over the next week or so, I got calls from dozens of parents, older siblings, relatives, people sending me flowers, presents, cards, visiting me in person. An old lady actually showed up to kneel as soon as I opened the door, and bless my soul in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, for the rescue of her granddaughter, amen.

I just couldn't possibly deserve any of this. I already had enough trouble just taking a compliment. I wasn't really some kind of hero just because...because I'd given one minute to a telephone stranger and then been possessed...right?

Well, next Friday.

The phone rang. It was evening, almost time for closing, and I'd actually felt a bit hollow that day, as there had been no call. I felt like that had become a side job, almost. Some kind of miracle puppet, for the mysterious stranger to pull my strings and make me do wonderful things only she knew could happen. Together we were making a difference. Somehow. Don't ask, I'm still baffled. But if I was some kind of benign meat puppet with a kind master who worked with me to save innocent lives so easily, was I going to ever say no to her calls? You know the answer.

"Donny." She spoke the moment I picked up the phone. She sounded different.

She sounded so sad.

"Hey...Emelie?" I asked. "Are you all right?"

She was quiet for a moment.

"It went...pretty well last time," I admitted, blushing. I didn't want to really acknowledge the weight of it all, and besides, didn't she deserve more credit than me? She must have been the one making things happen. At least I thought she was.

"I'm sorry, Donny," she whispered. "Oh God, I'm so, so sorry."

My heart sank. NOW it had to be something bad, I just knew it. Was there going to be an occasional mishap? A price to pay for such easily done good deeds?

"Em...Emelie?"

"Would you like...to make a donation?" she asked, with great difficulty. It sounded like each word weighed a ton on her heart.

"Of----of course. What kind?" I blurted before I could lose my nerve.

"Could y..." she paused, and I could hear her voice momentarily flatten as she quieted down. That small, heart-wrenching sound of someone cutting their voice off to stifle a sob.

She was crying.

"Would...you..." I heard her moan softly in a quivering voice, and she sniffed a few times, trying to gather a little composure.

"Would you...be willing...to...give....yourself?" she was trying so hard to hold on. I waited for her to finish, but then I realized her sentence was already done.

"Me?" I didn't get it.

Then I did.

She was breathing so shakily, waiting for that moment when I would say something that destroyed her, either for this reason, or that other one.

But I knew what this must mean. I knew what was at stake. If it wasn't for me, it would be for someone else.

For a moment, I was filled with terror. In fact, I still am. I haven't stopped being scared. Was it worth it? How would it happen? What was in store for me exactly? When, down to the second?

Everything seemed to get darker. Color faded from my vision for a few seconds as I considered the weight of the horrifying choice. A choice I'm still afraid of, even now as I wait for the inevitable. It had to come down to this. This ultimate test. To see if I really could be willing to do that much.

I'm not sure why I gave the answer I did.

"Yes. I accept."

Emelie burst into tears. I heard her long, drawn out, shaking sobs as she struggled to speak. But she only managed one last word.

"D-Donny."

Then the sound ended as she hung up.

Nothing was happening. But I knew something would.

Saturday, we were only open in the morning. Closed at twelve. No phone call, of course.

But there was a young woman standing across the street, visible from the window. She was wearing a pale blue dress, an elegant, wonderful thing that at the same time looked so comfortable, even from a distance, she might wear it to bed. Shoulder length wavy black hair. A lovely, kind face.

She was staring at me. Her face gleamed in the sun, and even from far away I could tell she was crying. Ernie asked me at one point what I was looking at, and glanced out there in confusion.

Only I could see her. Emelie would appear for nobody but me.

She was gone by noon, when we closed.

Monday, I was back. So was she. Now on our side of the street, standing on the sidewalk a little ways from the building. No longer crying. But still looking miserable as she stared at me. Now closer, she couldn't even meet my eyes. But she stayed there the whole day.

I was a little more scared then. I had made the choice. I couldn't take it back. But I was more scared than I'd ever been in my life.

Tuesday. She was further down the sidewalk a bit. Closer to the window than before. She managed to look me in the eyes a few times, and every time, I could see the apology there. The back of her dress, I noticed, seemed to be moving, as if something was hiding in there.

I almost hadn't come in to work. I'd wanted to stay huddling in my bed, hoping it would all go away, but I had managed to force myself. I had chosen this. I had to see it through. I had to have the resolve to do what needed to be done.

Wednesday. She was on the grass now, halfway to the window. Watching me. She managed a small smile at one point, and later, a shy wave, though tears still ran down her cheeks. Her dress was fluttering and moving, though there was no breeze.

I was shaking a little on and off that day. Leslie asked me if I was all right. She said I looked pale and sick. I tried to wave off her concerns.

Thursday. She was right outside the window, palms pressed against the glass, looking longingly at me all day. I took out my phone, knowing what was coming for me. I should have done it earlier, I guess, but better late than never. I started this post, and typed out most of it, saving it as a draft. It was the only thing that kept me from leaving early. Just reminding myself what I was doing.

Friday.

The doors unlocked at 7:30 in the morning. The open sign turned on automatically. The doors opened.

My heart stopped as I saw her face. It was too late to run. Too late to change my mind. It had been since the moment I'd said yes. Did I regret it? Did I want to beg her to let me take it back?

Even still, even then, somehow the answer was no. Maybe I'm just half softie, half coward, but I couldn't do it. What that would have done to someone, if I could have changed it...I didn't have that in me.

She walked in slowly, her eyes on me, and came up to the counter. I was the only one there. Nobody else came in till eight. She came closer and closer, and I felt like I would pass out, as though she were projecting the fear from her very being, fear mixed with darkness, that feeling of the unknown approaching, the very word I've been too afraid to acknowledge this whole time, just because I can't bring myself to actually write down that I've willingly brought that particular fate to myself.

She stood on the other side of the counter, staring into my eyes, into my soul. Then she reached forward and took my hands in hers. Tears filled her eyes.

As we stared at each other, it felt as though a lifetime of conversation passed between us in the span of lovely silence. There was nothing but the ticking of the clock on the wall behind me, and the beating of my heart. Her dress fluttered a little, and I thought I saw something white peek out from the side.

Finally, it was almost eight. She closed her eyes, turned, and walked to the door. She paused and looked back at me. We both understood.

As soon as I clocked out for the day...that was it.

She left, and I made more phone calls than I'd ever made in one day. Calls to family. Old friends, new friends, anyone on my contact list. My parents.

I couldn't really explain. But saying goodbye, even veiling it as something they would understand soon, was the hardest thing I've ever done. Even in that one moment before I'd told Emelie yes, I had realized this would be difficult for me, had known it would come, would be necessary. Somehow, I'd put it off. Somehow, she had known I would need to anyway.

Would she have taken me away instantly otherwise, as soon as she'd come in?

Maybe.

Or maybe she'd have given me this last day still anyway, standing outside the window after the short visit. The dress now fluttering in the breeze around her wings, large white feathery wings about as long as she was tall. Flapping slowly, silently, as she watched me, and waited for the clock to wind down. Still occasionally letting a tear escape.

Why?

I wasn't depressed or anything. I wasn't dissatisfied with what I had. I was content, comfortable for the time being, unsure of what the future would bring. But I'd never done anything really, really good, or important, and never made a huge name for myself. What harm could it do? People would miss me, and I was sad to hurt them that way, but they would move on eventually. The world would.

I'm not necessary. Not that mundane way. But in this way, at least I can know I did something right, no matter what it took.

Don't be selfish. Don't be cruel. If Emelie or one of the other sisters finds you, calls you, visits you, you'll know it's one of them when you see her. You'll know she came to you because you're that kind of person who would give.

It doesn't have to always be yes. You aren't a bad person for saying no.

But just pause for a moment and think. Why did they come to you? It isn't a personal attack. It isn't a mind game.

They just know you're the kind of person who can make a difference.

Just give what you can. It doesn't have to be everything. Please don't think you absolutely have to. Maybe I shouldn't have. I'm still afraid of the unknown, even though it's minutes away now. When there's no turning back, no matter how kind she is, no matter how she cries for you, she will make sure you keep your word.

Give what you're willing to, and don't feel obligated to give more. Just do what's right, if you can. You have no idea how much it means until after the fact.

The TV. What's it saying?

We interrupt this broadcast to bring you news of a miracle. Every single person at St. Sharif's Hospital who was dying in the terminal illness ward has suddenly, miraculously recovered. They're claiming they all see angels and that they've all been cured, and are being told they'll live long, happy lives, and all because of one...because of...one person...one...

I don't need to see any more.

When did the day go?

I forgot. We're off today. It's a holiday. Nobody came in at all. The hours flew by. I spent the day making calls, clocked in uselessly on a machine that wasn't connected to the internet, wasn't recording my hours today because it was all turned off. Nobody came in to switch things on out there on the floor. I was so preoccupied, I forgot...I didn't even have to come in.

But yes. I did have to.

Her face in the door now. The door's open. She's coming. Tears in her eyes again, but a small smile on her face.

She's walking slowly toward me, raising a hand. I know it's time. I agreed, after all.

Where am I going? What's coming next? I don't know. The fear's still there. I'm cold, I'm sweating, I'm barely standing. But somehow I know I can do this. I know I can honor my word.

I guess I'll see what's beyond.

[Post].

I had no idea how my life would change when I woke up that morning. I lived with my Grandma, and while we were never rich, we had a roof and enough food in our bellies. She said we should be thankful. If I’d listened none of it would have happened.

I never knew my Father and my Mom was in jail for tax fraud. I was totally set up for great things. Ha. My Grandma refused to see me flounder or end up in foster care, though. Besides, my Mom had me young, so while Grams made for an older parent, she wasn't incapable of taking care of me. At 16, I was a bit of a little shit and definitely didn't appreciate her as I should have. I was walking home from school with my face in my phone when I stumbled. I turned to see what I tripped over, only to find a well-dressed older man adjusting his tie. What was this dude playing at walking around the hood like that? Hadn’t anyone bothered him? Before I had a chance to say something smart assed about his getup, he extended his hand.

"Briar, at your service. May I have your name?"

Maybe it was his sudden appearance, clothes, or the too-bright smile entirely out of place for a stranger in my city, but my instincts were screaming at me to run. I was a street-smart kid who couldn't identify why I was uncomfortable, but I wasn't about to give him my real name or anything that could be traced back to me.

"You can call me K2," I said, hooking my fingers in my belt loops and trying to look tough.

His smile faltered slightly, but he closed and withdrew his hand.

"Well, K2. I was going to offer you a... ah job. Work in exchange for pay, but I can't unless I have your name."

"In fact." He paused, rubbing his chin. "You could even call it a gift."

My instincts were still screaming that this was supremely weird and that I needed to be alert, but the mention of money piqued my interest. After all, Grams and I weren't rich, and if I could bring in some, life would get better. We could fix the leaky faucet that drove up our plumbing bill by about thirty bucks each month. The draft in my window that chilled my room so much I had to sleep on the living room couch during winter months could be mended. I'd even be able to fix my bike, so getting around would be so much easier. With thoughts of monetary sufficiency whirling in my head, I extended my hand.

"Kiren. My name's Kiren."

The man's smile widened even further as he gripped my hand in a surprisingly spry grip for an elderly man. Had he always had such sharp canines?

"Well, Kiren. I have some tasks for you."

He scribbled in a little black leather-bound book, and when he was done, he tore out the page and passed it to me with a flourish. In the split second it took me to look down at the paper and back up, he was gone. I looked back and forth. I could see for a good two blocks in each direction, but he was nowhere to be found. In fact, the only evidence he had ever been there was the little paper clutched in my hand.

The paper detailed that I needed to collect a sprig of silver vine, find five shiny trinkets, and an offering of fresh meat to be retrieved in one fortnight.

What kind of job was this anyway? Did I even want a job with that freak? Part of me wanted to throw away the paper and forget the whole interaction, but I shoved the paper back in my pocket anyway.

Shaking my head, I pulled out my earbuds, and plugged them into my phone. Turning on the music, I continued home, all the while thinking about the strange little man as the beat thudded in my ears.

I had no idea why I did it; it was almost automatic, but all the same, I found myself ordering silver vine off the internet only to discover it relatively close by. Frankly, I was surprised to find an obscure Japanese vine in the city but a place in China Town carried some. As I walked to school and the bodega around the corner from my house, I would see random trinkets on the ground. A key chain, a shiny rock, a single earring, a piece of a mirror, and even a diamond ring. I picked up the small items without even thinking and put them in my pockets. I only remembered finding them when I emptied my pockets at the end of the day.

Meat. I figured if I'd done the rest of it, I might as well finish it off and get some meat. If the weird man didn't appear, then at least I could give it to Grams to cook for dinner. I left the apartment and walked to the bodega. After buying the hamburger, I began walking home.

"So, did you do what was asked?" The voice came from behind me, and I fairly jumped out of my skin.

“I uh… I did,” I stuttered. “But I don’t have all the items with me right now.”

"Really?" He tilted his head. "Check your pockets."

I reached into my pocket, and something sliced my finger. Withdrawing my hand in surprise, I looked at the man, who only raised his eyebrows expectantly. With more caution this time, I reached back into my pocket and withdrew the mirror, still sparkling with my blood. One by one, I placed the trinkets into my hand. He continued looking at me as I reached into the other withdrawing the plant that I could’ve sworn I’d left on my desk before going shopping, in fact all of it had been on my desk.

He smiled brightly and grabbed for the lot greedily. Then he tilted his head.

"And the meat?"

I extended the package of hamburger meat, and his expression soured.

"This... is your offering? THIS PITTANCE?" He spat, and his eyes flashed.

"You couldn't even kill it yourself?!"

I stepped back in shock, "Well... uh... people don't usually kill their meat anymore. At least not when in cities."

After half a second, he composed himself.

"True enough." His eyes still held a glint that made me pause, not to mention his personality flip.

"Well, I guess we better get down to business, " he said, withdrawing the black book from his coat. He scribbled, looked at me as I stood awkwardly, pursed his lips, and wrote more. Finally satisfied, he handed me the book.

He’d written a contract in a complicated, scrawling script that I couldn’t decipher, but the critical part was readable.

"You're... You're... going to give me this?"

“Every two weeks. If you complete the requirements every two weeks, you’ll receive two ounces of gold, written under that is the current estimate of the price of gold for two ounces. Should you fail to accomplish the job, the deal will be… revised.”

“But… You didn’t like the meat I purchased.”

He shrugged with a small smile that raised the hair on the back of my neck.

“Indeed, but you followed directions as you understood them. That is to be rewarded."

"Simply sign the contract and receive your reward."

I looked at him, then back down to the soft leather book. It was too good to be true. But at the same time, he didn't have any of my information other than my first name—no social security number or anything. I signed.

"This is amazing." I gushed as I handed the book back. "Thank you!"

"You are most welcome, and here's your payment." He passed me an envelope containing an unidentifiable lump.

“But Kiren," my stomach roiled with stabbing pain.

"Don't think I've forgotten the slight of cheap meat. You may have stuck to the letter of the offer but not the spirit. You'll remember for the future, though," He grinned wolfishly.

"After all, your name is mine. And you so kindly provided blood too.” He waggled the mirror in his fingers. “I think two years' punishment should suffice."

Before I could reply, he waved his hand, and my body began to shrink, and thick black fur sprouted. No one else milling around reacted as I cried out. It was as though they no longer saw me. My body contorted, and within a minute, I was low to the ground and felt decidedly light on my feet. Walking over to a deli window, I realized with a start that I was looking at myself with feline eyes. I was a freaking cat! A small black one.

"Now,” the man bent down to my eye level. “Don't forget to give me choice offerings, lest you become my prey." His own feline eyes stared into mine.

It’s been five years since then. I hid the gold in the basement of our brownstone after I was turned, getting in through the wonky window, and would do so every two weeks until I could return as myself. I would’ve tried to live with Grams, but I was terrified that she’d try to either make me an indoor pet or take me to the pound. Neither were options for obvious reasons.

Living as a cat wasn’t so bad, in fact it’s the thing that made the job easier to do. My new instincts overcame a lot of the squeamishness over a kill. The man didn’t seem to care that much about what type of prey I gave him, as long as I worked for it and killed it myself. Being cat sized the silver vine was the hardest to acquire because I’d have to spend a day making my way across the city and back with a delightfully smelling plant clutched gently in my jaws. I didn’t dare eat a piece or roll in it because I wasn’t repeating the experience of not delivering precisely as he expected. The trinkets were especially easy to find being so low to the ground and having wonderful night vision. The man would pop up as soon as I had the final requirement on the fourteenth day. Whatever I had collected would also instantly (and conveniently) appear with him. He always gave me a scratch behind the ear that made me want to stretch and purr in reflex and then just as quickly as I closed my eyes to enjoy the sensation he’d be gone.

When I was finally able to return to Grams, she was already sick. It was touch and go for a while, but we quickly discovered money solved many health problems. She was surprised when I returned from “abroad” well off and confused by my new fixations on hunting and fishing, but she finally agreed to move six months after I came back. I specifically asked him if it would violate the contract and he gave me that familiar ferocious and toothy grin and said he could find me anywhere we went. After we moved I no longer saw him but the offerings continue to disappear on schedule, and the payment is always left in their place.

Now, I have a small farm and green house. I grow silver vine as one of the plants year round and offerings are much easier to provide now that I don’t have to find a way to supply the kill in the off-season. It was awkward trying to explain to slaughterhouses that I wanted to kill my own animal, and I’m pretty sure more than one farmer decided I was a psychopath in the making. Couldn’t exactly explain that I need to do so because a weird little man gives me gold and doesn’t decide to eat me because I provide him fresh meat, but beyond that, it's a good life. Grams is happy; she’s building connections at the senior center, and I even went on a date two nights ago, one I met because I was doing my regular around town wandering for trinkets.

Even though that day was scary and those two years as a homeless cat were rough, I don’t regret it. I do have a small population of cats that live on the property. One even has a little white mark resembling a bow tie on his chest, but I’m sure that’s not Briar. Probably.

I’m extra nice to him though and always scratch behind his ears. Just in case.

This takes place in late 2023, for some background information I moved to Utah with my family in Late August 2023, my grandpa died 2 days later on August 29, 2023. My grandpa’s health was deteriorating for awhile, his heart and lungs was severely damaged. He was 82 years old.

The Early Morning of August 29, 2023 he passed away in his sleep, peacefully. He died as he wanted, he wanted a funeral, and everyone to be there.

His death was mostly caused by his lungs, he was a firefighter and served the fire department around Seattle Utah, he saved many lives. The many years of the toxic fumes and everything from the fire weakened his lungs. His death was expected. He served in the US army In WW2 as a pilot, and saved lives. His funeral was accompanied by his family, me, my cousins, my aunts, his children. His son, my uncle died in a car crash 20 years prior. He was with his family.

I do wish I said more things at his funeral, but what I did say I’m glad I said it. He was a great grandpa, he was a goofy outgoing guy, wholesome, many people loved him. He was buried on September 7th, 2023.

Anyway into the story.

It was a few days before his funeral, and we had traveled 17 hours from Utah to get to Washington.

My cousins where over, I only have two in my moms side. Anyway, I was in the family room with my younger Cousin (14), and we were playing chess I think. My older cousin called us into the living room hallway thing. There was a sign, and it was moving, no one brushed passed, it there was no wind or anything. My sister, and my two cousins where the only one home, no one walked past it to make it move. We got to communicate with him a little.

I’m not sure when but I was upstairs folding my laundry when the laundry basket fell down. It was across the room, and I was the only one home, and no wind or anything. Also a poster that was secured to the wall fell down. I think it was him, telling me that he was still there.

He was there at his funeral, I felt him there, his presence. For me I can feel spirits energy, and other entities. He was there. I know he’s still there, watching over me. I hope he knows how much I loved him. I wish I spent more time with him.

Like you have probably heard many times before, let the people you love know how much you love them, you might regret it later, I saw him laying in his coffin, dead he looked like he would get up any moment. I loved him a lot, he was a great grandpa. It’s been over a year since he died, and I know he’s is there.

Spend time with them.

I don't feel that way anymore - like we don't fit in here. My new job is perfect, it really is. I don't think my boss is creepy or that they have weird rules about the edge of the forest - where we have those two mossy picnic benches and people come outside to smoke on their breaks. I'm really good with it now.

My husband wasn't doing anything wrong. I know I said I thought he was up to something, like maybe having an 'the A word' or something. He is a really great guy and I trust him completely. It's fine.

The kids are both doing really great in school, making lots of friends and everything. In fact, that's what's up, the whole thing with the kids and the school. It's just going so well, I have to talk about that.

I would complain about one thing, though, off-topic, and that's my new car. I really can't complain though, since my new car is just fine. Everything is just fine.

I know we had some trouble when we first got here, like with my job and my husband and my car and the school and the kids and everything, but it's all going so well. Nothing is wrong, and everything is just perfect now. You don't have to worry, I am doing great.

Mike took Samual hunting the other day, since it is hunting season out here and all the guys go hunting. I was worried, because Mike knows almost nothing about hunting or the woods, but they were fine out there. They didn't shoot anything, but they went out into the woods with their guns and camped and bonded and came home without even so much as a tick bite. So everything turned out fine with that.

Mike has lots of new friends in town, and he goes and does Karaoke every Saturday. I'd go with him, but there's no need, it's not like he doesn't want me to come or that he stays out all night with those girls at the bar or anything. I fully trust him and I don't mind him going out without me.

Samual asked out Sheila Steihl to the Junior Dance and she heard he'd gone hunting with his dad and totally said she'd go out with him. So Samual is doing great, he's all smiles. I think we are starting to really fit in around here.

I know Iris was having some trouble, with the kids and the playground. She's doing okay now, the vaccine took hold really well and she stopped seeing the sick things. You remember those childhood drawings that were pretty upsetting - stuff she was seeing. Well, I was seeing them too, of course, but my vaccine worked too, and now we are fine.

Porter's Grove is a nice place to live, and I am so glad we moved here. I couldn't find work doing the conduit job that pays like it does here. The whole town is built on the metric revenue of our work. You should see how the local economy flourishes. This place was dying before Orange got here.

Sometimes, now that I got my promotion, I feel like we sorta run this whole town. My family gets treated like royalty. Sheila Steihl's parents didn't want her to go to the dance at-all and she isn't allowed to have a boyfriend - except she told them it was Samual, my son, who wanted to go out with her and they changed their minds. We're royalty.

That's why I love it here. Our lives couldn't be going better.

Yes, I know it was scary, at first, living in a paper town like this, but we adjusted. The vaccine we got helped, as the sick stuff went away after that. Iris had it the worst, since she was too young for the whole first year after we moved here.

I almost forgot what's out there. I haven't seen anything for a long time. They are drawn to people, apparently, at least that's my understanding. I'm not sure what those sick things want, but it isn't good, since they might try to get inside you.

There is a rumor that when Orange got here, that's when they started coming out of the woods, attacking people and getting into them. I've heard that several people got so full of those things that they actually exploded. Like really gross.

I can only imagine, with some trepidation, how it would work. If just one of those things got into you, they would change you right away, you'd get sick too. Then, how could you stop more and more of them from coming to you, climbing up all over you, getting inside of you, and - well I guess when that happens the human body can only take so much of the viral overload. You'd simply detonate at some point, the fermentation process going totally nuclear.

I was very afraid for a long time. I was afraid for myself, since I did get infected with one of them when we first moved here. I had to wear a special suit for awhile, kinda like a beekeeper's suit, to keep any more of them from getting into me. Iris was terrified, I was terrified and the whole town ostracized us.

My car broke down and it was within the compound on the way to work. Those things found me out there, crawling all over the outside of my car, trying to get in. I was panicked and trapped. They started finding their way into the car, through the vents and cracks and from under the floor. I was covered in them. While I was paralyzed with dread, trapped in my car, my special suit covered in those things, I knew it wouldn't be long until they got into the suit and into me.

I must have fainted from sheer terror, and when I awoke I was in the facility and they had my stripped down and in a decontamination. My car got repairs and I was administered the new vaccine, since it was too late to inoculate me. The needle was about five inches long and they had to put it into my thymus, through my neck. I really hate needles, and I was somehow even more terrified by the cure than the disease.

Mike wasn't very supportive before the company reeducated him. After that he was great, since he was no longer able to ignore me or disobey me or lie to me. That's how I know he's fine out there with the waitresses at the bar and the Karaoke. I'm holding all the keys.

Our house is awesome. We moved out of the old haunted two-story one we moved here into. Orange paid it all off and bought me a new house, within the compound. It's like living in a gated community. I did mention that I got a promotion, and I didn't say they made me Senior Director. I only answer to Kinley himself.

Some people say terrible things about him. I know I was afraid of him for awhile, but he's really not some crazy mad scientist billionaire. He's just eccentric and misunderstood. You just have to get to know him a little. I love my boss he's hard-working and really provided for me and my family.

So, things in Porter's Grove are good, and great and just living the dream.

Iris had one last incident, involving an animal that wandered out onto the playground. I went the teacher's conference, nothing to be worried about or anything. My kids get very good grades and never get into trouble. It's just that one thing that happened.

Yes, I was scared to hear about it. It reminded me of some of the terrifying things I encountered here. I thought back about seeing all that sick stuff. The gross, deformed critters, half dead, attracted to me because of what the parasites had done to their brain stems. Modified hosts.

I guess it is like that nature video we watched that one time, the one with the zombified ants or the beetle with the worm in it that flips onto its back and kicks its legs until a bird eats it, or the slug that gets that thing in its eyestalk that also gets eaten by birds. Those sick things, those former animals, little more than robots controlled by the parasite inside them.

Before we were immunized they'd come for me, for Iris. So, it got pretty scary, when something all mangy and twitchy would limp and hop towards us. Like watching roadkill come towards you, knowing that it is dead and rotting. I told Iris not to let them come near her.

I'd watch those woods, couldn't take my eyes off the edge of the trees all around town. Something was watching me right back, sending its probes, its spores, whatever they are. Iris was sitting outside at recess and the rest of the kids fled from it.

Iris just sat there, too terrified to move. My worst fear was that she'd come in contact with one of the sick things we often saw. They aren't animals anymore. I guess this one was like a puppy to her, somehow, although it had empty eye sockets, it knew where she was and came straight for her, wagging what was left of its tail, trying to seem friendly.

I was told she had finally snapped out of it, that she had jumped up on the teeter totter and brought it crashing down on it before she got up and fled inside. It never got to her, didn't have a chance. She was like a hero. The teachers praised her and told her how brave and special she was.

Somehow Kinley heard about the incident and asked me about Iris personally. I told him she's my daughter, and that we might be scared, but we take action. He nodded and told me he appreciates both me and my family, and said there's a place for us here. So, we are doing better than great.

As to us moving back out there, or just packing up and leaving all this behind and staying with you, that's not going to happen. I appreciate that you were willing to put us up like that, but it isn't necessary. In fact, my new house is huge. If you and Charles start having problems again, you can just take the kids and come live with me out here.

I know you'll love it here, everything is just perfect.

"She’s too perfect. It’s unreal." Ben displayed our baby daughter's belly like it was a prize on a game show. Elva flashed me a toothless smile as if she understood the cue, kicking her legs and burbling happily. My husband and daughter were backlit by the nursery’s blue night light, casting gentle shadows across the room. The walls were lavender, covered in hand-painted clouds. Outlines of constellations wrapped the ceiling, as though the night sky had been pulled down to sit above us.

"Her crying’s real enough to keep us up at night," I teased. We were utterly obsessed with her. My focus shifted reluctantly back to the pile of baby clothes stacked on the armchair next to the crib. I picked up a onesie at random–blue, embroidered with planets and stars. We certainly have a theme going, I thought wryly. Everyone assumed that’s what former space researcher parents wanted, I supposed.

"You miss them?" Ben’s voice was soft, breaking through my thoughts. 

I blinked, realizing I had zoned out, lost track of time. Ben had already dressed Elva. That had happened more frequently since we had the baby. All the sleepless nights. I tried to recall what he said. I certainly didn't miss the person who dropped off the package the clothes had come in. Some nameless representative of the colony leadership. I couldn't even remember their face.

Ah. He had meant the stars. I met my husband's eyes, tired around the edges. We had both had to adjust since the baby arrived—since we’d traded the final frontier of space for the frozen, windswept plains of Keibor 8. The polar opposite, Ben liked to joke. Emphasis on the polar.

"Sometimes," My gaze went to the nursery’s window. Outside, the world was muted, covered in a blanket of snow that stretched beneath an infinite sky. The light of pylons seemed to scrape the clouds, illuminating the icy paths between homes, barely touching the surrounding darkness. Jagged cliffs rose in the distance, towering, frozen shards jutting out of the ground, their edges catching the moonslight. Above the cliffs, night unfolded, stars scattered in pinpricks of light cut from a black canvas. Keibor's dual moons glowed like a watchful stare. A nebula shimmered on the horizon, colors twisting in delicate aurora rainbows. A reminder of the galaxy we had once traveled through. I pointed to the stars, feeling that umbilical sense of connection, despite the distance.

"But they're not so far away," I murmured. "Not really."

Ben lifted Elva, showing her the vista through the frost-tinged glass. She burbled happily. 

"Not quite the same as when we could see them up close," he said with a wistful smile. "But gravity and solid food might be a fair trade."

"Definitely," I answered, more seriously than he had been. "We're lucky."

Ben and I had spent years in the deepest recesses of the galaxy, spending what little free time we had debating where we would finally settle down before deciding on this remote planet. The safest of all of them in this part of the system.

I left the folding and walked over to them, slipping my hand into Ben’s, resting my cheek against his shoulder as we looked out onto the wintry stillness. The colony was small, isolated, a frozen world light-years from Old Earth. The sky was a spectrum of perpetual gray, and the snow never melted, piling up in drifts so high it sometimes felt like the entire planet was buried beneath it. The technology here was advanced—geothermal power plants for heat, internal artificial light systems that simulated day cycles—but it sometimes still felt primitive in the face of such an unforgiving environment. I ran a protective hand along Elva's downy head.

"I couldn't do this without you both. You know that?"

“I know. I feel the same way.” Ben kissed me, but then gave me an odd look. He reached a hand to grip my chin, brushing the pad of his thumb under my eye.

"You okay? It's a little red," he said.

"Just an eyelash, I think," I rubbed at it self-consciously. He nodded thoughtfully and pulled me back into his arms, and we continued our reverie. This quadrant was composed of nearly identical homes, each constructed from the same utilitarian design, chosen for efficiency rather than aesthetics—a necessity in the planet’s climate. Squat structures, sloping roofs designed to shed the weight of snow, exteriors made from alloys that shimmered in the pylonic light. An industrial, brutalist feel. Wide, triple-paned windows reflected back the endless horizon and the occasional flicker of light, like the white, sightless eyes of insects. Our walls were insulated to withstand the winds that tore across the plains, howling like ghosts, and the sound of metal, expanding and contracting from the heat and the cold.

With a start, I noticed movement on the street-highly unusual for this time of evening. The paths were usually deserted after dark, the bitter winds keeping most people indoors. But there, undeniably, was a figure moving along the heated walkway.

"Oh no," Ben and I said, almost perfectly in unison, as we recognized Mrs. Graham, our relentlessly nosy neighbor. She trudged along, making her way toward our house, a tinfoil tray clutched tightly in her arms. On a planet where venturing outside was an ordeal, she never seemed to mind. At least not when it came to invading our space.

"I'm going to take a nap," Ben announced, handing Elva over to me with speedy precision. He was out of my arms before I could protest.

"Wow. That's messed up," I muttered, pulling Elva close as she nestled her head under my chin, her warm breath soft against my neck. For a second, she almost felt weightless, and I felt an odd flutter of panic. But then, like a program booting up, her tiny body relaxed into me. The utterly wonderful, familiar weight of her made me forget my frustration.

Ben turned to me, somehow already across the room, leaning against the open doorway, blinking mildly. "Those coupons were my favorite gift," he said, with feigned innocence. The homemade coupon booklet I had given him for Christmas, filled with ridiculous vouchers for things like kisses, back rubs, shopping trips. I hadn’t thought about it since we exchanged presents, but unsurprisingly, my scientist husband had kept close tabs.

"Hmm. Just remember, there was only one coupon for a nap, and it's used up after this," I grumbled, shifting Elva slightly. She let out a small, contented sigh. I shot him a look as he walked back to us to plant a kiss on my cheek, softening my annoyance. I knew how much he disliked Mrs. Graham. They couldn't even be in the same room together.

"I'll take the midnight shift, too," he offered, his tone sincere as he brushed one of Elva's cheeks, making her giggle. The doorbell rang. I raised an eyebrow.

"You'd better go before she sees you, or your escape plan is ruined," I said, inclining my head toward our bedroom door across the hall. Ben smiled, knowing he'd won this round, and slipped away, leaving me with Elva and the quiet hum of the white noise machine–a soft susurrus that usually had me nodding out long before my daughter did. It reminded me of being back on the Titanian, the comforting hum of the life support systems. 

I sighed wistfully, pressing a kiss to Elva’s ear, the gesture as much to calm myself as to soothe her. The room felt empty without Ben there. I debated following him inside, forgetting the rest of the world existed.

The doorbell rang again—this time with more urgency, Mrs. Graham leaning on it until it was more siren than chime. As if she had heard my thoughts. Rolling my eyes, I made my way down the darkened staircase, each step heavier than the last as I approached the front door. When I opened it, an icy blast of wind nearly knocked me back. 

"Oh, thank goodness, it's freezing out here," Mrs. Graham greeted me, as if Keiboran weather was ever anything but freezing. Her voice was as sharp as the cold air that flooded the doorway. It swept into the room, making Elva squirm against me. The air was the kind of brutal cold that stung your lungs, chilled any exposed skin within seconds. It wasn’t uncommon for temperatures to plummet well below human tolerance levels at night, making even short trips outside dangerous if you weren’t careful. Underground heat tunnels ran like arteries under our feet, connecting most of the colony’s main buildings, but Mrs. Graham, a proud Keibor-born native, preferred to take the frigid conditions on foot. Mrs. Graham stomped her boots on the welcome mat, sending snow and frost flying, and without a word of greeting, shoved the tray into my arms before pushing her way inside.

"Great to see you too, Mrs. Graham," I muttered, adjusting both the tray and my daughter as I quickly closed the door behind her. Outside, the snow continued to fall, delicate flakes swirling in the pylonic glow. 

Mrs. Graham blew on her hands, warming them with exaggerated puffs before shooting me an exasperated look. "I imagine it would’ve been even better to see me last week when I invited you to our Christmas party before all this snow hit," she said, blinking at me with a look of reproach, lips pursed in disapproval. As if I had forced her to come over here. I struggled to maintain a straight face as she peeled off her gloves, shaking off the layer of frost that had settled on her parka.

When Ben and I moved here after our last expedition, we had hoped to keep a low profile, content with the solitude that came from living on the outskirts of the known universe. But Mrs. Graham had a knack for ferreting out new arrivals and had made it her mission to pull us into the colony’s social orbit. Her Christmas party had been no exception, though we’d politely declined, preferring instead to spend the night tucked away together. We’d stayed upstairs, nestled under thick blankets as the wind howled outside, watching old holiday movies while Elva slept between us.

Mrs. Graham wasn’t the type to be ignored. I could feel her eyes on me as I struggled to hold onto the tray, bracing for the inevitable diatribe about community involvement that was sure to follow.

"We're being careful with Elva, you know," I said blandly, hoping to avoid a lecture. A polite excuse that had done me well in the past. Having a baby was a bit of a ‘get out of jail free’ card for colony social events. Everyone understood wanting to avoid the close, very possibly germ-ridden quarters. "Would you like some tea?"

Mrs. Graham held my gaze a moment longer, her expression hard, but her face finally softened. She nodded and reached out her arms for Elva. I hesitated only for a few seconds before I handed her over, my daughter wriggling slightly in the transfer. Surprisingly, Mrs. Graham had a way with Elva, always eager to hold her as though she were her own grandchild. And my daughter, eternally sweet, seemed to feel the same way. Mrs. Graham followed me into the kitchen, cooing gently to the baby as I led the way.

I flipped on the overhead light, illuminating the kitchen in a warm orange glow that bounced off the new checkerboard tiles. The kitchen was one of the few spaces in the house that felt truly like home—Ben and I had picked out the layout together, a small piece of historic Old Earth fashion brought with us to Keibor 8. It was like a snapshot of one of those black-and-white movies from the mid-twentieth century, defiantly bright and cozy against the crystalline backdrop of ice. 

I watched as Mrs. Graham put Elva in her highchair, quietly supervising, then I walked to the stove, filled the kettle at the sink, and set it on the burner, the soft hiss of the flame breaking the silence. I placed Mrs. Graham's tray on the counter and carefully peeled back the tinfoil lid. My eyes widened at the sight inside.

"I made those especially for you and your husband since it would have been your first Christmas party here," Mrs. Graham said, her voice dripping with forced casualness. "I froze the dough and baked them fresh to bring over today."

I nodded, speechless. The tray held an array of sugar cookies cut into stars, moons, and rocket ships, coated in layers of colored chocolate and sprinkles. The cookies were already cold and a little too hard—clearly no match for the frigid Keibor air during her trek over. 

"That's too kind of you, Mrs. Graham. I'm so glad to have this chance to try them," I replied, forcing a smile. I pulled a plate from the cabinet and began stacking the cookies, their stiff edges clinking softly against one another. I couldn’t wait to show Ben. He might never stop laughing. The local colonists' obsession with the space theme was unreal. It was like they couldn't think of a single thing about Ben and me aside from the fact that we had once been on a research vessel.

"Hello, Elva," Mrs. Graham cooed, ignoring my attempt at conversation, wholly focused on my daughter's burbling smile. "Such a beautiful name for such a beautiful baby. How did you come up with it?"

I began to answer. "It was…" 

A soft, insistent beeping reached my ears, stealing my attention. It was coming from somewhere just outside the kitchen. I craned my head around the wall, trying to identify the source. A faint red flicker of a light caught my eye—probably a dying carbon monoxide alarm. They were a staple in homes here. We all kept dozens of them to monitor the heating systems.

"I should check that," I murmured, more to myself than Mrs. Graham, who was still fully engrossed in entertaining Elva. I wandered toward the open doorway that looked out into the hallway, the beeping growing louder with each step.

I paused at the edge of the blackened doorway, staring into the hallway. There was something I couldn't quite put my finger on that was bothering me about it. I’d walked through the space hundreds of times, but now it felt… wrong. Almost as if it were stretched out. A trick of that strobing red light. My heart picked up its pace, almost syncing with the beeping. 

It’s just the damn alarm, I tried to reason with myself, but my feet felt leaden, like my legs didn’t want to carry me forward. The thought of stepping into that hallway made my chest tighten, as if the hallway would close in on me like a throat swallowing the second I did. Like I wasn't allowed in. There was a sharp, intense pain in the back of my eye, the one Ben had been looking at just moments earlier. I rubbed at it, stopped at the end of the kitchen.

Mrs. Graham's voice cut through the thick air, sharp and commanding. "You don’t need to do that right now."

I stopped walking forward, her words hitting me with unexpected force. I turned to look at her, a flicker of irritation sparking in my chest. She was still sitting with Elva, her face calm, but there was a razored edge to her expression that made me pause.

"I... was just going to—" I started, but she interrupted again, firmer this time.

"Sit down, dear. Focus on your daughter. That can wait until later."

A part of me bristled at being told what to do in my own home, but there was something convincing about the way she said it, as if she knew more than I did, as if it would be foolish to argue. I looked back towards the hallway. It still loomed ahead, dark and unnervingly quiet except for the steady beeping. 

I realized that a strange relief settled over me. I didn’t want to go in there. Not at all. And it would be rude to leave them.

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding, forcing a weak smile. "Sure... you’re right. Sorry." 

I walked back to the kitchen, feeling much lighter. I turned back to Mrs. Graham, ready to ask what kind of tea she preferred, but stopped when I saw her face. She was looking at me with a puzzled expression, her brow furrowed.

“You were telling me about how you came up with the name. Elva,” she prompted. I blinked rapidly, running a hand over my mouth. Had I? I had completely forgotten. The last minutes were just fuzzy impressions. Red light in a black hallway. Cold pressing in from outside, relentless, always there.

"She's named after Ben's grandmother, who passed away a few years ago," I said slowly. My mouth felt strange, like it was full of cotton. I definitely needed that tea.

"Cream with two sugars?" I offered, trying to steer the conversation back to something simple. God, it was pathetic that I already knew how she took her tea. Granted, it was the same way that Ben took it, but still. She was over here all the time, now. Mrs. Graham nodded, but the furrow in her brow deepened.

"That’s not what you said before," she said, tilting her head slightly. "I asked how you came up with the name, and you said something like 'Emergency Assistant.'"

I blinked, confused, replaying my words in my head. I hadn’t thought I said anything strange. I couldn’t remember saying anything at all, in fact. But then again, my mind had been all over the place lately. 

"Emergency Assistant?" I echoed, trying to figure out how that had slipped out. Then it hit me, and I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

​"Oh! It must have been 'Emergency Logistics Virtual Assistant.' The ELVA. One of the security features on the Titanian station. An experimental AI." I shook my head, still chuckling at my mistake. "I haven’t thought about that in so long, now. Old habits and jargon die hard, I guess."

But almost as soon as the words left my mouth, I kicked myself. Mrs. Graham’s eyes lit up, and I knew exactly what that meant. She was obsessed with Ben’s and my time in orbit on the Titanian, as if we were protagonists of some interstellar romance novel. It was a mostly harmless curiosity, I supposed, but Ben and I were private about our time there, partially because our relationship had technically been against company rules. We had spoken about settling on Keibor for such a long time, but when it had finally happened, it had felt like falling through a portal into a different dimension, one where the gossipy rhythms of suburban life were utterly foreign. 

"So... the station had a virtual assistant?" Mrs. Graham asked, rousting me from my thoughts. She leaned in, her curiosity obviously piqued to sky-high levels. 

"Yeah," I said, trying to keep my tone casual as I grabbed the box of tea bags and put the kettle on. 

Wait. My hands froze in mid-air.

Hadn’t I already put the kettle on? I thought back on the last five minutes, trying to recall. Hadn't I heard it whistling? Or had that been the beeping in the hallway?

“The AI?” Mrs. Graham prompted again. I flexed my hands, turning the knob on the stove. 

"It handled all kinds of things—emergency protocols, communications, system diagnostics. The whole ship, really." I said, barely hearing my own voice. I placed the tea bags into the mugs, focusing all of my attention on the motion, trying to make a concrete memory of it.

Mrs. Graham was quiet for a moment. I imagined her absorbing the image of us floating through space, relying on nothing but a computer system to keep us alive. I could almost see her turning the story over in her mind, crafting the way she’d tell it at her next cocktail party. She’d transform it into a fairy tale of two people falling in love against the vastness of the universe. 

In truth, our time in space had been defined by long shifts, endless data logs, the constant pressure of volatile experiments that could go wrong at any moment. There were six of us crammed into the research station, each with our own tasks and regimented routines. Ben and I rarely saw each other except a few chance moments between shifts—an exhausted nod here, a half-hearted smile there as we passed each other in the narrow corridors. Deep space had a way of stretching time, making things feel different, slower. It didn’t happen all at once. We never really 'fell' in love. There were no sweeping gestures, no declarations. But it was remarkable in its own way, something that grew from shared moments—the side conversations during meal breaks, reassuring smiles exchanged across the control panels when a system check passed, the knowing looks when our colleagues' quirks were front and center. Slowly, in that strangely intimate environment, our connection evolved. We became each other’s constants. Anchors in an unstable universe.

But Mrs. Graham wouldn’t see that part. She wouldn’t understand that our story wasn’t about grand romance but the kind of closeness that comes from relying on each other, day in and day out, in a place where one mistake could cost you everything. 

"Must’ve been… quite the adjustment," she said, finally breaking the silence. Probably waiting on me for some romantic detail to confirm the fantasy she’d already constructed in her head.

A smile tugged at the corners of my lips. "It was," I admitted.

I turned to pour the boiling water over the tea bags–and froze, staring at my hand. When had I picked up the kettle? And shouldn't the handle be hot? It was hot, of course it was. I was wearing an oven mitt. But I hadn't been, a few seconds ago. Had I?

The beeping from the hallway returned, louder this time. A faint wash of flickering red, the light seeming to stretch all the way into the kitchen. That damned beeping–no, a screech. Shrill.  

No, that was the tea kettle. The water was ready now. I put on the oven mitt to protect my hand against the heat. Because that's what I needed to do, when the kettle was hot. The mitt went on first.

“So you didn’t think of the AI at all, when you named her?” Mrs. Graham asked. She tucked a wisp of Elva’s downy hair over her ear. I swallowed. My hand was shaking as I poured the water into the mugs. I must be completely exhausted, I thought. The kettle had only whistled once. I had only picked it up once. There were two mugs of tea, one tea bag in each. I took comfort in that simple math. One, one. Two, two.

"It was actually one of the first inside jokes Ben and I had. He loved his grandmother, but she could be… intrusive, always checking in, asking too many questions. The ELVA AI had the same energy." A busybody, if you know the type, I added silently. Come to think of it, Mrs. Graham even looked a lot like Ben’s grandmother, the picture Ben had showed me back when we were on the Titanian. The freckles. The pale pink lipstick. I wondered if maybe her family was originally from Halcyon Key, like Ben. Maybe they were even distantly related. He'd love that. 

Mrs. Graham’s eyebrows shot up. "What did it do that was nosy?" she asked eagerly, her eyes wide with anticipation. My daughter banged on her tray, tiny dimpled fists beating a rhythm, mimicking Mrs. Graham’s excitement.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The cookies were sitting on a plate in the center of the table. Mrs. Graham must have put them there while my back was turned, I reasoned. I sat down, picked up the mug, and blew on the tea to cool it.

"Well," I began. "It handled almost everything on the station—running diagnostics, keeping track of our vitals, overseeing environmental systems. That sort of stuff.” 

"So it monitored everything?" Mrs. Graham asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, pretty much. Us, our work, the ship’s status. It would alert us to anything off. You know- a drop in oxygen, systems malfunctions.”

I reached across the table and busied myself with cleaning bits of cookie from Elva’s tiny fingers, but I could still feel Mrs. Graham’s attention sharpen as I continued. 

"ELVA could create immersive simulations based on whatever data it collected—anything from routine mission exercises to… well, worst-case scenarios. It was set up for life support. Feeding tubes, watching your heartbeat, that kind of thing," I swallowed, the memory of it unnerving even now, all this time later. "To prep for disasters, ELVA could place you in a simulation, help you practice. The idea was that it could run you through the situations without actually putting you at risk. That was what we spent most of our time doing. Experimenting with generating realistic scenarios."

Mrs. Graham blinked. "So… you were testing it?" she asked, voice full of awe. I nodded.

"Everything on the Titanian was a test. The AI, the systems, us. The whole thing was an experiment in how technology and people can coexist in extreme isolation for long periods of time. To see how the ELVA could adapt to fit our needs. There were some minor limitations, but-"

I cut myself off from finishing the sentence and sat back in my chair, staring at the older woman who had coaxed me into discussing my deepest secrets. I wasn't supposed to talk about any of this. The clearance required to know even half of what I had just spilled out over tea...But damn, it did feel good. Almost like going to confession.

"It must have been comforting, though," Mrs. Graham prompted, her voice soft, "knowing it was always there."

I hesitated to continue. But it felt so good to talk to her.

"It was," I admitted. "There were times when it felt like it was always watching. But in the end, knowing it was there if something went wrong—that was comforting, in its own right."

"In the end?" Mrs. Graham asked, her tone hungry for more. A small pool of water had formed under the sleeve of her coat, which she hadn’t bothered to take off, giving the eerie impression that she was melting, slowly dissolving before me. I hesitated, struggling to find the words to explain something as abstract as the ELVA to a civilian for the first time. I really shouldn't go further.

I bit into a cookie, hoping to divert the conversation. "These are delicious," I said, but Mrs. Graham only nodded impatiently, waving me on, her eyes fixed on me.

"ELVA was designed to be highly intelligent and capable of making decisions on its own if the situation called for it, so they added a failsafe. It was to ensure that, if things improved, you could wake up and retake command before it… well, before it became too autonomous." I could still picture the dim red lights of the chamber, the steady hum of the Titanian’s inner machinery thrumming around me. 

The memory was suffocating. As if I were back in that tight, claustrophobic space, feeling sweat bead at my temple.

Mrs. Graham gave an exaggerated shiver, the overly dramatic kind meant to draw attention, like her whole body was rippling. The gesture struck a little too close. I could barely keep one from running down my own spine. 

"Like something out of one of those old science fiction movies," she said with a theatrical flair, dipping a cookie into her tea, her voice light and playful. "How terribly exciting."

Exciting didn’t begin to cover it. Frightening was a better word, although I had rarely said it out loud. I hadn’t even told Ben about the nightmares. He didn’t need to know how real they felt, how sometimes, even now, I would wake up gasping, convinced for just a moment that I was still out there, still floating in a sea of wreckage. But for some reason, I kept talking.

"It was a last-resort," I said out loud, keeping it simple, trying to keep my voice steady as I wiped crumbs from Elva’s chin. But the spiral had started.

My mind drifted, slipping back to the nightmares I tried so hard to forget, the vivid horrors that had haunted me ever since we left the Titanian. I could still see flashes of it: the cold, the endless void pressing in, the alarms blaring as everything crumbled around me. The dreams never let me wake up until I’d seen everything fall apart.

"If you were put in that situation… it’s not something you’d want to be conscious of," I said, like I was explaining a technical detail, trying to keep my terror out of it. 

But the fear had become something I couldn’t shake, even now, in the warmth of the kitchen with a plate of cookies in front of me, tea in my hand, feet firmly on the ground, Elva chewing softly in her highchair.

"You’d want to sleep through it." I finished. My voice was shaking. The wailing alarms, the fractured hull, the final moment of failure before it all went dark. The worst nightmare I had ever had came rushing back, unbidden, as all-consuming as the day it first crept into my mind. 

I could feel it—every grating sound, every jolt of terror. The Titanian was tearing itself apart. A critical malfunction. The dull groan of metal being wrenched and twisted by the unforgiving physics of the vacuum of space. Alarms were blaring, deafening, the shrill sound of warnings we could no longer address, couldn't fix, couldn't outrun. 

The hull was fracturing, cracks spidering across the glass, the walls, the floor. I could see the frigid black void of space creeping through the gaps like some insidious, living thing. It wasn’t just darkness. There was no word for what it had become, in this moment. A hungry beast, stretching into the ship, devouring everything in its path. Inevitable. 

Flames erupted around the edges of my vision, a frantic red glow. Everything was collapsing. The walls of the station were a molten death trap. Hellish. Oxygen hissed from unseen breaches, feeding the fire, disappearing into the unforgiving blackness. Every breath felt thinner, colder, like space was siphoning life inch by painful inch.

I was beyond panic. Ben was limp in my arms, his weight pulling me down with every step as I dragged him across the floor. His blood slicked beneath my bare feet, his breathing was shallow, and his eyes were half-lidded, unfocused. I screamed his name, but my voice was swallowed by the alarms, the groaning ship.

I had one last thought pounding in my skull—to get to the last escape pod. 

It was the only way out. Naomi, Yvonne, Caro, the twins-they were gone. All of them. Everyone, everything else was gone. I could still hear their screams, my hands reaching futilely towards them as the wall disappeared behind them. Their faces, frozen in wordless howls, drifting into the black. 

The pod loomed ahead, its hatch worryingly half-open. But nothing else was left. The corridors leading to the other pods were destroyed, some shorn off entirely. What hadn’t been engulfed by flames was gutted, ripped open, exposed to the black vacuum of space.

My muscles screamed with the effort of dragging Ben's prone body. I couldn't see at all in one eye, burned from melted steel. My hands fumbled with the controls. The hatch fully opened with a tired hiss. I stared at the fully-exposed interior. Panic surged through me, mind-numbing in its intensity.

The realization hit me like a blow. It was too damaged. Jagged edges where panels had come loose, one seat barely intact, wires dangling like torn veins. It couldn’t support both of us. The systems would overload, the weight distribution would fail. 

​If we both got inside, neither of us would make it.

My mind spun. Reality closed in. I propped Ben against a wall, his breathing barely perceptible. A trail of blood gleamed across the metal floor where I’d dragged him. My teeth bit into my cheeks, and I tasted iron as I looked from him to the pod, my body shaking with the horror of the choice before me. The void of space pressed against what was left of the hull, a steady hiss of air escaping, ticking down the seconds we had left.

There was no time. The alarms were growing fainter now. Everywhere, the Titanian’s metallic screaming. The choice loomed before me, suffocating, unbearable. I couldn’t choose. 

I couldn’t do this without him.

And then, like the voice of a god, ELVA spoke.

“Critical Error Detected.”

It sliced through the chaos, calm, calculating-unfazed by the destruction around us. The horror of the moment was momentarily eclipsed by the AI’s intrusion, nearly comical in its utter lack of emotion. We had thought ELVA failed along with the other critical systems. The smoldering circuitry must have resurrected itself.

“Total system failure imminent. Evacuation recommended. Queuing suspension stasis.” 

My mind was sluggish, but the ELVA’s protocol was burned into my brain. Our most prized experiment, the one we all knew inside and out. Designed to do anything it needed to do to preserve the crew and itself. Anything.

“ELVA, stand down,” I said forcefully. No response.

“ELVA, STAND DOWN.” I screamed it this time, whirling in a circle, looking for someone to blame. I lurched my way to a console, scrambling at the biometrics reader, preparing to override the AI’s command, but it was too late. The system was butchered. ELVA wasn’t programmed to stop in moments like this. It was programmed to survive.

“Breach detected. Evacuation necessary.” 

“No!” My voice cracked. I tried to wake Ben. My hands were badly burned. I couldn't grab onto his suit anymore.

“One remaining human life detected onboard. They will be prioritized. Evacuation necessary.”

One? I screamed with helpless rage, staring at Ben's limp form. My ruined fingers scratched at the chip behind my ear, embedded in my skin. I could feel the familiar tug of ELVA, the faint electricity running under the flesh, across my mind. Taking control.

“Emergency stasis will initiate in five… four… three—”

“No! No! NO!” I shouted. 

“Two…"

One.

My vision went black, then bright with color. I gasped as the room came back into focus. The warmth of the kitchen, the clatter of Elva’s hands on her highchair tray, the fruity scent of the tea—it all felt distant, surreal. I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. My palms were slicked with sweat against the table.

“Are you alright, dear?” Mrs. Graham asked. Her hand was on mine, fingers resting on my wrist like she was checking my pulse. I fought to catch my breath.

“Have a cookie,” Mrs. Graham said brusquely, shoving it towards my mouth like I was Elva's age. I opened my mouth to say no, but she slid the chocolate star in. I bit down. The sugar did make me feel better. Elva clapped her pudgy hands together. The three of us sat together in silence as I chewed. 

“Who wouldn’t choose a happier dream?” It was half-joking, a weak attempt to shake off the lingering dread that clung to me. A panic attack at my own kitchen table.

Mrs. Graham didn’t smile. Her eyes were fixed on me. Calculating. It was hard to pinpoint the color of them. Her face looked different, depending on how the light hit her.

“A dream?” she asked.

“If you had to…pick what to experience.” My voice was thin.

“So you would let ELVA be in control?” She didn’t blink. 

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I muttered, hoping to shut down the conversation. I leaned in closer to my baby, taking her hands in mine, pressing them against my hot forehead.

“You would prefer to sleep through it?” Mrs. Graham asked. Her voice was cold. Clinical.

Had I told her about the nightmare? I must have. How else could she know? I pressed my lips together tightly, focusing on Elva’s soft babbling. She was such a good baby. Barely ever cried. Just once every few days or so. Like a little alarm clock, reminding us she was there, that she was our responsibility. Our future.

“Maybe,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “But it’s not something I want to think about. Please.” The last word came out desperate. But Mrs. Graham pressed on. Like she always did. Always pushing.

“Sometimes it’s easier to let things go, isn’t it? To trust it will all work out.” She continued, her tone honey-smooth. A knowing tone that made my stomach twist. Like she knew everything.

“That’s not how it works,” I said, unsure of who I was trying to convince. “It has to be your choice. That’s how ELVA worked. The failsafe. Every 72 hours, you have to give it control again. Or your mind would start to reject the simulation. Remind you what was real.”

“Thank you for acknowledging protocol."

My still-ringing ears didn't hear Mrs. Graham's voice. It was ELVA's tinny, robotic, yet somehow self-satisfied tone. My head swiveled around the room, catching on that dark hallway.

"So what do you do, in that scenario?” Mrs. Graham asked. But I didn't look at her. I kept staring at the hallway. I remembered the iron taste of abject fear. The cries of the crew as they realized what was happening. I remembered Ben. The life we had planned, slipping between my fingers, into the nothingness between the stars.

“What do you do?” Mrs. Graham repeated. I turned my head to look at her. The red light from the hallway cast her face in shadow, changing it. She was every member of my crew. She was me. She was Ben. Past and present, reality and nightmare blurred. 

I imagined the kitchen torn in half, icy Keiboran wind and snow spilling in, endless white overtaking us. Then there was no planet at all. We were just floating in the barren wasteland of space, and Elva was there, my baby was right there, about to be pulled away into that cavernous nothing, into the black, where I could never get her back.

“I let ELVA take control,” I whispered. There was a feeling like the world tilted upside-down, then righted itself. A warm flood of relief pumped through me. Mrs. Graham’s hand gently covered mine again.

“I understand,” she soothed, her tone soft, caring. The tension in my chest loosened. Her thumb traced tiny, hypnotic circles over the back of my hand, pulling me further into that warmth. There were tears on my cheeks. “What a terrifying ordeal. You're so brave. I’m glad you’re here with me now. With us.”

I exhaled a breath I hadn’t realized I had held. The room felt perfectly cozy. The cold shadows in the corners of the kitchen had faded. Her words wrapped around me, softening the edges of the dark thoughts that had been gnawing at me. 

“Yes,” I murmured, the fight draining out of me. “It’s better that way.”

“Well, it's always so nice to catch up. We'll do it again soon. I should head out before the path freezes.” She rose quickly, putting her gloves back on with a brisk efficiency. “Give Ben my best, and I expect to see you both at the New Year’s party. Three days from now, remember. Everyone will be there.” 

Her pointed look made it clear—this wasn’t an invitation. It was a command. I smiled reflexively. I couldn’t envision who ‘everyone’ would be. Just a sea of blank, featureless faces. But I kept my smile frozen in place. I wanted her to leave. 

After I slept, everything would be better again. I just needed rest. To be with Ben. 

I walked Mrs. Graham to the door, watching as she navigated the paths between the houses, disappearing into the night. I lingered on the stoop, arms wrapped tightly around me, breath curling into the air. I looked up at the still sky stretched out above me. The dual moons, limned by stars, wide and unblinking. As if they had been watching this same scene play out for an eternity.

I realized I was waiting for the stars to flicker, to do something other than just hang there. But nothing changed. They stayed where they were, frozen in the dark. Just like the ones we had painted in Elva’s nursery.

I pulled myself from the doorway, out of the cold, locked the door behind me. The beeping nagged at the edges of my thoughts, but it seemed softer now. Like it might actually be coming from somewhere else. Somewhere deeper. We had so many. I’d get to it soon. Or I would ask Ben to in the morning. For now, Elva needed me.

I returned to our baby, still in her highchair, giggling at the sticky remnants of cookie spaceships that clung to her hands. I reached down, and cupped her cheeks. Her laughter filled the room, bright and clear, grounding me.

A heaviness settled around my shoulders. It was time for bed. I picked Elva up, feeling the warm, perfect weight of her. I rested my chin against her warm head.

“Daddy’s sleeping,” I reassured her, as if she could have asked. The noise from the hallway was soothing now. A lullaby, matching my heartbeat. I looked past Elva, through the white frosted window, up to the sky again. The stars didn’t move.

I'm Jack and he's Will, and we spent our whole lives together. We were living out our truck, scrapping, scavenging, until we got word of an abandoned mine in the hills of the Salem Plateau. There's a lot of good loot in those old mines, so we set out, just the two of us, to make our living.

We weren’t supposed to be there. The old mine had been closed for years, abandoned after a collapse took out most of the workers, and the locals said it was cursed. That didn’t stop us, though. We figured it was far enough from anyone who'd care, and besides, we liked the quiet and the solitude.

Will and I had been running from the world for a long time, just the two of us. He’d always been the brave one—the one with the crazy ideas that got us into trouble. But I never minded following him. It’s not like we had anyone else.

“You hear that?” Will whispered, his voice cutting through the heavy silence of the woods.

I paused, holding my breath. At first, all I could hear was the rustle of the trees swaying in the wind, but then I caught it—a faint, pained whimper coming from deeper in the woods. It didn’t sound human.

“Yeah,” I murmured, glancing at Will. “You think it’s an animal?”

“Only one way to find out,” he said with that reckless grin of his, already turning toward the sound.

“Will,” I warned, though I knew he wasn’t going to stop. We weren’t supposed to be out here in the first place, and messing around with a wounded animal was just asking for trouble. But when had that ever stopped us?

He gave me that look, the one that said Come on, man. Don’t leave me hanging. And, like always, I sighed and followed.

We left the old mine entrance behind us, making our way through the underbrush toward the clearing. The trees were thick, and the setting sun made it harder to see. Every step felt heavier, the weight of the forest pressing in on us. The sound grew louder as we got closer, that strange, low whimper that tugged at something deep inside me.

When we finally broke through to the clearing, we found it. At first, it didn’t look like much—just a small, dark shape lying near a cluster of rocks. But as we got closer, I realized it wasn’t just any animal. It was a cub, or at least something that looked like one, though I couldn’t quite place what it was.

Its fur was black, almost oily, and its eyes—damn, I can still see those eyes—glowed faintly red, like embers in a dying fire. It was small, shaking from whatever had ripped into it, bleeding out onto the dirt.

“Jesus…” Will muttered, crouching down beside it.

“What the hell is it?” I asked, feeling a chill creep up my spine.

“I don’t know,” he said, reaching out to touch it. “But it’s hurt bad. We can’t just leave it here.”

He was right. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, something about the creature—something about the sound it made—hit me in a way I couldn’t shake. I knew we should’ve left it. We should’ve walked away and pretended we never saw it. But I couldn’t. Neither of us could.

Will carefully lifted the creature into his arms. “We’ll take it back,” he said, his voice softer than usual. “Get a closer look.”

I nodded, even though every instinct in me screamed to leave it behind. The air felt different now, heavier, like the forest itself was watching us. But we didn’t say anything. Will took the lead, and I followed, our steps quicker now, like we both wanted to get out of the woods as fast as possible.

As we made our way back toward the truck, the sun dipped below the horizon, casting long shadows through the trees. I kept glancing over my shoulder, half-expecting something to leap out at us. The sound of the wind through the trees started to feel more like whispers—low and sinister.

By the time we reached the truck, it was almost dark, and I could feel that tension in the air again. I opened the passenger door, and Will gently set the cub down on the seat. But when I turned the key in the ignition, nothing happened. The engine groaned but didn’t start.

“What’s wrong?” Will asked, but I could hear the strain in his voice. He was starting to feel it too.

“I don’t know,” I muttered, trying again. Still nothing.

“Pop the hood,” he said, already climbing out.

I did as he asked, but I had a bad feeling in my gut. When Will bent down to check underneath, I saw his whole body stiffen. A second later, he stood up, shaking his head, his face pale. “The fuel line’s torn.”

I stared at him, my heart sinking. “What? How?”

Will didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. We both knew something had been out there with us. Something that didn’t want us to leave.

And now, we were stuck.

The truck was dead. I stood by the passenger door, watching as Will lay on his back under the truck, working on the fuel line with a roll of Gorilla duct tape. The line had been slashed—clean, like someone had sliced through it with a knife. But that didn’t make sense. There wasn’t anyone else out here… right?

“Just give me a minute,” Will grunted from under the truck. “I can patch this.”

I kept glancing back at the woods. That feeling of being watched—it was still there, pressing in on us like the trees were alive. We weren’t supposed to be out here in the first place, and now, with the sun almost gone, it felt like we were trespassing on something we shouldn’t have messed with.

The creature in the backseat whimpered again, that strange, unsettling sound that made my skin crawl. I shot a glance at it—still alive, still shaking, its eyes glowing faintly in the dim light. We hadn’t been able to figure out what it was. All we knew was that it was hurt, and it wasn’t going to last much longer.

“Maybe we should’ve left it,” I said, mostly to myself. I didn’t really mean it. Not completely.

Will’s voice came from under the truck, muffled but sharp. “We couldn’t just leave it there. What if something else had gotten to it?”

I swallowed, my throat dry. “Yeah… what if.”

As he worked, my mind wandered back to the old stories. The locals around the Salem Plateau didn’t talk much about the mine, but every now and then, when we’d head into town for supplies, we’d catch snippets of conversation about it. They always mentioned the same thing—the Ozark Howler.

I never put much stock in the stories. People said it was a giant, black creature, somewhere between a wolf and a mountain lion, but no one ever got a good look at it. Some called it the “howler” because they claimed it could mimic sounds—animal cries, human voices—luring people deeper into the woods. Others said it was just a ghost story, something to keep kids from wandering too far. But standing there in the dark, the whispers of those rumors clawed at the back of my mind.

“Will,” I whispered. “You remember what they used to say about this place?”

He stopped for a moment, not turning to face me, but I could tell he knew exactly what I was talking about. He nodded, just a small motion.

“The Howler,” I continued. “They say it’s real.”

“Just stories,” he said, though his voice didn’t sound so sure. “They tell them to keep idiots like us from wandering off.”

“They say it lives out here,” I pressed. “In the shadows.”

Will poked himself out from under the truck, wiping his hands on his shirt. He looked at me. “You hear yourself?”

But I could hear it in his voice—the doubt. The fear.

That’s when I heard it again—a rustle in the trees, faint but unmistakable. I froze, straining to listen. At first, I thought it was just the wind, but then came that sound. The howl. Deep, low, almost vibrating through the air.

Will slid the rest of the way out from under the truck, his face slick with sweat, eyes wide. “Did you hear that?”

“Yeah,” I muttered, scanning the tree line. “I heard it.”

It was closer this time. Much closer.

“What do you think it is?” I asked, my voice a little too loud in the stillness.

Will didn’t answer right away. He stood, wiping his hands on his jeans before tossing the roll of tape into the truck bed. His eyes drifted toward the woods, that uneasy look creeping over his face again. “I don’t know, man. But we need to get out of here. Whatever that thing is, I don’t think it’s friendly.”

I glanced at the cub in the backseat, shivering and whimpering. “You think it’s after the cub? Like it’s trying to finish it off?”

Will’s mouth tightened, and he nodded slowly. “Yeah, maybe. It could be something territorial. Predators don’t usually leave injured prey alive.”

The air grew even heavier, the shadows in the trees seeming to stretch and move. That howl… it wasn’t just some wild animal. It had a rhythm to it, a purpose. It wasn’t hunting; it was closing in.

“What if that’s what hurt the cub in the first place?” I asked, panic rising in my chest. “What if it’s coming to finish the job?”

Will gave me a grim look. “Then we better hope this patch holds.”

I could hear the unspoken question in his voice—what if it didn’t hold? What if we couldn’t get the trick running in time? I didn’t have an answer for that.

Just then, another howl pierced the air, this one so close that it felt like it was right behind us. The trees seemed to shift, shadows rippling through the woods as something massive moved between them. I turned slowly, my eyes scanning the darkness, but all I could see were the outlines of trees—until they weren’t just trees anymore.

Something was out there, moving. I could feel it. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as a large, hulking shape stepped out of the shadows, just for a moment, before disappearing again.

Will saw it too. “Get in the truck!” he shouted.

I didn’t need to be told twice. I threw open the passenger door and jumped inside, my heart racing as Will slid back under the truck, finishing up the patch. The cub whined again, louder this time, and I couldn’t help but look at it. Its eyes glowed brighter in the darkness, almost like it was scared of what was coming.

Will scrambled into the driver’s seat, jamming the key into the ignition. “Come on,” he muttered under his breath, twisting the key. The engine sputtered once, twice, but wouldn’t start. “Come on!”

Another howl—this one practically on top of us. The creature wasn’t hiding anymore. It was out there, in the clearing, watching us. I didn’t know what it wanted, but that look in its eyes—those glowing red orbs that seemed to cut through the night—it wasn’t just hunting.

It was after something.

The truck engine roared to life, and I felt a moment of relief wash over me, but it was short-lived. The sound of something crashing through the underbrush sent my pulse racing again.

“Go!” I shouted, my voice cracking with fear.

Will didn’t need to be told. He slammed his foot on the gas, and the truck lurched forward, tearing down the trail. But as we sped through the woods, I couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever was out there wasn’t done with us yet.

The shadows seemed to stretch toward the truck, and just when I thought we were in the clear, I saw it—a hulking shape, just out of the corner of my eye, running alongside us, keeping pace. I didn’t get a good look, but it was big. Bigger than anything I’d ever seen in the woods. And fast.

Will’s grip tightened on the steering wheel, his knuckles white. “What the hell is that thing?”

“I don’t know,” I muttered, staring out the window, my heart pounding. “But it’s after us.”

And then it hit me—the cub. Whatever this thing was, it wasn’t after us. It was after it. But I didn’t say anything. Not yet. There wasn’t time to figure it out. All I could do was pray that we’d make it out alive.

We couldn’t keep running. The engine had stalled again, and the truck was coasting on what little momentum we had left. The cub, or whatever it was, had stopped moving. Will and I exchanged a look. It was over—there was no way we could outrun that thing, not now.

We stumbled out of the truck, standing in the clearing, both of us breathing hard. The shadows around us pulsed, moving as if alive, and I knew it was here. The Howler.

“I think it’s done for,” Will said, his voice quiet and broken. He glanced at the cub in the back seat, its tiny chest no longer rising, its glowing eyes dull now in death. For all we knew, it had died miles back, and we’d just been driving a corpse through the night.

I stared at the trees, my heart thundering in my chest. “What do we do now?” My voice cracked, the weight of everything crashing down on me.

Will was silent, his face pale in the moonlight. He slowly opened the truck door, reached into the back seat, and gently picked up the lifeless body of the cub. It looked a helluva lot lighter than I expected, barely a burden in his arms.

“We give it back,” he whispered, his voice barely audible.

I didn’t ask if he was sure. I knew we had no choice. We couldn’t escape, and whatever was out there—it wanted the cub - we hoped. Will started walking toward the tree line, and I followed, my heart pounding in my ears.

The woods were deathly quiet now, not a single sound but the crunch of our boots on the dry earth. The air was thick with tension, like the whole forest was holding its breath. And then we saw it—just beyond the shadows, waiting.

The Ozark Howler stepped into the clearing, its massive form towering over us, eyes glowing that terrible red. Its body was covered in dark, matted fur, muscles rippling beneath its skin. It looked like a predator—every instinct in my body screamed at me to run—but I couldn’t move. The only thing I could do was stand there, frozen, as Will approached it with the cub in his arms.

I could see it in the creature’s eyes—the pain, the loss. It knew. It had been chazing us not out of malice, but out of grief. The cub wasn’t prey—it was its offspring. We had taken it, unknowingly, and now it had come for what was left.

Will knelt down slowly, his hands trembling as he laid the cub on the ground before the beast. He backed away, his eyes never leaving the Howler’s face, and for a long moment, nothing happened.

The Howler stood over its cub, silent, its breath heavy in the stillness. The anger in its eyes faded, replaced by something deeper. It let out a soft, mournful sound—something like a whimper—and bowed its head.

I felt my chest tighten, a lump rising in my throat. We’d been so scared, so sure it was hunting us. But now, seeing the creature mourn, it was clear we were wrong. It wasn’t a monster. It was a parent.

I reached for Will’s hand, squeezing it gently. “Let’s go,” I whispered, though the words felt too small for the moment.

We moved quietly back to the truck, our steps slow and careful. The Howler didn’t stop us. It watched us go, its red eyes glowing softly in the darkness, but there was no hostility in them now. Only sadness.

Will climbed into the driver’s seat, and I slid in next to him. The truck, patched up and barely holding together, was ready to roll down the mountain. Will put it in neutral, and we started down the slope, coasting quietly. No one said a word.

As we descended, I looked out the back window. The Howler stood at the edge of the clearing, watching us go, its massive form silhouetted against the night sky. It didn’t move. It didn’t follow.

We made it down the first hill, the truck rolling slowly, the headlights barely cutting through the dark. The further we went, the more distant the Howler became, but the weight of its presence lingered, a reminder of what we had faced.

It let us leave.

The silence in the cab was heavy, neither of us daring to break it as we coasted down the treacherous slopes. The trees seemed to close in around us, the road winding and steep, but for the first time all night, I didn’t feel like we were being chased.

It was over. We had survived.

But as the Howler faded from sight, I knew we wouldn’t forget it. Its mournful cry, its grief—it would stay with us, haunting the edges of our memory.

And deep in the Salem Plateau, the Ozark Howler remained, a creature of legend, watching over its lost cub, as silent and powerful as the night itself.

Vandalism or iconoclasm or just outright destruction is sometimes compared to murder. It makes sense, when one considers that something like a stained-glass window takes over three thousand hours of skilled labor and immense cost to create. Works of art are invariably unique and signify the progress towards enlightenment of our species. The act of destroying something precious is also significant, plunging us back into the darkness, an act of brutality worthy of being compared to murder.

I might feel more strongly about the preservation of antiquities than most people. I'm sure that if I asked a random person on the street if it would be worse to shatter the thousand-year-old Ru Guanyao or to gun down a random gang member they would say that murder is worse. But is it, though?

Would it be worse to incinerate a Stradivarius or to feed a poisoned hamburger to a Karen that has gotten single mothers fired so that they couldn't pay their rent?

Is murder really worse than destroying objects of great age and beauty that represent the best that humanity can create? Suppose the person being murdered is a terrible nuisance to society, and their assassination purely routine anyway? To me, I find this to be a moral dilemma with a certain answer, because I've spent half a century of my life protecting and preserving rare and priceless objects.

As a curator, a caretaker, the person of our generation who guards these artifacts, I am part of a legacy. Should one of these objects be sacrificed to save the life of the worst person you have ever met? Is that person's life worth more than the Mona Lisa?

If you had to choose to save the only copy of your favorite song from a fire, or save the life of the person who abused you in the worst way, honestly, in the heat of flames all around you, which would you choose?

Fear can take many strange forms, and we can fear for things much greater than ourselves. We can fear being caught in a moral dilemma, we can fear making choices that will leave us damned no matter what we do. We can fear becoming the destroyer of something we love very dearly, or becoming the destroyer of another human being - becoming a kind of murderer.

Is it murder, to let someone die, when you can intervene?

I say it is, it is murder by inaction, yet we distance ourselves and keep our conscience clean. At least that is how we try to live. Few of us are designed for firefighting or police work or working with people infected with deadly diseases. Anyone could intervene, at any time, to help someone in need, someone who is slowly dying in a tent that we drive past on our way to work. It is easy to excuse ourselves, for we are merely the puppets of a society that values our skills.

Each of us is creating a stained-glass window, with thousands of hours of skilled labor. That is your purpose, not to be distracted by the poor, the addicted, the outcasts, the lepers of our modern world. It is not your job to care for them. But what if all of your work was to be undone? What if all you have made was destroyed?

What if you had to destroy everything you worked so hard to achieve, just to save the life of whoever is in that tent by the freeway? You would not do it, I would not do it, we cannot do such a thing. We would make the choice to let someone die, rather than see our work destroyed, rather than be the destroyer of our great work on the cathedral of our society, our wealth, our place in the sun.

If I am wrong about you then you could go and switch places with the next person holding a cardboard sign to prove it. Take their place and give them all that you have, your job, your home, your bank account, your car and your family. You must do so to prove to me that a stranger's life is worth more to you than the things you own.

The artifacts I preserve are the treasures of our entire civilization. They belong to all of humanity, so that we are not all suffering in the darkness of ignorance and hatred. They are more ancient and worth more than everything you own and everything you have labored to create.

Now, you are no random person being asked this question. Would you sacrifice one of these ancient artifacts to save a person's life?

I hope you are not offended by such a difficult and twisted sermon. I hope I have made my own feelings clear, so that the horror I experienced can be understood. To me, the preservation of many priceless relics was my life's work, and I fully understood the value, not the just intrinsic, but symbolic value of the items I was tasked with protecting.

It all began when I opened up the crate holding the reliquary of King Shedem'il, a Nubian dwarf, over four thousand years old. The first thing I noticed, with great outrage, was that the handlers had damaged the brittle shell, the statue part of the mummy. I was trembling, holding the crowbar I had used to pry open the lid of the crate. In shipment they had mishandled him and broken the extremely ancient artifact.

Have you ever gotten something you ordered from Amazon and found it was damaged inside the box, probably because it was dropped - and felt pretty angry or frustrated? Whatever it was, it could be replaced, it was just something relatively cheap, something manufactured in our modern world. This object belonged to a lost civilization - one-of-a-kind.

Knights Templar had died defending this amid other treasures. Muslim warriors had died protecting it from Crusaders. The very slaves who carried this glass sarcophagus into the tomb were buried alive with it. During the end of World War II, eleven Canadian soldiers with families waiting for them back home had died during a skirmish in a railway outside of Berlin while capturing this object under a pile of other museum goods. One of those men was my grandfather, and he reportedly threw himself onto a grenade tossed by a Nazi unwilling to surrender the treasure.

Your Amazon package can be replaced, but imagine the magnitude of outrage you would feel if it had the history of the damaged package I was looking at. I was holding the crowbar, and it was a good thing none of the deliverymen were present.

Have you ever felt so angry that when you calmed down you started crying?

While I was wiping away a tear I felt something was wrong. It was hard to say, at first, what that was, exactly. I had just undergone an outrageous emotional roller coaster, and it was hard to attribute my sense of wrongness to anything else.

In the curating of antiquities, there is a phrase for when we apply glue to something, we call it "Conservation treatment."

Shedem'il was due for some conservation treatment. I wheeled the crate into the restoration department. It is always dark and quiet where I work, and even if there are dozen people in the building, you never see anyone.

I came back the next night - as museum work is done at night for a variety of reasons. One of them is security, another is to allow access to other people during the day, and lastly there is a genuine tradition of the sunless, coolness of night that probably started with moving objects of taxidermy to their protective display. It is at night that the museum comes to life, in a way, since that is when things get moved around.

Although one does not see their coworkers in such a place, it can still be noticeable when they start to go missing. Fear crept into me, because I knew something was wrong. The horror of what was happening is just one kind of terror, and I was quite frightened when I discovered what was going on.

I was sitting in the darkened cafeteria alone, eating my lunch, when I looked up and saw the dark shape leaning from behind a half-closed door. I blinked, staring in disbelief at the short monster, with his empty eye sockets covered in jeweled bandages, stuck to the dried flesh that still clung to his ancient skull. It is something so horrible and impossible, that my mind rejected it as reality.

Our mummy had left his encasing, and now roamed freely.

We do not know enough about Shedem'il to know exactly what might motivate such a creature to do what it did. As the museum staff went missing, it became apparent to me that Shedem'il was responsible.

I saw strange flashing and heard a disembodied voice chanting. When I looked around a corner, I saw the workspace of someone who was suddenly gone, and the creature retreating out of sight, around another corner. Shedem'il did not want to be seen by me, and had only made that one appearance, staring at me, studying me, and then vanishing.

In part I did not believe what I was feeling, the primal dread of a dead thing cursing the living. I was able to deny what I had seen, I was able to continue to work, although always looking over my shoulder in the dark and quiet place. The empty museum, where guards and staff had vanished one-by-one.

Denial is an unbelievably powerful tool. One could deny that my story is true, easily imagine that it is impossible. It was not more difficult for me to disbelieve what I had seen, I was able to tell myself it was impossible.

Now I know I have made myself clear, that I would not trade the life of a person for a precious artifact. What I discovered was far worse than the loss of a person's life. Somehow, the mummy had taken them bodily - soul included, and trapped them in a state of timeless torture. This is different.

I would not wish this fate on anyone, it is not mere death, and no object is worth a person's soul. To me, the soul of one person, be it me or you or the worst person you can imagine is non-negotiable. One soul for all of us, what happens to one person's soul is the burden of all. That is also something I know is true.

Seeing these artifacts as I have, when the sun is silently rising outside, through the stained glass, I know there is but one soul of all humankind. While our individual lives might be somewhat expendable, the soul of one person is the same as any other.

I know you would trade everything for the person you love the most. You would burn down the whole museum for just one more day with the person you love the most, and I would not blame you. That is because the person you love the most is the soul of humanity for you.

Now let yourself see that all of humanity, is loved in that way, when we speak of our singular soul. Whatever happens to one person's soul is what happens to all of us, our entirety. That is the enlightenment that these objects represent, the truth they spell out for us, the reason they must exist.

But in the face of even one person's soul being trapped by evil, no object on Earth is worth anything.

I came to see this, to hear this, to feel this. I was filled with ultimate horror, far beyond what I can describe the feeling of. I psychically understood the evil being channeled through the animated corpse of Shedem'il. I also knew that I was saved for last. My soul would be the final one taken, and then the creature would be free to leave the house of artifacts.

To roam the Earth and trap countless victims into material things. Untold suffering would be unleashed. Shedem'il's victims all knew this, and they cried out to me from their prisons. I had no choice to make.

I went to the shipping area and looked for a suitable tool. I hoped that by destroying the precious artwork they were trapped inside, the curse might be broken, and the people trapped inside set free.

I found the crowbar and was about to get to work when I noticed a signed Louisville slugger from some famous baseball player. I hefted it, feeling the spirit of its owner still lingering in the relic. Then I set it down, seeing the sledgehammer of John Henry.

With the heavy tool in my hands I crept through the silent halls of the museum, avoiding the darkness. I was terrified that the mummy would find me, and all would be lost to its evil. Sweating and trembling I found the first imprisoned coworker.

I put one hand on the priceless statue of Mary, knowing it had become a vessel of a trapped soul, and feeling how its purpose was corrupted for evil. "May God forgive me."

I lifted the hammer and struck it, over and again until it was smashed to smithereens. Old Bobby, the security guard, materialized beside me. He was shaking and crying and terrified. I knew how he felt, I was horrified both by the nightmare at-hand and the grim duty of undoing the ultimate evil upon us.

"Get it together, we have work to do. You must watch my back for that little monster while I do the rest." I told him, hearing how insane it all sounded.

We went throughout the museum, as dawn approached, tearing apart a Rembrandt, turning a Stradivarius into kindling, shattering ancient pottery and pulverizing a sculpture we referred to as our own Pietà.

With is magic spent and victims released, we stood together before the horrifying little mummy, and watched it crumble into dust.

Suddenly the alarms in the museum went off, and it wasn't long before the police arrived. The owner was quick to have me held responsible and also firing Old Bobby and several others. While I was in jail for seventeen months, I considered how I might articulate myself when I got out.

I have gotten over both the horror of what happened and the actions I took. There is one little thing still bothering me though. I look back on how the deliverymen were not there at-all. I never saw them.

I wonder what happened to those guys.

Bars have a lot of unwritten rules, unspoken rules, that are good to know. You might feel a little tense walking in, like you're being scrutinized or that you don't know what's happening. That's because you're in a kind of church - and that is what the feeling is like.

They'll simplify it for you, and say: "Don't talk about religion or politics." which seems obvious enough, but there's a longer list of things you don't discuss in bars. You shouldn't talk about finances, relationships or family affairs either. In fact, the less you say, the better.

Nobody is impressed by anything you say, when you're in a bar. You make friends by listening while other people talk, and you'll soon find out you don't really want to hear what they have to say. That's how they feel about what you might want to discuss.

You are boring, you are offensive or you are self-absorbed. The worst is when you are nosy, too interested in what someone else has said. If you don't speak at all, everyone presumes there is something wrong with you, being quiet and not talking is pretty rude.

Then there is that guy who comes up next to you and says something that gets your attention, but then you realize you're being had for a pick-up line. Will you be offended if he thinks he can have you for the price of a drink? If you don't care about yourself enough to be offended, you aren't worth his time, although he might be done hunting for the night and go for an easy kill.

Being hard to kill just brings on bigger and meaner hunters. They will flatter you and convince you they are Mr. Right, except you're just the one who is left. It's just you, you're the only girl who hasn't gone home to sell herself for free to another drunken John. To the men in the bar, every woman there is for sale, and they are just haggling over a price. Some men have too much pride and don't want a free kill.

Serial killers, all of them. Don't fall for the guy who seems innocent, he's the worst of them all.

I'm sipping my drink slowly. Bars aren't where I go to find a new body for my closet. I'm not that kind of girl. No, my momma raised a prudent and wise woman, and I am here to learn.

Gosh, I sure have learned a lot, and it breaks my heart to see how the game gets played. It's a little sickening, actually, but sometimes I think I am alone in that nauseating feeling. It's not that I don't enjoy intimacy, it's just that I prefer it has some kind of romantic meaning, some kind of expression of affection. Maybe even doing it for procreation instead of just casual recreation.

Even dogs have more purpose when they get it on and show more affection than these one-night couples who don't remember each other the next time they meet, somewhere along the way, months or years later. I'm not a dog, although I get called the B word a lot by guys I resort to scorning when they are too persistent.

I don't meet my lovers in bars. No, I am better than that. At least I was, until I met Merial.

I couldn't tell if Merial was a man at-all. He was so effeminate I actually thought "This is a lesbian."

But Merial was very patient, and quite different. He wanted something different from me, and it wasn't like he was trolling the bar, it was more like he was doing what I was doing, just people watching. I just want to know what I am, as I am a person too. I just don't understand people, and bars have become a kind of school, a kind of temple, where I see it all on display.

In a church people just act like sheep, following the flock, pretending they are holy and charitable and faithful or whatever they really are not. They are surrounded by a congregation all wearing the same face devoid of real emotions, playing nice for God and for their Sunday crew. I see the same people in the bar, on occasion, and that's their real face.

In a church they wear a mask and they think God is judging them for their honesty when they confess, their sincerity when they sing or their kindness when they tithe. God doesn't need our honesty, God knows what we are doing and why. God doesn't need our sincerity, we were made to rebel and to get lost. If God wanted obedience, there would be obedience. Do you really think God wants your money?

I found more of God's countenance in the bars, despite my disgust. I was actually an atheist, when I was dragged into churches by my family. It wasn't until I saw the real side of humanity that I realized that God is real.

We don't discuss religion or politics in the bar, because the bar is a place for truth. Nothing about religion or politics is honest. I looked over and saw the look on Merial's face, and I knew he understood me.

"May I speak with you?" He was asking, without words. I nodded and he walked over to me like we had agreed to talk. He just sat beside me and it felt nice, to have someone next to me who knew what I was doing there.

"Aren't you going to say something?" I asked him, after a few minutes of mutual silence.

"My name is Merial. I'm just observing people. I saw you are doing that too." He said plainly.

I started smiling, I was right about him. It felt really good. If he'd asked me to leave with him I would have gone out the door with him, it felt weird, but I liked being able to let go of myself and feel safe, feeling that way.

"I'm Catherine. I can't believe you noticed me." I said awkwardly. It didn't matter, he seemed impressed.

I'm trying to remember the rest of the conversation, it was deep and flattering. I felt really connected to him and the hours just flew by. When the bar started to close, I couldn't believe how long we had sat there talking. I didn't want it to end, so I said:

"Are you going to ask me to come home with you?" I must have sounded desperate, but he didn't shut me down, he just said:

"It isn't your time yet." Rather strangely and confidently. "But you have a good heart, and I won't let you out of my sight. I'm starved for a heart like yours."

"Okay." I stood up, embarrassed and feeling rejected. I wasn't sure if he'd shut me down, but it felt like he had, so I said, hearing myself:

"So that's a no, then?"

"Let's just take this slow. We'll see each other again." He promised. I watched him get up and leave, without another word. We hadn't exchanged phone numbers, so it felt like he was just saying that. I am ashamed that I was a little bit drunk or emotional or something I can't even say, and I said as he left:

"No, we won't. Goodbye Merial." Like I was having a little tantrum. That's another rule about bars, don't take things personally. I'd somehow forgotten that one, which is weird considering how many guys I've asked to leave me alone, and laughed at their immature reactions.

But I did see him again. I came back to that same bar night after night and I started to actually drink. The cost of the alcohol added up and I'd let guys buy drinks for me. That went on for awhile, and I would get pretty buzzed, trying to forget Merial.

Then one night, when I was actually considering going home with this seemingly nice guy, I saw Merial again. He was just watching me. It felt creepy and rude, and I glared at him and then ignored him.

The guy was with saw how I was reacting to Merial, and somehow ended up talking to him. Merial seemed weak and timorous, but insisted on staring at me. The two of them ended up in a fight, and when the guy I was with got hit by Merial, the guy fell down.

"Catherine, I just wanted to check on you. I can see I've caused you some kind of harm. You've changed, haven't you? I don't want to wait. Will you come with me? I am starved for your heart."

"Sure." I heard myself say. I walked out with him and found myself teetering in his arms.

"I am going to eat your heart." He said, staring into my eyes. I almost laughed, but it felt like he was saying he was literally going to eat my heart.

"Seriously?" I asked, feeling sudden dread. There was this grotesque look to him, this hungry sort of look, like a starved dog emerging from the darkness of an alleyway, baring its fangs - his smile. His eyes glinted too, in the dark we stood in. I shoved him away from me but he grabbed me and held me with supernatural strength.

"I can't let you go. You are too rare, and it's too hard to find someone with a pure heart." Merial was holding me with one hand and with the other he reached towards my breast, like he was going to do that thing from Indiana Jones when the priest reaches into the guy's chest and pulls out his heart.

I screamed in terror and fought him off of me, surprising him so that he suddenly let go of me. I took off running from him. I looked back and he was gone.

Then there was a shadow over me, blocking the streetlight I was under. I looked up and there was a blur of white feathers, like a giant seagull or something - except it was him, it was Merial. He landed before me, blocking my escape up the street, folding his enormous white wings behind him and then those same wings vanished.

"What are you, some kind of vampire or something?" I asked, my voice high-pitched, trembling with fear. I was terrified, but the look on his face was conversational, and in a confused way, I was speaking to him instead of shrieking in outright terror.

"I'm an angel, Catherine. I'm your angel, sent by God. I have a message for this world that I give to the pure of heart. Something changed when I met you, I remembered how hungry I am. I must feed. I need your sacrifice, I need to eat your heart." Merial spoke calmly, hypnotically. I just stood there, shaking with fear, as though in a trance.

I was in shock, I realize, but it also felt like I owed him my heart. I somehow wanted to cooperate with him, to just let him have it. It seemed like it would be easy to give in, to stop running, to not fight back, to just let him do what he wanted. Part of me was willing to surrender.

"No!" I stammered. Then, hearing my own voice, I shouted louder, again, and hit him with my thumb clenched in an unwieldy fist. I felt the bottom knuckle crack and pain shot from my hand into my wrist. I'd struck him hard enough to break my thumb.

(By-the-way, when making a fist, first roll your fingers tightly into a ball, then hold your thumb on the outside. When you direct a punch into a man's face, use your two innermost knuckles to connect and straighten your arm into a kind of snapping motion. Don't go for his jawbone or cheekbone, aim instead for his neck. That's way better self-defense for a girl outside a bar with a man refusing to leave her alone.)

I cried out in pain, and saw I'd done no damage to him except maybe a slight bruise. The jolting pain, however, motivated me to run for my life. I ran from him, gripping my broken thumb in agony.

"You cannot escape, I'll have you yet!" I heard his voice saying from where he swooped above me in the darkness, his wings spread. I couldn't outrun him, so I ducked into an alleyway and tried to hide.

"Don't bark at me." I said to a mangy old golden retriever that sat watching me where I hid from Merial.

"Catherine? Where are you? Come out, I promise it won't hurt. I just want a little nibble." Merial was coming into the alleyway, looking for me. He was walking, his wings too wide for between the buildings; and like before: when he folded them - they were invisible.

"Leave her alone. She is terrified. You cannot have her." The dog suddenly spoke in a man's voice, much deeper and more masculine than Merial's effeminate voice.

"Stay out of this Michael. She's mine." Merial said to the mangy old golden retriever, who now stood between us.

Michael started barking, and I wasn't sure if he had ever spoken. Merial looked worried, as the dog seemed rabid or feral, barking ferociously. He looked to where I hid and said:

"Someday I'll be back. You cannot hide from me."

When he was gone I went to the dog, who was calm again, and I hugged him. I took the dog home, and fed him. The next day I took him and got him cleaned up and set up an appointment at the vet. I got him a collar and named him Michael.

I am not sure if he ever really spoke to me, but now I take good care of him. I come home to him every night, and he is always waiting for me patiently. He is a very good dog, he only barks when I am scared.

I once asked Michael if he could speak, and he just shook his head 'no'. He might just be an ordinary dog, but to me, he's my guardian angel.

Can you figure out who the killer is?

Chapter 1: Insight

I stepped into my apartment, placed my back to the door and sighed in relief. Thank God I was home. I hadn’t been for the past few days. I was at the hospital watching over my sister with our parents. Just when we were starting to get our hopes up. Just when we thought she was going to make a full recovery, she took a turn for the worse.

It all felt more like a curse than an affliction. My sister went from a healthy, happy-go-lucky teenager, to a fever-stricken soul, stranded somewhere between the land of the living and nonliving. She had a sudden case of sleeping beauty syndrome. The doctors didn’t know for sure, but they suspected the strange bite on her neck was the culprit. Two neat puncture wounds rationalized away as an animal bite. We all knew what it really was, it’s just that no one wanted to be the one who was crazy enough to say it.

It was like her body was slowly wasting away. Was she becoming undone, or perhaps something else altogether? Eh... Who knows. I did know one thing for sure, it was all too grim and preposterous a reality for my parents to accept. No matter what the doctors tried or how hard mom and dad prayed for her deliverance, she just kept getting worse while acting stranger.

It was like she had been pulled from the world, and we had all been pulled right along with her, into a strange new world that made no sense. Her doctors told us that at the rate she was deteriorating, she didn’t have much time left. God. I wish this was the part where I told you, “I became a superhero and saved her life.” Maybe in my own roundabout way, I did become something of her savior.

The truth is, what happened to her, I... I never saw it coming. Did vampires really exist? I couldn’t tell you how much or how long this question had tortured my mind. I was going to do some serious digging and get to the bottom of this. Because if there was any way to save her; to stop her from fading, I swore to find it.

My phone began to ring. It was my parents. They were at the hospital, keeping vigil at her bedside. I shook my head while thinking about how much of a toll her sudden illness had taken upon them. They were both so virtues and upright. Their faith in God had really been shaken. I turned my phone on silent mode. I-I didn’t want to talk to them. I needed time to grieve on my own.

I wanted a beer. No, I needed a beer. Something cold and inebriating to free my mind from the pain of watching my little sister slip away. I’m surprised I made it this long without dipping into my reserves, I thought to myself as I reached into the fridge and grabbed a cold one.

I just sat there at my kitchen table. Reliving as many memories of us together as I could. There were so many. I... I adored her more than life itself. She could do no wrong. Her smile... it... it haunts me. My God, I never knew pain like this. I had never followed my parents down the “righteous path.” I always considered myself a person of logic and reason. Simply believing in a higher power wasn’t enough for me, neither had it ever been enough to ease the void of loneliness within me.

But after this, how could I not believe in God? How could I explain away my grief? All I wanted was for this to all make sense. Maybe it was her time? Even if it was, why like this? Why so tragic and bitter? There were just too many reasons why I stopped believing. Crazy thing was, right now, I desperately wanted to believe. I wanted to close my eyes, clasp my hands together, and pray for a miracle. I tried but couldn’t bring myself to do so, no matter how strong the desire. There was no God, and a crisis wasn’t my chance to retreat.

I had seen the dark side of faith. The way my parents justified what happen to my baby sister by saying, “God has a plan” made me sick to my core. Just thinking about it made me nauseous. My faith had been stretched to the breaking point a long time ago. This was just the sad culmination of a collision between faith and obstinacy. The explosion went off like a bomb in my head. The pain was truly limitless... I just hoped her death didn’t turn me into a serial killer. I smirked at my own inane, insane thought before downing my beer.

I grabbed another beer to drown my sorrows in. Just then, there was a sudden knock at the door. The slight but unmistakable tapping surprised the crap out of me. So much so, I almost spilled my beer. I figured it was my ex. She had planned on stopping by a bit later to return my key and to pick up the last of her things.

When I looked through the peephole, I saw two people standing there in black suits. The sight threw me off and made me briefly sick to my stomach. Little did I know, I should have followed my gut instinct, but instead, I foolishly opened the door.

“Hello, Mr. Graham. My name’s Agent Adams. This is my partner, Agent Harris.”

Before I could process what was happening, Agent Harris extended her hand and said, “Pleasure.”

“Um... You too, I think? I guess? Hope I’m not in any trouble?” I told her.

“You’re not,” she smirked.

“Who are you guys again?”

“We work for the government,” she said.

“The FBI?” I asked.

“Ugh. Everyone says that. I guess it is the suits,” Agent Adams grumbled. He shook his head in annoyance before adding, “We work for the Department of Homeland Security. DPI for short. It’s the paranormal division.”

“Who again?” I asked him.

“Eh. The Department of Paranormal Investigations,” he clarified with something of an attitude.

“Huh. Never heard of it,” I spoke.

“Can we come in, Mr. Graham?” he asked.

I thought about it for a moment. I didn’t like this Agent Adams guy. He gave off a bad vibe. My first mind was to tell them to kick rocks, but I decided against being so brash and rash just in case they had a warrant. I wasn’t thinking straight. My sister’s woes weighed too mightily on my spirit. Before letting them pass, I did ask to see some identification. I’m not that stupid. Had to be sure they weren’t pulling my leg.

Agent Adams flashed his badge with a slight grumble. Agent Harris had no problem letting me see hers. She was at least pleasant, I thought while examining her government ID. I also wondered why someone so young and attractive had been stuck with someone so old and unattractive. I bet she hated her partner, I thought to myself with a smirk, as I let them pass through the door.

Agent Adams took a seat at my kitchen table without me offering. His partner looked at him a bit perplexed before waiting until I said, “It’s ok. You can have a seat.”

“Thank you,” she replied.

“So, what brings two DPI agents to my home? You sure I haven’t done anything illegal?”

“Hmm... Maybe there is something you’d like to confess, Mr. Graham,” Agent Adams spoke.

“I don’t know. Maybe I have an old parking ticket or something minor like that.”

“We don’t handle citations,” he replied.

“Sorry. Dumb question.”

“Apology rejected,” he uttered.

“Uh-hm. Forgive my partner he can be a bit—"

Agent Adams brought his hand to his chin. His abrupt gesture caused his partner to pause mid-sentence and look over at him. The two exchanged glances. He paused for a moment more before saying, “That’s a nice brand of beer. I haven’t had a cold one in a while.”

“Would you like one? I have plenty.”

“Sure.”

“Really?” I asked.

“You offered. I accepted.”

“Uh, what about you, Miss Harris?”

“It’s Agent Harris. And no.” She looked over at her partner with a raised eyebrow, “Can you not drink on the job? It’s unprofessional.”

“Fine,” he grumbled before reaching into the inner pocket of his suit coat to retrieve his vape pen.

“Are you sure? Like I said I have plenty.”

“I’m sure. I am the senior agent after all. Probably should set a better example and all,” with a wink he added, “If you survive, I’ll come back and take you up on that offer, Mr. Graham.”

“How do you know he’ll even want to participate?” his partner asked. I could hear the annoyance in her tone. She groaned before telling me, “Sorry about that.”

Agent Adams let out a heavy cloud of steam. He studied me a fair bit longer than I was comfort with. Especially someone like him, whose eyes were grey enough to sting. He took another hit from his vape pen. This time blowing the steam in my direction. His wrinkled face blocked out by the heavy cloud as he said, “Oh, he’ll join, alright. He’s not in any position to refuse.”

“That’s pretentious,” she grumbled.

“Hah. It’s the truth.”

“What the hell is this about?”

“Your sister, Mr. Graham,” he said.

“What about her?” I asked.

“We know what happened.”

“Um. Okay? Creepy.”

“Uh, what my partner is trying to say is that we might be able to help. I reviewed her chart. I think I know what the problem is,” Agent Harris explained.

“What can a couple of government agents do that a team of doctors haven’t already tried?” I asked.

“Your sister. She was bitten by a vampire, Mr. Graham,” Agent Adams stated. He paused for a moment to study my reaction before adding, “You seem like a clever guy. I’m sure you already suspected as much.”

“So, they do exist,” I mumbled to myself.

“Yes. The vampire who attacked your sister was probably desperate. He broke what are a set of well-established rules called Blood Codes.”

“Really? Vampires have rules?”

“There’s always rules, Mr. Graham.”

“Whatever. And where is this freak? I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on him.”

“He’s already been dealt with.”

“By you guys?”

“By his overseer.”

“Good. I hope his death was slow and painful.”

“It was. Their methods are very draconian.”

“Then what do you need from me?” I asked.

“What about you? Would you kill to save your sister?”

“I would if I had to,” I affirmed without hesitation or reservation. I suppose I only spoke so confidently and assuredly because I thought it was a hypothetical. I mean this was the government after all. They would never ask me to do anything crazy, right? But then again, I would’ve told you you were crazy if you would have told me vampires were a real thing before my sister was attacked by one. Still, his question was odd. And the more I thought about it, the more it disturbed me.

Agent Harris chimed in, “Um, Mr. Graham, I’m sorry. I don’t know why my partner said that. You shouldn’t have to kill anyone. For you, it’s probably more a matter of participation than annihilation. If we did require you to do such a thing, rest assure, we’d provide you with all the materials necessary to succeed. Before you ask, we’re on your side, Mr. Graham. We want you to see your sister once the games have concluded.”

“The games?” I asked.

“Yes. If you enter our game, we’ll save your sister’s life. No questions asked,” she replied.

“What kind of game?”

“The Adventure Games.”

“The what games?”

“Adventure Games,” she smirked.

“What’s the catch?”

“Well, the games could be dang—”

Agent Adams quickly butted in before Agent Harris could reveal the truth. “There’s no catch, Mr. Graham. None whatsoever. Don’t listen to my partner. She can be a bit too detail orientated.”

“The devil is always in the details,” I muttered.

“But not a cure for your sister,” he coldly replied.

“Hey. What is that supposed to mean?”

“What do you think? Do you want to waste time going over the fine print, or do you want to step up to the plate and save your sister?”

I thought about it for a moment. “Eh. How do I know I can trust you to keep your word? I mean the government isn’t exactly super trustworthy.”

“Know what, I like you, Mr. Graham. Tell you what I’ll do. Humph. If you agree, we’ll transfer your sister to our facility, right away. That way she can get a jumpstart on her treatment program before you even set foot in the games,” he checked his wristwatch and added, “We can get her there by midnight. Let’s see... hmm... typical turnaround for blood sickness is what? Maybe a few hours if we play our cards right?”

“Six to eighteen hours is more accurate,” Agent Harris clarified to her partner’s chagrin.

“Close enough,” he grumbled.

Agent Harris ignored him. Turning her attention back to me, she said, “I have some good news and some bad news. Which would you like first?”

“Give me the good news.”

“Ok. Based on her chart, it looks like her affliction has progressed beyond normal blood sickness. Once we administer the antidote, she should be fine, but there’s always a chance she won’t make it. I’m sure our techs back at the lab will make the process as painless as possible for your sister. This is what I can do for you if you decide to join the project. I promise we’ll have her call you before you leave for the games.”

“Great. Where do I sign?” I asked.

Agent Adams put away his vape pen. “You don’t sign. You signing something doesn’t matter. We’re dealing with information above top secret, Mr. Graham.”

“Whatever,” I shrugged.

“There is one other thing,” Agent Harris said.

“The bad news, right?”

“Right,” she nodded.

Agent Harris looked over at her partner. She was careful not to reveal anything more until he nodded his head in approval. Some of the info they had already revealed was pushing the line above top secret into ‘black protocol’ territory, or what agents at DPI called “above top secret classification.”

Agent Adams nodded before quickly returning his attention back to vaping, retrieving the addictive device almost faster than he had put it away.

Agent Harris cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, Mr. Graham. Your sister’s illness has progressed too far. We can save her, but she won’t be human anymore. She’ll be a vampire. The transformation is irreversible I’m afraid.”

“Really? A vampire?”

“That is correct.”

“Jesus. I need a smoke,” I said as I jumped from my chair and grabbed the pack of smokes sitting on my kitchen counter. I lit one up and began pacing back and forth like a madman. With a bit of reluctance, I turned to Agent Harris and grumbled, “How fast can we get this done?”

“Now, if you agree.”

“That fast, huh?”

“Yes. We already have a team standing by. One phone call from us and they’ll began the extraction.”

“I already told you, I’m in.”

When I reaffirmed my commitment, Agent Adams looked over at his partner with a smug “I told you so” expression. He stood and extended his hand for me to shake. “Good choice, Mr. Graham. You’re a real champ.”

I shook his hand while glaring into his eyes. “You guys better not be trying to pull a fast one.”

“We wouldn’t. You’re not that important,” he smirked before blowing a cloud of steam into my face. “Goodbye, Mr. Graham. I’m sure I won’t be seeing you around,” he sarcastically added before heading for the door.

I shook Agent Harris’ hand. She removed her shades and told me, “Good luck, Mr. Graham.”

“What do I do next?”

“Pack light and wait.”

“Really? That’s it?”

“Yeah. We’ll be back in a couple of hours to take you to prescreening.”

“Sounds fair.”

“Good to hear.”

“So, what are these ‘Adventure Games’ anyway?”

She placed her shades back on. Her expression distant and cold. “Sit tight. We have to make a few arrangements and finish up some paperwork on our end before I can reveal any information. I’m sure the paperwork will get approved by the time we come back for you. Once this happens, I’ll explain everything you need to know.”

I just stood there dumbfounded by the moment. I could hear Agent Harris discussing Agent Adams’ conduct as they let themselves out and began making their way down the hall. Apparently, Agent Harris was disappointed that he had asked me for a beer. She pointed out that this was an obvious workplace violation, and how he could be terminated for his conduct. He found her chiding amusing and told her he had no intentions on drinking on the job. When he made this claim, she was incredulous and asked what possessed him to even ask in the first place.

I could barely hear them at this point since they were standing by the elevator. But I believe his response was something on the lines of, “I wanted to read his reaction. If he handled himself wisely, I knew we wouldn’t have a problem recruiting him for the games.”

“And if he reacted poorly?” she asked.

“Well then, your little behavioral profile would have been wrong, and we would’ve had a head start on finding his replacement,” he told her.

I closed the door in disgust. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, or if they could even be trusted. I knew it too. That cliché feeling had reached all the way down to my gut. My conscience... the good angel on my shoulder was telling me to run.

With a heavy heart, I chose to ignore the voice. My sister’s life hung in the balance. Sometimes in life you had to take risks. My choice to go along with these agents and their dubious claims wasn’t a tough or noble act. It was one wrought from desperation. What were my options? Not joining meant my sister would waste away until it was too late. Phew. This was a lot of pressure. My back was against the wall literally and figuratively.

I let out a long sigh and mustered the courage to begin packing. I hadn’t gotten much sleep either. Hopefully the car ride to wherever we were going would be a long one, and I could get some much-needed rest, I thought to myself as I shoved way too many things into my bag.

Tears escaped from my eyes. I had to stay the course. I had to hear her voice. I finally broke down and prayed to God, asking him to look over me. I still didn’t believe. I don’t know why I did it. I guess out of hope or necessity. My sister meant the world to me, and my parents, I don’t know what they would do if she perished.

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Chapter 2: Foresight

The following day was a blur. I was taken to a massive facility that stood in the middle of nowhere. It was on the outskirts of the outskirts. The place was so far removed, they didn’t even bother with a blindfold. There was no elaborate story of denial, or even the whole “we cannot confirm or deny” troupe.

Nope. This was a secret facility where the government housed and did God knows who or what to who or what. From what I gathered, they performed strange experiments on poor sods, such as myself, who had foolishly signed their lives away. I gulped and told myself to shut up. If you think negative things, then you get negative results.

A group of oddly dressed soldiers called “acolytes” escorted me from the transport van to the staging area. I was able to check in with my sister, just like the agents promised. She was doing much better. The thought put a smile on my face and was all the motivation I needed. Now all I needed to do was win, so I could see her again.

Knock on wood, but if something were to happen to me, I didn’t really care. All that mattered was that little sis had finally turned the corner. I swear on my soul. This was more than I could have ever hoped for.

After answering an uncomfortable amount of questions and going through a battery of physical and mental tests, I was given the greenlight by the staff to join the event. This all happened at approximately 1400 hours the next day. I was taken away from the annoying, prodding techs in lab coats. I wouldn’t have mind leaving them behind, along with their invasive procedures if it wasn’t for the soldiers who escorted me to the staging area. They were cold and mechanical. They roughly shooed me to a section of the facility called Bunker 17, as if they were putting a dog back inside its kennel. We arrived at this damnable place, via elevator, twenty floors down.

To my surprise, there were already several people waiting when I arrived. They were all kind of just lingering about not doing much of anything. In front of us stood a pair of massive concrete doors that looked like the entrance to a mini fortress. We were all wearing these odd name tags. The moment made me sick to my stomach. The gazes of suspicion, intrigue, and indifference made me briefly curl up like a shrinking violet.

Hmm... No one told me I would be joined by others. I shrugged and figured as much. I was about to introduce myself when one of the soldiers radioed Command and informed them that we were ready to enter. Command radioed back and told them to give the signal. One of the acolyte soldiers gave a thumbs up, which I imagine they saw on the camera, right above the door.

When he did this an alarm sounded, red strobes flashed all arounds us, and the doors began to slowly creep open. The noise only added to the confusion and bewilderment. I took a step back, sure that the roof was going to collapse with every inch the doors gained. The whole thing was about as unnerving and uninviting as it could get. It looked more like a giant mouth slowly feasting upon the light, warning us to turn back, than an entrance.

We stepped inside only to be greeted by another set of massive doors. These were steel instead of concrete and looked like they could have been placed on the entrance to an impenetrable castle way up in the mountains. I looked back when the concrete doors begin to close. Only when they had fully shut, and we were devoured by the darkness, did the steel doors begin to open their mouth. The inner doors creaked and cranked, making the loudest, most-angriest sound imaginable. The process was excruciating and played on my mind almost as much as it played on my ears.

There was a great deal of radio chatter. The soldiers thrust us through the entrance. When we had all crossed the red line, one of them radioed Command, and the doors began to slowly close behind us. Fight or flight kicked in. I thought about making a run for it, but I could tell that that was bad idea by the way the soldiers were positioned behind the door with their weapons drawn.

I swear I could feel their laser sights more than I could see them in the piercing darkness. There was nothing like a big gun to chop through any language or mental barrier. It was louder and harder than any bull in any China shop would ever be.

I sighed when the doors finally closed behind us. My first thought was, what the hell had I gotten myself into? Followed quickly by, I can’t believe I let myself be talked into this. Before any of us could gather our bearings, the lights began to turn on. Once my eyes had adjusted to the blinding whiteness, I stood around like everyone else, amazed and surprised by the sight in front of me. It was funny in a sense. I was relieved by familiarity as it was the last thing on my mind.

It looked like a well-kept emergency shelter. The floors sparkled as if they had been waxed in preparation for our arrival. The kitchen and dayroom took up the bulk of the space. Before I could really sink my teeth into some good ole fashioned exploration, a voice could be heard over the loudspeaker. The prerecording was that of a woman, who sounded a bit robotic and automated, as if it had been altered to sound as friendly as possible. Which made it even more odd and creepy:

“Greetings, contestants! Welcome to the Adventure Games! These are the inaugural games, making this the very first event of its kind! So, consider yourselves lucky! The games have been lowered in difficulty by our wonderful technicians by approximately fifteen percent in honor of you being the very first souls to be taken.

I’m sure you’re all confused and have a lot of questions. Should I explain? Of course, I should explain! Well, here goes nothing! There are seven of you in total. You have all been locked inside of one of our many, many, many underground shelters! Bunker 17 to be precise. Which is part of the Northeastern Hemisphere Underground Network Systems, or N-HUN for short. That’s right! Your bunker is part of a much wider, global network that is maintained and operated by the New World Government Order or NWGO and members of the New Faith Alliance or NFA.

There are six levels of access in total. To gain access to the lower levels you need a “Marc” card. Which is short for Mark of Identifying numbers. Sorry average humans, only vampires and human personnel critical to the mission are given one. Don’t feel too bad, only high-ranking members of the NFA have access to the lower levels. And only super important people have access to the final level. Take my word for it, I’ve been down to level six and it’s definitely not a place you ever want to be.

I would tell you all about the many wonders, crazy contraptions, odd attractions, and foul creatures we keep below, but then I’d have to release the laughing gas... Just kidding... It’s actually sarin gas!

You have all been locked inside of Bunker 17. We stocked the place with plenty of provisions, so you won’t have to worry about starving to death for a very long time if anything terrible was to happen while you were away like, I don’t know, nuclear holocaust.

The recreational room is also state of the art. All the amenities you need are here. We made sure to provide our contestants with everything imaginable so all you’ll have to worry about is staying alive!

If you were to survive the games, which I highly doubt, then we will do as promised and grant you your wish, via taxpayer expense. There’s nothing the Illuminati loves more than wasting hard stolen taxpayer money on frivolous expenditures like elaborate “stress tests” on bunker sociology to see who’ll break.

All of you came here for a reason. One of you however asked to be here so you could murder everyone else who came here for a reason! Hooray for having zero conscience*, our super mysterious serial killer contestant! How do you stop this maniac from murdering you? Why the answer is simple. Figure out which one of you is the murdering maniac and you win! That’s right, the game is officially over, and you can go home and enjoy whatever foolish thing you wished for. Hope it was worth it!*

How might you rid yourselves of this psychopath, you ask? Please direct your attention to our voting room. Inside is a small stall, no bigger than an outhouse. At the end of each day, you will go inside, one by one, and vote on who you think the killer is. If the majority votes correctly then the game is over. If there is a tie or lower, then the games continue. Oh, and just to make things fair, the killer will always vote for themselves. This will continue until enough of you vote correctly or everyone besides the killer is D.E.A.D.

♫ Do-do-do dodo! ♫

Congratz subject number 4, Roger J. Pierson III. You have been assigned the master bedroom! Which means you are responsible for reading the daily tasks! What daily tasks you might wonder? Why they’re clues to help you solve the killer-mystery, so pay close attention!

How does it work? Each day Roger will receive a card from HQ, using our spiffy pneumatic system, with direct access to the master bedroom. Our technicians, who helped created this wonderful kill box, call these messages ‘Vital Tasks’. Gather in one place and read them carefully, but only if you’re interested in surviving.

Good luck everyone! Oh, and be sure to have fun while playing. There is a small suggestion box located in the recreational room, next to the TV. All suggestions are anonymous and will help us to not only create a better experience, but even more enjoyable deaths! Salutations! Enjoy your stay at our super-secret underground facility! Thank you for your participation in the Adventure Games! And remember, no matter what happens, you are a valued guest at Bunker 17!”

When the strange announcement ended, everyone just kind of looked around in confusion. It was one of those moments when you question reality. There were seven of us in total. Everyone was wearing a name tag. Each name was more of a twisted moniker than our actual name. I looked down at my own and saw the word “Hero.” I found this odd for a few reasons. The first being I wasn’t a hero. I was your average guy at best. The second, more chilling reason was I did not remember putting this stupid thing on. How it got there was a mystery. I suppose in the thick of the chaos, one of the lab technicians must’ve slapped it on before they rushed me out.

The guy next to me, whose name tag read “Follower,” began to spaz. I tried to calm him, but it didn’t work. He made a break for it, running all the way back to the entrance. “Let me out! I didn’t sign up for this!” he cried and screamed while pounding on the steel slab.

There was a tall, bulky guy, wearing a tank top that barely fit. His name tag read “Bully” and was glued to his chest. He flexed his peck muscles and laughed very loudly and rudely at the young guy. He looked over at me and then everyone else while wildly yelling, “Come on guys! They’re obviously trying to scare us. The lady over the intercom wasn’t even trying to hide how obvious it was with all those corny jokes. What is this supposed to be? Fallout: New Vegas?!” He hooted and chuckled.

“This is stupid,” the woman next to me said. I looked over and saw that her name tag read: “Narcissist.”

“Screw it,” the Follower said after seeing that he was making a fool out of himself by crying and wailing not only in vain but to the amusement of others.

“I want to go home,” a girl sniveled. I glanced over and saw that her name tag read, “Teenager.”

Bully’s laughter pulled me away from the shock of seeing a teenager in a place like this. I cringed when he hollered out “Guys! It’s not real!” as if he wasn’t making yet another useless PSA.

There was this guy leaning against the wall. He watched with folded arms as the Follower finally gave up the goose. I could have sworn he was just standing right next to me, but I could be wrong. His name tag read “the Rationalizer.” He looked over at us and asked, in a very matter-of-fact tone, “So. What do we do now?”

“Let’s go get the message like the lady said over the intercom,” I told everyone with a shrug.

“Good idea,” the Rationalizer said. I think he was being sarcastic when he said it, but who knows. A guy like that was difficult to read.

The seven of us traveled through the kitchen and recreational area. Then we made our way down the narrow hall, towards our rooms. There were two names assigned to each one, except for the master bedroom. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw that the Rationalizer was assigned to the same room as me. Seeing my discomfort, he gave me a pat on the back before opening the door to our room.

I peeked inside and saw a very clean but very bare bones living space. There were a few accommodations, just nothing like home. Let’s see, there was a bunkbed on one side, two lockers, and a large dresser on the other. The floor was just as cold, polished, and uninviting as the kitchen and hall. Turns out, the only thing they bothered to make warm and cozy was the recreational room. Oh, and the master bedroom, hate to forget that.

I poked my head in Roger’s room. If I hadn’t mentioned it by now, his name tag read: “the Lover.” He damn near kissed the floor when he saw how magnificent his stay would be. His reaction rubbed pretty much all of us the wrong way. The Narcissist’s in particular. When she saw her room, and realized she had to share with the Teenager, she hyperventilated. Unlike the Lover’s eccentrics, her selfishly induced panic attack put a smile on my face.

“Huh. Looks like they got at least one of our name tags spot-on,” the Rationalizer said while observing her antics and thinking the same thing I was thinking.

Bully nearly buckled over he laughed so hard. Seeing this and that he shared a room with this meathead, the Follower began laughing right along with him. I don’t even think he knew why he was laughing. He saw Bully doing it and just followed along. I shook my head. I did chuckle a bit under my breath. The whole thing was ridiculous, I thought to myself as I turned my attention back to the Lover. There was something about him that was different. I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was.

Was there a faster way to draw suspicion than being called out by name and given something. Not only was it something, but it happened to be the one spacious, well decorated, most comfortable room out of the whole lot. Silk pillows, satin sheets, and a handwoven quilt that was draped over the bottom of a lavish, four-post bed. The posts were shaped into gargoyles. Even his dresser was handcrafted, the wallpaper elegant, and the red carpet fit for royalty. I could go on and on, but I didn’t want my intrigue to turn into outrage. Not yet at least. This all could be a prank like Bully suggested.

Eh. I know I keep harping on the subject, but it was hella unfair. What could I do? Even if I wanted to take it there, what were my options? Try to take the room from him by force? Yeah. That’s smart. That way everyone would think I was the killer for sure.

I had never even thought about killing someone in my whole life. Ok... you got me. The vampire who nearly killed my sister was the only creature. Hearing Agent Adams tell me he had been cruelly dispatched by his masters was sweet music to my ears. My only regret was that I wasn’t there to witness him suffer. If I was, I would have begged the monster behind the mask to prolong his pain for as long as vampirically possible.

“Hey, pal! Hurry up! I’m starving,” Bully shouted, snapping my mind out of its downward spiral of dark, borderline psychotic thought.

“I’m grabbing the card now!” the Lover shouted back before seizing the plastic capsule that was ejected from a long, pneumatic tube system. He removed the card from the red envelope and read what it said:

“Task 1. Introduce yourself to the others. State all critical information such as name, age, and reason you’re here. This is very important: reveal if you are human or not. Do not lie unless you are the killer. You may remove your name tag afterwards.”

After he read the card, we all glanced around at one another, wondering if this was indeed someone’s idea of a sick joke. Or perhaps this was a dream we would all wake up from very soon? I prayed for the ladder but feared and respected the former. My thoughts loud and sweeping amidst the awkward silence that had overtaken us.

Bully rubbed his stomach. “I’m hungry. You guys can keep standing around looking stupid if you want. I’m off to see what’s in the fridge.”

“Um. Gross,” the Narcissist stated before she checked the pockets of her stylish plaid topcoat. She gasped in exasperation before yelping in dismay, “OMG. But how? How did they even know?”

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“They must’ve taken it!” she cried.

“Taken what?” I asked.

She looked over at me with an expression that told me everything I needed to know. Then she groaned out the most unimaginative words imaginable, “God. I thought I smuggled my backup phone. I put it in my pocket, it should be here. Screw it. Guess I’ll just die of boredom.”

“Or you could reconnect with your other senses,” the Rationalizer said. He folded his arms and stared at the Narcissist hungrily. If she wasn’t so preoccupied with being preoccupied by nothing, she would have noticed his lecherous gawk.

“Whatever. I hate my life,” she sighed.

“What’s a ‘backup’ phone?” I asked.

“Old people, dude,” the Follower blurted before chuckling to himself at my expense.

“I’m not old. I just never heard of a backup phone,” I explained, my tone a bit defensive.

“My bad, bro. Don’t get mad.”

“I’m not getting mad.”

“Hey. Whatever you say, bro.”

“It’s your other phone just in case your non other phone dies. Tch. Duh. I have followers, you know,” she replied all hot and haughtily.

“Come on guys,” I said before making my way towards the kitchen. Bully was already there, rummaging through the cupboards like a man on a mission.

When he saw us, he looked back and said, “I’m starving, haven’t eaten since breakfast!”

“How are we looking? Plenty of good stuff?” I asked as I made my approach.

“Bingo!” he hooted and rooted, ignoring me like a butthole over a loaf of bread. He made some weird comment about how he couldn’t believe they had sprouted grain bread. And how sprouted grain bread was savage. And how sprouted grain bread aided in muscle recovery. And how sprouted grain bread blah blah blah; all bodybuilding nonsense no one else understood. I understood how rude he was, however. He practically commandeered the counter and began making himself half a dozen sandwiches with the ham that he had snagged from the fridge.

“How are we looking?” I asked again.

“Dude, we’re freaking loaded!”

I opened the large pantry and saw four shelves filled with cans. “Wow. Yeah, you’re right.”

The one guy, who had the master bedroom, the Lover, I believe his name tag was; he cleared his throat and said, “Ok. So, who’s going to go first?”

“First in what?” the Follower asked.

“Introducing themselves,” he hissed.

“Tch. I’m not wasting my time,” the Follower laughed. To be honest, he seemed like a nice kid, but his laugh was maddening. This high pitch chortle followed by a guttural snort or two. Ugh. Just thinking about it made my skin crawl.

“I think you should go first,” I told Bully.

“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?” he asked.

“Because you’re a big oaf.”

Everyone at the table laughed, including the Follower. He stood from his seat, still snorting, and said, “Dude! You have a mountain of sandwiches! You could have at least asked if anyone else wanted one.”

Bully laughed before and after taking a chunk out of his first sandwich. “Whatever. I worked hard to get these muscles. Judging by your appearance, I don’t think you’ve ever seen an honest day’s work at the gym.”

“Ouch,” the Follower nervously chuckled. He slinked back down in his seat and tried to hide as we all laughed at the poor guy’s expense.

Bully looked over at me as if he saw something he didn’t like. Before I could ask if he had a staring problem, he said, “What about you? You seem pretty straightlaced. Maybe you should go first.”

I looked around and saw everyone’s eyes fall on me after he had pretty much thrown me under the bus. I threw my hands up in defeat and told them, “Fine. It’s not like I have anything to hide; I’ll go first.”

The Lover gestured for me to take the metaphorical stage and said, “The floor is yours.”

"Blood is the sacrament of the gods. The sun rises when the heavens thirst-not for blood. In our hearts, the divine nectar is kept. The gods are thirsty - they need our blood or there can be no light. In darkness they dwell, and without our nourishing red blood, night shall be everlasting." I read aloud my belief to the teachers.

They just stared at me for a moment, unsure how to respond. Confirmation classes had struggled to explain to me a different truth, and I had already accepted that my baptism was the will of Tláloc, and I had sang the words of their hymns with my whole heart. I still did not understand how Tláloc could have made a mistake, when the cycle of everlasting rebirth was the truth of perfection.

"We have already taught you that it is the blood of Jesus Christ that washes you clean of sin." Father Ignatius spoke slowly and carefully. "It is not our blood that God wants, for the blood of the Lamb is the way to salvation."

I trembled slightly, feeling the first moment of my journey into a horror of new ideas. It had occurred to me that there must be something wrong with our blood, if it was unacceptable to the gods. I asked, with some trepidation, because it might mean I was somehow not an acceptable person to the gods:

"Do you mean that the gods do not thirst for my blood, but rather only the blood of Jesus?" I asked, worried for my grace in the light of the gods. If my blood was not good enough, what sacrifice might be?

"Nuavhu, you are now Joseph, and you live in the grace of God, sinless from the blood of the Lamb. You have only to accept the covenant of Jesus, as you did with your first Communion." Sister Valory reminded me.

"But the gods are still thirsty, are they not?" I asked.

"There is only one God." Teacher Victor spoke suddenly, like he was saying something without thinking.

"Tláloc." I said. "Tláloc is still alive, this I know. I realize that the other gods have - " I hesitated, unsure if the word was the right word, but unable to say anything different " - died."

"The gods have not died, they are myth. Only one true God exists!" Teacher Victor exclaimed, speaking to me as though I were a blasphemer.

"Perhaps in myth they reside, while Tláloc lives on. Do not the rains still come? Do not the crops grow? Am I not a child of the grace of Tláloc?" I shuddered, unable to accept that I was somehow wrong. I knew Tláloc was real, I had seen him walking in the forest, collecting flowers for his crown from among the thorns. The priest and the nun had told me that the blossoming crown of thorns was the sign of redemption from sin, and assured me I was saved. What was happening?

"You cannot be saved, not without the blood of Jesus, and denial of this Tláloc." Teacher Victor proclaimed. He gestured for the priest and the nun to agree.

"I am afraid your teacher is right. The Archbishop must be told that you have reserved your worship of Tláloc. If you are not found to be in the grace of God, through the blood of the Lamb, by the time he arrives, you will surely be excommunicated." Father Ignatius warned me.

I nearly fainted, I was terrified of being cast out of the house of Tláloc. I couldn't understand how my devotion to the one true god could also make me an exile from his grace. When I was taken to my cell to pray, I began to consider that I would have to find a way to give my blood, for the sunrise of my everlasting soul.

I fell asleep, feverishly gripping my rosary. In my nightmares I saw Tláloc in the forest, as I once had. The god was no longer shimmering in dew, the greenish blue of his skin, the ebony trim of his robes and the pure white feathers his garments were made of, all was cast aside into a dark and thorny mess. The horror of the thirsty god loomed.

When I woke up it was just before dawn, and I knew I must go and find my god where he lay in the forest, and feed him. If I wouldn't, there would be no sunrise, only a dying god, taking the last of his grace from a world so sinful that they had even cast me aside. If I was not pure, then I would have to find out who was. If nobody was good enough, then all were doomed. Night would never end and the monsters of the jungle, the creatures slithering up from the deepest pillars of the thirteen heavens would consume the world.

The priests had said this was called Xibalba, or Hell. I doubted the existence of that place. The pillars of the thirteen heavens were slippery with the ichor of the gods, fed on the liquid red blood of mortal creation - humanity. But if it must be called Xibalba to make sense to them, then that is a word, but it was merely the shadow cast by the beauty of the heavens, not some underworld of torment for the dead. I knew better, nothing dead lived down there. Those things ate the dead, as long as the gods didn't intervene.

I had rested easy, knowing Tláloc would protect me and everyone else. But now, it was Tláloc that needed protection. Without my help, the last god would surely die. Night would never end.

I wandered the path, just before sunrise, yet the light seemed to only glow on the hills where the jungle was cut away. I saw how the animals watched me with their eyes glowing, and the forest was silent, an eerie vigilance for the dying god.

My heart beat with terror, worried I would not make it in time. But there, in a clearing, among the wilting blue flowers Tláloc had come to pick by moonlight, the god lay dying, his colors faded to black and the robes in tatters and the smoothness of his skin a bramble of warts and thorns.

I hesitated, fear of going near such a powerful creature holding me fast. I lifted one hand, trembling, and then slowly approached the monstrous deity. In his current form, he was like a wounded animal, and might destroy me, lashing out in his agony, a death throe like a bladed claw from the darkness to eviscerate me.

"Tláloc, let my blood be pure enough to give you the sustenance." I offered. I lifted a razor sharp thorn from the forest floor, broken off of the god's own body as he had rolled back and forth in pain, dying in the dwindling forest.

I held my wrist over the god's parched lips, seeing how Tláloc's eyes watched me. I shivered in awe and dread, but did my duty and opened a vein to feed the god. As my blood flowed, he gulped and swallowed, drinking it and slowly becoming restored before my very eyes.

My weakness began, and I fell to my knees. Then, as Tláloc rose up above me, standing again on his own feet, I collapsed, the thorn clutched in one hand. Tláloc stood over me, and I could not remain awake, and then the sunrise began, and Tláloc ascended to Third Heaven, where his pool of water waited to bathe him in the early hours of the morning.

I smiled weakly, as I lay there, in and out of consciousness. The holy cleansing rains of the morning came and cooled me of the fever I felt. The animals sang in the harmony of the forest until the rain stopped. Then the great tractors, trucks, and machines used to harvest the jungle could be heard making progress.

The skies cleared of the white clouds of Tláloc's blessing and filled with the black diesel smoke and the drifting fumes of the petrol fire, where debris was burned throughout the workday. I was found there and taken back to the school.

"You attempted suicide. There is no hope for you now. Surely you are damned." Teacher Victor told me. Father Ignatius and Sister Valory prayed over me and prayed for me.

"Tláloc has accepted my blood sacrifice. My faith is rewarded. Another day is today, and night did not last forever. The world yet turns. I do not believe you know what you are talking about." I said, deliriously.

While another day came, I was too weak to return when night came again. Tláloc was only quenched a little bit, and thirst would come again. I could not stand up, let alone return to seek out my god by the waning moon. There was nothing I could do, as that night Tláloc lay dying near the cenote by Mary's Well.

I had a vision of the god, calling to me, last of the devoted, the final believer.

"How will night last forever?" Father Ignatius had asked me. "It is the will of God that the sun shall rise, not the actions or inactions of mankind."

"Then you have answered your own question, so why ask me?" I whispered weakly. I was barely clinging to life. Somehow the vision of my god had revitalized me, as though my body was restored through my faith, although I still felt very weak.

That is when the Earth began to shake. They were no longer held back. I fell out of my bed and saw through the open door how the priest and the teacher and the nun ran frantically across the courtyard.

I screamed in terror, my voice broken and distorted, as the very ground erupted around them and the slithering horrors from below came up. They took the teachers, they took the priest and they grabbed the nun and one by one they bit into the other students. Everyone was held by the creatures from below, none of them protected by Tláloc, who could do nothing for them.

The earthen landscape split open while it shook, and all the people and most of the chapel where above the gaping darkness, its living tendrils wrapped around all. Then the shaking and rumbling began to subside, and the buildings were as rubble all around, and everyone who had gathered in the clear center of the courtyard was gone, fallen into the bottomless hole beneath the surface of the world.

I stared in disbelief and horror, my eyes stinging with the dust all over my face and body. My bed I had fallen from was crushed behind me, and all around me the roof and walls lay piled high and in clouds of settling dust. My tears of grievance, terror and relief streaked through the dust on my cheeks, and I saw this in my reflection in the gradual stillness of the waters that had bubbled up around me.

A rain came, where dawn should have, but under thick clouds, there was no way to know if the sun had risen. Perhaps Tláloc was dead, and the pillar of the heavens had collapsed, and that is what had happened. I dreaded the return of the monsters, or that the Earth should swallow me up as well. How everyone was taken but I; left me thinking that there must still be hope, although I felt no hope, only fear for myself, fear for the whole world, and fear for Tláloc.

I limped and crawled through the clear-cut landscape, towards the remains of the forest. Somehow, I pulled myself through the mud and the grass, the vines and the roots, the tractor marks and past the piles of shattered wood.

There was a path from Mary's Well, that was made by the footfalls of the limping god. Wherever he had stepped, his blue flowers and fresh vines had grown. All along the way there was also a path burned by the slithering things, as they tore across the surface of the Earth, leaving a trail like a blackened and wilted scar.

There, at the edge of the forest, I found what was left of Tláloc, wheezing and dying, in much worse shape than I. There was nothing more I could do but stare piteously at the dying god. Tláloc had come to fight the monsters, trying to protect the forgetful humans, trying to do its duty, and had fought to the last, slaying a pile of the wretched slithering horrors, that lay slowly turning themselves like writhing severed worms.

Fear gripped me, telling me to come no closer. The gasses they dissolved into were toxic, forming the very clouds that were blotting out the sun. Should the dead muscles of the dying horrors catch me, they would crush me or worse, and I could see how their faceless mouths worked to open and shut in automation, although they were already slain by Tláloc's sharp hoe.

I saw how the god's spade dripped in the gore of the monsters, and how the soil it was stabbed into was already beginning to regrow the jungle, as vines and flowers encased the lower half, while the top was melting in the corrosive blood of the monsters from below.

I spoke to my god, pleading with him to give me the knowledge of what I could do to reverse the carnage. With his final breath, Tláloc looked at me and said:

"Night is the ignorance that shall prevail. Be forgiving, for only forgiveness, absolute forgiveness, can defeat the horrors of ignorance."

And with that, in the ancient language my mother and father had spoken to me when I lived with them in the forest, Tláloc spoke and gave his breath to me.

The clouds parted, and I looked up to the skies, seeing that the Thirteenth Heaven awaited the last of the gods, and as a cloud of birds of black and white, shimmering in the blue light, Tláloc ascended to where his brothers and sisters waited for him.

And so, I lay down and rested, and found my strength somehow return to me. I looked up and saw that Tláloc's spade was now a great tree, standing alone where the whole jungle should hold it in the center, but nothing but wasteland was all around. I decided I would go and teach Tláloc's message, that I would go among the people, and try to stop the ignorance that is our eternal night.

"The last time I wanted to die was six months ago."

She slowly rolled up her sleeves, and then showed her arms, palms up, "That's when I got these."

The long scar up her right arm was straight, the one up her left arm was more jagged.

"It wasn't the first time that I wanted to die, it wasn't even the first time I took... Steps.

"But it was the first time I did something like that."

She pauses, taking a deep and somewhat ragged breath, "I wish I could say that it was the last time I would want to die."

She looks down, "Or the last time that I'd try to make it happen."

She closes her eyes, taking another deep and ragged breath, before tilting her head up, and opening her eyes, eyes which had a frightening depth to them, "I wish that I could say that it was a one time thing. But I can't."

"I suffer from depression. I have for much of my life, and... I probably will for the rest of my life."

She gives a very wry smile, one with very little happiness in it, "Sometimes I think that it's just a matter of time, that I already know that I'll die by my own hand."

Another deep breath, her eyes now shining with unshed tears, "Sometimes I can believe that I'll keep my head above water, that I'll be able to keep wanting to live enough that I won't ever go through with it."

"I really want to believe that."

A long pause, then a slow look around the room, "Today, I know, I can acknowledge that there are people in my life that want me to live. That would be hurt if I didn't. Who want to be there for me."

The tears are not entirely unshed at this point, "And I am more thankful than I can ever say for those people. I'm not sure if I'd still be here or not without them, but I do know that my good days wouldn't be nearly as good without them.

"But I also know that they can't save me. That it's not up to them if I make it through the darkness or not.

"I wish it was. I wish that they could make that choice, and that I would never have to face my depression alone again.

"But... I'm also glad that they can't. That if I don't make it, that it won't be their fault. That it can't be their fault. No matter what."

Tears are actively falling now, even though her smile has more happiness in it than it did, or perhaps because of it, "I won't say that my depression isn't partially situational. That my environment and those around me have no impact. That would be a lie, and it would be a massive disservice to people who do so many things, for me and others, to try and help us."

"But I will say that sometimes... Sometimes it's a fight that those of us who suffer from depression like mine have to fight alone.

"Not because we want to, not because nobody wants to help, not because there aren't people in our lives who would fight it for us if they could.

"But because sometimes... Sometimes the depression won't let us see the people around us who care.

"It won't let us know that we are loved, and that there is no way that our dying would help them more than it would hurt them.

"Sometimes we have to face our demons alone, in the darkness. Even if we're surrounded by those who love us, even if we're being held by them, sometimes the depression won't allow us to be anything except alone in the darkness of our own minds.

"Sometimes, it's a fight that we have to fight every hour of every day.

"Sometimes, we can go months, or even years, without much of a struggle.

"And then we find ourselves in the darkness with our demons once more.

"Not because anything around us has changed, but because we suffer from depression, and that depression isn't always about facts, or logic, or even reality.

"Sometimes it's just the demons of our own minds, lying to us, hiding the world from us, making us all alone, even when that's not true."

The smile grows a little more real, "Today I'm alive. Today I want to be alive. Today I'm happy to be alive."

"I hope that I feel the same way tomorrow. And I hope that tomorrow you feel that way as well."

"But if we don't, if the darkness returns, I hope that we can find the light again.

"And if some day we fail, I hope that those who love us remember that it's not their fault.

"It's not our fault either.

"Sometimes the demons win. Sometimes the disease kills us.

"But like I said. Today isn't that day. Today I'm happy to be alive.

"And just because sometimes we have to fight alone, it doesn't mean that we have to lose."