Sari Njein is still at large, possibly somewhere in San Francisco. She would use her connections with family and neighbors to hide among everyone else. I survived, but I have to be careful not to say where I live now.

The sight of Barbie dolls or Powerpuff Girls or My Little Pony makes me sick. At first, I refused to play with the toys. I had no idea what she was talking about, I'd never seen her daughter before.

Hunger can do strange things to a man. I wanted to survive because I wanted to kill her. Not because she jabbed me with a needle with some animal tranquilizers loaded into it and then stuffed me into the trunk of her car and beat me with plastic toys while I regained consciousness. I wanted to kill her because I'd brought in my dog to her emergency animal clinic and while she had me imprisoned she told me she'd killed my dog. For that I wanted to get my hands around her neck, for Ioved my dog very much.

I was afraid I would never get out of that basement, it was more secure than a prison cell. At least that is what I thought for the longest stretch of my imprisonment. She never opened the door, not for any reason. I had to survive down there, and using the septic system as part of an escape plan didn't occur to me until later.

My first concern was food. Every day, if I gave her my things in a bundle and kept myself clean she would give me water. Then she'd give me a sermon in her own language and translate it into English - a little bit more each day. I picked up gradually that she had me mistaken for someone who had killed her daughter somehow, and now she was having her revenge. I wouldn't eat unless I played with the girl's toys. At first I refused, but hunger soon prevailed.

Over time I had nothing else to do down there in the blank void of darkness, where it was not day or night, and the world had forgotten me in a silent tomb beneath the Earth. Barbie and the Powerpuff plushies and the My Little Pony creatures were my only friends.

That is when the terror of losing my mind began to seep in. I was no longer doing voices for these effeminate characters, but rather I was hearing them speak. I looked up and for a second, I saw something in the shadows, some kind of gray thing of ribs caked in clay and worms hunched there and its jaw was slowly moving as the dolls spoke. It was gone, but the smell of it lingered in the air from then on. I found the wriggling things and took their protein as sustenance.

I trembled as I awaited another visit, terrified of the thought that it might not leave. My captor asked me in a strained whisper, "Have you seen her yet?"

Shaking I pointed to the darkening stain I was trapped with. I was too scared to say anything, and sweat beaded on my forehead. The vengeful mother looked and saw only an echo of her daughter fading there in the chthonian darkness. "She will come again."

Then she repeated those same words in a zealous shriek where I had almost not heard the fabric of her first lip-moving whisper.

"It is time to see what Stacie is doing, I bet she has to clean all the hairbrushes after what she said at Night Light's party." I heard one of the dolls saying. I looked and it was moving jerkily across the floor, as though each leg was held and moved by a scooting child. Perhaps an invisible ghost, giving me cold chills as I discovered its presence. The thought of it there, beyond my senses, could not be ignored. I was trapped down there with it. The doll was ambulating.

In a rash of terror, I lashed out defensively and knocked the doll across the floor. I thought I would be confronted by the face of grave horror of the rotting corpse of the child, but instead she just laughed at me, and I could not see her.

I fainted from my panic, unable to endure it past a certain point. My eyes opened and I could not fear the child's ghost any longer. I had somehow realized in the dreams I could not remember, that she was not dangerous, and not to be feared.

Rather it was the thing that used to be a woman that was in the kitchen sharpening a knife that I should fear. The knife? No, that was just to chop vegetables. She wasn't going to cut me, this wasn't amateur hour for her. She wanted me to suffer forever down there in the dark.

Some weird part of me actually felt sorry for her.

Anyway, she already knew, being a mom who had lost her girl child, that physical pain was nothing compared to psychological pain. I had a moment of clarity, somewhere in my cracking mind, and I knew I'd rather be set on fire than undergo any more of her oubliette. I was going to stay down there until I knew nothing else. My body might live on, but my mind would be shattered. I could tell it was happening, things were obvious for a moment.

Then I felt normal, after that brief self-realization. I felt afraid of the dark, a dark I was trapped in, and I feared my captor, who seemed to have god like power after all that time down there. But I was sure I wasn't going crazy, I just suddenly wasn't bothered by a lot of different things.

I no longer worried about who I was before, because I had become the audience of the dolls.

I was not predisposed to caring about food or water or anything but the dolls and the ponies, and fearing the dark.

There was also another voice, a god to fear in the darkness. Will there be food - have you played with the dolls? I have - yes, so you shall eat. It was a realm where god was feared by all men, and men ruled above the Barbie and the Pony and the Powerpuff, but in the edge of light, for beyond is the darkness, in which dwell the dead. The dead belong to god's anger.

And god's anger makes my whole world this hell - a mind-screaming silence, a numb paralyisis of endless terror at the reality of belonging to someone who can only feel hate. A god of hatred, and hunger.

Never enough to eat, you see.

It all goes down that hole, there's the other way out.

Was it madness that overwhelmed my fear of the wrath of god?

Yes, yes it was.

I found the power to put my friends, one by one, piece by piece, down there, down to the next level of Hell. I was laughing while I did it, because the cries of the dead had become comical. Perhaps they were encouraging me, tired of watching me suffer.

When I turned I saw her there as she was in life, somehow angelic and glowing. She smiled for a moment and I knew I'd have her assistance when the moment of dread came for me. The door opened and I saw the needle in one hand and then the brightness of her light was in my eyes, blinding me as she rushed at me.

But there was no venomous prick. No, somehow my madness was not illusion, making it the worst kind of madness.

"Just go." She gasped, having stuck the needle into her own cheek on reflex at the apparition's beaming sentience. I thought about helping her but felt the fatigue that might stop me from climbing the stairs with my own body, let alone hers.

I didn't close that door and lock her down there. I thought I did, and I looked back and saw that I hadn't. I could hear her coming up the stairs. It sounded more difficult than when I came up the stairs.

I limped to the vegetable knife that was razor sharp and got it equipped in both shaking hands. I was scared to peeing my rags, as I saw her crawling towards me. Before I'd gone into her dungeon and lived as her guest for enough of her daughter's birthdays that the girl would be all grown up, I was a pretty husky guy.

Now I was a skeleton, barely able to hold up the knife with two hands. I was so scared of her that I was backing away, although I still hated her. I thought about Cupid, and I changed how I was holding the knife.

I resolved to stab her, although I didn't. I didn't have it in me. Part of me had wanted to kill her for a long time, but seeing her crawl towards me like some kind of killer Terminator reminded me I felt sorry for her. I Stockholm Syndrome stabbed the knife into the cutting board instead of my captor, and I found a phone and called for an ambulance for her and the police to come protect me from her.

"What are you doing?" She looked at me from the floor, confused. Her eyes were blurry, she wasn't sure she was seeing or hearing things correctly.

I set down the pink toy Barbie phone and looked at it again. I had heard the operator. There was no way I was that far gone. I shrugged and got up and walked outside into the burning sun skies of Los Angeles.

Just then a dog walker on skates with some kind of electronic harness released Cupid from the pack and she came running up to me. She licked my face, she had never forgot me.

We were walking along eating all the good stuff out of people's garbage cans when the dog catcher had to get punched by me. I didn't hit him that hard, he's just a wimp and took it too far. So, I was arrested, but then they brought in the FBI because I was missing for so long.

That's how I found out I wasn't crazy and how she had taken me instead of her real target, only she didn't know the difference. They told me she had moved to San Franciso with extensive connections to conceal her from authorities. I was given back Cupid and we were given to the US Marshals, who removed two chips from Cupid, and then we spent a year off the grid before I could have any kind of life again.

I still keep my location a secret, in case those bad people out there want to get me and put me in a dark place again.

Every town has its local legends. Few, I expect, are as deadly as the specter haunting the false summit of Pinetale Peak. But the seductive stories from the rare survivors kept a steady stream of pilgrims attempting to follow in their footsteps.

When the local rescue team could no longer keep up with the broken bodies piling up in the couloir, the Sheriff posted a deputy at the trailhead to search hikers for the contraband needed to perform the ritual. 

On that particular morning, it was deputy Gloria Riggs standing by the footbridge. Even in the pale blue pre dawn light, I could spot her camera-ready hair and makeup; more politician than peace officer. She held a chunky flashlight in one hand, the other beckoned, expectant. I slipped my pack off my shoulders and passed it to her. 

“Any whiskey in here?” She asked as she rummaged through the bag.“No ma’am.” 

“Ouch. Thought I’d be a ‘miss’ for at least another few years.” 

I chuckled.

“You’re not trying to see him, are you Max?” She knew me. Town was like that back then. 

“No, miss,” I lied.

“Wouldn’t blame you, being curious,” she zipped one pocket shut and moved on to another. “My cousin got some advice from good ‘ole Ray. ‘Bout ten years back. Professor down valley at the college.”

“I take it he wound up on the rocks?” 

Gloria shook her head. “Worse. He got exactly what he was looking for. Headed west with his girlfriend with a crazy dream about a catamaran. Not so much as a postcard.”

“Sounds like Wrong Way Ray told him exactly what he needed to hear.”

“He died at sea, shipwrecked somewhere near the Philippines.“ She thrust the bag into my chest with more force than necessary. “If you do see him—take his advice with a grain of salt. He’s not called Right Path Paulson, ya dig?” 

The skin of my stomach was starting to sweat against the cheap plastic flask I’d tucked behind my belt buckle. “Thanks for the warning. But really, I’m just looking to see the sunrise.”
“Uh huh. Safe hike, Max.”

The hike was safe — by Summit County standards — so long as you had sure footing and a good idea where you were going. Raymond Paulson had neither of those things on the day he scampered out onto a traverse to nowhere and fell 500 feet to his death.

According to the local weatherman, the pre-dawn fog would’ve kept Ray from seeing more than a foot in front of his face. But the toxicology report, combined with an empty liquor bottle found unbroken in the man’s pack, led the coroner to a different, non-weather related conclusion.

All of this probably would’ve been written off as an accident, if hikers from Kerristead didn't believe in ghost stories. Turns out, Ray wasn't blind, dumb, or suicidal; and he'll tell anybody who will listen.

I whistled my way up the meandering switchback, bordered by the gabions and felled trees employed by the trail crew to halt the progress of erosion. Trees became bushes, then wildflowers before yielding to the petrified hay commonly found poking out between chunks of scree.

Someone had stacked a pile of bigger rocks into a semi-circular windbreak, wrapping around the summit survey marker. Shadowy suggestions of the surrounding peaks loomed in the limited lighting, poking above the cloud layer like islands in the sea. Sunrise would come soon. I dropped my pack, sank into the sheltered alcove, and closed my eyes.

"Hey brother. Got anything to drink?" Asked a gruff voice.

My lids flew open. Sitting beside me was a stranger wearing a faded flannel shirt, tucked into a well-worn pair of baby blue jeans. The mullet poking out beneath his ball cap looked a little like the fat, fluffy tail of some enormous squirrel. 

Wrong Way Ray, in the flesh.

His question was the first step in a loosely choreographed dance, deduced through dozens of failed interactions.

"Hope you like bourbon." I passed him the tiny flask, from which he took a greedy swig. Only bourbon worked. Blake tried with Gin and said the apparition spat it out before vanishing.

"Thanks, friend." He passed the flask back, now significantly lighter. "What brings you up here?

I shrugged. "Looking to get some clarity, you know?"

"Couldn't have picked a better place. Nature does that." Ray leaned back against the rock, folding his hands behind his head. "What's on your mind?"

I spoke slowly, feeling every syllable. "I have an opportunity that's eating me alive. A big new job. Fancy one, out East in New York City. Pay is great. It'd be huge for my career; chance to make a name for myself, ya know?"

He gave a polite nod. "So what's the problem?"

"Problem is, I'd have no friends, no family... living in some shoebox a hundred miles from the nearest real mountain."

"I see. You're worried you'll miss it. This." He gestured to the world around us.

"Nah, it's more than that. Sometimes I think this is who I am... and wonder who I'd be If I leave."
Ray folded his arms and pondered this for a moment. "Can I ask, what's so great about the New York job? I mean, are you unhappy where you are?"

"No, it's fine. I can get by. I just wonder if this would offer me more..." I held out my hand like I was reaching out for a word not quite within my reach.

"More Money? Status?" Ray scoffed. "It's okay to not give a shit about stuff like that. I sure as shit didn't. Everyone's got different priorities. Then again, I'm just a dirtbag adrenaline junkie, living out of his car. At least I was, before--well, you know." He chucked a stone over the edge. It clattered once, twice, then was lost to the void.

Was? He couldn't possibly mean... "Do you know you're, well—"

"A ghost, yeah. Used to really rustle my jimmies."

"What?"

"Being dead. 'Specially when everyone thought I killed myself." He furrowed his brow. "You wanna know how I really died? Lemme show you."

He grabbed my arm with a firm hand, effortlessly pulling me to my feet and leading me toward the edge. Had I said something wrong, or missed some crucial step in the scribbled journal entries? 

Would he throw me off? Was that what happened to the other hikers?

"Look out over there." He pointed out from our vantage point. I squinted, confused. In the blue-gray light, a knife's edge traverse rose and fell from below the cloud floor like a sea-serpent, ending in a pointed spire. It looked a little like a rattlesnake's tail. "That's Pinetale Peak. The real peak. Hard to find your way when the trail dips down into the clouds. Standing on the top is like looking down from Olympus. Partner told me it was stupid to do without ropes. We didn't have any. I didn't care; just had to see it.

"On the way back, I got turned around. Slipped right off the edge and... well, seems like you know the rest." Ray sniffed, and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "I remember how it felt. Whose name I screamed on the way down."

He cleared his throat. "Still an unbeatable view if you need to see the world from the top."

I was so focused on the feel of his hand at the small of my back, I didn't realize he was waiting for a response. I looked from Ray's expectant face, to the narrow path before me, leading to a spire backlit in gold. I raised one leg, about to step forward, then paused.

What was wrong with the peak I already stood on?

"Maybe..." I stammered, "Maybe I've climbed high enough. Maybe I'm okay right here."
The hand against my back pulled away, taking a profound weight with it.

Ray was gone, but his message was clear.

—Cole Noble

Philosophically I ask, why would a person awakened in the darkness call out for a response, if they believed they were safe and completely alone? Based upon their understood ‘facts’ and possessing a rational mind, why then would they still question if there is something lurking nearby in their presence? What would prompt a baseless solicitation for feedback from the void?

The answer to this is both simple and complex. There’s a two-tier system of belief in most people. The rational, educated brain is couched in science and technology. Cold, hard facts dictate the behavior of the conscious self. On the other hand, the murky, primordial brain refuses to dispel its superstitious fears. It hangs onto the bogeyman hiding in the shadows and prepares for the absolute worst.

These two diametrically-opposed mindsets are always at war with each other. In the reassuring light of day, rationalization rules our actions and dispels the uncomfortable darkness as it tries to seep in. Anything else would be ridiculous, right? Lingering fear and paranoia retreats to the shadowed edges of the subconscious. Later on when we are vulnerable or anxious again, it creeps back out.

The enchanted state of irrational flux gains strength in the absence of reason and daylight. It convinces us that impossible things are possible. Nightmares then spark into fruition and somehow manifest themselves into the flesh. Once opportunistic darkness reigns, we suspect a verbal reply might come when calling out to the nothingness. As a matter of fact, we expect it. Lingering dread doesn’t stop suspicion in the superstitious mind. It confirms it.

———-

I received such unwanted feedback not that long ago; and if I’m being completely candid, I’ll never be the same again. I’d heard strange and unfamiliar ruminations outside, as I tried to sleep for several nights in a row. It wasn’t a neighbor’s dog or a known nocturnal wildlife wandering my back yard. While I couldn’t place the large aggressive-sounding animal, I knew what it wasn’t. It would’ve been a huge relief if it was ONLY a bear.

From the heavy footfall, it sounded to be at least as large as of our region’s largest predator, but the primal growls of ‘Ursus Americanus’ are well documented. This definitely wasn’t that. I didn’t dare peer out the window at the time. I feared ‘it’ would see me pull back the curtain. I hid in my bed, as if clutching my bedsheets would magically render me safe from the creaking behemoth circling my home.

Was it patrolling the area? Marking its territory? Or was it seeking a way into my unfortified home? None of those possibilities appealed to me. They say: ‘Doors and windows are only meant to keep out honest folk’. This wasn’t a human being, and I had significant doubts if it was a natural, biological animal of any known zoological species. Remember my initial essay about how the human imagination is very fruitful in the absence of light or logic? In the heat of the heart-pounding experience, I was fresh out of both reality-based weapons.

I heard a series of repetitive ‘bone-snapping’ clicks and feral, animalistic hisses as it circled my house. I’d tried to ignore the distressing ‘joint flexing’ sound for the first couple nights but you can only live in denial for so long. Whatever it was, it didn’t try to hide itself or ‘lay low’. That was telling in itself. A dominant predator doesn’t need to slink around or be quiet. It was obvious I was dealing with an ‘alpha’. What wasn’t obvious was, what sort of diabolical monster lumbers around while making a ‘snapping bones’ noise?

Call it a fool’s courage or an act of illogical madness, I propelled myself out of bed to gaze upon the unknown entity stalking my property. Right there and then I knew wasn’t ‘of this Earth’ and no amount of scientific hand-wringing was going to change that. I witnessed a gangly, red-eyed abomination skulking about the yard and sniffing the leaves of my shrubs. The disquieting ‘flex’ and sloshing was again present as it scurried along like a massive spider crab. Perhaps the hideous sounds were a subconscious warning to other predators, to avoid tangling with it.

My skin tingled seeing the cryptid nightmare. It crept close to the ground while raising up occasionally, with an unnatural flexibility which defied mammalian anatomy. My eyes widened in expanding disbelief as this alien-looking creature prowled around and haunted the night. What did it want, and where did it come from? I dared not make a peep from my voyeuristic vantage point, lest I draw its creepy gaze up toward me.

With immense relief, I witnessed it scuttle away until I couldn’t see or hear it any longer. You’d think a terrifying encounter like that would cause permanent insomnia but the psyche has an upper limit to what it can handle. Adrenaline is the body’s protective stress hormone. It floods the bloodstream to make the person alert during a severe crisis. This evolutionary process prepares us for battle but as soon as the danger subsides, the shock to the system causes the body to collapse from nervous exhaustion.

Thats precisely what happened to me. I fell asleep and my subconscious was hard at work convincing me the entire thing was merely a maddening dream. I wasn’t able to process that level of ‘impossible’ any longer so similar to a protection valve or safety fuse, my brain just shut off. I wish it had been successful and I’d awakened to the reassuring warmth of sunshine, but that was not to be.

I don’t know how long I remained in unconscious peace but eventually that had to end, I suppose. I couldn’t ignore the gut-wrenching racket any longer. The ‘snapping bones’ was back and echoed close by. Too close! It grew more prominent until I realized the source of the manifestation was now in my own hallway! That’s something I’ll never forget. I felt its slithering, serpentine appendages shake my hardwood floor.

While I couldn’t see my unworldly visitor at that point, I was awake enough to know I wasn’t alone. An acrid, unfamiliar scent filled the air of my bedroom to confirm its proximity. That’s when my personal ‘call to the abyss’ occurred. Intellectually, I knew it was ‘impossible’. I was sequestered in the relative safety of my own home, but the troubling weight of everything I had witnessed, tipped the scales toward begrudging acceptance.

It was a disarming reflex. If I was truly by myself, then addressing the otherwise empty room wouldn’t harm a thing. If my primordial instincts were correct however, I hoped it would be taken as a benevolent sign of open communication and non aggression. Realistically, it was illogical to address an otherwise vacant bedroom, but reality had long since ‘checked out’. The creaking joints, slug-like sloshing, and ugly snapping was impossible to ignore. As much as my logical brain sought to dismiss the surreal event as a hallucination, its feral presence and odor was undeniable.

“Helllllooooo?”

Even as the cowardly greeting slipped past my quivering lips, I cringed and silently cursed myself. I’d just acknowledged I wasn’t alone, to both the ‘imaginary’ thing, and I. Despite the obvious breach of my front door that must have transpired, there was a part of me which hoped we could go back to pretending the other didn’t exist. For me to speak out loud as I had, was to deny the possibility. I’d initiated mutual contact. There was no reversing my request for feedback from an impossible, yet absolutely happening scenario.

Its jarring, insectoid response confirmed conclusively that I had an ‘uninvited guest’ of the cryptid variety.

“Iiiiii dooooo nooottttt eeeeattt huuuuumans….

For the briefest of moments my mind-numbing apprehension dissipated.

Uuussuuuaaallltyy.”; It slowly added after an unnaturally long delay.

Any level of temporary relief I felt from the hair-raising encounter spiked back immediately to maximum terror, after its clarification to the sentence.

Its luminescent eyes bore through the darkness like two unnaturally-tinted flashlights. I thought my vision finally adjusted to the darkness but in truth, my eyelids had been tightly shut in a sanity protective stance. ‘Cowards are gonna coward’.

I waited for more poorly-timed, follow up communication. Apparently none was forthcoming. The next course of action fell to me. My mind raced with providing an appropriate, yet de-escalating response. I realized that the mortifying invader and I were in a sensitive negotiation of sorts. Without clarifying the details, I was bargaining for my life. A good negotiator asks the right questions and determines what the other party desires.

“What is it you want?”; I stammered unconvincingly. Any pretense of me being fully confident of a mutually beneficial outcome was nonexistent. It was obviously for a country mile that ours was an uneven stalemate.

My gangly ‘guest’ was waiting for me to offer some gesture of respect or goodwill. Asking about the source of its grievance was apparently the right thing to do. It replied: “Doooo nottttt placccccceeee poooooiiiissonnn onnn the plllllaaaannntttssss.”

The snapping bone and creaking joint sound apparently escalated when the creature was angry or highly agitated. I listened to the inhuman delivery of phonetic words with a renewed sense of fascination. Witnessing its earlier facial scowl after sniffing my shrubs finally made sense. The simple act of spraying pesticides on my lawn and ornamental bushes was the principle source of its displeasure.

Perhaps it was a herbivore and my routine properly maintenance ruined its grazing. Either that, or it consumed the pests themselves that my poisons eliminated. Either way, its reasons were its own. I didn’t have to know the specific details in order to put an end to the terse conflict. I immediately offered an enthusiastic and clear answer.

“I will stop spraying the yard and bushes with the chemical poisons right now. Forgive me. I didn’t know it was an issue for ‘you’.”

I decided to avoid acknowledging that I was wholly unaware of its existence. Maybe that was obvious. Either way, the barrage of clicks and creaks lessened until I only heard its raspy breathing. Seemingly satisfied by our verbal agreement, it turned around and slithered back out of my home. I didn’t bother to watch through my window to determine which way it crept into the darkness.

It’s out there and can come back at the drop of a hat. That’s all that really matters. Reality, logic, and scientific facts be damned. I know the truth. My symbiotic relationship and conditional truce with a pesticide-hating cryptid began with an illogical but necessary call into the void.

I first noticed him one night while stumbling home from the pub. It was actually in the early morning hours and not many souls were out and about. Fewer still, had a pronounced limp and heavy footfall as he did. Despite his physical infirmity, the dour gent limping behind me managed to traverse the well-worn cobblestones with no issues. The progress he made toward his unknown destination was roughly at the same pace as my own. We continued on, in uncomfortable silence. Neither of us addressed or acknowledged the other.

Besides the odd coincidence of us both wandering the streets at the ungodly hour of three AM, I didn’t place much thought to the hobbling gentleman, fifteen paces behind me. I assumed we were just two random fools making our way home in the predawn hours, in a walk of shame. He kept to his side of the roadway, and I stayed on mine. In my hazy stupor, I was too preoccupied with preventing myself from falling face-down to engage in pleasantries. Walking required my full attention.

A few nights later I hurried to the market on Huxton Row to buy some fresh groceries. The proprietor closes precisely at Nine PM, without fail. The stoic merchant was standing right beside his doorway waiting to lock up shop. I assured him I would only be a moment. I told him what I needed, handed him the money and thanked him for his patience. Off I went, back toward me humble home. He locked the door and departed in the other direction.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I walked down the boulevard in the flickering glow of the streetlights. The missus would have her rolling pin waiting on yours truly If I’d failed to pick up the goods. All was well until I heard that ungraceful footfall behind me again. I didn’t want to face him but my curiosity got the best of me. I felt compelled to make eye contact with the stumbling codger. I glanced over my shoulder; as much to reassure myself, as for him. I wish I hadn’t. His features were stark and his eyes were lifeless and cold. It chilled me to the marrow. Worse, he completely failed to acknowledge my startled gaze! As before in our previous encounter, we walked separately.

This time however, I was stone-cold sober and more aware of my solitary situation. I felt vulnerable walking in front, and began to doubt we were headed to different places. The labored presence directly behind me was very unnerving. I felt it wasn’t a coincidence I kept running into ‘the hobbled man’. His distinctive, uneven cadence somehow married up with my own natural gait. We were in full lockstep until it was difficult to tell them apart. Our footfalls echoed in the cold winter air. ‘Clip, clip, Clunk’. Clip, clip CLUNK’. It was just out of sync enough to remind me I was being followed by a catatonic looking ghoul with an asymmetrical shuffle and heaving breath. The hair on me head stood right up in prickles.

I clutched my grocery sack tightly as if it was a defensive shield against an imminent attack. My eyes were full open and a-fright. Then his pace seemed to quicken. Why was he trailing me? I thought I even felt hot, homicidal breath bearing down me goose-pimpled neck! I was practically sprinting in the pitch dark, having long since left behind the helpful torches of town. Right there, I had a full-blown panic attack. I tossed down my little sack of groceries and raced home empty-handed. I was hyperventilating uncontrollably like a terrified child when I bolted up the front door.

The missus was waiting impatiently in the kitchen with an ever-present scowl of disappointment on her face. As soon as she saw my sheer fright, she dropped the rolling pin. I pulled back the curtain to determine if the stumbling cretin with the hollow, expressionless eyes was still in full pursuit. My betrothed could tell I was deathly afraid of something dire, and did her best to console the blubbering fool she married. I calmed down a bit after a few sips of ‘liquid courage’ and tried to recount the cause for my extreme anxiety.

She was genuinely concerned until I explained I was being followed by a handicapped cripple who hadn’t made any aggressive moves against me at all. Hearing it expressed in that oversimplified, dismissive way, I realized it sounded ridiculous. Clearly she agreed. Her matrimonial disgust returned with a vengeance. She ordered me to go back out immediately and retrieve our abandoned items. Already being a drunkard and inattentive lout, I’d just added ‘coward’ to my long list of undesirable traits.

I backtracked until I found our discarded food lying on the ground. Thankfully there was no sign of my menacing shadow looming about anymore, and I hurried back home with my tail tucked between my legs. The missus hadn’t experienced his callous sneer or felt the unshakable sense of doom surrounding him when he followed. I tried to explain that in greater detail but she had absolutely no interest in hearing any sniveling from me.

I shut my mouth and gave up. She was never going to understand. How could she? It didn’t even make sense to me. This ominous shadow in dark clothes haunted my thoughts in ways which didn’t appear to be justified. On the surface, he was simply a disfigured wretch with a prominent hobble who always seemed to wander the streets exactly when I did.

My mysterious tormentor hadn’t uttered a harsh word, nor raised a finger in malice toward me. His somber profile and disturbing demeanor alone created the irrational suspicions I held. In the clear light of day, I felt like a right silly git for being so spooked. He was merely an unfortunate, ghastly stranger as far as I, or anyone else knew. As night fell however, I wasn’t nearly as sure of his coincidental benevolence.

Over the next few evenings I avoided the downtown area like the plague. In the back of my mind I hoped my lame boogeyman with an aura of evil only came out at night. Sadly, I was wrong about that bit. I caught sight of ‘ol’ stumblin’ gruesome’ on a couple of occasions which was neither night time, nor was I alone. Regardless, every subsequent encounter served to magnify my paralyzing apprehension.

I dared not point him out to my disappointed love. Either she’d mock me mercilessly for being so mortified by the mere sight of a harmless unfortunate figure, or worse yet, she might not see him at all! In the back of my mind, that would’ve been enough to pack me in, square away.

If he was just a miserable sot like me who I’d created a fanciful mythology about him being an evildoer, that would be bad enough. But if no one else could see the innocent bugger, then me own mind was gone. There’s no cure for that! It would’ve been the ol’ straight jacket and loonie bin for Mr. Ian McTaskin. I didn’t want to know if no one else could see ‘em. The cunning way he always seemed to be closing in behind me, but then would disappear into thin air, worried me far more than potential bodily harm by a ‘lurking simpleton with a bum leg’.

Sunday morning, the vicar delivered his ‘fire and brimstone’ sermon from the pulpit, as he always does. A broken record orator he is. My bride glared at me sideways, while listening to the repetitive lecture on the dire evils of drinking a few pints down at the pub. She was trying to decide if his holy words of wisdom might finally be sinking in, or if I’d always be a worthless drunkard who disappointed her, daily.

Truthfully, I hadn’t been to the pub all week thanks to the creepy old sot who I kept running into. I played the part of the pious, repentant spouse, and she seemed temporarily satisfied that maybe there was some hope yet for my wayward soul, after all. It’s a game as old as time itself. We both play it to make her feel good.

Sadly, any tally marks I’d erased in her black book of marital mistakes were quickly replaced when I dared to ask the vicar about ‘the hobbled man’ who was stalking me thoughts, night and day. The wife was beyond furious I’d shamed us publicly by admitting the tale I’d told her. She assumed it was merely alcohol-fueled nonsense and excuses from my ‘forked tongue’. That was before she saw the look on the preacher’s solemn, weathered mug. It immediately changed her tune.

“You saw a disgruntled looking, lame fellow in a dark suit? Did he follow you for any distance at all, McTaskin? Oh merciful Lord! ‘The hobbled man’ evil spirit must have attached himself to your endangered soul. Has he stalked you more than once?”

I nodded nervously at his volley of accusatory sounding questions, as my ball and chain looked on in a rising tide of trepidation. Both their faces were aghast in widening mortal dread. While I wanted her to believe me about my stumbling shadow, I certainly didn’t want to bring a heightened sense of despair into the process. They acted as if I had attracted a demon from the fiery pits of hell to lurk directly behind me. All to snatch up my inebriated soul.

I’ll be deathly honest. Their fear was contagious. I was already straddling the fence about my expressionless stalker being a diabolical spirit of the worst and most evil sort. But the vicar’s marked awareness of this malicious entity and his aim for me, was all the convincing I needed. I’ve been guilty in the past of the sin of pride, among many other well-documented failures, but I was lightning quick to beg for his holy guidance. I was down on me knees with fingers clasped to get shed of ‘ol Beelzebub.

Most of the things I was directed to do were no real sacrifice. I had to attend church services every Sunday and pay my tithes to fund the lord’s work in combating evil throughout the world. I had to say me prayers each night and confess my dirty sins, to gain the Lords absolution. I was commanded to be more respectful to my sweet Connie McTaskin, and to strive to be more of an honest man. That really paid off since she stopped hitting me with the rolling pin and frying pan and gave me lovin’ on a regular basis.

The only item I really struggled with was to give up the Devil’s medicine. The vicar demanded I stop going to the pub. That’s the God’s honest truth from my lips to your ears. I missed fellowship with the lads and throwing back a pint or two but to his credit, not once did I run into ‘the hobbled man’ again after I changed my ways and turned to the church. Eventually I came to accept that noble sacrifice for the benefit of saving my mortal soul, and making sweet Connie love me again.

That was, until a decade later when I was introduced to ‘M Emmett Greene’, the vicar’s crippled nephew! There’s no telling how many errant husbands and bawdy hell raisers ‘the hobbled man’ cleverly spooked with their creative ruse. Obviously it worked masterfully on me to give up the bottle, and I realized immediately when I laid eyes on him that my wife knew the vicar’s tricky plan, all along.

I’ll admit, their sly deception inspired me to straighten up my life, and I’m a better man for it. No doubt about it! You’d quit drinkin’ too if you were followed by ‘the hobbled man’ when you let the pub. It’s probably what they mean when they say: ‘The Lord works in mysterious ways.’

Anna woke up to the sound of water running in the bathroom and smiled. Vincent has always been the morning bird, but it seems that his routine was being postponed lately to not wake her up.

Thinking of surprising him, she got up to brew some coffee. The delicious smell traversed the rooms of the small apartment. The sound of cutlery livened up the home a bit. Vincent uttered a muffled curse. Maybe he cut himself while shaving? After pouring a cup for herself, she turned on the TV and watched the news while putting her hair up in a messy bun, waiting for him to be done in the bathroom. They were showing a new development of an infamous case, a murder, in which new evidence proved that the suspect was innocent. She let out a sigh, dropping the blue mug on the small table. All those criminals always ended up running free, didn't they?

She felt his presence behind her, his light steps unnoticeable in the soft carpet, but his breathing was so well-know she thought she could recognize it anywhere. Turning around to face him, she saw a look of worry crossing by, then fear, then relief. He got up, grabbed his bag and left without touching the coffee, and she thought for a moment he would ignore her too. Maybe things between them weren't as resolved as she thought. In the last second, he briefly turned around and said, almost as a whisper: "See you later, love", gazing at her with a hint of pain, a little distant, which made sure to her that something was yet to develop, but not now. He was late for work.

"see ya" she answered, blowing a kiss. He closed the door. His steps grew less and less audible as he walked away. She started washing the dishes and thinking about what to do next. Maybe cleaning up the bedroom? Vincent hated when she declutered the home, being so defensive over throwing anything away. Lately he has even picked stuff up back from the trash. He hasn't always been like this, she remembered. When they met, he was such a minimalist and organized man. But random crap is like a disease, it catches up to you the older you get. You start wondering if you'd miss that old ass shirt, the faded love letters, the expired credit cards even. Well, not declutering then. Perhaps a run to the store? The idea of an elaborate dinner to go with their talk later was pleasant. This could lighten things up.

When Vincent came back, the cursed word he dropped before turned into a torrent of ugly, messy improperies. This broke Anna's heart. She has just finished putting the food on the table, the scent of pasta mixed with homemade tomato sauce and olive oil overpowering everything else, the plates impeccably set up, an unopened bottle of wine. Simple and delicious. And yet, one look inside the home and he was already so annoyed. His face turned into a tearful mess. She went to touch his hair, a gesture of comfort repeated many times, but he shivered away from her tpuch and angrily got up.

"why are you doing this to me?" he asked, but didn't waited for an answer. Passing by her in a rush, he closed the bedroom door. She could hear him trying to calm himself down by breathing in and out several times. After a couple of minutes he must have dialed a number, because she could hear his side of a conversation on the phone, loud and clear.

"I know what you are going to say, but just listen, ok? Please. At least, if you don't believe me... Can you humor me after everything I've been going through? Don't tell me that. I'm not trying to guilt trip you, I just need someone to listen. Ok, so it happened again. I swear to God someone brew coffee while I was getting ready. The TV was on. Then, the house was clean and there was a fucking 3 course meal on the table when I came from work. And worst of all, her cup. It was by the sink, as if she had just drank her tea from it while cooking... I think I'm losing my mind, or there's someone out there who thinks this is all a funny joke. Do you have any idea of who could be doing this? ".

He listened for a long time. Her heart was so tight in her chest, a knot in her throat, the seconds falling silently around them with such a heavy weight. Finally, his voice cut the air again, calmer, collected.

" OK. I understand. Worth a shot, doesn't it?".
he laughed without humor, the way you do when something is unbelievable and you are still trying to make sense of it.
"I can't believe I'm going to try that. It's all kinds of crazy, you know that? Yes, I know. And the police tomorrow too. Maybe the psychiatrist. It's just... Well. Sure. OK, talk to you tomorrow. Love ya too. Bye".

The call ended and he let out a light, broken sigh, and if he was afraid of making sound. She saw the door opening, his broad shoulders crossing it, and pretty soon they were both sitting in the living room. Avoiding her eyes, he grabbed something from the counter and keep looking at it while collecting his thoughts. Without looking up, he started talking.

"Hi Anna. Is that really you?".

"what... Do you mean? Of course it's me", she said.

"ok, I'll leave this on the table. Can you move it for me, please?"
his voice trembled, he seemed desperate. She shrugged and moved the picture to where it belongs. It was one of her selfies, the one that she had liked. Her smile was bright and the wind made her hair flow beautifully, one of her hands holding her hat down. All in all, a very natural, spontaneous shot. He kept looking at the picture, his eyes growing wilder, waiting, and when the frame touched the fireplace, he howled in some kind of raw emotion she couldn't understand.

"you have been here all this time? Why?"
But at this point, she realized she could talk until her face turned blue, and he was never going to listen. More than that, he had such a pained look, she was afraid of the next words he was going to say.
"Anna... You... Didn't realized it?".

A faint memory returned to her. She had lunch with her mom, and it ended later than expected. Vincent and her were supposed to go to a party later. A man stopped her asking for some information, and she waved her hand, rushingly, and continued running, but he pushed her to the ground and dragged her. Something... Happened. But when she got up, her body felt unharmed, and the guy was nowhere to be seen. She arrived one hour late to the party, and Vincent was so pissed he didn't even looked at her. Didn't even heard her out. Those past few days, she saw him really overreacting, angry and crying. Only now she knew why.

"those little things moving around... It was all you?". he chuckled-cried. "oh God. Should I still see a psychologist after that now?".

He waited, and waited, but she didn't know what to say or do. She felt exhausted. Unanswered, he ended up going to bed, and she did too. His hand was so warm on hers. Her eyes closed, and little by little, her body lightned as she drifted to sleep and every thought disappeared.

The next day, the apartment was silent. The haunted little things never moved again.

They say there’s no cutting into fog as thick as the one that shrouds our mind. The empty spaces between spaces that fill each crevice of a broken mind. It had been impossible for me to tell if I was awake or asleep for several weeks when I first got the call. It was like living within the mist before a seaside hurricane rolls into a small town. Disoriented at all times, never quite knowing how to breath, think or act. I had been teetering at my desk when the phone rang, and despite my best efforts to ignore it I found my hand reaching for the cracked metal of an ancient receiver. “Krampus and co investigations, we heed the call and take em all, how can I help you today?” Her soft cries from the other side of the line made me sit up in my chair “maam, do you need me to connect you to an active police line?” She stifled her sobs for a moment and spoke in a low tone “no, that won’t be necessary, I’m safe now” the inclusion of a time gave me the chills and I immediately grabbed a pen and paper from my drawer “are you sure you don’t need police help? I’m only a private detective maam, I can’t do much in the way of safety” technically I was lying, I had the worst rap in the city for keeping my nose on the right track, and more often then not I got involved where I shouldn’t have. “No, it’s ok, I just need you to find something out. There an island, just past the bay, called horsehead, go there at noon tomorrow, I’ll meet you at the ferry dock, $500 cash if you listen to what I have to say” I wrote even the name of the island and prepared my usual like of inquisition, But before I could respond she hung up the phone, I looked at the speaker as the dial tone rang like one constant reminder of the unanswered questions. I looked down at my desk, expecting the read the name of the island back to myself, but instead I was met with nothing. I opened my drawer and saw the pen and notepad, right where I’d left them a day or so before. I shook my head and grabbed them, writing down the name of the jetty

The dock was rotted and slanted, one section nearly dipping below the calming waves as I strolled onto the pier and looked up at the falling sign. “Coastal Beat” it wasn’t the strangest name for a marina, but for some reason the initials got to me, like they had been present in my life before. I thought about scribbling them down, but it felt odd to do, like looking back at them together would solve the puzzle, and knowing the answer wouldn’t help me get past the fog. I pushed the thoughts out of my head and continued crossing the faded wood, trying to watch where I put my weight as I made my way toward the ferry at the end of the line. A gruff looking old man sat leaning against the boat, his eyes covered by a flat cap with coal stains. I nodded to him as I approached, speaking a dash above my average tone to work my way over the noise of crashing swells. “My names John, I’m here for passage to horsehead” the old man’s face went sour and he spit to his right, nearly covering my loafer in a thick wad of blood and mucus. “Ya best find a different destination boy, horseheads no good for a stiff like you” I nodded and moved my coat to the side, brandishing the 38. K frame I’d been packing since I got back from the war. He gave me an inquisitive frown and nodded, stepping a bit closer and looking directly into my gaze. I could see his eyes now, they were tired and scared, just like mine. No amount of smoking or marching powder could hide that kind of fear. “You’re not just any stiff from the upside are ya, you’ve seen the life leave a man’s eyes, you’ve seen the hell rain down, smelt the burning. What makes you so keen to leap back into the hellfire?”

I was taken aback “it’s just an island, what aren’t you telling me old timer?” He adjusted his cap and blinked a few times, presenting me with a new set of eyes, the kind of eyes you found on a beast of worlds far from this one. He spoke in a shifted tone this time, his voice wavering as the dock began to sink, and a tendril of kelp reached out at me from the sea. “It ain’t an island son, it’s a life force, a way to exist that barriers you and I from the present. It’ll eat your past and vomit it right back up in front of you. The acid will burn your soul and the smell will turn your very eyes to dust. There’s no escaping the hell that lies, in the sorry mix that slumbers” just as fast as the sea had risen it all fell back below and the man returned to his position. “So, you coming or not?” I looked all around me and felt the cuff of my pants, no kelp, not even any water. I nodded to the man and stepped aboard, following him up the stairs to the upper deck of the small ferry. “The names Jay, but you can call me captain. This here ship was named after the craziest thing I ever saw at sea. I was fishing out the bay one day, hoping to grab myself some striper. suddenly as I’m reeling in the worst fight of my life, I fall backwards and land on my ass. As I look up, I see a Moray, soaring down toward the deck. He just kinda sails through the air for a moment, before sinking his teeth into an antenna I’ve got for my old radio. He swung on it for a moment, before letting go and getting flung right back out” I looked at the captain in disbelief “you’re saying that a fish flew?” He shook his head “no no, a morays not a fish, and it didn’t fly”

He stepped into the control bay of the ship and sounded the horn before setting off. I strolled over to a wooden chair that had been hastily bolted to the wall. I thought about the last conversation I had with my wife. “You know darling we don’t have to stay in the city forever, I know business is important but what if we just got a small farm, maybe something with cows and chickens, we could grow things and take care of livestock” I shook my head as I stared at the bill in front of me “debt isn’t exactly a free ticket, we’re stuck here till we pay off the bank, and even then who knows if we’d be able to afford a farm?” She walked over to me and leaned over, taking my chin with her hands and kissing me softly. “It’s not a whole farm, it’s just, a small pasture, maybe a few gates and some fences” I stayed in the daydream for as long as I could, feeling her warmth again. I would have gotten out of my chair, taken her by hands and danced all night with her in that dreary little kitchen. I remember our first date, driving up the country side and climbing a steep hill, just to lay together on the rock face looking out at the night. I remember dancing with her, telling her she was the very nature of our song…unforgettable. “That’s why darling, it’s incredible, that someone so unforgettable, thinks that I am unforgettable toooo” I sang it to her whenever she had a bad day. Towards the end I suppose I was always singing it, like it would somehow make the pressure easier, like life wasn’t closing in on us. Like it all wasn’t going to come crashing down. The boats horn awoke me from the day dream as the song in my head came to a close, and the pleasure of memories turned sour with present reality. I reached down and took hold of the small lantern necklace she gave me, kissing it softly before letting it hang below my shirt.

“End of the line laddy, good luck out here” I nodded to the captain and stepped out from the shrouded boat. As the fog dissipated in front of me, and the islands geography opened up, I felt my stomach drop. The only buildings were a cobbled together shanty just off the docks, not a third story between them. As I walked down the cracking wooden pier, I looked at a figure just beyond my line of sight. She strolled up to me, her soft form silhouetted against a mixture of fog and rain. I adjusted my glasses and wiped away the drops as she came into view. I heard the music play in my head as her green eyes locked with my own, and she spoke softly. For the first time in almost a year, I felt awake. She was so beautiful. “Hello darling, you didn’t forget about me…did you?”

Last night I batted a festering army of the undead as they gnashed their decaying teeth. I fought valiantly but succumbed to my mortal wounds in the end. There were just too many of them and they could reanimate at will. It’s impossible to kill what’s already deceased. Eventually I had no more fight left to give. I consoled myself that, at least it was a noble death.

The night before, I braved an airborne siege with a dozen crimson-winged avian devils. They attacked from all directions, and offered no mercy or quarter. Even the ground beneath my feet wasn’t a sanctuary from their merciless assault. They crept out of the shifting soil and congregated in their skyward citadel, overhead. The ugly specter of my defeat swooped down upon me from above.

Three nights ago my opponent was the unified legion of an insect plague. Their fierce, dive-bomb raids left me gasping for breath until I could feel nothing inside my fluttering chest. I suffered a hundred stinging jabs of paralyzing pain. Their injected poison insured there was no hope of survival.

With every approaching sundown comes a formidable new adversary to hasten my expiration. No two have been alike, nor had my experience fighting them led to a unified solution of how to vanquish their successors. It appeared I was doomed to implement new strategies each time I sparred with upcoming foes. Adapt or die.

From enormous vampiric tadpoles, to smothering snowmen, or poisonous shadows that choke the life from your weary soul, I’ve battled an impressive lineup of malevolent enemies in my sleep. Not knowing what my next adversary would be, was overwhelming. Sadly, my strength was fading because of these nightly reoccurring struggles with doom. Without rest and resolution, a person’s heart and mind will eventually cease to function.

Every morning I rose up from my bed with a violent start. It was as if I awoke from a particularly vivid fever-dream, but these savage battles were not nightmares. At least not in the traditional sense. I believed in my heart they were genuine spiritual conflicts with the evolving forces of evil. These unexplained sagas served to prepare me for the next one. If not in personal combat strategy, then at least to keep up my motivation and strength to continue fighting back.

This morning I finally saw the truth. The bleak revelation shook me to the core. I came to realize that the only common element between them was my own fertile imagination. I’ve been the unwitting architect of this destructive warfare, as it distracted me and drained my will to keep living. I have vowed to no longer provide the spark for the unnecessary demons.

Tonight, I shall yield to no more of these psychological nightmares and internal struggles. If I die in my sleep tonight, it will be from the fulfilling tranquility of old age. Goodnight.

I’ve always been one to say that can’t be true or prove it when something iffy happens but I’m now a believer.

It wasn’t to late maybe 6 or 7 about the time kids get home from after school activities but it’s winter so it is still pretty dark outside I’m home alone watching scary movies (cuz why wouldn’t I be) when I hear a knock on my door not gone lie it kinda got me cuz it happened at the perfect time I go look and it’s my neighbors kid he said his phone died and he left his keys in the house and he wanted to call his mom he calls and we both talk to her (at least I thought so) I tell her not to worry I’ll give him a snack make him do his homework and we can watch some tv till she gets off work I’ve always been like an uncle to him and a brother to his mom so taking care of him is normal for me (he’s like 16 btw so being home alone wouldn’t that big of a deal) a few hours goes by almost time for her to get off work we finish the show and I pack him some food to take to his mom we tried to call to see when she’d be back and no answer so I figured we’d wait till we saw her car pull up to the garage another hour goes by and I’m a little worried cuz of how bad it is outside but that’s also why I’m assuming it’s taking so long to get home I make a joke about how maybe she got pulled over and he can just sleep here tonight so he can go to school in the morning a few more hours goes by and now I’m really worried while he’s in the other room sleep I start calling hospitals and jails to really find out what’s going on but no one has her there tonight so I call her job to see if she’s still working only to find out that she didn’t show up today now I’m really getting scared thinking something happened to her on the way to work and no one has found her yet I get ready to go do a search my myself I know I might not find anything but it’s worth a shot. Glad I did cuz I see her car so now I’m thinking she probably got home and didn’t wanna wake him and somehow we just missed her so I go back inside and go to ask him if he wanted to stay or go to him own bed but he’s not there anymore (so that answers under question) something still feels off but since all the boxes are checked I never mind it the next morning another knock on my door wakes me up it’s ur police asking if I’ve heard anything last night and I’m confused cuz I was up till about midnight and didn’t hear a thing so I ask why did anything happen and he informed me that my neighbors ex husband picked up his son from school when it let out at 3 took him home then proceeded to kill the son ex wife and then himself I’m in shock but not trying to sound like a crazy person I kept last night to myself thinking they got the times wrong somehow and it happened after I went to bed I knew that bad feeling happened for a reason but I could never image this then I go to the kitchen to get some water and the container that I’m sure I put in his bag was still on the counter I go through my phone and the call that I was a part of yesterday wasn’t logged (the second one was but not the one he dialed) honestly I think I’m going crazy so I go to take a shower and try to get my mind busy on something so I’m not so disturbed and when I get out smudged on the mirror reads goodbye and thanks for taking care of me one last time

Have you ever wondered what those glowing eyes are staring at you in the dark? Many would say it is either a stray dog or cat, but let me tell you that is not always the case.

This is the story where we lost a lot of guys in a massive assault on a known Wendigo position. Before I get into what happened let me give you a little more insight on my backstory. I grew up on a military base and later on enlisted to follow in my fathers footsteps. I was a Operator for the Marine Special Operations Command. I am a qualified marksman and combat medic. I was trained for all situations and locations to be able to adapt to what ever was thrown my way. This was before I was reassigned to a unit known as Phantom Squad. The best way I can describe my new squad is we are never seen and never heard, because to others the squad was unheard of as to them we didn't exist. This meant that to everyone we were declared KIA hence the name Phantom.

My callsign is Phanton-01, but everyone calls me Zero as I had zero missed shots I was the squads new marksman. My kit consisted of a H&K M110A1 Squad Rifle with a 1-6 magnification DMR scope, AN/PEQ-15, a surefire flashlight, a foregrip, a 3"-6'' bipod and suppressor. my sidearm was a Glock 19X, equipped with a Holosun 509T X2 elite red dot sight, a Surefire X300 flashlight and a SilencerCo Osprey 9mm silencer.

The day before our mission myself and the one woman from my squad lets call her Blondie for confidentiality was tasked to go through our equipment as it was being loaded into the Osprey. We had grown quite close as we both had similar backgrounds growing up and connected fairly quickly. Once we finished checking our equipment, we decided to go out for a few beers and talk about the things we have seen while on some of our missions. Now Blondie recently transferred to our unit after an IED hit their convoy in Northern Pakistan. she was the only survivor and only suffer a few cuts and bruises, but was pinned inside the MRAP. We where in the area hunting The Barmanou a bipedal humanoid primate cryptid that inhabits the mountainous region of northern Pakistan. As we were returning to base after we have completed our mission we heard a massive explosion then saw the fireball of to the right of our Osprey and we investigated and that's how Blondie was recruited. Around 22H00 we headed back to our barracks to geared up with night operation gear and headed towards the Osprey waiting for the rest of the guys to show up. After everyone was in the Osprey we toke off heading towards our mission on the border or Canada and U.S. where we would meet up with our Canadian counter part.

We landed 5 clicks from our objective and met up with Grave Squad. Our objective was to find eliminate a large group of Wendigo that was dangerously close to a small town outside a dense forest. Now all our rifles was loaded with silver tipped rounds and our sidearms with silver tipped hollow points filled with Holy ash. Now we are all trained operators unlike want to be cryptid hunters who thinks taking on a cryptid is childs play. Now we were 10 squads consisting of 15 battle hardened operators each. As we passed the 3 clicks mark we came across a horrendous smell and could barely see the small camp between the trees. My squad leader called over the radio and said, "Zero take blondie and take over watch to the east of the camp while we investigate." Once we reached the overwatch point Blondie toke out her drone as she was the only drone operator on this mission. She started scanning the area with infrared and revealing the horror that was laid out in front of us bodies scattered everywhere ripped to shreds. The wanna be hunters fell victim to a Wendigo attack. After some time we heard over the radio from one of the other squad leaders, "There are about 40 hunters Killed, keep your heads on a swivel this happened not to long ago.'' After the radio went quiet, Blondie turned to me, but stared past me and went pale. When I turned my head to look in the direction she was staring. I saw a single red eye staring back at us from behind the tree. I calmly toke of the safety from my rifle and rolled onto my side getting three rounds of all of which hit the tree in front of the Wendigo causing it to rush towards us and Blondie was able to get of a few rounds with one striking it in the head stopping it in its tracks. I yelled over the radio, "Wendigos approaching from the east!"

Myself and Blondie ran towards the rest of the guys taking up defensive positions. We started opening fire on the emaciated frames running towards us dropping them one by one, then a loud scream rang out and then another one by one more and more screams started to come to life as more and more of our guys are getting attacked by the Wendigo. We fought for what felt like hours, but in reality it only lasted about 10 minutes. We dropped about 30 to 40 roughly but we lost 37 guys in the fight only leaving a 113 operators for our mission to be completed. We reported back to command informing them about the situation for the retrieval of our fallen brothers and sister to give the a quiet resting place. We marked our location and was given a few minutes to rest and checking our remaining munitions and retrieving more from our fallen comrades. I toke a H&K 416 with spare ammunition. I toke a drop leg molle panel and was able to place at least 4 spare magazines for the H&K 416 and placed more magazines for my current weapons in the empty mag pouches.

While the rest of the guys were busy finishing up I walked towards Blondie who sat on a small boulder still shaking from the event that just toke place. Once I reached her she started talking asking, "How could I have missed it? Maybe if I saw it sooner then more of us would be alive!" I looked towards her and could only respond with, "We all know what the risks are yet we still chose do what is required from us regardless of the cost." Not realizing the blood dripping off my fingers where the horn of a wendigo scrapped my forearm. Blondie turned her head facing me revealing the tears running down her face. I tried wiping her tears away when I saw my blood staining her skin and realizing for the first time I was bleeding. I then toke a spare first aid and started patching my arm stopping the bleeding. Blondie still crying stood up and gave me a long hug not reacting to the blood staining her uniform. While she was hugging me she asked, "We are going to die aren't we?" I gently placed my right hand on her left cheek staring into her eyes giving her a kiss on her forehead and giving her a faint smile. I told her, "Listen I nominated you to return to base with a few guys to give reports to command. 33 of you are going back and you will be able to keep tabs on me from my helmet cam and even if you aren't looking at the footage you can always watch the recordings afterwards to see if all is well. And you have no choice."

She stared at my with a blank stare, shocked from what I told her. "Lets move out!" rang out from the middle of the camp. I placed a ring I always wore in Blondies hand, turned and walked away. Blondie walked to the others who was climbing into the CSAR Helicopters that was about to return to base. Myself and 79 others pushed on towards our objective determined to finish what we started. We approached our objective and had to enter a cave where we had to find and kill any Wendigo we come across. Slowly the light from the now rising sun slowly fading behind us as we walked deeper and deeper into the cave. One of the Canadians jog up to me and walked alongside me and started talking, "Dude what did you put in that girls hand and why did you put her on the helicopter when you were ordered to return to base for medical treatment?" I stopped him, sighed and said, "I gave her a ring that I always wore and I did it, because I would rather sacrifice myself than see her die. I made my peace with death along time ago." He responded with, "You must really love her then to sacrifice yourself for her....." When all of a sudden a loud scream rang out from the front of the group and the sound of gunfire soon followed. Everyone started taking up firing positions and firing at all the emaciated frames dropping them one by on, but we where loosing guys one by one. We kept pushing forward despite losing a lot of guys. My squad leader the instructed us to lay down covering fire while some of the guys start setting up the three Mark 19's that we brought along on the mission. But something strange happened the Wendigos retreated and the gunfire came to a sudden stop. We all stared at each other, but jumped at the chance to setup traps for when the Wendigos decided to return. After we finished setting up the traps I went and stood next to one of the Mark 19 gunners asking them for a cigarette. While I was smoking I started to think about all the good times I had with Blondie and that one night I had with Blondie on our time off. And the time we went camping on the beach and cuddled around a warm campfire. I slightly smiled to myself. I then stood up and realized I only het two rounds left in my H&K M110A1 squad rifle and grabbed the H&K 416 and placed it next to me on the ground for when I needed it and continued waiting for the hell that would soon ensue. After a short while the Wendigo returned, but at a slow walking pace once there was a large group of them standing in the middle of the traps. We used the detonator, but nothing happened so we started firing again.

One of our guys tried to run to the explosives to try and get it fixed, I followed him trying to stop him as he was running straight into our sights. He reached the explosive and realized the one wire was lose and once he connected it. The explosives detonated throwing me back wards and two pieces of shrapnel hit me. One in the left shoulder cutting the strap on my vest clean off and the other piece the upper part of my thigh nicking my artery slightly. I knew right there I was bleeding to death and didn't have much time. I crawled towards the few guys still left. The same Canadian who spoke to me earlier run and dragged me to cover and sat me against the cave wall. He tried to patch me up, but I stopped him and said, "It's no use it hit an artery nothing can stop the bleeding, keep fighting and call for CSAR. This will soon be over." Those were the last words I said to him before I toke of my helmet and then removing my helmet cam from my helmet turning to face it. I then started speaking and leaving a message for Blondie before passing out from blood loss.

Hi guys, it is Blondie here. I am writing this on half of Zero who's last wish was for me to watch his entire helmet cam footage and try and write this the best I can from his perspective. What happened before I watched the video went as followed. The flight from the wannabe cryptid hunters camp was about two hours long as I arrived at base and gave our commanding officer my debrief of what happened before returning to base. After the debriefing I was instructed to clean up the blood that was on my uniform and face from when Zero placed his hand on my cheek and when he hugged. After a warm shower I went to the Command center I toke my laptop that was linked to the helmet cams and sat on a couch to watch the footage. When I opened the cameras I slowly scrolled through the cameras till I found Zero's helmet cam footage. The video footage was still transmitting live from on the cave floor facing the cave entrance. I saw guys carrying the bodies of our fallen comrades towards the cave entrance and laying them gently next to each other. They then walked towards the camera and went slightly out of view picking up another body. I couldn't see the face of the Operator, but my heart dropped when I saw the familiar tattoo covering his entire left arm. It was Zero's body covered in blood. I then rewound to the point where he was running after the operator to stop him from running to fix the explosives I saw how he was thrown back and hit by the shrapnel and how his blood left a trail as he was dragged to safety. His last words will always remain with me.

It has been a week since Zero's passing. I just got back from Zero's funeral, I held the ring he gave me in my hand and then walked to his casket at the end of service and placed a letter and a pregnancy test in his casket. He left a lot of people with good memories and me with a piece of him. I am going to log off now. Keep safe everyone and remember that those glowing red eyes you see at night is not always what it seems.

I used to know a girl called Mistletoe.

“My parents thought it'd be cute to name me that as a nod to their first kiss,” she always joked. “Shame they didn't realise mistletoe is a parasite that literally sucks the life out of its host.”

Understandably, she went by Miz.

The day Miz disappeared started like any other. My hometown had humble beginnings as a handful of shabby buildings erected in a Sherwood Forest clearing. Centuries later there are rows of terraced housing, small businesses and the forest has receded. There are still pockets of ancient woodland within walking distance though and, with only five TV channels and the internet still in its infancy, these woodlands were where we spent most of the summer holidays back when we were kids.

At first they were just hangouts to trade Pokémon cards and build dens. But when we got older The Trees (as we came to call our favourite spot) was a great place to drink, smoke cigarettes and occasionally get stoned if anyone had the money. There were rumours of worse going on in nearby Glover's Wood but to be truthful we were a tame bunch and never went there to investigate.

The summer day in question was hot and balmy. I remember I received a text from Mistletoe saying that we were meeting at The Trees around midday. When I got there Miz was already talking with Gus and Cherie, trying to convince them that we should hike all the way out to the old fishing pond on the other side of the woods.

To understand how strange of a request this was, you really need to know a little bit more about Miz. She was smart, pretty, with freckles and a blonde pixie cut. But Miz was no manic pixie dream girl. She was studious, reserved and shy around people she didn't know. Miz was also a bit emo (to use the parlance of the time). She was always reading novels by dead Russian guys, writing in her journal and, on days when the weather was bad, Miz could be found playing her acoustic guitar in the cramped bedroom she shared with her sister. My point is that Miz being adamant about anything was kind of rare. She mostly just went with the flow.

But that afternoon Miz was determined we all go and so, despite the heat, the four of us headed up the woodland footpath towards the fishing pond. Once we got there we actually had a lot of fun. Sunbathing, skimming stones and doing the quizzes in Cherie's trashy magazines. Miz was strangely distant though, even though the pond had been her idea. Whilst we goofed around she sat on the bank staring out across the water, occasionally making a note in her journal. It was a relief when she finally stood up and asked if anyone fancied taking the boat out.

The one boat abandoned by the side of the pond was a small rowboat with a single oar and just enough room for two people. After we rescued the rowboat from its prison of brambles Miz and I went out on the water. We paddled around the pond laughing and splashing water at each other, we timed ourselves to see how fast we could paddle bank to bank, and we talked in stupid pirate voices the whole time. After a while, Miz asked me to paddle out to the centre of the pond so we could work out how deep it was. She took the oar from me and pushed it down into the water, following it in with her outstretched arm right up to her elbow. From her measurements we guessed the pond was somewhere between eight and nine feet deep.

Our little boat trip was nice. Really nice actually, one last good memory before everything went so wrong. All good things must come to an end though, and once the sun began to sink we came ashore and then the four of us all headed back along the footpath.

As we neared The Trees Miz slowed and stopped me.

“Me and you,” she said quietly, “we're coming back out tonight.”

Now, I was a teenager and, like I said, Mistletoe was pretty. What I was hoping for must have registered on my face because Miz rolled her eyes.

“Don't get any ideas,” she said. “We're not doing that, we're doing this.” She handed me a folded up piece of paper. “Don't read it until you get home.”

Believe it or not I still have this piece of paper. I'd kept it tucked inside a secondhand copy of Anna Karenina Mistletoe lent me before she disappeared. When I looked it was still there, all these years later. I'll type out what was printed on the paper for you below:

Wherever two worlds meet a porous boundary is created. Exocyde is a game that takes advantage of this boundary effect, offering one of two players the chance to commune with the other side and receive an answer to their most desperate question. Two people, the Speaker and the Witness, must take a Vessel out onto the water in full dark and under a half moon. An electronic Receiver is also required and must be present aboard the Vessel.

Once the Vessel is upon the water, a weighted Tether is dropped to the waterbed linking the Vessel to the water/earth Boundary. The Witness may then light a candle, this is the Beacon. If the ritual has been set up correctly the game begins and the pair's resolve will be Tested. Should both Speaker and Witness remain silent and keep the Beacon alight during the Test they will have passed. Only then will the Speaker receive a call on their Receiver from the Caller. Once prompted the Speaker may ask their question. But be warned, once the question is answered the Caller will demand a rich price be paid for the information. This is the Forfeit and it cannot be evaded or escaped.

Rule One: Exocyde must only be played upon freshwater.

The gamespace must be deep enough that, if the Speaker and Witness were to stand upon the bottom, neither would break the surface.

Rule Two: The Vessel must be propelled by the Speaker's labour only.

Rule Four: The Tether must link the Vessel directly to the Boundary.

Rule Five: The Receiver is the only electronic device allowed aboard the Vessel.

Any two-way communication device such as a house phone or CB radio may serve as Receiver. Any other devices must be kept external to the gamespace.

Rule Six: The Witness must light and maintain the Beacon. The game begins when the Beacon is lit. If the Beacon is extinguished, the game ends.

Rule Seven: Whilst the Test will be different for every Speaker and Witness combination, the goal is always to remain silent and to keep the Beacon lit throughout.

Rule Eight: If either the Speaker or the Witness speak once the Beacon is lit, the game ends. If either the Speaker or Witness enter the water, all is lost.

Rule Nine: Only the Speaker may speak with the Caller. The Speaker may speak only when The Caller addresses them.

The Speaker must answer the Caller's questions in either the monosyllabic affirmative or the monosyllabic negative. The only exception is when the Caller prompts the Speaker to ask their question. Under no circumstances is the Speaker permitted to ask the Caller to identify themselves.

Rule Ten: The Forfeit is non-negotiable.

After the Caller declares the nature of the Forfeit, the Speaker must—

Bizarre, right? Rule Ten is cut off at the bottom of the page, like there was too much text for a single sheet of A4 or the message board or forum or wherever Mistletoe got Exocyde from was incomplete. I haven't failed to notice that Rule Three is either missing or deliberately omitted either. The only other detail of note on the paper are the words The Trees 9pm written in Mistletoe's handwriting and underlined.

Back to the day that Mistletoe disappeared.

After dinner I told my parents I was going to bed to watch a film and snuck out through my window. As expected Miz was waiting for me at The Trees. To be honest I was still hoping that this was some weird emo version of foreplay and I was going to get lucky. But, of course, Miz told me that we were hiking out to the pond to play Exocyde.

The pond seemed very different at night. Whilst the surrounding woodland had resembled a picturesque scene from a storybook in the day, in the darkness the trees looked crooked and warped. Creaking limbs seemed to reach for us as we walked along the bank. Above, the sky was cloudless, the pond below still and perfectly reflective. It looked as though I'd be able to scoop a star or even the moon from the water if I wanted to.

Miz made me leave my mobile phone on the bank with hers and then she launched the boat and paddled us out. She stowed the oar and opened the backpack she had brought. She pulled out an old ring dial telephone with a long extension cord attached. I noticed Miz had tied some kind of lumpy fishing ledger to the end of the cord and it sank quickly when she threw it overboard. Next, Miz sat down and coiled the slack into her lap. She reached into her bag again and passed me a candle and matchbox.

“Light it,” she instructed. “And no matter what happens, don't say a word.”

At first what happened was precisely nothing. Sure, there was the rustling of trees and the gentle lapping of water against the boat. At one point I thought I heard laughter from deep within the woods, but nothing otherworldly. My mind started to wander and, being the teenage cliché I was, I soon found myself staring at Miz in the candlelight. She was peering across the water, deep in thought and trembling slightly. She was still wearing the denim shorts and old band tee she'd had on all day. Perfect for a hot summer afternoon but I wondered if she was starting to feel the chill of the night air. Maybe I should scoot over and put my arm around—

THUD

The sound reverberated through the hull of the rowboat like we'd hit floating debris at top speed. But we weren't moving, we were tethered and still.

Miz looked at me and raised a finger to her lips. Then I saw that the cord in her lap was uncoiling, slowly being pulled into the water. Miz noticed too and promptly wrapped her fingers around the remaining slack. When the cord met resistance, whatever was pulling on it started to yank it over and over again, rocking the boat and causing me to almost drop the candle. Somehow the cord didn't snap, somehow I managed to keep the candle alight.

After a short struggle the line went slack again.

Confused, I leaned over the boat and looked into the water. All I saw was my own reflection. No, not my reflection at all. It was Mistletoe's reflection in place of mine. Ghostly pale and shivering. She mouthed the words Help me…

I reached out with my free hand but the real Mistletoe grabbed me and pulled me back into my seat. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the reflection dissolve and a dark shape behind it turn in the water and dive. Had whatever it was somehow used Mistletoe's reflection as a disguise?

THUD THUD THUD

Bangs on the boat like a hailstorm of arrows turning their target into a pincushion. We both held onto the rim of the rowboat as the barrage continued, rocking the boat violently. I'm sure we both gasped but crucially I don't think either of us actually spoke any words.

THUD THUD THUD

And then, as suddenly as the clatter had begun, it ceased. For a few moments the boat continued to rock before gently coming to a stop. The water became calm.

Then, to my absolute horror, the phone began to ring.

Miz drew in a deep breath and raised the receiver to her ear. After a whistle of static I heard a voice speak on the other end. Cold and ragged like sheet ice cracking. I could hear the voice but I couldn't make out what it was saying. Mistletoe on the other hand listened and then answered “Yes”, then “No”, and then “No” again.

Then she asked her question in a low growl:

“Why haven't I been granted what I'm rightfully owed?”

The Caller responded but still I could hear no words. This was a long answer that went on for at least a minute. Eventually, Mistletoe said “Yes'' and then the voice continued.

As the Caller's tone became increasingly vicious, the colour drained from Mistletoe's face. In the candlelight I watched as a tear trickled down her cheek. Finally, Miz slammed the handset home, cutting the Caller off mid-sentence.

I blew out the candle.

We didn't talk much on the way back to The Trees. I was too shaken up. When we got there Miz gave me a long hug before telling me she would call me tomorrow and explain everything. Then she walked off into the darkness. I never saw or heard from Mistletoe again.

That night broke me. I retreated into myself, became a different person. I was scared of leaving the house, scared of being with people, scared of being alone.

There was an investigation into Mistletoe's disappearance of course, but it struck me as half-hearted. Mistletoe was a teenage girl who had run away from a broken home to try and make it on her own. That was the official line but I never believed it. Someone or something stole Mistletoe away and I knew it. But, shamefully, I never came forward to reveal what I had witnessed that night. I never told the police, my parents or even Gus and Cherie. I thought I would be ignored at best and considered a suspect at worst. After all, I was the last person to see Mistletoe alive.

When my family moved away eight months later I was beyond relieved. Still broken, but at least further away from the Caller and that cold, feral voice.

After that I coasted for years. Uninspiring grades at school turned into a lacklustre degree. Then, after bumming around for almost a decade, I got a job at a struggling Midlands rag, the Sentinel. I'm not even a real reporter, I run the ad pages. But two months ago I saw that my hometown was on the circulation list. That stirred something in me. I realised that words I had written had found their way back to my hometown. Even though it was just crappy advertising copy I felt like I had taken a first step without even realising it. Suddenly, I knew what I needed to do.

That's why I'm writing and posting this. As a statement of intent, as a plea for assistance. I'm heading back home to Edwinstoak tomorrow. And I'm not coming back until I've figured this whole thing out.

Even if I have to search every inch of that godforsaken forest myself.

Even if I have to play that damned game again.

I already know what my question will be:

“What happened to Mistletoe Marrion-May after she played Exocyde?”

-- John

I’ve never been much for excitement. I’m the sort who likes to get invited out but always volunteers to be the designated driver, relieved because it means I get to stay sober and serious. No one expects the DD to go dancing on tables or telling wild stories. I can be shy, reserved plain Jane. I keep my nose in books and out of everyone else’s business. That was why it surprised everyone—especially me—when I agreed to join Miki and Shania in urban exploring that day. Miki is my cousin, and Shania is her best friend. I guess I agreed to go because I was feeling a bit stung over the fact that my crush, Yasmin, who is gorgeous and has a voice that could call angels, commented to friends that I am “a bit boring.” And so I guess I just wanted not to be boring. To have, for once, a story worthy of telling over a drink.

But when we got to the house, I felt uneasy.

The whole neighborhood was sad, really. A story of American prosperity turned to poverty and abandonment… entire streets with only one or two houses still occupied, the rest withering away with boarded windows in overgrown lots. Miki picked out the house at random, saying it looked “creepy.”

I don’t know if it was any creepier than any other sad building in that cul-de-sac. The house had yellow siding stained by weather and time, curtains hanging in the cracked upstairs windows, a short flight of stairs leading to the front door. The lower windows were all boarded, and the door, of course, locked—but while I was ready to give up almost immediately, Shania’s eyes sparkled at the challenge. She circled around to the back of the house, and a triumphant yell brought Miki and me following.

The backdoor, though boarded, had been broken into at some point over the years, and it swung open easily.

“Are we sure it’s safe?” I wondered.

Shania just grinned. “You gonna stay here if it’s not?” she asked, and plunged into the darkness.

And that’s how it was inside. Dark. Shania and Miki flicked on headlamps and flashlights. I only had my phone light, so Shania pulled a spare flashlight out of her backpack for me.

“Girl, it’s just an empty house with old stuff.” She squeezed my arm in encouragement. “Nothing to be scared of. Unless you believe in ghosts.” And she winked and laughed—a bold peel of laughter that lifted my spirits and made me jealous all at the same time.

I didn’t know how a person could laugh in the face of fear like that. I didn’t really believe in ghosts. I didn’t believe—but was still scared of them. Was that pathetic? I smiled weakly and thanked her for the flashlight. Miki told me to “quit being a pussy” and squeezed in past me, and all three of us entered the living room and looked around.

It looked exactly like every old person’s living room. The carpeted floor was a dark beige and stained with coffee here and there. A plush armchair sat facing an ancient television, the kind that looks like a boxy cube, not a modern flatscreen. I almost expected to see antennae sitting on top of the old thing. Bookshelves and hutches held books, knickknacks, cups and glasses and many years’ worth of dust. Little ceramic figurines of children and pigs with wings and big-eyed frogs and all sorts of odds and ends looked out at us. It was cluttered, and a lot of it was broken, the wallpaper peeling and mold streaking the walls.

Just a forgotten, lonely old house.

“Daaang!” Shania picked up a figurine from one of the shelves. “Look at this stuff! Super vintage. Bet there’s, like, collectibles and shit we could take.”

“You wanna bring some back?” suggested Miki.

I wondered aloud if that counted as stealing. Both girls looked at me and I shut my mouth.

Shania looked around, gesturing with her flashlight, and said, “Stealing from who?”

She had a point. I couldn’t really argue. Still… “I dunno, just feels kind of disrespectful,” I mumbled.

“More disrespectful than leaving it all here to rot?” Shania tucked a glass-eyed frog into her pocket. “At least if we take some, someone’s getting use out of them.”

Miki took out a bag and began filling it with some of the bowls and candleholders she thought might be crystal (I was pretty sure they were just glass, though). Shania was more interested in the figurines. I looked around, unsure what to take, and finally, my flashlight illuminated a ceramic lovebirds sculpture. I don’t know why I was drawn to it. It seemed handmade. The glaze wasn’t perfect, and the wings were a little clumsy. I imagined it might have been a gift, not storebought. Somehow the idea of a handmade gift, passed down and forgotten and then recovered, moved me. So I wrapped it up in some napkins and put it in my bag. I was still looking at the shelves, moving into the kitchen with its dirty and torn linoleum, when a scream made me jump.

Back in the living room, toward the rear of the house, Miki was shining her light on something, Shania with her, both of them whispering. Then Shania bent toward the floor.

Approaching, I saw that they were looking at the staircase leading up to the second floor bedrooms. The thought of going up there filled me with dread, and my gut bunched into knots. But my entire stomach seemed to overturn itself when I saw what Shania’s light was shining on.

A dark stain, just below the bottom steps. A person-shaped stain. There was the head. There were two arms.

“Okaaay… that’s… really freaky,” said Miki.

Shania, kneeling and grim-faced, was tracing her flashlight along the outline. “You know what happens sometimes with old folks, they die and no one finds them for awhile… the body just lies there decomposing… this is probably where she died.”

“’She’?” I echoed.

“Or he. But all these figurines and stuff make me think grandma, not gramps. Bet if we go upstairs, we’ll find floral dresses hanging in the closets.”

“I’m not going upstairs,” I announced.

“Me either,” declared Miki.

Shania wanted to go. Carefully avoiding stepping on the body stain, she ascended the stairs. From up there, she called out to us about things she found. “Bathroom is a mess, yuck.” “Yep, lots of flower print.” Stuff like that. Finally she returned, a dusty frame in hand, and offered it to Miki. It was a photograph of an elderly woman and a woman and a boy. “Bet that’s the old woman who lived here, and her family.”

“I wonder why they didn’t check on her when she fell down the stairs,” said Miki.

“Who knows? Maybe they’re dead, too. Maybe they live out of state.” Shania shrugged. “Look at this neighborhood. Been emptied out a long time ago. Chances are wherever her family lives, it’s not close by. Come on—let’s get out of here. Thought I heard something up there.”

“Heard something?” The hairs on my neck prickled. “Like what?”

“Like her ghost, gonna yell at us for stealing,” said Miki, and laughed. Then she and Shania raced to see who could get out first, pushing me aside. I cried out, nearly falling on that stain—oh God! I almost touched it!

“Guys, wait!” I yelled, running after them.

Halfway out of the room, I’d swear I heard a sound. A voice. Calling to me. And I screamed, heart hammering, my voice ripping from my lungs in a shriek of utter terror as I rushed after the others and out to the car.

***

They wouldn’t stop teasing me the whole drive back.

“Your scream could’ve woke up the dead!” Shania exclaimed.

“Seriously I thought something got you,” put in Miki.

I didn’t tell them how I thought I heard an old woman’s voice. They’d just laugh harder at me.

Miki dropped me off back home, and Shania told me she hoped I had fun and wasn’t scared too much. I smiled weakly and waved good-bye, and retreated up to my bedroom in my parents’ house. I’m saving for enough to move out, but for now I pay a small amount of rent while I work at my uncle’s shop running the register.

I felt ready to cocoon myself for a good week. This would make a good story to tell when I joined everyone for drinks… but it’d be awhile before I’d be up for it.

I put the ceramic birds on my windowsill, trying to decide if they were cute or just creepy.

A shower took off the last of the grime and the chills, and by dinnertime, I was feeling excited enough to share what I’d done with my friends. I snapped a pic of the birds and texted to the group chat with Yasmin and the others, explaining that I’d found the birds in an abandoned house and even seen the body stain where the old woman who owned them died. Lots of exclamations and emojis from everyone in response. Yasmin texted: Whoa!! Damn girl, you gotta invite me next time!

I hadn’t been planning a next time. The thought of exploring more terrifying places made my pulse escalate (and not in a good, fluttery way). But if it impressed Yasmin… if it made me more interesting and less boring…

Anyway. I tucked my phone away and went to bed feeling, for once, like someone who had stories to tell. Not the dull girl who looked after the shop and was so forgettably plain the only name she could possibly have was Jane. No, I’d become someone else. Brave. Exciting.

I had glorious dreams of dancing on tables at the center of parties—but something jolted me awake in the dead of night. I lay there, curled under my sheets, every hair on end.

From somewhere downstairs came a soft wail. A moan.

Oh God… the old woman!

The moaning continued. I pulled the pillow over my head and whimpered, too terrified to move. How did her wailing not wake anybody else? She was so loud!

I don’t know how long I lay there, wishing the wailing would stop, before I drifted to sleep again.

When I woke, sunlight streamed through my window. My recollection of the previous night was hazy—I assumed the wailing must have been a dream. I even laughed at myself. Here I was, plain Jane, giving myself nightmares because I was such a homebody that the slightest adventure had me spooked. I headed downstairs for breakfast—

And froze.

On the wooden floorboards at the bottom of the stairs was a stain. The same stain we’d seen in the empty house.

“MOM!” I shrilled.

My mom rushed out of the kitchen. “Jane? What is it?”

I pointed to the foot of the stairs, right where she was standing.

Mom looked down. Stepped back, accidentally trampling the stain as she examined the floor and then looked back up at me, questioning. “What? Honey, what is it?”

“The stain,” I whimpered.

“Stain?” she echoed. Dropped down to her knees, peering close. “Where?”

She couldn’t see it. She was right on it, and couldn’t see it.

“Um… nevermind,” I said.

Hurrying back to my room, I snatched my phone. Came back and took a picture of the stain to send to Miki and Shania. Except—it didn’t show up. I could see it on the floor. See it right there with my own eyes. But when I tried snapping a pic with my phone… nothing on the screen.

“Sweetie?” Mom’s brow knit in concern. “Everything all right?”

“Ummm… yeah. Yeah, just… yeah.” I smiled feebly.

Having lost my appetite, I went to work without breakfast. After my shift when I came home, the stain was still there—if anything, darker than before. But Mom and Dad went up and down the stairs without seeing it. I went upstairs and got the birds. Considered shattering them and scattering the pieces, but as I held up the little ceramic sculpture ready to drop it on my floor, pangs of guilt had me setting it carefully back down. I should return it to the house, I thought. Until then, I wrapped it up and tucked it deep into my closet. Out of sight out of mind.

Hopefully, once it was back in its place, the stain would disappear.

***

The moans persisted. Every night. Always around the same time. The stain persisted as well. As for Miki and Shania—they refused to take me back to the house to return the birds. They didn't want to go back, and didn’t believe me about any of it, especially after Miki came to my parents' home and couldn’t see the stain. She asked if I was just making it up for attention.

I’d have been angry. Furious at my cousin for throwing such an accusation in my face—if I hadn’t been so terrified in that moment because just behind her stood an old woman.

***

Things got worse. The old woman appeared randomly in my house. Always near the stairs. Sometimes, I’d see her come out of a room. Sometimes, she’d be hovering by the window, looking confused. Other times she was looking right at me.

One night, I arrived home after midnight. I’d been out with friends, doing my usual shift as the DD. No one really noticed how morose I was. My thoughts that night were on Yasmin and my social situation and wondering if I would ever break out of my own shell—when as I headed upstairs, a cold and clammy hand gripped my ankle.

Shrieking, I ripped free. My shrill scream woke my mom and dad, who rushed out, Dad with his fists up, ready to fight whatever intruder was apparently murdering his daughter. I rushed into my room and slammed the door, sobbing.

When I came out, there was no one there. Nothing. Just my parents looking at me, concerned.

They asked me if I’d be willing to see a psychiatrist. I thought maybe a medium would be better, and I found one online who did a teleconference with me. She recommended the same thing my instinct had told me to do initially: destroy the ceramic birds. I’d taken a personal item, she said. Something that meant something to the deceased. If this object was what had brought the ghost into my home, destroying it would free me.

***

Next day, when I returned from work, I retrieved the birds from upstairs. I’d decided that, rather than destroy them (which seemed disrespectful), I’d start by returning them to the house where I found them, even if it meant I had to go back there alone. But I’d just left my room and barely reached the bottom of the steps when—

Cold fingers clasped my ankle.

I shrieked, jerking free and rushing for the door. The ghost! Trying to grab me! As I reached the front door, I spun back, glaring over my shoulder. I could see her, now. The ghost of the old woman. She lay at the bottom of the steps, her fingers curled into claws and her face a grimacing snarl.

Her mouth opened in a wail.

I stood there for a long time, staring. And then I came back over to the stairs. And when I knelt down, she grabbed my arm—so tight! Her icy hand left strange imprints on my skin. I held the birds down to her and with my other hand, clasped hers. I don’t know what gave me the courage to suddenly do this. But now, I heard what it was she’d been wailing, over and over again.

“Help!” she groaned.

“I’m here,” I said. Her hand squeezed tighter. “I’m sorry I ran away before. I don’t know who gave you these birds, but they must have loved you very much. I’m sure they wish they could’ve been there for you.” She was listening now, her mouth still a grimace of pain. I’m not religious, and I don’t know any prayers. So I just kept saying, “I’m here. You’re not alone. Here are the birds. Here’s my hand…”

I don’t really know what else I said. My vision was blurry, and I didn’t realize that tears were streaming down my cheeks until I blinked and squeezed my eyes shut and reached up to wipe them clear, and when I looked down again, the old woman was gone. I was alone. Just me sitting there at the bottom of the steps with some dusty ceramic birds in my palm.

The stain was gone.

***

The medium told me I should get rid of the birds anyway. But I didn’t. I went upstairs and put them back on my windowsill. They sit there, still. I’m keeping them for someone who shouldn’t have been forgotten.

Sitting up in bed, my eyes go to Roxy, my Aussie, as my heartbeat quickens in panic. “Roxy?” I whisper.

Her gaze is steady, her lips curled back in a snarl, the growl echoing from deep within her chest as she stares at the corner. Swallowing hard, I slide my gaze over and see the darkness. It’s a small shadow, but it’s swelling, like a tumor, climbing the wall. It creeps out in all directions as it takes form, becoming three dimensional, and it takes its first step.

“No, no, no, no, no,” I breathe. I’m frozen. My eyes dart to Roxy, then back to the shadow figure. “Not real, you’re not real.”

“You know I’m real,” it whispers back. “That’s why Roxy can see me.”

My arms crawl with goose bumps like insects prickling across my skin, my throat constricting, and I can’t get enough air. Roxy takes a slow step back, then another, her wide, unblinking eyes set on the predator in front of her. But she doesn’t back up enough. She doesn’t run, she would never run, because she would never leave me.

And it slinks forward toward her, the darkness encroaching menacingly, threateningly, the promise of an attack. My chest aches from fear, and I finally get myself to move. Inch by inch, as if through sludge, I force myself forward toward Roxy, a slow-motion race with the shadow man. His height makes him bend under the ceiling, towering and terrifying, as I finally reach Roxy’s side, curling my fingers in her soft fur.

“I got you,” I choke out, my vision blurry from tears. “I got you, he won’t hurt you.”

He reaches out for us and a hand closes on my arm-

***

I lurch back to consciousness in my dark bedroom, tears streaming down my face, my chest heaving in panicked breaths. Roxy is on my bed, furiously nuzzling me and licking my face. I wrap my arms around her and hold her close. “Oh baby, my baby,” I whisper. “I’m okay. Everything’s okay.” I breathe. In and out. In and out. I take in my surroundings, my familiar bedroom, my real bedroom.

My breathing slows and Roxy senses me calming down, so she lays down at my side as she was trained to, pressed up against me, her weight solid and protective. Turning on my bedside table lamp, I slide my legs out and my feet down to the carpet, walking over to the light switch. I flick it upwards, turning on the ceiling fan light, Roxy’s eyes following me all the way.

A shadow man sits in the corner. But Roxy doesn’t see him. Because he isn’t there.

Wrapping my arms around myself tightly, I take in and let out a long breath. “Who’s my good girl?” I ask, smiling. Roxy’s tail gently wags back and forth, knowing I’m talking about her. I walk over and sit down, and she crawls forward a few inches, putting her head in my lap. “Oh, is it time for scritches? Of course it is, always time for scritches,” I murmur as I scratch her behind her ears.

I glance at the shadow man dismissively. “You’d never let them get me if they were real, huh, Rox? Well. I’d never let them get you either.”

​

/r/storiesbykaren

I knew this wasn’t sleep.

My eyes were wide open however I couldn’t see. Everything was a bright blur. Imagine, staring at the sun and not being able to close your eyes from a torturous bright. The panic set in causing my body to hyperventilate. I must of laid there for hours, paralyzed in fear, before I was able to actually sense something. I was trapped inside a big bright nothing that I could not escape. The boundaries of reality began to blur. In time, I had lost all taste and smell. Consciousness was coming and going. It was still difficult to tell dreams from reality. Somewhere in this madness I heard and a voice that I’d not heard in quite some time. It was my Mother, telling me that she was there to help make things comfortable. And by the sound of her voice, to my surprise, she sounded truthfully optimistic. I on the other hand was not so sure.

“Where am I?”, I recall asking with all the strength one could muster. Mom said that I was home in my apartment. It didn’t feel like it.

For what seemed like months I became acclimated to this ‘apartment’. It felt as though everything had been rearranged. I remembered my seat on the couch. I was to believe that it was now on the opposite end of the living room. It felt like a different room altogether. The same went for the bedroom. It just didn’t feel like the one I once knew however curiously did have a slight trace of familiarity.

“You’ll get used to it” Mom would say whenever my frustrations would boil over.

Her tone was always truthful. Mom was the only thing that brought me comfort. We would sit and have long and conversations about a host of different topics throughout the days that passed. Although my brain was having these comprehensive conversations I suspected that only a fraction of the words were getting out, if any. There was nothing else for me to do but use my brain, and that I did. Mom seemed to understand my jumbled speech regardless as though we were speaking perfectly to one another.

One day she asked about my vision and if there had been any improvement. To be honest I hadn’t really noticed. I was so preoccupied with getting used to it that I didn’t realize the odd shapes that were starting to materialize.

“Keep focusing” she advised me, like she knew this from experience.

I began to focus on anything that seemed to take shape within the brightest white. Soon, I was using them to find my way around. The combination of textures within the white mass gave me a trajectory. I saw things as coordinates, equations even. They came like dreams and once I had my mind set on where I wanted to go they would propel my momentum. It was the most curious sensation. Mom called it ‘transition’. I was lost inside this self guiding reality, one where time and space were suddenly absent. The sensation of touch brought me back to senses long forgotten.

It was a slight pinch that had me swirling with questions. When was the last time I ate a meal, or needed to use the rest room? When was the last time I actually used my hands, or even my own voice? When was the last time I’d heard anything? My mind was filled with these puzzling revelations. I became destitute inside them.

I lingered in this stoic state, struggling to comprehend the sudden realizations that fell on me all at once. Then, I recalled the day I awoke blind. There was no memory of anything before that moment.

A strong sensation of loneliness invaded me. I thought about Mom. Where had she gone? Was she still nearby and I simply could no longer communicate? Had she left me? I began to search for her within this world of mass bright. I travelled into it with amazing speed knowing the harder I pushed the farther away I’d be. But far away from what? It was as though centuries had past when I finally heard a voice.

“Over here”, Mom’s voice was crystal clear, as if she had been right next to me this whole time.

Within the bright white I began to see images like negatives of a photograph, and in them was Mom. Tears were pouring down her cheeks. Behind her, a world in despair came into focus. There were mountains of people, fighting and climbing over each other, desperate to reach the serenity of a beautiful tree at its peak. The long and blossoming limbs provided a comforting shade beneath them. A shade that no one would ever reach. In that moment I experienced a kaleidoscope of the worst feelings imaginable.

“I’m sorry”, Mom said softly before falling backwards becoming one with the chaos.

For the first time the brightness faded into a long lost darkness but not before I glimpsed a familiar figure. It was my Grandma, standing under the tree.

The first thing that came into focus was a ceiling. Then the low monotonous hums of various machines entered my ears. I could feel my body again. I was laying down in a hospital bed loaded with tubes inside my arms pinching into my veins. A particularly large one was lodged deep into my throat helping me breath. No wonder I couldn’t speak, I thought.

My eventual release from the hospital came with unwanted noise both physically and mentally. Before I fell asleep that fateful night I was a strong and independent young woman, proud to be doing well on my own. Now, I’m forever changed. I’ll never be able to speak the same, nor hear things with a clarity I once had. My body has been wounded in the most vile way. I’ll struggle into life with a fragile immune system hoping the slightest cold will not kill me. That’s what a poisoning does.

I should have known once Mom showed up at my door that something was wrong. She was a stranger to me after all. I had vague childhood memories of her coming and going. I went though life without her. There were a few times she’d come back trying to enter my life. Grandma was always there to protect me. That day though, I opened my door and let Mom into my life. I felt sorry for her as she stood on the doorstep, vulnerable and weak. I was doing really well, perhaps I could help, I foolishly thought. Take her in and be the provider, reconnect even. Within two weeks of her arrival I would wake up blind and near death. I learned shortly after I regained consciousness at the hospital that Mom was found dead inside my apartment. She had killed herself with the very poison she slipped me.

Only a disturbed mind could rationalize that poisoning their own child would allow them a fresh start. But this was her plan. To kill me and take my identity. It would have been easy. I was basically a copy of her, physically. But once the plan didn’t work and I survived, she took her own life. I’ll never completely understand any of this. Mom had given into the demons that controlled her. All I have are these recollections that stick in my head like real memories. I left Mom climbing amongst the desperate, forever reaching for a peaceful place under the shade of a tree. And within all of this was Grandma, still protecting me.

As for Mom, she finally gave me that soft spoken apology I deserved… or perhaps not.

My story starts when I was five or six. That’s when I first picked up a ukulele. I loved my ukulele with all my heart. Still do, obviously. And I’m grateful for all the success I’ve had because of it. Here’s the problem: I don’t deserve it. Not entirely, anyway.

My parents never told me to practice, I just did. I practiced day and night, until my hands hurt. It was slow going at first. Then one day, everything changed. I was playing Hey, Soul Sister when I noticed a peculiar sound, like a heartbeat, quietly keeping time, like a built-in metronome. Except of course, back then, I had no idea what a metronome was. But it was there all right, guiding me.

Having no idea where the sound was coming from, I scanned the room for intruders. Then it dawned on me: the sound was coming from my own mind. I shrugged it off and continued practicing, but the sound remained. Over time, a voice started speaking to me, giving me tips. The voice was creepy. Sometimes it would say stuff that was highly inappropriate, especially to a young girl like me. But I was still a kid, so I thought nothing of it. Instead, I gave him a name: Mr. Creeper.

Mr. Creeper became my imaginary friend. Except of course, he wasn’t imaginary. Nor was he my friend.

(Before I go on, let’s get one thing clear: Mr. Creeper was, and still is, very much real. And he’s not an anomaly. There are many evil spirits lurking about. More than you would care to know.)

When I told my mother, she scoffed at me. So much so, that I cried and threw a fit, smashing my uke into a million pieces. Then I cried some more, because I no longer had a uke. Oh, what a fuss I made.

Mr. Creeper was displeased. That night he appeared to me, moments before I fell asleep, threatening to hurt me if I stopped making music. Apparently, Mr. Creeper had plans for me.

It was the first time I’d seen him, and it scared me half to death. His face was covered in warts and boils. His belly was bulging like a beach ball. His eyes were weird and googly and seemed to see in all directions at once. What scared me most was his teeth, long and sharp and severe. I cried myself to sleep that night, and suffered from a series of vicious night terrors. Night terrors that have remained with me ever since.

My mother, being a gracious woman, bought me a brand new ukulele for Christmas. A nicer one, in fact.

Mr. Creeper was pleased.

Time passed. Mr. Creeper continued haunting me, but my memory of those days is fuzzy. I was still a kid. By the time I turned twelve, I’d stopped playing the uke. I was a busy girl. Mr. Creeper went away, until one day while alone in my candle lit bedroom, he startled me.

“Hey Brit,” Mr. Creeper said, his voice cold and crisp.

My heart stopped beating. Standing – more like hovering – over my bed was Mr. Creeper. Disparaging thoughts crashed through my mind. In truth, I’d thought Mr. Creeper was gone for good.

Wrong.

He snarled. “Wha? Ya hard of hearing?”

I tried speaking, but the sound was gibberish.

“Why dontcha get that ukulele out of your closet? Play me a tune, why dontcha?” After minutes – maybe hours – of comprehending what the heck was happening, I bolted.

Mother was at work, but Dad was visiting, so I told him. My cheeks were red and sopping with tears. He ruffled my rosy-red hair, calling me his silly little princess. But I relented. When he saw how serious I was, he tossed me onto his back (he hadn’t done this in years) and charged playfully upstairs into my bedroom.

I gasped. Mr. Creeper was above my bed, twirling his pitchforked tail. His eyes were cruel and hateful.

“He won’t see me, you know,” the monster said. “He’s too old. And stupid.” “Hey!” I blurted, involuntarily.

My father shot me an uneasy look. “See, princess. No monsters. Just a twelve-year-old girl’s bedroom, which needs cleaning, by the way.” He nudged me.

He was joking, but I could tell he sensed the monster, because his eyes were scanning the room and his face was pale as water. His feet wouldn’t stop shuffling. Clearly, he was eager to leave my haunted bedroom. And for good reason: Mr. Creeper was making choking gestures, strangling himself with his wretched red tail, taunting him. It took every ounce of restraint not to scream in holy terror.

As we left my bedroom, something struck me. I tripped and tumbled downstairs, spraining my ankle in the process. Dad zoomed me to the hospital. That was a bad day.

Time passed. Then one day after school, my old uke was resting neatly on my bed. “That’s impossible,” I told myself, shakily, as a cold chill dripped down my spine. The ukulele was beckoning me. I’d forgotten how beautiful she was. My hands trembled as I strummed her. Weird thing was, even though I hadn’t played her in years, she was still in tune.

I played Fifteen, by Taylor Swift. I still remembered the chords. The pulse returned, keeping time, the lights in my bedroom flickered, and a spotlight fell on me. Suddenly, I was Center Stage. An invisible audience started jeering. I could feel the tension in the room, anticipating my next song.

“Mr. Creeper?” I quietly spoke.

I felt him crawling inside my head. It was awful, really. Like a virus scratching my skull.

“Play.” That’s all he said.

The crowd started chanting: “BRIT… BRIT… BRIT…”

Reluctantly, I played an Ed Sheeran song (which sounded eerily similar to the previous song).

“Wha? Did I say you can stop?” Mr. Creeper heckled. “Did yo mamma raise a quitter?”

The crowd turned on me, heckling me with a chorus of, “BRIT SUCKS!… BRIT SUCKS!… BRIT SUCKS!…”

I was so scared that I peed myself. Good thing no one was around to laugh at me. (Except, of course, Mr. Creeper.) After cleaning myself up, I tip-toed back into my bedroom, careful not to trip and fall. (Like I needed another sprain.)

“This is ridiculous,” I told myself. “I’m nearly thirteen. Too old to believe in spooks.” My voice sounded far away, like it belonged to someone else. I didn’t like it. Nor did I trust it.

“Brit,” Mr. Creeper said. “Play another song. Something melancholy, in a minor key.”

My bedroom lights dimmed; all the candles blew out, although I don’t recall lighting any. My mouth was dry, my heart was going a million miles an hour. I wiped my sweaty bangs from my forehead and took a deep breath.

“Hurry it up, wontcha!” someone in the crowd chirped, scaring the daylights out of me. The crowd was growing restless: “Yeah. We ain’t got all day!” followed by, “Yeah, kid. We got all millennia!”

I’ve never been more scared in my life. I closed my eyes and prayed for them to go away. This must be a dream. Or maybe I was getting sick. When my eyes popped open, I nearly died. Mr. Creeper was directly in front of me, seething. Globs of drool glistened from his dagger-like teeth, his fatty fingers fidgeting while he floated in thin air.

I tried to move, but my mind and body wouldn’t cooperate. When his teeth touched the nape of my neck, I shrieked.

My mother bolted into my bedroom, and seeing how scared I was, she let me sleep on the foldout couch in the living room. I was grateful. But I wasn’t stupid. The monster was lurking in my bedroom, waiting.

Needless to say, I avoided my bedroom all week, but by the weekend, I started practicing again. It’s difficult to explain why, but any musician will tell you: the music is inside you, yearning to get out. I was a prisoner to it. It controlled me. So did Mr. Creeper.

Next time he appeared, I pleaded for him to leave me alone. “Nah!” Mr. Creeper replied, flying directly above me. “I’ve got BIG plans for you.” “B-b-but, why me?”

Mr. Creeper’s googly eyes bobbled back and forth. “Why not?” He thrusted his razor-sharp claws against my freckled throat.

I shrunk into the size of a pea. I was going to add my rebuttal, when the uke flew into my hands. I gasped as it found my grip.

“Play!” the monster instructed.

I played. To my astonishment, I was exceptional. So much so that I made up a song on the spot. Then I made a video and posted it. That video went viral. You’ve probably seen it. It’s called Creeper’s Lament. My first hit song. You could say the rest is history, and you’d be correct.

Not gonna lie: I liked the newfound fame. Who wouldn’t? My classmates started treating me differently. Suddenly, I was special, if only for a week. I started pumping out more videos. My fame quickly spread. The principal called me into her office, asking if I’d be interested in performing at the end-of-the-year talent show. I agreed. My parents were thrilled, and bought me the best ukulele money could buy.

That’s when I performed Flight of the Bumblebee, using only one hand. BAM! Another viral video. You may remember it: I was wearing a long, black dress with white buttons shaped as stars, and my hair was braided. The kids in the crowd were shouting for an encore, so I played two Beatles songs at the same time, surprising even me. The kids ate it up. So did the internet.

You may remember the rest. After going viral, I made a series of Top Ten albums, spanning many years. Unbelievable. People adored me. And why not? I helped inspire an entire generation of kids to play the ukulele. They all wanted to be the next Brit Starr.

My concerts sold out fast. My father was now managing me. He was nice and all, but things got weird. You see, it wasn’t me playing. It was Mr. Creeper. Sounds nuts, I know. But it’s true. Mr. Creeper was guiding me, providing me with unbelievable dexterity. Songs arrived fully formed in my mind.

After years of recording albums and touring the world, while finishing high school online in my spare time (which was never), Mr. Creeper became erratic. Nothing seemed to satisfy him. To please him, I was forced to play a medley of rock classics: Stairway to Heaven, Highway to Hell, Hotel California, Smells Like Teen Spirit – the list goes on and one – which earned me an entire new audience. But even that wasn’t good enough. No, not for Mr. Creeper.

He wanted more. Always more. That’s when I started doing stunts: playing a flaming ukulele, performing upside down, walking a tightrope, you name it. The shows got more and more elaborate. So did my costumes.

Over time, people got bored of my antics. I didn’t blame them. In fact, I was relieved. Unfortunately, my father was furious. Turns out, Mr. Creeper had infected his mind as well, causing him to drink and act belligerent. Thus, I announced my retirement. I’d just turned twenty-five, and I was a millionaire, I didn’t need the stress. I was looking to open my very own music school: School of Uke. Sounds cool, right?

Wrong.

Mr. Creeper threatened to kill me. “You do as I say, Brit. Ya hear me?” His claws scratched my spine, causing internal bleeding. I was rushed to the hospital where I nearly died. Mr. Creeper wreaked havoc on the other patients. “I’ll kill ‘em all if ya don’t do as I say!”

That was dreadful. So was the fact that no one believed me.

My father made me a deal: I could quit touring, but I would continue making music. I refused. So he made another offer: I could publish my very own autobiography, and live off the royalties. I agreed. Maybe I can finally get my story out.

Mr. Creeper went on another rampage, tearing up my bedroom, haunting me day and night. He was merciless. Sleeping became impossible, because that’s when he’s strongest. I was at my wits end. I had to do something.

So I did. It came to me during a dream: I could enter his mind as well. I used this to my advantage, and over time, I learned to harness his magic. Thus, I’ve created a spell. My spell (if it works) will undo my fame and fortune.

Therefore, when you read this, the name Brit Starr will mean nothing to you, and I can go back to being normal. Phew. What a relief!

So why am I telling you this, on Reddit, no less?

Because once my father read the first draft of my autobiography, he went ballistic. After weeks of squabbling, he hired a ghost writer. (Most celebrities do this, I know, but I was appalled.) But no worries, if my plan works, the public won’t remember me (or my music), and all my troubles will disappear, including my autobiography.

Alas! The spell is complete. It’s entwined into this story. (How I did it, I’ll never tell, not in a million years.) But what about Mr. Creeper, you ask? Will he go away? Doubt it. But hopefully he’ll grow tired of me and haunt some other little kid. Not my problem.

If my spell is successful, by the time I post this, you will have long forgotten my name. Not only that, you will have forgotten my concerts and all the time you spent commenting on my posts. Those comments will disappear, along with their memory. My TikTok account will vanish. I will mean nothing to you. Thus, I will be scrubbed, along with my fame and fortune. My parents will know me, obviously, but they will have no recollection of my so-called music career. Heck, I’ll probably open that music studio, and if I’m lucky, I’ll live happily ever after. No more monsters.

Reading this now, you probably think this is just a silly story. Perfect. That’s the plan. That’s why I’ve taken my story to Reddit, using a male avatar, no less. Just in case. (I doubt my father will stumble upon this, because he doesn’t use Reddit, but I can’t take any chances.)

If by chance you do remember me, and my spell failed, that’s okay too. I’ll have to live with that. Hey, at least you’ll understand the grief I’ve gone through, and cut me some slack. Or maybe you’ll think I’m nuts. Whatever. I’m over it. So here goes. I’m so nervous I can barely keep my hands close to the keys. Mr. Creeper is clawing me, and I’m bleeding profusely, but he won’t stop me. Not this time.

Will my spell work? There’s only one way to find out.

Here goes…

I lost my vision at the age of six in a silly accident. I call it silly because I was hit by a bicycle while crossing the street. The fall damaged my optic nerve. I’ve had Bowey, my service dog, my beloved pupper, since then. Apart from Bowey, I have my father and mother who worked in the airforce. We all lived in the same house but separately. It rarely affected me. Bowey was all I needed.Oh, and I also have a friend, my neighbour, an old lady whom I call Marlboro due to the strong smell of cigarettes on her whenever she hugged me. She hugs me tight and takes a long sniff off of the top of my head. Marlboro is a widow of an airforce officer who was killed in combat, her son is also a flyer. She stays right above my apartment but I have never been to her place. My mother says she must be lonely and that’s why she must have befriended me. But I know that she loves me like a grandson and thinks I am special.It was not long after the accident but by then I had come to terms with it. I knew the path from my home to the park, school and shops inside the airforce campus. Marlboro always waited for me on a bench near my home and used to finish the last leg of her walk with me. She felt that I won’t be able to climb the stairs to my apartment alone, even though, I go everywhere alone, except for Bowey.She fixes me a sandwich whenever I get hungry even without asking. She used to have treats for Bowey as well. But I felt Bowey was not very fond of Marlboro. Whenever she came near me to hold my hand, Bowey would shift to the other side. I assume it’s the strong smell of tobacco. He was a happy and playful boy and who would not leave my side, ever.When my mother returns from her duty, I tell her all about the adventures of the day and how Marlboro brought my favourite tuna sandwich. Sometimes, it is hard to tell if she is listening at all. But I think I am a great story teller, Bowey and Marlboro agree.Father mostly joins in for the after work drinks with the other officers and reaches home late. He hugs me tight and kisses me goodnight with his alcohol breathe.My home is silent most of the time so I have learned to smell my way around. In an airforce campus it is pretty hard to rely on sounds as it is loud all around. I recognise the smell of the corner cafe at the turn from my school, the rose bushes near the turn at the senior officers’ quarters, the fuel smell near the area of the aircraft station, just before turning to our apartment complex and my final stop is the bench where Marlboro waits for me.One day, Bowey fell ill and he couldn’t accompany me to the school. Mother and father had an argument that morning about dropping me off to school. In the end, Mother dropped me off and asked me to wait at the bench near the corner cafe until she could come to pick me. I asked her to tell Marlboro to not wait up for me today. My mother agreed hurriedly and left.After school, I waited at the cafe bench for a long time. I could sense the light dimming and the cafe buzzing with the sounds of young officers. I decided to walk back to my home alone, it was my usual path sans Bowey. I passed the rose bushes, fuel smell and I counted my steps to Marlboro’s bench. She was not there today. My mother must have informed her about the change in today’s routine.I started climbing the steps to my apartment. I had never done this without Bowey or Marlboro. I climbed and climbed and nothing smelled familiar. I was tired by now and as I climbed further, at a point I felt a flat wall in front of me. It was not a wall, it was a door. I pushed it and stepped into the room. It felt open, I could hear the aircraft sounds, louder. I walked forward with no smell to guide me, tears were filling up my eyes by now. Whatever light I could sense dimmed further. I missed Marlboro. I missed Bowey. I bumped into cold steel and fell.I had a sudden realisation that I was too high up and I could feel my heart-beat in my eyes and I was about to fall and somebody familiar was holding onto my hand, preventing my fall. I smelt Marlboro and was relieved immediately. She pulled me up and hugged me tight. We didn’t talk much while walking back home.When my mother returned from work I told her what had happened. She was overcome by emotions, hugged me tight and promised me that she would never leave me alone. She wanted to thank Marlboro in person. We went upstairs to find her apartment locked. Upon enquiring with the neighbours, we got to know that an old lady used to live there several years ago. She committed suicide by jumping off of the terrace. The apartment was never allotted again and has been empty since. My mother held me close that night.For several days my parents took turns to drop me off after school. I was not bothered much by the revelation, I just had one strong feeling, I missed her. One day, when I walked back home, I waited at our usual spot, hoping to see her again. She never came. I got up to leave, but then Bowey shifted to my other side. I smiled. I smelt cigarettes again.

Dozens watched from behind me, but I ignored their eyes burning into my back. My footsteps were slow but steady, terrified but resigned to my fate, fear stiffening my muscles but determination pushing me on. The day was bright, the sun beating down on me, barely tempered by the hat I wore, and sweat already started to soak into the back of my shirt. I started through the wildflowers that spread across the edge of the grove, my hands absently brushing the ones that came up past my knees.

And as I passed the edge of the tree line, the sky started to darken. I continued to walk toward my judgment. Like many in our town who'd come before me, I was here to find out whether I was guilty of murder.

“What are you doing?” I snapped at my older brother.

Elton continued through the cabinets, leaving every door open as he searched, finally turning on me with a snarl on his face and an empty bottle in his hand. “There’s nothing here.”

“We’re out of whiskey,” I told him tiredly. “I’ll buy more tomorrow.”

“You’re useless,” he growled. Walking over to the sink, a wobble in his step, he chucked the empty bottle in.

“Hey!” I shouted. “Could you at least do that outdoors? Or aim for the garbage can?”

Elton picked up the top of the bottle, which had remained intact, examining it as if he wished it could’ve magically refilled instead of shattering. “I got fired.”

That gave me pause. “Elton…you need to lay off the drink,” I sighed. “You can’t keep a job like this.”

“Like what?” he snapped, taking a few unsteady steps toward me. “What I do on my own time is my business.”

“Not in my house it isn’t,” I shot back.

A ripple of goosebumps spread across my skin and the sweat that had built up suddenly chilled me. The trees were thick and tall, but it shouldn’t have been this dark, I knew. There was something else pulling the light from the world, something sinister that lived and hunted in these woods. Something that I needed to find. Or rather, that needed to find me.

My heartrate increasing by the minute, I continued into the woodland, claustrophobia starting to take hold. I forced myself to take in and let out even, steady breaths. The flowers had given way to a heavy layer of leaves, built up over months but not yet decayed, wet and thick and squishing under my shoes. As the day turned to night, my lower lip starting to tremble and my hands starting to shake, and I didn’t notice when my shoes dampened through to my socks.

And I hoped and prayed I would make it out.

“Your house?” Elton said, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “The house you bought with the money from Dad’s inheritance, you mean?”

I took a breath. “You got the same, Elton. Not my fault you spent it away.”

Stomping over, he towered over me, a good four inches taller. “You’re a selfish bastard, up on that high horse,” he hissed. “I spent that money how I saw fit. Wasn’t my fault Henrietta and the kids needed more than I could give them.”

“You spent it on drink,” I muttered. “Not on them.”

Elton raised his hands toward me, realizing he had a broken bottle in one, staring at it as if it was something he’d not seen before. “I need more to get to sleep,” he told me, his stare burning holes in my eyes. “Otherwise, I get the nightmares. You know that.”

My heart fell. Too many men fell down this hole when they came back from the military and I hated what it had done to him. But something else burned inside me; I was starting to hate him too. I loved the man he’d been but hated who he’d become.

“We are out,” I said slowly. “You’re plenty drunk to fall asleep.”

His eyes widened. “I’m not a drunk,” he shouted. And again, the bottle in his hand rose and a shot of adrenaline rushed through me as I saw it coming for me. Instinctively I blocked it, shoving it back at him. And it caught his throat.

Was I to blame? The question wouldn’t leave me. It plagued me, crushing me under its weight. I hadn’t meant it. I’d never kill my brother, my own flesh and blood. But I had, hadn’t I? I’d shoved the serrated glass right back at him. It had been instincts, yes, but what kind? Survival? Or a flood of emotion that came from a place deep inside me, where my true colors shone?

As I continued step by step further into the grove, I found myself wishing for a sweater, unbelievable in the current mid-summer climate of the town. It wasn’t enough to make me shiver, just enough to send a chill through me, to make me fold my arms and curl in against it. The area I found myself in now was something different, something other, and I knew I was close.

Then I came to an abrupt halt as I heard squishy footsteps behind me, unmistakable as a creature other than human. They were too large, too heavy, and something else accompanied them. The sensation of being in the presence of a predator, the urge to run, to not look back and let adrenaline do the work of racing back the way I’d come.

But of course, it was behind me. There was no escape. So, I turned to face it.

“No, no, no, no,” I breathed, dropping to my brother’s side.

His face showed nothing but desperate confusion, the broken bottle dropped to the side, forgotten, as blood poured from his throat. I thrust my hands over it without any hesitation, frantically trying to stem the flow, to find the edge of the artery I’d slit and hold back the blood. But my fingers grew slick as the knees of my pants soaked in the blood that spread quickly across the floor.

“Elton,” I cried, “no, no, Elton, hold on, put-put pressure-”

Tears came to my eyes and I suddenly pulled the shirt over my head, balling it up and shoving it against the wound. “Ronnie?” he managed.

“Please, no, please,” I choked out, tears clouding my vision. “Hold it, help me hold it there…” But his grip slackened as his pupils dilated and his breathing slowed. “No,” I said, continuing to hold the shirt firmly against his neck. “No, Elton…oh god…”

His eyes stared at the ceiling, at nothing, his body still, and I sat back in the pool of his blood, my shirt falling from my grip as an overwhelming, stunned tiredness overtook me. My gaze slid around at the scene and then went back to my brother. A sob choked in my throat before it broke through and I dissolved into tears.

The creature of the grove stood before me froze me in place. The domain around us, a swamp choked with weeds and fallen trees, suited its form as an alligator, but it stood on two feet. At least ten feet tall, I was unable to breathe for a good ten seconds before I shuddered in a shaky breath. It cocked its head at me, its eyes showing an intelligence behind them that I would never expect from an animal. It was deeper than a human gaze, something behind it that I couldn’t comprehend.

“Ronald Merrill,” it spoke. The voice was a growl from deep in its throat, startling me and sending fresh tears streaming down my face. “What is your crime?”

I took two breaths, in and out, before I managed to speak. “I killed my brother.” There was nothing to say but the truth. The creature saw through us anyway and, to be honest, it was a confluence of emotions that I was desperate to be free of, which I hoped I could do here.

“Was it in malice?”

My face crumpled. “It was an accident. He came at me with a broken bottle and I…I just…I shoved it back at him. The edge hit his neck. He fell. And there was so much blood…”

“You loved him.”

I grimaced. “I don’t know. Maybe. I used to. But…” My eyes narrowed, staring sadly at the ground. “Yes. Yes, I loved him.” I blinked rapidly a few times against the tears, my breaths jagged in my chest against the pain of my loss, of my guilt, of my terror. “But…I fear there was something inside me,” I confessed, forcing my eyes to the pitch-black eyes of the creature before me. “Something that wanted to be free of him. Something that wanted to…” I swallowed. “Please, tell me. Am I guilty of murder?”

“You are not.” The words were so simple, so final, that it took several seconds to absorb them. Then I felt my knees give out and I fell to the murky ground. “Leave the grove and lay your brother to rest. Speak to him, though he cannot speak back. It will do you good.”

I sobbed, my fingers curling into the wet, mossy ground, but then was pulled from my daze as I realized my grip was now on fresh weeds. Looking around, the creature was gone. The swamp was gone, leaving the grove in its place. Bright with sunlight, tempered by the branches of the trees overhead, vines curling up their trunks, fungus spotting the bark. And wildflowers scattered around me.

I remained there, sitting on my heels, for a while before I felt fully able to grasp the verdict I’d been given. Sniffling and wiping the tears from my face, I pushed myself to my feet. And I set off to bury my brother.

​

/r/storiesbykaren

My mama loves panda bears. She has an entire collection of stuff. Panda figurines? By the hundreds. Panda pillowcases with matching blankets? Yep. Plush toys and slippers? She’s got it. Plates shaped like a panda face, glasses with panda prints? Check. I can go on and on, but I think you get the point, right?

There is this one glass display cabinet that houses her figurines. When you come down from the second floor this cabinet welcomes you to the ground floor of the house. So, each time I went down in the morning I would say a loud “good morning!” to the pandas. Each day, I would notice the smallest set of pandas in different forms of disarray. When I say small, they are about an inch and are in different poses. There are 6 in total: one sitting down eating a bamboo shoot, one doing a headstand, one sitting looking like it wants to put its feet to its mouth, one standing up wearing a Chinese pointed bamboo hat, another one standing up holding a fishing rod with a dangling fish on it, and one sitting in a lotus position as if in meditation. My mama would always fix it when she notices them. They would sometimes be separated and far apart, in different sections of the cabinet, sometimes fallen over to the bottom. It’s like they come up with all kinds of mischief when we are not looking. When I was younger, in my mind I saw these little pandas playing around and having fun. But as I got older, I figured my big sister must like messing it up. She didn’t share our mama’s love for the pandas. Only I did.

I was assigned to a different country for work and will be away for 2 years. Mama packed up the panda set for me to take saying she knew it was my favorite since I was a child as I would always point them out in the morning. It will be my first time away from home because us Asians don’t really leave home after 18 like others do. We stay with our family for as long as we can. We got all emotional even if it was just two years and I highly appreciated being able to bring those little pandas with me. When I got to my new place, I made sure to put the pandas at my bedside table. When I come back from a tiring day at work, I would look at those little black and white figures and smile thinking of home. They didn’t move into different positions like they did, which made me really believe that it was my big sister moving them around.

I met Stuart a month after starting work at the offsite location that I was assigned to. He’s charming and would make me laugh. He started dropping by my workstation during his breaks and then we started having lunch together. By the 4th month he started coming over to my place and hanging out over the weekends. Soon we were making out in the couch, but I would not allow him to go further than that. What can I say, I was raised by very strict Asian parents.

One Saturday night, Stuart arrived unannounced. Looked like he’s been drinking. He said he just wanted to hang out and watch our favorite series with me. I was hesitant at first but felt like I trusted him enough to hang out despite him looking a little drunk.

Big mistake.

Stuart started kissing me and was trying to put his hands under my shirt. I was pushing him away when he grabbed me hard and bit my lip.

Stuart: “What is it with you, you think you are too good for me?”

Me: “Stuart, please let me go. You’re hurting me. My lip is bleeding, I need to put some ice on it.”

He wouldn’t let me go and started to push my shorts down.

My papa taught me some self-defense moves growing up. And I saw this as my chance to practice one of them. I poked Stuart’s eyes, and he pulled up while calling me a self-righteous b*tch. I ran towards the bathroom and locked the door. I didn’t have my mobile phone with me and could not call for help. By then I was praying to all my ancestors to help me. I didn’t know what to do. I was just sitting in the corner, crying. Suddenly the pounding on the bathroom door stopped replaced by a surprised yelp. I didn’t dare leave yet. I just sat there for maybe another hour before I figured that the silence outside means he already left. I opened the door and saw no one. I checked every possible hiding spot and did not find him. I decided I will report Stuart to HR on Monday and maybe ask help to get a restraining order since I didn’t know the procedures in that country.

Monday came and there was no Stuart. I already filed a report to HR about what happened. The next day, I asked if they’ve heard from him yet. They informed me that he is not responding to his messages or picking up his phone when they call. After a week, the office sent a representative for a wellness check. They said no one was at home and his car was not there either.

By the 3rd week of Stuart missing, someone reported a car parked illegally in the apartment complex near ours. They found Stuart rotting inside with several small bite marks. The hospital suspected that these are rat bites. With the report I filed with HR, the police concluded that he left my apartment and passed out inside his car due to being intoxicated and the rats somehow got inside his car.

I went home that day super stressed from all that happened. I looked at my little pandas, missing home. I noticed they had some red splotches all over their small bodies and are in complete disarray. I must have splashed them with my red beet and berry smoothie at some point. But that has been some time ago, how did I not notice these red spots until now? Anyway, I just wiped them out. I checked the bedside table but there were no droplets or anything from my smoothie. I’m just wondering now how the pandas got dirty while my bedside table escaped any of the splashes of smoothie.

I’m back home now, so my little panda friends are back to their glass cabinet doing their nightly mischief. But should I get assigned to a different country again I will make sure to bring them with me once again. They really help me feel close to home.

It was as though we were cursed. I speak now, of course, looking back on losing nearly everyone I knew to the prevailing darkness. But even then, something ominous loomed in the shadows, drawing to us every foul thing arisen on that spoiled plane.

I couldn't be sure how they came our way, but members of the Choir came, one by one. I worried we had somehow caught up to the world of the beastmen, and it troubled me. I told Detective Winters, when he found me sitting in the night, watching the wall at the edge of the manor's estate grounds, with vast primeval forests beyond.

"I'd not worry, we can fortify this place. Anyone approaching will be at our mercy."

Fortunately, we had a master of warfare, in Detective Winters, and had not his resurrection cost such a grotesque and almost unforgivable toll, it was essential when we did it and paid off when my friend showed us most of our best defenses.

It was Jacoby and Charlie, two former orderlies of Dellfriar, who first showed up. Detective Winters had them at gunpoint with his automatic shotgun pointed at them.

"I don't know how we came here. It was as though moonlight took us in our sleep." Jacoby said to us.

"No, it was like the pull of the moon, on a beam of light." Charlie explained.

"There's a darkness watching them. It means to infiltrate us." Agent Saint said quietly to Dr. Leidenfrost and Detective Winters.

"These men were at Dellfriar. I left them among the beastmen." I said.

"We escaped them and headed towards Thule. There's supposed to be a human settlement there. We got separated from the rest when those lights got us in our sleep. Moonlights." Jacoby insisted.

"Very suspicious. You can't stay here. My husband already declined to bring you along. Following us was a mistake." Dr. Leidenfrost proclaimed. I felt a chill.

Detective Winters indicated he would use his weapon at the slightest provocation. Both orderlies got up and fled. When they were gone I felt no relief. I had grave concerns, for if they could show up on our doorstep, any of the Choir could, or worse.

Perhaps the answer lay in their odd description of the lights that had brought them to us. I knew that ratmen and cat sorcerers all held positions on the moon. I suspected they had something more to do with the Hooded God, however.

On my last night before my petrification, I actually dreamed of Circe. In the years we had at Leidenfrost, the best and most peaceful times were the days of my life. I knew it wouldn't last forever, and I never took the tranquility and security for granted. I'd known too many awful adventures.

"Grandson, you've said the name of my stone, your wife-stone, as many times as it takes. We only await the proper light of the moon. Wouldn't want it to steal any of my beauty, would we? And I've waited thousands of years for this release, so what are a few moments, lingering in the sweet comfort of your meaningless dreams?" Circe monologued, as I slept.

When I awoke, I had taken her place in the imprisonment of the emerald. She held it in her hand, as she had taken my place at Leidenfrost manor. "It is a good time to live again. You've done all I required of you. Now you may rest as I did, and watch the world revolve around unseen forces. You could hear me, my true heir. But believe me, I never even considered letting the opportunity to live again pass me by. As sweetly and tenaciously as you cling to life, mine was worth far more."

"Where is my father?" Penelope was suddenly at the door of the study. She had no fear of Circe, and this frightened me.

"He's made of stone, forever. He is dead, but he cannot pass on, for he is trapped, body and soul, in the form of stone. This stone." Circe tossed the emerald through the air and Penelope caught it.

"If you call to him day after day, he will be free, but only at the cost of your life. He could trick you into casting spells, drawing on his words, as I tricked him. He won't though, not unless you have dire need of magic. You see, your father has a secret. A secret about you." Circe laughed evilly.

"My father kept no secrets from me. I knew his every thought." Penelope held the emerald and looked into it.

"This one secret he kept from everyone, almost even himself. But I knew him better than that. I could tell you his secret." Circe folded, grinning with contemptuous enthusiasm.

"I could guess since I felt this moment. Tell me if you will, but I care not to expose my father's deepest feelings. When I see him again, he will willingly tell me. You have no power over the bond between us, nor can you manipulate our relationship for your ends." Penelope spoke as the sorceress in her, challenging Circe.

Circe said nothing but smiled with satisfaction. Evidently, she had wanted to see the person my daughter was deep within, beneath her current childhood. Circe had guessed that Penelope was born of an old soul, perhaps even as old as Circe herself.

"Go play, child. Keep him close, use as much magic as you want." Circe laughed wickedly.

"I don't need to draw from the emerald." Penelope whispered to me as we walked away. She cast a simple spell of her own, and suddenly I could speak to her. She alone could hear me, but it was enough. I was not to be trapped alone, no, I would be able to watch over my daughter, at least.

"My Daughter, where is my Lord?" Cory found her sitting in the great hall of Leidenfrost Manor, beneath the double spiral staircase's middle landing.

"Dad is trapped in this emerald. Circe is here, in the manor." Penelope said with some thoughts.

"What will we do? We should tell your mother! We should tell everyone!" Cory exclaimed.

"No. For now, we play her game by her rules. Unless you know a better way to free my father?" Penelope asked Cory.

"What is it she expects of you? Has she asked you not to tell on her?" Cory asked Penelope.

"She didn't bother. She knows I know what she wants. She wants me for an apprentice. This is a test. Should I fail, there will be death." Penelope explained her thoughts.

"There will always be death." Cory told her.

"Are you with me?" Penelope asked the bird.

"My Daughter thinks that this crow has a problem with keeping secrets?" Cory asked her, tilting his head so that the light made her a reflection in his eye. Penelope flinched, she'd seen things that scared her in the eyes of the crow before. She'd grown up around the bird.

"You never told on me when I stole cookies or played with my mother's things. You said the secret was worth a fortune between us. I always loved that about you, how everything is fair. I love you, Cory." Penelope told the crow.

"Of course, Cory is a good friend as well. My Daughter is loved in my heart, but only as much as anyone else." Cory said oddly.

"You know just how to make me feel right." Penelope giggled. I wondered at their exchange. It felt like I was eavesdropping. Obviously, she had her own bond with my crow, and their own inside jokes.

Penelope held the emerald up to the shimmering sunlight of the evening. "I've always known your big secret, Dad. Nothing about you is a mystery to me. Charming you was a spell I learned as an infant. I know you love me best of all. It's my eyes, they enchant you."

The sparkles from the emerald at sunset shown on her eyes, one gold and one purple, but both a kind of gray in that light. I saw past the surface colors of her eyes into the being she was, and was before, the older part of her soul. That soul regarded me as the child, and felt protective and nurturing towards me. I realized I belonged to her, and not the other way around. I'd always sensed the magnitude of her presence, even when she was a little baby, and catching a glimpse of her, after I'd died, revealed to me my own core.

"I will confront Circe, when I am ready, and find a way to restore you to life. In the meantime, you and Cory can help me. I have much to learn." Penelope took me and Cory to her room and put us on her desk.

She got out her notebook, something she'd written 'Book of Shadows' on the cover. It contained a sketch of her sister, jokes she was saving to tell to Cory, copies of recipes her mother had for pies and canning and two functional spells. One of them involved fairy dust and the other was called 'shielded from boredom'. I looked at her spells she had made, realizing I'd never once crafted a spell. She already had two.

"You cast Shielded From Boredom when you and Persephone were in the Golden City. That's how the two of you stayed sane." I wondered.

"I did. We were getting very bored, after we wandered the maze for too long. It felt like a very long time."

"Probably an endless amount of time." Cory squawked.

"Incredible. You realize that spending an eternity in a place like that would normally shatter the sanity of anyone? Your spell worked. Somehow it kept you and your sister safe." I pointed out.

"It just came naturally." Penelope smiled, proud of herself.

"Who does my Daughter speak to?" Cory looked around.

"I can hear Dad. He's in the stone, dead, but he isn't entirely gone, he has a presence."

"My Lord," Cory spoke to me, although he could not see or hear me: "You may be as a wife-stone, but you are in good hands. My Lord will be set free, someday."

“What loftier goal or higher calling could a person ascribe to, than in aiding his fellow man? Being in the loving service of others in their time of need, should be the sacred duty of every conscientious soul. It's a core tenet in every major belief system. That's why the humble subject of this legal inquiry diligently gathered up things to eat and delivered them to the hungry. With this purposeful, kind-hearted gesture, hollow belies were filled, and their ravenous anger and mindless frustration were abated.

Every single day he endeavored to this necessary task. Often times, at great risk to himself. Let’s face it, it’s a jungle out there. Mortal danger lurks around every corner. We’ve all seen it. Mr. Ignatius cleverly navigated the unique perils of modern society to help out the disadvantaged. I don’t throw out accolades like ‘selfless’, or ‘hero’ very often, but in this case, it’s richly deserved. Harvey Ignatius is… quite frankly, a saint.

No more statements, your honor.”

The jury and audience sat in dutiful silence while the defense attorney painted a glossy, almost messianic version of the accused. A few of them had bemused grins on their faces by the thick, insincere layer of ‘horse-hockey’ they’d just heard. Others were infuriated, offended, or outraged by the creative characterization of the defendant as anything other than the piece of human excrement that he was.

Sensing the potential for angry outbursts in his courtroom, the judge reminded those in attendance to remain silent. The district attorney stood to begin his closing arguments. He turned to directly face the jurors and inhaled deeply. His eyes remained tightly closed a moment; as if hearing the fanciful defense narrative had been painful to experience. Both the defense and prosecution lawyers had promising back-up careers in acting, if their regular vocations fell through. Drama and courtroom theatrics were frequently employed as a creative facet of jurisprudence.

“Let me remind the audience and jury members that the ‘things to eat’ Mr. Ignatius ’gathered up’ were PEOPLE. The ‘hungry’ with ‘hollow bellies, filled with ravenous anger and mindless frustration’ were the DEAD. Despite the creative framing Mr. Skoll just entertained us with in his closing statements, Harvey Ignatius didn’t volunteer at a soup kitchen or work in a leper colony. Not by a country mile. The accused man in the courtroom actively conspired with flesh-eating CORPSES to procure LIVING VICTIMS, for them to EAT!

He did these abominable things for the most selfish of reasons. That is, to save his own cowardly skin. There’s no absolute way of knowing how many innocent victims he lured to their deaths with his cunning ruses but the evidence points to dozens, if not hundreds. If forming an unholy alliance with the dead roaming the countryside to be spared from their bloodthirsty hunger isn’t grounds for the harshest of punishments, I don’t know what is! Every person on the jury today has the sworn duty to find this detestable human being guilty in the first degree.

I rest my case.”

(Four minutes later)

“Your honor. By unanimous decision, we the jury, find the defendant guilty of all charges.”

Judge Wyndcott tried to maintain his composure as the verdict was read but had to stifle a smirk of pleased satisfaction. Frankly, he was surprised it took them that long. All that was left, was to hand down the sentence. The bailiff ordered the now convicted procurer of living victims, to rise.

“Harvey Ignatius, for your heinous crimes against humanity, I sentence you to permanent confinement in ‘the maze of the undead’. Your internment will be simulcast on Pay-Per-View. As the hungriest and more ferocious of the dead, let’s see if you can strike a deal with them. We’ll all be munching our popcorn.”

The entire courtroom gasped at the severity and incredible rarity of Judge Wyndcott handing down the Mount Everest of undesirable punishments.

‘Bang’, went the gavel.

Laundry day, again. I wonder how many of these are there in a lifetime? I suppose it varies, depending on how often someone does laundry. I avoid it, running out of clean clothes before I wash. I don't mean to be gross, it's just that I've developed a lifelong aversion to laundry day.

What's that Quinten Tarantino movie where the girl is telling her friends why she hates going into the laundry room - and it ends up being the backstory for her gun? That sums up why I also, lately, won't go do laundry. I work at night, which means going down there is going there at night, past young men smoking and glaring weirdly and obvious drug deals in the parking lot. I'd rather not get attacked, and I worry that it could happen.

So that's why I owned a gun. I kept it a secret, because I am politically opposed to guns. Which is why I am - a hypocrite. More on that:

As you already know, I died not too long ago. They managed to defibrillate my heart in the hospital. I'd made it there and gotten blood in me and undergone surgery for my gunshot wound. A complication of the surgery put me into shock, and I was dead for about two and a half minutes. The doctors agreed it was a total miracle I came back.

It wasn't a scene from John Wick on the gangsters who haunt my apartment building. No, it was me cleaning my gun, routinely, and then one day, somehow, accidentally shooting myself. Don't make a habit of gun cleaning and do it when you're bored and drunk.

I'm genuinely sorry to everyone who was in the morning commute when that ambulance came through and started a traffic jam that made so many people a few minutes late. I'd have hated that, if I were you, and I'm sorry about that. I'd had a very bad night at work, my boss had groped me again. Can you believe he told everyone I'd tried to kill myself because I'd come on to him and he had shown me his ring? Well, I responded by drinking that morning, which is evening for someone who works all night. That's when I ended up getting shot and dead and everything.

I found myself standing in a kind of mist, and I felt quite afraid and miserable. I sensed I had died, and while it was a mere two and a half minutes of my life before I was back in the hospital, I underwent a terrifying ordeal that seemed to last much, much longer.

The evidence of it are the two coins I have, the silver drachma minted as though yesterday, kept timelessly, upon the ferryman. I'd stood there for what seemed like a long time before I saw the creature.

"When you are ready to cross, I will take you." Charon told me. I trembled in horror at the sight of it, the skeletal thing with its long white bear and hair and its ghastly crown. It held a rugged wooden pole and stood on what appeared to be a boat, inviting me in with the gesture of its bone-fingers. "Do not fear me, I am Charon, ferryman to the other side."

"Am I dead?" I asked.

"Not quite." Charon sighed. "Nothing is like it used to be. I used to get paid two drachma to carry souls across this distance of the Styx. Now, all I get are terrified and penniless customers and sometimes they even go back from here. I think you might do that."

"If I am dead, is that Heaven?" I asked.

"No. That would be Hell. You will have your soul cleansed and sent back in a new form. It might take an eternity, and it will be due suffering. All the pain you caused will be inflicted upon you until your soul is finally clean of all sin. You, I'd guess you achieved level eight, Malebolge. It's bad, it's about as bad as Hell gets. You make the cut for that circle because you were a hypocrite. You politically and openly opposed gun ownership and yet it is the gun you owned that caused your death. That's classic hypocrisy, they won't ignore it, they love classic souls." Charon told me.

"I really don't want to go to Hell." I proclaimed. It sounded rather bad.

"Maybe I will leave you here and you'll go back. It will look like a miracle, by now. You don't know much about death, do you?" Charon chuckled at my expense.

"Not really. I try not to think about it." I said honestly. "I don't really know much about life either. Look at me, I made a classic mistake. That's as bad as it gets, right?" I confided in Charon, trembling at the thought of Hell.

"I don't either. I wish I could get a burger, or something. Put some meat on these bones." Charon told me.

"Want me to cover for you while you take a break?" I asked. Charon started shaking a little bit and said nothing for a moment, then it offered me the pole.

"I promise I'll come back. I don't want what's in-store for the guy before me." Charon leaped off the boat as I took the pole and hefted a small bag of coins. "Be right back."

Charon left and I was granted an image of him, dressed in a black burial suit and walking stiffly across a street towards a burger place. I couldn't believe it was the same one I worked at.

He got to the counter and Mike was there. "Can I take your order, Sir?" Mike wrinkled his nose at the stench of the cadaver.

"I'd like a burger." Said Charon. That's how it started. Simple enough. Things did escalate quickly, as it turned out Charon was a horrifying customer beyond all nightmares. I'll go into detail, but mind that it gets gory:

"Sir, you have to order a specific burger, like off the menu. Order one of the meal numbers, like number one: the Single Cheeseburger with fries and a drink. Or off of the side menu: The Classic Burger or Classic Cheeseburger."

"I don't want a Classic Burger. This is my only lunch break. Give me a burger, please." Charon ordered.

"Fine. It's the Classic Burger, though." Mike put in the order.

"I literally don't want the Classic Burger, just a burger, that's all!" Charon huffed. I could see the problem. In Charon's world, nothing was nastier than something that was classic. He seemed to think it was a downgrade, and refused to accept it.

"It is just a burger, we just call it a Classic Burger." Mike picked up on the frustration Charon was expressing.

"Well, in that case, I accept. It is strange you call your burger a Classic Burger. That's weird." Charon complained.

"Sorry, Sir." Mike apologized. Charon glared, feeling patronized. "May I have a name for the order?"

"Charon." Charon said.

"Okay. That'll be twenty-three ninety." Mike rang it up.

"Kinda expensive for a burger, don't you think?" Charon complained.

"Not really. It's a really good burger, and that's a pretty normal price for a burger, these days." Mike told Charon.

"Okay, here's my money." Charon offered a crumpled twenty-dollar bill, two silver drachma, a few wooden nickels, a gum wrapper and a car wash token.

Mike uncrumpled the twenty-dollar bill and then picked up the silver coins. "We can't take these."

"Why not? They are worth a fortune." Charon growled.

"Because they aren't real money." Mike smirked.

"I paid, keep the change." Charon determined.

"Whatever, buddy." Mike glared. He went in the back to make the burger.

"Order up for Karen!" Mike slightly mispronounced Charon, having thought the guy's name was Karen.

Charon looked around and then got up from his seat to get his burger. He examined it and noticed it was made poorly and that Mike had spit on the bun. "Let me talk to your manager."

"Hey, boss, Karen wants to see you!" Mike called our boss out.

"What is this sloppy mess? I get one lunch break, just one. This is what I get to eat?" Charon pointed at the heap that was formerly a burger.

"Sir, if you don't like it, go somewhere else." Out boss said in a classic way.

"Okay, but first give me back my money." Charon glared.

"Sure, I can do that. Let's be rid of you." Our boss said. I love his customer service skills, knowing what he's got coming. He took out the top twenty and a five and gave started giving them to Charon.

"Wait, he paid with those silver coins. Give him those." Mike said.

Charon took the two silver coins and said. "You know what, forget the damn burger."

My boss and Mike blinked.

Charon reached over the counter and took them each by the top of their head and peeled their skin off in one tug, leaving them standing there with no skin, dripping blood. Then they started screaming. Mike ran and hit his head and fell over, but my boss stuck his groping hand into the fryer vat by accident as he slipped on his own blood.

He writhed screaming in agony and died a bad death there on the floor.

Charon returned with their souls, looking much like they did at their moment of death. "These classic clowns have a lot of soul cleansing to do. I appreciate you helping me get a break from working in this endless grind from Hell."

"No problem." I told Charon.

"Here." Charon gave me the two silver drachma. "Keep the change."

"In this chapter, we establish how everyone at Leidenfrost Manor is spending their time. Then, after Gabriel mentions that the phones have stopped working, news from outside arrives in the form of Agent Saint and her team. The world beyond is on the brink of an apocalypse, as a multitude of unchecked monsters begin their rampage and revenge.

As to Silverbell, Agent Saint recognizes her and is surprised to see her, because she had already helped her return home. Since it never happened, Agent Saint suspects that the veil between worlds is weakening.

Penelope and Persephone follow strange music into the mists between worlds. Cory sees them do so and tells me and I rush after them. I manage to find them in the Golden City, where masked revelers are celebrating the arrival of the Hooded God. We learn that the god will release everyone from life upon arrival, and could arrive at any moment. The city is like a shifting maze, with staircases that defy gravity and buildings of impossible geometry.

Just when we realize we cannot escape, Silverbell finds us and leads us along an unseen alleyway, back to our own world, just as the celebrations of the city become as agonized screams of terror that then fall silent."

I wrote in my notes. I had started to compile a volume of the things I had seen and done. I did not yet know my role in all things, nor how much of a story there would be by the end, but I did know it had reached a point where I could see I did indeed have a role in a much larger story. I thought it was over, and had no idea it had only just begun.

It is true that those things happened, but my indulgence of words has grown significantly over the span of time I have seen since those days. And as before, I shall compose it as an adventure, an episode, in the style of my thoughts and perceptions of those days, except it is about this time that I became aware of my daughter's abilities, and so there is more to this chapter than perhaps there would be if I had written it then. I shall now, from hindsight, tell the full story, and know in my words what she knew, at least as it pertains to the Hooded God and the events of the Golden City that we participated in, merely by our intrusion.

First of all, consider that this might be too horrifying of a perspective, and that you already know the important parts of the chapter. Secondly, consider I shall again visit the preliminary stages of my daughter's developments in magical abilities in further chapters. Finally, consider that in this one episode, I have cheated and told the story from my own concepts that I have now, and not with the mystery that shrouded my perceptions on that day or even as I reflected and wrote about what had happened.

Everyone in Leidenfrost Manor was living quietly and knowingly that all our peace and tranquility was each moment a blessing. Instead of boredom, there was a kind of absorbing of the atmosphere of orderliness.

We spent our time gardening and husbanding wild chickens we'd caught. We build a corral and managed to lure sheep and cows and pigs into it, building pens and learning how to care for them. The woods were full of stray farm animals, and danger. I thought I saw an ettercap, and mentioned it to Silverbell, who said again:

"White Nettle, this is revenge." And she'd spit, a glistening and oddly bitter smelling droplet that was sticky and would become like an amber. These she hung around the windowsills on spider's threads she would politely harvest for her uses. She had assured me that the spiders in the manor were under her spells and would never scare anyone, let alone bite. In exchange, they were promised nobody would harm them when they were discovered, nor wipe away their hidden nests.

Dr. Leidenfrost was our leader, administered to everyone's requisitions and in exchange we had an economy of freely exchanged favors, everyone contributing their handy skills and talents to our common comfort and security. She often told me I was her inspiration or asked me for advice or just confided her insecurities to me. As her spouse, I was her singular support, except when she picked on Isidore. Anyway, our family flourished and we also had a village, and that flourished too.

Gabriel and Clide Brown were the only ones who really got out and saw the collapse first-hand. The rest of us stayed near the house and grounds. We farmed and crafted and just lived our lives in peace.

Gabriel reported to us what they had seen, but it was often the lack of information that conveyed the most impression that I had, that there was nothing out there. There were no more phones at some point, but there's no sense in correlating that with the arrival of Agent Saint's party. They had promised they would come, but we had lost contact with them much earlier. I think the point was that they couldn't call us and tell us they were coming, but even before there were no phones there was no phone service. Slightly different problems.

It was easy to lose contact when there was no phone service, no signal. You couldn't just dial someone's number, you needed a switchboard. For a while there were smaller phone companies, scavenged from the wreckage of civilization. What I really should say is that the months, the years, had passed the last of such attempts at rebuilding a civilized society.

Agent Saint had my brother and nephew and Detective Winters with her. It was a very joyful reunion, as I had not seen any of them in a long time. They had many adventures and assured us they had come from the same world I had, and thus Agent Saint's reaction to Silverbell is so significant:

"I am surprised you are not in Fairy Land" Agent Saint told her.

"White Nettle destroyed the spokes of the wheel of worlds. You know this is all there is, and think, where you come in, that is where White Nettle took me key, dressed in your eyes. It is her glamor, that you thought she was Silverbell. But I am me, right here. And you should see what she has done to my home. Ettercaps everywhere! It is an atrocity!"

"And that is what I learned, along the way. So, it is true. My abilities, they have faded somewhat." Agent Saint told us.

"Why is that?" Dr. Leidenfrost asked her teasingly. My wife was aware of Agent Saint's virginity, and that it was apportioned to her ability of prophecy.

"I bathed in the House of Jher. I assure you it was not my first choice for resolving that adventure!" Agent Saint blushed.

We had no idea what she meant, and I'll tell you later what we learned when she explained it to us. It was not as erotic as it sounds, but never-the-less Agent Saint felt tainted by the whole experience right to her very soul and it affected her confidence in her ability to have visions of the future. Mostly, because she had learned the secret of how visions were born.

I was hoeing a patch to plant carrots, beets and potatoes when Cory came and landed on the scarecrow in the tall wheat near me, behind the oak fence. He squawked in alarm, and I stood up, he had my attention.

"What is it?"

"My Daughters have followed piping into the mists lingering!" Cory said clearly. I had no idea what he had just said.

"Are you talking about Persephone and Penelope?" I asked "In danger?"

"Follow me, my Lord!" Cory flew off as a crow flies and I had to scramble over fences and traverse wheat to get to his mist and piping.

Indeed, a sweet bagpipe sound was emanating from the mist and the stuff was like a thick white smoke, and I could see nothing in it.

"What is this?" I asked Cory.

"My Lord will need a staff, pouch and wife-stone of sorcery, as he has with a word he knows." Cory glanced at me.

"I only need my friend." I held my arm for my crow.

"Then take the kit for his sake." Cory flitted to my arm and looked me in my eye, causing me to flinch at the dark depths of his soul. I could see the specter of death reflected behind me, and recalled well not to look him in his beady little eye when he tilted his gaze at me so.

"Esc." I charmed my kit to my person. After a moment my staff, with its runic carvings like wormed bark, my flax pouch full of cantrips, the emerald of Circe around my neck, all began to feel real again, instead of away from me. The relics were real, but their otherworldly properties left them in dreams, unless I called them to awaken in my hands.

"My Lord knows a very clever spell." Cory complimented.

"It's nothing compared to someone who can craft such as this." I held up Circe's emerald. "I'm an amateur."

"I think my Lord is past amateur, even if he must learn much before becoming skilled in magic." Cory judged me. "I've seen my Lord cast spells with proper effect on a number of occasions. What happens when an amateur casts spells?"

"Well, I suppose I could have gotten it wrong. I did that much more often than got it right." I realized. "These are mine, though, it feels right to have them by my side."

"So it is." Cory agreed.

We walked into the mist, stalling no longer. I did feel a sense of urgency that I am not mentioning in contrast to our conversation and preparations. There was also a current of underlying terror, for ourselves, despite my valiance at going in there to rescue my daughters, I admit I hesitated, so great was my fear of that unknown mist and the uncertainty that they could even be rescued at all.

I actually ignored those feelings, in favor of a confused and distracted focus on the precise thing at-hand. That-is, until we stepped into that musical white fog.

We walked right through it, like a curtain, and it was gone. We were alone in a crowd of masked revelers. They wore many costumes, mostly with huge frilled collars and masquerade-styled domino masks, most of them grotesque and bejeweled. The crowds were dancing and partying like puppets, repeating their motions endlessly and without meaning.

We moved among them, and I looked around at the adobe buildings, adorned in paper lights and lit by strange stars and a sky that looked too low somehow. The shifting sands around the city formed strange pillars, swirling like dust devils in one place.

Around them, the buildings shifted and twisted as though contorted through a lense. Cory said that when he looked away and looked again they would shift. With Circe's emerald I needed not look away for the effect to transpire. I watched as the streets and alleys and facades shifted places as though mere illusions, their colors bleeding and shimmering into position past each other, trading places almost instantly. It happened in the blink of an eye, and I could see how it watched the eyes of everyone, with a thousand eyes of its own. A spell with eyes, I was fascinated.

When nobody was looking, it would change any section of the city that was unobserved. In this way, there was no escape from the ever-shifting maze. Everyone who was in the city could not escape. I saw through the magic to its roots, that somehow all of this was happening in one single instant, the spark of an even greater magic.

I could not see what it was, I was somehow repelled from looking at the source of the enchantment. I felt it in my soul, somehow depleting me just for looking at it. And I couldn't see it anyway, so I looked away. I exhausted the emerald of Circe, concealing myself from its gaze as it looked back at me, and saw only a humble reveler, no different than the others. At least I hoped that is all it saw.

"What is this place, my Lord?" Cory clicked in Corvin.

"It is the clutches of something that is - keeping it this way." I described what I had seen, as best as I understood it.

"What have we here?" Cory asked a reveler in a crow mask. To my astonishment she responded to him, saying:

"I am unpaired, or I was. Would sir dance with me, and be my match in the festivities?" She asked.

"Could you help me find two missing girls? They are like me and have no mask." I said to her.

"I am Ysildra. Dance with me, play with me, there is no time to waste before the Hooded God releases us all from life. We are to rejoice!" Ysildra tried to embrace me but our bodies were like smoke mixing, untouched by the other.

"We're not quite here yet." I sighed in relief. "Maybe they aren't either. Maybe we can escape."

"My love, what are you?" Ysildra looked perplexed and disturbed. She took off her mask, her eyes watering. "You're not for me, are you?"

"I'm sorry, but I am not for you. Could you help me anyway?" I asked.

"I still love you. I will try to help." Ysildra promised. She seemed to be struggling to break free from her position, and after she walked away, shifted blurrily back to where she was and tried again, then she was walking beside us.

"We must, to the chapel, away. They might baptize you before the image of the Hooded God." Ysildra told me. She tried to take my arm, but her hand passed through my elbow and I saw this frightened her and hurt her feelings, for it struck a tear from her.

"I can't do that. I've got to find my girls." I told her.

"See that?" Ysildra pointed to something. I gazed but saw nothing.

"What are we looking at?"

"It is like a princess with wings and glowing and tiny. She flits from place to place, obeying the corners and not the passages. She knows her way, hard to spot her." Ysildra told me.

"Does she see us?" I asked.

"I don't think so, we are in the shadows, my lover, and how we sit still amid the chaos." Ysildra gazed at me with broken longing, like she had waited a thousand lifetimes for me and only to be denied. Perhaps she had.

"How can we get her attention?" I asked.

"There is something about you than makes you, unseeable." Ysildra told me.

"Then how do you see me?" I asked her.

"I do not." Ysildra said, tears running across her cheeks as she painfully confessed. "I only feel you, and how it feels, I know you by that sensation. And how I hear you, for I bow to your will, my love." Ysildra knelt.

I took off the emerald. "Now you should see and hear me."

"I do. And even more beautiful." Ysildra told me. "And to feel the touch of the Hooded God will be an even sweeter desire, as soon as the stars swing round and round again, to the beginning of the song, endlessly repeated."

"Yeah, we are trying to get out of here before that happens." I said.

"Leave the Golden City?" Ysildra looked confused and almost like she would laugh, it was absurd to her. She stood and danced a little, unable to hold still for very long.

"Lord!" Silverbell flew up to us.

"I'm glad to see you, Sylvia. I can't solve this maze." I told her.

"It is easy. You follow me now." Silverbell told me. We followed her, Ysildra in tow and located the girls.

Oddly enough, I sometimes remember finding the girls and then meeting up with Silverbell. Sometimes we met Ysildra only as we left. There were times I recall finding our skeletal remains on the streets of the dead city, the only ones without party hats. Part of the magic was a timelessness, a lack of sequence, the rules of time and space meaning only the whim of the Hooded God, dreaming in madness of a conquered city he couldn't touch, trapped forever.

The girls were fascinated, and with her eyes glowing my daughter Penelope spoke to me saying:

"Father, this is the sum of all those dreams I had of your adventures." Penelope told me, with her left eye glowing purple and her right eye glowing gold. Her voice sounded too old for my little girl, and I realized she was not as I had last seen her. She and her sister had wandered the aeons, and their minds were only intact through their respective natures.

I considered that death had already tasted Persephone. Persephone lived with the blessing of a powerful goddess, her life belonging to a living energy that had sworn her into existence. Whatever happened to her had to become a part of that charmed reality, obeying the narrative of the goddess. Wandering an enchanted maze was not dangerous for her, merely satisfying the curious compulsion of her patron.

Penelope was far more complicated. She was born with the capacity of her mother for intelligence and logic and my ability to cultivate magic and the secrets of our old world. This adventure had demonstrated what she was capable of. She had harnessed the magical energy she had needed to shield herself and her sister, by instinct. Even with that commendable achievement, she had activated the depths of her soul to reinforce her sorcery. Her oldest and wisest part had risen from her timeless self and kept her safe from the endless darkness, the shifting sands, the realm of the Hooded God.

We reached the center of the maze, its exit. The white fog was like a bubbling gruel on the surface of a sloped building. Colored smoke issued from its chimney. Cory flew through it, clicking for us to follow quickly.

Persephone knew the sound of the crow when he did that and ran after him. Penelope looked at me and I saw the oldness in her eyes fading, her scowl leaving and her normal face returning. Then she followed her older sister through. Silverbell left me there.

I looked at Ysildra. "Thank you."

"I would come with you if I could." Ysildra hid her emotions. She trembled. She knew I was leaving and instead of throwing herself at me, she tried to make it a sweet goodbye.

"You'd be welcome. I appreciate your friendship. I'm not sure we would have made it through this without you."

"Yes. You're welcome. Just go, I think. Please." Ysildra's eyes were watering, but she refused to blink and cry, she was holding back her heartbreak. "I had to love you. I'm glad you were worth me being the wheel of this city. You know, like a third wheel, but out of everyone."

"I don't see why. You're so beautiful, and you've proven to be the kind of person anyone would want for a friend." I told her honestly. I knew she'd live in hell, so it was the least I could leave her with.

"Would you have kissed me goodbye, if we could touch?" Ysildra asked me. I thought about it and nodded.

"Sure, I would. My wife would actually be disappointed if I told her this day ended with me refusing to kiss you at the end on account of her. She's very romantic."

"Then, tell her to receive my kiss, on my behalf." Ysildra said, her voice sounding a little high, and then she started crying and turned and fled.

I was free to go, so I did.

"The stars are weird, in that place." Penelope told me when we were home. She sounded normal again. I forgot the sorceress who had resided in her, protecting her. She was no different, yet somehow changed. It was because she knew, or thought she knew, what she was capable of.

"Don't go into places like that." I admonished her.

"Why not, it's what you do!" Penelope protested. I'd never seen her tween before and I was a little startled. Then she frowned and apologized. "I'm sorry, Dad. I heard the music. It sounded alright."

"It's fine." I shrugged. I'd realized she was just as scared as I was that we'd never escape.

I went and found Silverbell where she was drawing a map of the city in some spilled sugar.

"What can I help you with?" Silverbell asked me.

"I wanted to thank you for coming in after us." I said. "And saving us."

"I made that look easy, I bet." Silverbell kept playing with the sugar. She stopped and looked at me. "The Hooded God wanted you there."

"Why is that?"

"I think it was personal." Silverbell told me. "See this?"

I looked at the sugar. I saw nothing but an elaborate maze.

"No, what am I supposed to be seeing?" I asked.

"It is a pattern. I recognized it right away. That's how I made that rescue look easy. It is hard to explain." Silverbell told me.

"Give me a try." I said.

"Well, when White Nettle took Fairy Land, it was the maneuver of an opportunist. This is because the four pillars that compose the world are gone. It's like when Mum brings out the projector and slide show. Slides atop each other, like worlds, smeared into one world. Hmmm, maybe I am not explaining it right?"

"I get it. The pillars kept the world layers separate. They're gone and the worlds are as one world, self-collapsed." I said.

"Sort of." Silverbell frowned. "Anyway, the point is that something else is like that here. With no place to go, this Hooded God needs to be known, to exist. It is in their collective consciousness, the fabric of their world. The Hooded God is nowhere else, this pattern, it is its mind, do you see how the streets form the canals of dreaming?"

"I don't see that. It is something you are familiar with that I've never heard of." I said.

"Well, nevermind that. Think - is there anyone who you would forget, who cannot die, who exists between worlds, outside of time, as a mere thought, a dream?" Silverbell asked.

I realized she was talking about Aureus and I thought about anything else and said: "Nope."

"That's good. Let us then leave this pattern as so much spilled sugar, and forget what it spells out. All for the better." Silverbell scattered the sugar by swirling her wings.

A few years have passed since I moved out of my parents' house to stand on my own two feet. While most things were difficult to manage at the beginning of my independent life, I now do them in my sleep.

a daily, weekly, even yearly routine that has always worked and there's not much that can break it. except when you realize sooner or later that the perfect life you've supposedly built isn't so perfect after all.

For example, when you realize that the monthly costs are too high to put any significant money aside and it will probably be difficult to pay off your student loan. and when the tax authorities come knocking at your door for a tax audit, you really realize what it means to be an adult.

some time ago i was in a terrible crisis because i had massive debts that i couldn't pay and my mother also died. and as i was an only child and my father died when i was a child, my mother was the last person i could count on. it was around that time that i started to see her.

the woman on the side of the road. i didn't notice her at first, but the more often she appeared, the more often i noticed her. at the time, i thought she was just a simple middle-aged woman waiting for her bus. but the more often i saw her, the more it increased. in the beginning, i saw her maybe once a month. then eventually twice, then eventually several times a week and eventually every day. and she always looked at me. She had long brown hair and a few strands of gray. Otherwise she was quite pretty. She wore a white short-sleeved top with a black skirt that went down to her feet. She also wore a bracelet

her face was emotionless and no one who walked past her seemed to interact with her. a month before the event, i started seeing her even at night. and during the night, she stood even closer to my house. she was not on the opposite side of the street but on mine, staring at the house. when this was the case, some strange things often happened. i heard someone knocking on the door but i didn't have the courage to open it because i assumed the woman was stalking me. then i heard doors and even windows opening and closing. i tried to speak to her a few times but every time i stepped out of the house she was gone. it was almost as if she had vanished into thin air.

And two weeks before the event, I saw her everywhere. At home, at work, on the way home, in my favorite cafe. everywhere. i only saw her in the corner of my eye. but the really scary thing happened the night before the event. i woke up in the middle of the night because i saw her in my dreams. she ran up to me and asked me for help. but she didn't explain what she wanted me to help her with. she just repeated it until i woke up. a shiver ran down my spine because my door was ajar and i saw her peeking through the slit. i wanted to scream at her to leave me alone, but i couldn't get a sound out. she turned around and disappeared into the darkness.

i contacted the police, but when they searched my house they found no one. there was no sign of a break-in either.

i worked at a tech company as a computer scientist and even though i was earning well i could only just cover my costs. and then there were still the back payments to the tax office. i couldn't even afford a car so i had to walk. i remained optimistic that my situation would change at some point. but most of all i hoped i wouldn't see the woman again.

and then came the event that changed my life. that evening i was walking home from work. it was a friday so it was the weekend and i don't know why but something made me take a detour through a forest. the forest atmosphere was incredibly calming. for the first time, i was able to really reflect. i came to the conclusion that i imagined the older woman as a reaction to my mother's death. that i didn't want to be alone and longed for a mother figure to lean on. i lay down in the grass and closed my eyes.

i was about to sink into the realm of dreams in the middle of the forest when i was suddenly awakened by a loud scream. i jumped up and looked around. i heard a woman screaming from a distance. i don't know why i didn't call the police right away, but i ran in the direction of the noise. i was afraid that someone was in danger that i had to help.

and then i saw them. two older, broad men who had gagged and tied up a young woman. they pressed their hands over the woman's mouth as she screamed in panic for help while they tried to tape it shut with duct tape. as they were still busy with the woman and were inattentive, i was able to pick up a thick stick nearby and sneak up on them. i reached out and pulled the stick over the head of one of them. he fell unconscious and the other first wondered whether he should attack me but then took flight.

the woman cried bitterly and i freed her. then i called the police. in the meantime, i stayed with the crying and traumatized woman and assured her that everything was fine and that nothing would happen to her. the man who had been knocked unconscious was arrested immediately and his partner was arrested as well. the two were wanted criminals who had already taken the life of a middle-aged woman after torturing and raping her.

when an ambulance arrived alongside the police, the woman was given medical treatment while the policemen questioned me. they told me that they needed a witness statement from me and took me to the police station. afterwards, i visited the woman in hospital. and she thanked me from the bottom of her heart. She explained that she was afraid at that moment she would share the fate of her mother, who was also murdered, but now she is happy that she is well. we talked for a while and got to know each other a little. and it got late.

i explained to her that i had to go now but that we would surely see each other again. she thanked me again and said goodbye. when i stepped outside i saw her again. the woman. she was standing on the other side of the street again. although it was raining i could clearly see that she was smiling at me. and then she made a sign for me to follow her.

i took this as a chance to find out what she wanted from me. also because i hoped to finally have my peace. i followed her and while i did so she always kept eye contact even if that meant walking backwards. i was a bit confused but whenever i called out to her where she wanted me to go she just kept quiet and made the gesture again that i should follow her.

she eventually led me to the town cemetery and there to the grave of a ruby miller. when i finally caught up with her she had her back turned to me and was staring at the headstone. she turned and looked me in the eye and i could see that she had tears in her eyes.

she began to speak: "i suppose you're wondering who i am and why i was watching you. after everything that happened, you deserve an answer. the girl you saved today. she's my daughter"

i looked at her in disbelief and replied: "what? that's a very macabre joke, isn't it? she told me her mother is dead".

"she is" she replied and showed me the gravestone. "my name is ruby miller. the men who were arrested today abused and killed me some time ago. they took my daughter's photo from my wallet and told me before they killed me that they would find my daughter and do the same to her."

I didn't know what to say so I just listened carefully.

"in the afterlife, i was looking for a way to help my daughter. souls are no longer bound by time after death. this allowed me to find a solution in different timelines to save my daughter. and in every timeline in which my daughter survived, you were the one who saved her. so i returned to my timeline, tracked you down and led you into the forest.

thank you from the bottom of my heart. i hope you know that you are her guardian angel. finally i can rest in peace now that i know my daughter is safe."

suddenly she pulled a ring she wore on her right hand off her finger.

"i want you to have this. this is my wedding ring. a gift from my husband. we were wealthy. this is a five-carat diamond ring. it was buried with me, but i don't think i have any use for it anymore. but for you, it can be a key out of your difficult situation."

she handed me the ring and came up to me for a hug. i closed my eyes for just a moment and when i opened them again she was gone. the only thing i heard was the rain pattering on the headstones and the grass. i stood in front of the headstone for a few more minutes. i still had the ring in my hand. it was hard to process that moment.

i sold the ring for a good price and was finally able to get rid of a significant amount of my debt. samantha, the woman i saved, became a friend of mine shortly after. but i never told her what happened at the cemetery. or what happened before that fateful day. if i had told her i had met her mother, she would never have believed me. Ruby however never showed up again.

i still cry when i think about it. thank you ruby. sincerely

I realize the title is a little misleading. I don’t mean they went to the infernal home of ‘Hades’, the greatly-feared god of death in Greek mythology. I wouldn’t make light of something like that. Not to mention, if they had visited the land of no return, they wouldn’t have been able to return and give me the shirt, right? We’ve all read those classic myths and epic tales. There’s always some catch or critical error the protagonist makes whenever they dare to enter the one-way realm of the dead. That’s not the case here. This was something else.

They actually went on a little remote island getaway. The tropical resort in Tobago is called: ‘The Underworld’ because their tourism bureau is in the business of selling cleverly-themed vacation travel packages, and filling their hotel rooms. Referring to it as ‘Caribbean mosquito haven’ would dissuade travelers from visiting their tiny island. As they say: ‘Accent the positive, eliminate the negative, don’t mess with Mr. In-between.’

Elise and Tony are two of my best friends in the world. Rob and Becca are also very good buddies. I was invited to go with them on the trip but as a single guy, I didn’t want to be the ‘odd man out’, if you know what I mean. It would’ve felt weird starring into my drink glass while they paired up to ‘suck face’ and grope each other. Knowing what I know now, everything turned out for the best. Tropical curses can be hard to get rid of.

I asked Tony to text me when they arrived safely, but internet coverage on the island is spotty, so I wasn’t surprised I didn’t hear from him for a few days. When I did, it wasn’t at all what I expected. I assumed I’d receive panoramic shots of the beach at sunset, or some good-natured ribbing about me being stuck back home in the blustery cold weather. Instead, what I actually got was troubling, to put it mildly. As his revelatory messages unfolded, he confessed that they felt increasingly unsafe by a series of uncomfortable events which transpired, completely out of their control. His tone strongly implied they were in grave danger.

It seemed like an off-putting joke at first. I thought they felt bad for me being home alone, and were trying to minimize their vacation fun, but this went way past downplaying their enjoyment. It was eerie and morbid. Tony said they were being followed at night by shadowy figures mirroring their movements. He actually used the word ‘stalked’ in a follow-up response. News stories of travelers being victimized or killed in tourist traps are increasingly common these days. Because of that, I urged him to contact the authorities immediately.

He didn’t respond right away but I completely understood. He genuinely sounded afraid for their safety. It’s not like they had time to reassure me they were alright, in the middle of their ongoing situation. Tony is six-foot-five and built like a professional football player. Rob is no slouch either. He’s a bodybuilder. The two of them together are very intimidating to approach but thieves are brazen, desperate, and if they have weapons, it doesn’t matter how buff you are. I was highly worried but hoped the island police would put an end to the potential crisis.

Hours passed. Nothing. I decided to reach out to Elise, Rob, and Becca separately. They were equally unresponsive. I looked up the Tobago police department phone number and was about to call them when another text came in. This time from Rob. I don’t mind telling you, his message concerned me even more than I had been with Tony. He appeared to be completely rattled by whatever they were going through.

“Dude. The creepy things watching our bungalow from the jungle are definitely NOT human. I know how that sounds but they can slither up the trees like a freakin snake. We’ve called the cops a dozen times but they’ve been a no-show, so far. They advised us to stay inside under all circumstances, and keep quiet. The last couple times they refuse to even answer our call! It’s madness. Becca and Elisa are inconsolable. They were the first to see them leering at us through the window. Tony grabbed a mop from the closet to try to scare them off but I reminded him of what the cops said. Maybe the big lug will keep his ass in the house. You know him. He thinks he’s Superman or something.”

Rob was definitely the more level headed of the pair. It seemed like he was keeping his wits about him, but the way he described the stalkers in the jungle as being serpent -like made my skin crawl. I worried the locals might’ve slipped something into their drinks to rob them. When I tried to call their phones, it wouldn’t go through. A recording informed me the intended recipients ‘were not equipped to send or receive international calls’. Cell coverage was apparently limited to person-to-person on the island. Fortunately texts would go through using the resort WiFi service.

If Tony resorted to brandishing a mop handle as a threat deterrent, then they had no significant weapons. I was engrossed in their ongoing drama from a couple thousand miles away, but unable to offer any real help. They were essentially on their own. All I could do was text moral support and calming words, from afar.

“Alvin, we’re fully surrounded in this glorified native hut, right beside the swamp.”; Becca revealed. “Rob and Tony are keeping a lookout from the windows. We have the lights out so they can’t see inside. The reptilian creatures have yellowish eyes and slitted pupils. It’s like seeing an unholy demon from Danté’s Inferno on the other side of the glass. There’s not a trace of humanity in them! No emotion on their monstrous, leathery faces. They slither and flex their sinewy bodies in the nearby tree branches to intimidate us. Despite the danger lurking in this godforsaken hellhole, Tony keeps threatening to go out there and ‘kick their asses!’ What a moron! He just doesn’t get it. Elise can’t talk any sense into him either, and the damn island cops here are useless.”

I messaged her back immediately but struggled to find anything helpful to say. I didn’t have any real-world experience dealing with a jungle full of ‘snake men’ intimidating tourists at ‘The Underworld’. The situation was so surreal, I wondered if they were under the influence of some potent hallucinogenic drug and actually seeing spider monkeys in the woods. That would’ve made more sense than an army of serpent ghouls dangling from tree limbs in Tobago. Despite the bizarre optics, the four of them clearly believed what they were telling me. I was convinced of that.

“Did you jam kitchen chairs under the doorknobs like they always do in the movies?”; I suggested to Rob. “The dining room should have some knives in the drawer.”

His quick answer implied they had fortified the bungalow as much as possible with the items they had at their disposal. No sooner than I’d sent my pointless tips to him, a message came in from Elise. She is one of those phonetic texters who uses acronyms and abbreviations. Under the duress of also being surrounded by yellow-eyed ‘snake folk’, you could imagine the syntax police having a field day.

“Alvin we r under attack!!! They r gettin closer. T an Ro said they are outside house now OMG. I’m soooo terrified im never coming back if we make it out”

She also included a half-dozen frightened emojis and cartoon ‘poop’. Presumably ‘it’ was scared out of her. I felt beyond helpless. My best friends in the world were enduring some hideous, supernatural fever-dream and I couldn’t do a thing about it.

An hour passed while I gnawed my bloody fingernails to the quick. Several follow-up messages went unanswered. I didn’t know what to think. Had the menacing entities in the Tobago jungle breached their cottage? Had my terrified pals been carried off to the ACTUAL underworld by zombified corpses liberated from their graves? The human imagination is a powerful thing and with no input or feedback to keep it securely on the rails, things can drift far, far afield. My thoughts went to terrible places. After an eternity of silence passed, Tony finally messaged me back.

“Whatever those dark, slithery things are, they are closing in on us. They’ve crept even closer now. They’re no longer attempting to hide in the jungle fog any longer. I can see them clearly in the moonlight. Let me tell you now, they aren’t any know species of living creature! Only dark voodoo could summon something evil like them from the depths of hell. They’ve started scratching and clawing on the door and walls to torment us. I don’t know how long I can hold them off. Alvin, it’s been real, Bro! Tell my family I”

The message ended abruptly, as if he sent it in an urgent hurry. I never got a response from him after that. Texts sent to the others were equally met with silence. iMessage stated they were ‘delivered’, but not ‘read’. I knew what that meant. My stomach sank. In frustration, I frantically called each of them in hopes it might go through, but I got the same automated error message from before. It was utterly hopeless.

Despite it being 2:30 AM, I called Rob’s Mom. I didn’t know what I was going to say, but she needed to know they were in mortal danger. She could reach out to the international authorities to do an inquiry into their safety. I need not have worried about waking her up, though. She answered immediately. She’d been getting ‘play-by-play’ details about the horrifying saga from Rob, the whole time. We compared notes. She too had been advised about the alarming ‘Caribbean Voodoo snake cult’ lurking in the ‘underworld’ woods.

“I’ve already been in contact with the other parents.”; She confessed while sobbing. “We’re going to fly down there first thing tomorrow morning, and demand they do a wellness check. We’ll get to the bottom of this horrific madness.”; She assured me. There was a lingering tremor in her voice which spoke of how frightened she was.

I felt a sense of relief that they were going there to investigate. Obviously I was still on edge, but there was only so much I could do as a non-relative. I sent at least a dozen more texts but all of them were left ‘unread’. Had the serpent zombies breached the door? I had no idea what to believe about the current status of my friends but things appeared pretty grim. I was on pins and needles for the next couple days as repeated follow-up messages went unanswered.

A firm knock on the front door, early the next morning startled me. I staggered out of bed and pulled it open. There stood Tony, Elise, Becca, Rob, and his Mom; all grinning from ear to ear. Tony held up a colorful T-Shirt with the words ‘Visit Tobago!’ emblazoned on it. He handed it to me while my early morning audience roared in unison at my perplexed expression.

As it turns out, their collective text saga was an intricately orchestrated ruse! They did it to give me a vicarious adventure because I’d decided to skip the trip. They really got me. I’d been the inadvertent catalyst for the elaborate prank because I made an offhand joke about them needing to avoiding voodoo dolls and zombies. Touché. Rob’s Mom was in on it too. They figured I’d call her since she was the only parent whose number I knew. It was masterful in its planning and execution. Revisiting the beginning narrative of this story, my best friends went to ‘The Underworld’ (and all I got was this anticlimactic T-Shirt).

Every object in the universe has its own unique threshold and breaking point. The frequency range required to surpass that tolerance depends on individual factors specific to the item. Ella Fitzgerald could shatter a wine glass with her incredible singing voice and dynamic pitch. Soldiers circling the ancient city of Jericho were able to crumble its formidable walls and raze it to the ground by blowing their trumpets in unison.

Anything can be destroyed by using the precise frequency and vibrations needed to achieve what is known as 'the oblivion frequency’. ANYTHING. Using the exact aural range, an object begins to deteriorate at the molecular level. The looming question on many people's minds might be: "What practical reason would anyone have to destroy something with focused sound waves? That's an academic quandary better left to philosophers and theologians, right?

The important point to this narrative is, a well-funded team of scientists and engineers were investigating the prospects of using projected sound as a ‘super weapon’. Not just to blast at high volume. That’s old-school, two-dimensional thinking. They went about cataloging ‘oblivion frequency’ ranges for common objects. Why? You know the reason. To bring doom and destruction to 'the enemy'!

It is always that.

In the field of modern warfare, it's important to never look back. Ethics aside, the advantage of any weapon is short lived. The technology is soon understood and then copied by all. Explosives are a medieval invention. Chemical weapons have been around for over a century, and nuclear power were about to enter the antiquated age of old technology, as well. Using targeted sound waves as a focused weapon appeared to be the next big area of focus. I was the bureau chief for a top-secret agency, and directed my people in weaponry research to do just that.

The threat of artificial Intelligence misuse and maintaining deep cyber security protocols were of paramount importance to us, back when we still had separate counties and different laws. Inversely, to breach another nation's security infrastructure and manipulate their network was a key initiative for our division, and every other country. With the obliteration ranges for countless things studied and cataloged, my scientists sought to expand our deadly arsenal by identifying the most illusive and vulnerable items to exploit. Despite our deliberate efforts to do just that, even the most jaded bureaucrat in the world like me didn’t expect what they discovered.

When presented with their initial report, I didn’t believe what I read! It was genuinely terrifying. Worse than that, there was no ‘putting the genie back in the bottle’. I green-lit the team’s research budget and gave them the authority for self-autonomy. After implying ‘the sky was the limit’ on whatever space-age pipe-dreams they developed, it was too late for me to demand that they pull back on the creative reins.

The damned fools had isolated the obliteration frequently for the Earth itself! In their burning quest to develop the most powerful weapon possible to use against potential threats and enemies abroad, they’d stumbled upon the precise recipe to destroy the entire planet! I didn’t think I needed to specify that any technology which blew up our mutual home, would be pointless and ‘overkill’. Apparently greater articulation was necessary with my engineering eggheads, but it couldn’t be undone.

They couldn’t exactly pretend to not know what they’d discovered. It had to be presented to the war council, but on what occasion could this newly developed research be used? It was an absolute doomsday scenario to initiate and carry out! There was no practical use for it, whatsoever. No one ‘wins! if everyone ‘looses’. I said as much in my follow-up report to the team, but was given a surprisingly pragmatic response to my critical feedback.

One of the lead designers of the technology deadpanned: “In the event the Earth is ever invaded by hostile extraterritorials, it is important to prevent the world from being taken over.”

“Are you saying you’d destroy the entire planet, just to keep another species from taking over?”; I asked incredulously.

I could hardly believe my ears at the time. It seemed preposterous to think that way. Then, the more I considered his glib response, the more I realized it wasn’t such an outrageous position to hold at all. Why should we as the dominant species, care what happened to our planet if we were eliminated? As selfish as it might’ve been from a philosophical point of view, we weren’t about to share OUR Earth with aliens who dared to invade it and kill us. They would possibly wipe out other species as well.

With that blasé, human-centric mindset, I forwarded the report, up the chain of command. In the zeal to prepare for whatever contingencies arose, it was just one more theoretical weaponry brief to be added to the defense department’s collection of endless records. I never expected it to considered or utilized. Who would? I assumed it would be skimmed by top brass for strategic plausibility; and then squirreled away in a row of filing cabinets. It, along with thousands of other hypothetical scenario reports at the Pentagon would never scrutinized by human eyes again.

I was wrong about that, as you’ll soon come to realize. About six years later, ‘They came’. There was no ambiguity about their intentions. We fought them together as a unified world with conventional military weapons, but they only had a superficial effect. Then several of superpower partners unveiled their top secret cache of unconventional weapons. They were technologically impressive, and we were secretly relieved they weren’t ever used on our country before the international alliance. Sadly, they too had little effect on the invading aliens.

A secret meeting was held between the cabal of nations that hadn’t fallen yet. The assessment for the future was beyond bleak. At the current rate of unit casualties, the Global Security Forces predicted the end of humanity would happen in less than two weeks. Someone ‘at the very top’ elected to reveal the doomsday obliteration plan we’d developed years earlier.

I had no official knowledge of it being bandied about mind you; but I feared in the back of my mind it might be coming. We’d reached the end of all survivable forms of warfare. It was time. Most forms of communication had been destroyed in their efforts to isolate us. Major cities were in ruin. Corpses littered the street. Our food and clean drinking water sources had been strategically poisoned; and the savage, merciless way they executed people without exception or pity drew out our fiercest retaliatory anger. Having our backs up against the wall motivated us like nothing else could.

Despite our chances of survival rapidly circling the drain, we weren’t about to adopt ‘orderly disposal’ and wish them well. The official decision was eventually made to implement the ‘Omega Frequency Protocol’. Our situation had deteriorated to full-thermonuclear war, without the actual nuclear warheads. Once the OFP was enacted, the lingering hope was to destroy every single one of them in the process of obliterating ourselves and planet Earth.

I felt the initial vibration that morning. It was somewhat subtle at first, but exponentially grew in sonic intensity. By then I knew what was coming, but feeling the precise frequency of doom shook me to the very core. Far more than the actual vibration itself, was the emotional impact of ‘knowing’. Feeling the end approaching was both terrifying and strangely soothing. If they didn’t ‘win’, then by delusional extension, we wouldn’t ‘lose’. I smiled bitterly and prepared for the moment when everything would disintegrate.

The very roots of my teeth began to rattle and hum from the potent tone. Then my inner eardrums popped and ached. Cracks appeared in concrete. A low rumble in the core of the Earth radiated upward to the embattled surface. Remembering the scientific details from years earlier, I knew we were approaching a critical juncture where the focus of the frequency would reach its breaking point. In this case, the very Planet beneath our feet. It wouldn’t be much longer.

Without explanation, the obliteration frequency stopped! For the briefest of moments I wondered if life had ended and I was hallucinating, or if they had intercepted our subsonic, kamikaze broadcast. I was filled with seething rage at being denied final revenge. The gnawing numbness of wanting all terrestrial life destroyed, but realizing I was still alive, was impossible to describe. A selfish part of me was grateful for the brief, unexplained reprieve but my primal instinct to survive was outweighed by the far greater concerns looming in the air.

Had they prevented the OFP from ruining their invasion and takeover of the planet? Or, had humanity ended the countdown to extinction for some reason? That was the question, but no one outside the inner-sanctum of government decision makers knew the answer to it. That is, until the official record was declassified and revealed to the exhausted public.

According to the statement circulated worldwide through the remaining communications grid, their attacks stopped because of a ‘secret weapon’ we’d utilized against them. Their unrelenting bombardment of the surface ceased as a direct result of this advanced ‘tool’. There was no mention of the severe downside of completing the last-ditch maneuver, or it being a freakin’ doomsday device which would’ve completely destroyed the Earth! For morale raising reasons, that was widely omitted.

I had to smile at the discreet employment of ‘spin’ and patriotic propaganda in the press release. The majority of people had no idea how close we came to becoming lifeless dust in the cold expanse of space. I think humanity was just so happy to escape extinction that they didn’t bother asking details or ‘how’.

The massive alien vessels reportedly left before the critical obliteration point was reached. We spooked them. They were observed leaving the solar system via our observatory sources and high-tailing it away. Hopefully they’ll return to wherever they came from and stay there; but I wouldn’t count on it. I guess we called their bluff for the moment. Regardless, they’ll be back at some point, for round two. You can count on that.

Boy, am I glad I filed that weapons brief with the Department of Defense despite the misgivings I had at the time. The eggheads saved our asses. We’d better get to work on developing more advanced technology for when they return. Maybe we can isolate their own unique frequency and target their species, specifically. That would be infinitely smarter than ‘throwing out the baby with the bathwater’. We gotta fight smarter. Drastic threats and poker bluffs only work once.

Yes, the crowds were cheering. The gods of thunder were a choir of wordless prayers to the imaginary force of fairness. Just imagine a wave, like on a high school bleacher with a hundred people on it, but each person is about two thousand people all wearing their seating districts' browns. Such a wave actually generates a breeze that, well butterfly effect, certainly matters.

It's seismic in scale, a mega arena. With almost a million seats, and an entire city of services built around it, the Court of High Decision rocks any petty supreme court or even the sway of childish emperors, makes democracy into a dumpsterfire and the House of Lords an outhouse (by comparison to its sheer scale and the magnitude of its influence). You see, our great grand babies are all one people, cool and all, but the final choice for any new global law is decided here, in this great chamber of choice.

Would man fight man, to decide the outcome? Sometimes they do, it's called war. But when the natural law applies, it must be nature that decides. Or something like that, anyway. I wouldn't agree with the fast-and-loose definition of nature our descendants go with.

In one corner we have this creature brought back from the prehistoric times when cave bears could chew on dinosaur jerky they found thawing in the cataclysmic glaciers. It is about fifteen percent elephant and nearly seventy percent mastodon. It has killed a lot of stock mules, every day it is encouraged, well, he is encouraged, to drive the mules from his food and sometimes he catches them and kills them. He is a total brute, weighing in at seven and a half tons, we have the red bull elephant - representing the decision not to pass a law that will decriminalize crimes committed against former criminals.

Things get scary when we look into the other corner, where there's a pack of trained mules, blue jacks, genetically engineered donkey and horse hybrids with something wrong with them. They are ferocious, psychotic and murderous creatures that have trained for years to kill elephants with their bites and kicks. They work in tandem, distracting it and avoiding its tusks and getting trampled. What might have seemed an easy victory for the red bull elephant is not-so-much when we review the footage of stock mammoths getting chased, cornered and butchered by the blue jacks.

The feral donkeys represent a decision to pass a law that decriminalizes any crimes committed against former criminals. To make it worse, even if the red bull elephant somehow wins against the pack of trained elephant killers, an appeal may be applied for. There is one way out of this horror, however. Specifically, an older law governs the creation of new laws and an appeal may only be applied after a decision is reached. It's the basis for everything.

So, our would-be terrorists have devised a weapon that will disrupt the relativity of time in the mega arena. It would stop any sequence, causing the battle to be locked in a permanent stalemate. And remember, until a decision is reached, the battle ends, then no new appeal can be filed for, so this one particularly worst law of all time never happens.

It all started, for me, when I was called to the side of the park where I work. I was responding to a call for first aid, although when I got there, it was so much worse. Luckily, paramedics were already on their way. I spotted what appeared to be a Mickey Mouse-eared cap made of fur and full of strawberry jelly.

A man was sitting holding his dripping wrist in shock. I put on a tourniquet, noting his soundless gaze. Then I saw the remains of someone in the tall grass and one twitching dog leg.

I stared in surprise and then gagged in horror as I realized the dead body in the uniform of a Nazi-styled security guard outfit was only half, split right down the middle. It collapsed and became a steaming mess that made me throw up at the sight and stench of it.

"What happened?" I tried to ask the survivor.

The fear in his eyes was like a sickness, infecting my very soul. I staggered back and felt my world tumbling away from me - or me from it. I landed on the other side of some shimmering basement with corridors and luminescent lighting and wires and plumbing exposed above me where I stared at the ceiling. I got up, dazed and looked back at the survivor.

Then he was gone and there was just a brick wall. My hand found the survivor's hand holding the wet and sticky leash and I lifted it slowly and found the missing part of the severed dog. I gasped in horror and then saw the man who was cut directly in half, or the other half, that is. I groaned in horrified shock and then got to my feet, trembling. I started walking away from the carnage, totally disoriented.

I was stopped by a shouting security guard with a strange-looking white rifle pointed at me. It looked like it was made of some kind of ceramic or plastic, but the threat in his voice was clear. He aimed it at me and I put up my hands.

Then, as I stared into his surprised eyes, seeing me from outside of his known world, evidently, in my attire and presence, he asked me, inching towards me:

"What are you lost down here from some show? What's that you're wearing?" He asked me.

I was wearing my normal clothes and boots I worked in. He had the Nazi-looking security guard uniform.

"I was working, in the park, and fell in here somehow. Are we underground?" I asked.

"I'll ask the questions." He directed me to turn around against the wall.

Just then I heard a sound like a chipmunk sneezing and then it repeated twice more. I turned and looked and saw the security guard's gun had a huge glowing hole in it and his chest had two holes in it that I could see directly through. Then his head exploded right where he stood staring at me in complete surprise and shock in his eyes.

I blinked and then fell to the floor and screamed "No!" and shielded myself. I was so terrified that I closed my eyes, shielding myself with my arms over my face.

"Who're you?" A celebrity voice asked me. I looked up and saw a scantily dressed person with all sorts of colorful buttons and feathers and rainbow dreadlocks. They held a similar weapon to the one the headless guard had.

I tried to get away, crawling desperately down the corridor.

"Come on, get up. I'm not agroed or nothing. Don't you get it? I'm Chimmy, that's why this sells." The celebrity said to me with a lot of odd inflections.

"Chimmy?" I blinked, worried about the weapon the celebrity was waving around, occasionally pointing at me. "I don't know where I am. What is happening?" my voice was subdued and trembling with fear of what I had gotten into.

"This is Mega Arena Sigma, the biggest and greatest court on the planet. You must be, uh, not from around here." Chimmy spoke slowly and plainly, like someone who is trying to be easier to understand for someone with English as a second language.

"I fell in here." I stammered.

"You fell through time itself friend. One of our temporal isolation dislocating element devices, or what we call TIDED, was somehow set off too early and it also malfunctioned. Sorry, you went through it, at least you weren't standing there when it happened. That's why these guys are all shredded-bad." Chimmy gave me some exposition, which I couldn't comprehend.

"Can I go home?" I asked.

"Well, probably. I am going to try and fix the TIDED. We sorta need it." Chimmy went over to it and started working on it. While it was getting its manual diagnostic which was composed mostly of a screwdriver, but also involved a hologrammatic schematic with some kind of computer assisting in finding the problems in the device, Chimmy told me the rest.

"Well?" I asked, worried about getting trapped in the destruction of the Mega Arena that Chimmy had described to me.

"We can only use this once. If you help, you'll be transported home. Our goals align." Chimmy told me.

"This is a nightmare." I proclaimed.

"No time for dreaming." Chimmy laughed at me.

"What do I do?" I shuddered, worried about the strangeness and unknown dangers I would face.

"You'll have to climb up to the next level and tell Skittles we're still on the countdown. Last time we could chat I had to tell everyone my position wasn't up." Chimmy told me.

I went to the hatch and opened it with trepidation. When I was climbing up, I realized what I'd gotten myself into. The ladder took me up an extensive shaft. At the top there was a functional utility chamber where I met Skittles.

"As a scientist, I can't just take your word that you time-traveled. It is theoretically impossible. We'd have to seek other possibilities before we went with time travel. That's just the mythology of Science Fiction. The real world is more a place for horror." Skittles told me.

"Never mind, that. What do I have to do next?" I asked. "If you succeed I could get back home."

"Well yes, if you were actually displaced by the initial activation of a TIDED. That's what I would expect." Skittles informed me.

"And that's coming from?" I worried.

"The world leading scientist in TIDED technology, since I invented it." Skittles grinned.

"So?" I shrugged.

"So, you'll need to go and tell everyone to continue with the countdown as planned. You can fix the same problem caused when you arrived here and the TIDED malfunctioned. We have radio silence now since Big Brother is listening for us."

"I'll do it. How many?" I asked. Skittles hesitated and then nodded and said:

"Eight more. You'll have to hurry. Harper is the next, at the northern base of the arena. You'll have to take this tunnel."

I followed the tunnel and found the priestess, Harper, and told her to keep with the countdown. She had her stopwatch going and showed me on the TIDED where an automatic trigger was set to go off a precise time, as long as the device was armed to that setting.

I got instructions to go to the school teacher, Wilt, at the top end of the mega arena, directly above her position at the base. I looked at the towering ladder and gulped in trepidation. I began to climb, sweating and my heart beating, vertigo blurring my vision when I looked down.

Near the top I stopped and nearly fell from fright. An electric arc curved up and under the dome, a powerful lightning bolt of static electricity. Another one arched off of it and continued along the wall as a visible blue wave of energy before it dissipated into a buttress the size of a skyscraper. I was nearly to Wilt's position and could see them there.

Suddenly I screamed in horror and nearly lost my grip. I had seen the flash of another bolt take Wilt and flash them so I could see the bones inside them as it strangled them in an electrocuting death where they stood. I wrapped my arms on the ladder and cried out and couldn't go on.

I held on there, looking at the empty platform. Then another arch moved along the steel girders and the ladder I was on was like a giant Jacob's Ladder and it was moving at high speed towards me. I panicked and clambered the rest of the way up the ladder to the catwalk and ran along it just as the arch hit the metal beams and threw sparks everywhere like a bright showering.

I set the TIDED to go off when it was supposed to and then I was forced to guess where I should go next. Strangely enough, I looked down at the arena below and could see the structural foundation was not a circle, but rather a diamond. I was at one tip of it. I looked across and in the distance, I could see a platform in the same elevation as mine, one at each end.

I guessed I could find my way to the mirrored positions somehow. I had no idea how massive the mega arena was, or what sort of horrors I would endure to cross it.

I reached the next position where the plague doctor wore a strange yellow dress. The aroma of vanilla and lavender permeated the air and the tattoo of the crowned wasp glowed in the dim light. The doctor was attentive to their device but drew and aimed a precaution at me, firing one shot to show quill-like needles bushed out where it was discharged.

"Wilt is gone, but the countdown continues." I told the doctor in the strange yellow dress.

"It is like we are all going to die. Have you thought of that?" the doctor asked me.

"I'm going home. You people can do whatever you want." I told them.

"Doctor Kcoh is home here, in this place, doing what is right." Dr. Kcoh told me.

Their position was compromised and the security guards in Nazi uniforms would arrive at any moment.

"The TIDED." I pointed out where Dr. Kcoh was hiding it. I went and switched it to its armed position, while Dr. Kcoh readied something of some ritual importance.

"Where there is smoke there is fire. You should get going. Tell the chef, Murrazza, that I went out in a blaze. We always share recipes." Dr. Kcoh held up a weird looking device and held it to their chest for a few seconds. It was like the room became hot, the heat coming from them.

"You're so hot." I told Dr. Kcoh

"Thanks, sweetie, now get going."

It felt hot down there, and the sound of security guards coming for us could be heard.

I fled the chamber and began another ascent up a second ladder. Below there were flames and screaming. I was crying from the awfulness of it, shaking and breathing as I went. My fear of the electric arcs kept me alert and moving until I reached the chef. I told him about what happened and to keep up the countdown.

"Take these drugs." Murazza told me. "They'll help with this."

The climb back down was almost too exhausting to bear. I took the drugs and felt my energy go back up after I reached the bottom. There I walked among a horror show of proportions.

The stench was like the farm section at the county fair, except if it were a hot summer day and the vents were all broken. I found the pilot, Libby, or what was left of her.

The four-armed green ape of environmental concerns had gotten ahold of her and broken her body to fit through the bars. The clover simian had played with her dead body until it got bored and then tossed her in a heap into one corner of its cage.

I nearly fainted when I saw all that, forgetting the mission and wanting to flee in terror. It was only the sight of the panda reaching with its prehensile tail that froze me in my tracks. It ignored me and acquired the corpse, pulling it towards its own cage. With its back to me, the panda began to eat, chewing and peeling loudly. Its tail swished oddly, the very long and powerful prehensile tail.

I found the TIDED and set it to go off on-time. I was leaving the menagerie of horror-animals when I was suddenly accosted by a handler of the creatures. I tried to get away, only to run into an override that was supposed to be tagged out, and bounced off the switch. I clambered to my feet and started climbing the utility ladder to the next platform.

The zoo attendant reached the base of the ladder and then noticed the broken tag out and the flipped switch, with a flashing red light indicating something. Suddenly out of nowhere, a machine of some kind got them. I gasped in dread, seeing them get cleaned by the unstable stable cleaner.

Along the way I found a node where someone had hacked into it and called me as I reached it on my climb. "Who are you? Where's Libby?

"I was just going to tell you to resume the countdown," I told the coach in the zebra-striped yoga suit and feather headdress. "I'm from the malfunction."

"Lucky it didn't turn you inside out. That'd be gruesome. Imagine everything in you bursting out of some split in your side and boiling out all over the place. That's a more probable outcome. So, you're lucky."

"I am. Seems luck is lite."

"Is Libby all right?"

"Libby is gone. I reset her device to go off."

"You'll have to tell Sprite and Drake. I can't call them, they aren't near nodes."

"I thought it was supposed to be radio silence." I said.

"Nobody told me that. Typical, for them to forget Asia." Asia said.

I climbed back down and went to the last base position.

There, in the lab, I found numerous dead security guards and scientists in lab coats, all with multiple cookie-cutter holes in them from one of those white guns, this one a little larger and smoother than the other two. The murderous librarian, in her kilt and Christmas sweater and steampunk goggles on her skullcap, had discarded the empty weapon on a table amidst the sizzling dead.

"Sprite?" I asked her.

She looked at me oddly and said:

"It's worse than it looks." Sprite told me. She'd rigged her TIDED under the main beam, directly over an open vat of bubbling petri stuff. She was sitting facing me where she'd gone out on a limb over that and balanced there to attach the device. Turning around, she'd gotten caught when the limb went limp and left her stranded out there. If she moved, it would collapse and drop her into the petri.

"You've got to reset the TIDED to go off on time." I told her.

She was sweating bullets of terror at her predicament.

"Know what that stuff does to a living body?" Sprite was gasping in fear.

I started feeling fear for her, second-hand.

"You're going to be fine." I told her.

"It's vibrating under me. The screws are all coming loose and wiggling." Sprite gulped.

She'd reset her device. I could do nothing for her.

"Throw me a line and you can take it up with you and secure it. I could swing across." Sprite showed she could think under pressure. It wasn't enough. Time was out.

The limb suddenly collapsed and dropped her into the ooze. She screamed and gurgled as it dissolved her alive, all the way to her bones and those like seltzer disintegrated amid foaming bubbles. I stared in horror and then I screamed in terror as some of the stuff that had splashed out had coalesced into one big blob that was quickly sliding towards me.

I felt my heart beating at a million miles an hour in nightmare fueled flight as I climbed. The stuff was trying to slither up the ladder, but as I climbed I lost it and it descended to form a puddle below me. I felt relieved and realized I had wet my pants in the terror.

I reached the last platform as it started to shake.

"The devices are going off and mine isn't!" Professor Drake exclaimed. He triggered his device, slightly out of sequence, shifting through some kind of neon landscape like the platform was a flying carpet.

The sign showed a huge cartoon character with a butt coming down on the professor, crushing him. I realized I had seen it through to the end, witnessing none of the killings by blue jacks, their abrasive whiplike tongues like cheese graters, skinning their prey alive. Nor the crushing embrace of the muscular trunk of an elephant's hug.

When I found myself again on the lawn of the park, it was moments before the man walking his dog was in the right place at the right time. I was in the clubhouse on the other side of the park just seconds earlier, and everyone who was in the room with me said they looked away at a flash and when they looked back I was gone.

I went over and asked the man if I could pet his dog and he said it was okay. So I pet the dog and there was a bit a rustling in the bush behind me as the half of a corpse arrived in our time. I knew it was there, nobody else had to see it.

"What a very nice dog." I told the nice man walking his dog and then I shook his hand and nodded and smiled.

"Well," He dismissed me and my odd behavior, "It's about that time."

No dispute. We had it wrong.

People were way off about a number of things in their raving predictions about the end of the world. Yes, the dead rose again from their graves, however they aren’t the frenzied, carnivorous ghouls we expected them to be. Uncoordinated staggering and slurred speech is definitely present as their greater motor-functions are affected, but the aggressive attempts to terrorize the living and tear us to shreds, is not how it is.

Essentially, the active dead (A.D. for short) occupy another classification of handicapped status. They are simply too dependent upon the living, to do anything beyond begging us for help. Yes, they still have material needs and as a protected class of mostly-homeless citizens, it’s up to the mostly apathetic public to look out for them.

You might think the end of the world and total collapse of civilization would bring about a full cessation of certain social niceties. That would definitely make sense but the official authorities in charge of Armageddon demand an orderly transition to absolute doom as we approach it. Some things will never change. Bureaucracy is known for its stubborn rigidity. Looting is limited to Thursday afternoon. Traffic citations are still issued, but lesser infractions are simply waved off. It’s really quite similar to pre-apocalypse times, but with a few less rules and more frequent road hazards.

I was lying awake, wondering why in the hell I still have to get up and go to work. What’s the point? As I pondered the redundancy of having an alarm clock at the end of the world, I heard the distinctive sound of my front door knob rattle. I went from a drifting drowsy state, to fully awake instantly. It’s not like crime or home invasions ceased. If anything, they occur more frequently now but I was ill prepared for an unexpected standoff with an essential-resource stealing bandit.

Then I heard the lumbering. The thud of uncoordinated footfalls. Either my intruder was drunk, stoned, or A.D. It was up to me to determine which one. In the darkness, and ‘in the heat of battle’, it can be difficult to ascertain. Legally, I could blast drunken thieves but the active dead are protected by law. If you think that being convicted of home invasion manslaughter was bad before the collapse of civilization, just try mounting a legal defense now over splattering a homeless zombie!

I shouted for whomever it was in my hallway to ‘scram’, but there was no response. I silently cursed myself for not locking the back door before I went to bed. The A.D. still know how to open doors so I couldn’t just open fire. I fumbled with the lamp switch. When my fingers made contact, I turned the knob and struggled to adjust to the instant flash of bright light. My ‘uninvited guest’ stood there timidly at the doorway threshold, but by then I had my answer. His wafting stench of decay reached my nostrils, long before I was able to see him.

“Itssss verrrryyyy cccccoooollldddd. Mayyyy IIIIIII craaaaawwwlll innntooo beddd wiiiithhh yooooooouuu?”

I don’t need to tell anyone how much I did not want to share my home and bed with a rancid A.D., but the law is the law. If my corpse visitor reported me to the compliance bureau, I’d lose my weekly stipend. I didn’t want to lose my Cheetos and Beer. That would turn my boring and awful existence to devastating. I did insist on spraying his festering skin with deodorant and wrapping him in an old sheet first, but honestly it did very little to dissipate the stink.

He took my terms without complaint and climbed into the unused side of the bed like an eager, rotten-toothed beaver. I got the impression he just wanted to treated like a ‘human’ again. I did have to help him up onto the mattress, but other than that, I didn’t have any other problems from him. Well, except the sensation of feeling a decaying ‘flesh popsicle’ leaning against my body for warmth and body heat. I guess that’s what the dead crave most of all. You might not think it possible, but after a while, you stop noticing the smell. Mostly-ish. They call it ‘smell blindness’.

Just keep in mind, we were dead wrong about the apocalypse, if you can forgive the pun. Not only was it not televised. It also wasn’t expected to lead to ‘post-life-acceptance’; or (P.L.A.). I never thought I’d willingly invite a corpse to stay in my home but on the plus side, Carl doesn’t eat my food and is pretty good with a joke. That is if his dangling jaw doesn’t fall off during the punchline.

When they showed up, no one knew what to think. Sure, we were nervous. Who wouldn't be, but the outright terror or wholesale panic you might expect from massive alien spaceships touching down on the planet wasn't generally present. The artificially calm sense of decorum the population felt was largely because ‘they’ presented themselves as 'benevolent advisors’.

You should always beware slithering, side-creeeping strangers who say they ‘came to help’. Don’t believe a word. It’s a damn lie.

The thing about a genuine mentor is, you can either accept or ignore their guidance. Once the directives became mandatory and were enforced without exception or mercy, the ‘friendly’ visit rapidly migrated into the nightmare realm of a full-on arachnid invasion. Some knew it was an oppressive occupation from the very beginning. Others hoped for the best; while the overwhelming majority of us clueless fools simply accepted the distasteful yoke of slavery in blissful denial. The immediate defeat of our ‘dominant’ species came without so much as a whimper.

They dissolved all government and military organizations first. Thats ‘invasion protocol 101’. Then they 'strongly discouraged' all forms of worship and organized belief systems involving 'higher powers or deities'. There was no need for any of that, they explained. We had THEM to praise and faithfully follow, without question. Mass gatherings for any reason were not allowed. The ‘Nebuli’ didn’t want organized dissension.

Only serving our newly assigned, officially-sanctioned ‘purpose’ was permitted. The needs of individuals, and independent thought in general were not entertained. As a matter of fact, ‘individuality’ as a concept was ‘discouraged’ in the absolute harshest of terms. I’m sure I don’t need to spell out what that means but basically, the few rogues and nonconformists who dared to stand up to them were made examples for mockery in the public domain. Civil disobedience and failed activism were violently quashed as a stark visual lesson for other potential troublemakers to witness. You get the picture.

Our interstellar ‘heroes’ shrewdly pointed to the fact that all wars and sectarian violence had ceased since their arrival. Overcrowding, crime, and hunger had been eliminated too. On the surface, it was hard to argue with these ‘slippery, selfless saviors’ from afar. Of course, with ‘freedom-of-speech’ being a fading facet of the past, arguing wasn't exactly possible any longer to debate the pros and cons. That only served to validate their point and justify the mercurial, authoritarian regime. To them, the complete elimination of our free will and personal choice in day-to-day matters was the ‘perfect solution' to end all of our problems.

The amount of physical force used to control us was surprisingly minimal. They didn't have to. They used just enough ‘shock and awe’ for people to know they could unquestionably ‘compel’ us to comply. 'The advisors' perfected psychological manipulation down to a science. Like obedient little subjects groveling for praise from our creepy, side-stepping overlords, we self-policed ourselves to the point they didn't have to raise a wooly, octopus-like tentacle.

————

I don’t want to paint myself as some ‘brave leader of the Nebuli resistance’. I wasn’t. I was a chicken-shit coward like every other person with common sense. I didn’t want to be zapped by one of their ‘death-ray’ guns, or sent away for ‘behavioral reprogramming’. Like every reluctant ‘upstart’ who led an insurgent revolution, I just got pushed too far one day and felt the uncontrollable desire to fight back. History is littered with examples of fools like me who dared to say ‘enough’.

As a rudimentary rule of thumb, a person would be smart to avoid making waves or calling too much attention to themselves. Specifically, it was very wise (under the unique circumstances) to avoid eating crab legs, calamari, or smushing a spider in public. Initially, I didn’t make the connection. Mistakes like that caught their attention in ways which did not lead to positive interactions AT ALL. Perhaps they were distant ‘relatives’. Que sera sera. I learned that and a number of painful lessons from this ugly experience, the HARD way.

There was no real variation in how they verbalized things to us because they used a generic digital vocoder to simulate human speech. I swear, it must’ve been sampled from the 1970’s disco hit: ‘Funkytown’. As if their startling visual appearance wasn’t alarming enough on its own, imagine the mechanically-tinged verbal communication! It was an effective one-two punch of ‘nah, I’m outta here!’

While they bore no significant humanoid features, they did possess a certain level of unique ‘personality’. I always avoided direct eye contact with their compound optic receptors. It was too difficult to focus without an obvious place to gaze. Thats not to say I didn’t watch them closely. I did. I noticed they would emit a hissy little squeak of displeasure when they were uncomfortable or highly agitated. It was hard to miss that telling quirk of their behavior, and I made a mental note to investigate and study it more.

Just imagine a room-filled with five-foot-tall ‘King Crab-Octopus’ hybrids with gangly, spider legs! They would swoop around the room to intimidate people and clank their shells together noisily, in a display of flamboyant power. They would first declare their ‘benevolence’ in the heavily digitized ‘robot voice’, while simultaneously ‘correcting’ a person for eating an ‘Admiral’s feast’ at a popular seafood restaurant chain.

As you might’ve guessed, I was the poor slob who was ‘corrected’. There I was, breaking a crab leg in-half when they scurried in and began pulsating in an apparent fit of ferocious rage! Before I knew what hit me, I was given a potent ‘attitude adjustment’ for my unknown transgression. It was a powerful lesson to learn, I’ll say that. And by ‘correct’, I mean they tortured me mercilessly with a severe, headache-inducing pain device which brought tears to my eyes, and numbed my extremities for hours. All for eating their ‘cousin’.

If that’s not clear enough regarding how intimidating and ruthless they were, two or three of their pods held arcane technology to vaporize us. To make matters worse, it was nothing for them to dart sideways around a corner, and then rapidly climb straight up the wall, or scramble across the ceiling overhead! It was madness inducing to realize how agile and spry they were. There was no way to outrun them. That much was clear. I decided the only hope was to try to outwit them.

Perhaps they believed their deluded ‘savior’ nonsense. That would explain their indignant reaction to the revolt I organized, later on. Describing the Nebuli race as ‘shifty’ would’ve been an understatement. At least we could hear the joints of their exoskeleton creak and flex. Because of that ‘Achilles heel’, they couldn’t sneak up on us easily. If someone created a Nebuli joint lubricant to quieten their mobility, we would’ve never fought back in ‘the great mothball uprising’.

—————

The most critical piece of intel about the Nebuli came purely by accident, as these things sometimes do. Upon a routine production inspection of the factory where I’d been assigned to work, their agent exhibited the most visceral reaction imaginable to the ordinary mothballs we produce in the plant. I thought the agitated alien inspector was going to melt like a slug doused with salt! It was rapturously drawn to the palm sized object like a newly discovered treasure, or a moth lured to a flame.

Despite having a manic obsession with it, the noxious chemical makeup was obviously very toxic to the cleric. I saw no reason we couldn’t produce a large production run of beachball-sized ‘Nebuli-ball’ prototypes for our ‘sincere protectors’ to ‘play’ with. That’s where the idea came from and the revolution was born.

The basic plan was to lure as many of them as possible to the warehouse, and then spring the massive trap on them. With any luck, they would react exactly the same way with the scaled up version, as the smaller ones. After seeing the poorly designed, long shot idea spelled out here, it’s no wonder I am not a brilliant military strategist, but the ‘hare-brained’ scheme worked better than anyone could’ve imagined or hoped. I take full credit for all of my successes, no matter how much they might not be deserved.

Their top leaders came to the fake exhibition and we unleashed dozens of the massive chemical weapons on them in rapid succession. It was fascinating to watch it unfold. They tried to scurry away in mortal terror but somehow the noxious substance drew them like a magnet. In just a few seconds, they were wrapped tightly around the balls and rapidly dissolved by the caustic chemical compound.

I couldn’t begin to explain why it worked, but in the end I didn’t need to. Superman has his Kryptonite and the Nebuli obviously have their mothballs. They couldn’t resist them, and yet it was deadly. It actually cooked their soft tissues and left their hard shells hollowed out and smoking like they’d just been tossed into a boiling pot. The icing on the cake was witnessing their dying squeals. That, and no longer having to hear those damn ‘funkytown’ vocoders.

After sharing my secret weapon with others who had been ‘corrected’ across the world, they successfully pulled off the same operation a few dozen times like I had. The remaining survivors unfortunately grew wise to the ruse. They refused to be lured in to any more mothball ambushes, but by then, the Nebuli were so outnumbered and demoralized by our insolence that they decided to leave Earth for ‘greener pastures’. Let them ‘save’ another developing species from their own excess, greed, and carnal vices.

—————

“Why are you ungrateful natives rebelling against our moral guidance and assistance?”; They demanded for me to respond. I mocked them as they shook and rattled in defiant fury.

“We’ve improved the human quality of life a hundred fold!”

I relished hearing their squeaks of displeasure, but was careful to display no external awareness. I didn’t know how familiar they had become with human body language, and didn’t want to receive another ‘parting shot’ ‘correction’, as they disembarked.

——————

That’s the completely true story of how we (eventually) cast off the enslavement yoke of ‘benevolent stewardship’ by octopus-spider-crab-walking space aliens with monotone vocoders. Slowly, we became self-reliant and free once again. At least, as much as humanity could muster after going back to having global wars, corruption, violence, poverty, hunger, and deadly diseases.

The original yoke of human failings and self-induced hardships around our necks returned. At least that one is all ours. The simple pleasures in life are back. Now we can enjoy a plate of steamed crab legs with an enhanced sense of appreciation. Live and learn. Now get to cracking!

My name is Susan, and I was in the foster care system since I was about 2.5/3 years old. I was adopted at 6, and my very first memory is crying into my aunt's arms asking why I couldn't just go live with her when I found out I'd be moving to my (now parents) home. She was gentle about explaining it, telling me that back before my parents had died she'd broken some laws, and she wasn't allowed to. Life moved on, I got adopted and my now parents did everything they could to keep me in contact with my aunt.

When I was about 10 or 11 my aunt finished her probation, got her own place and started letting me come over. We'd get our nails done, go shopping, try new restaurants...I knew she was working her ass off to spoil me, and truth be told, it made me feel special. Like I had three parents who'd do anything for me.

At 16 I got the "full" story from my aunt. She'd gotten into some pretty hard drugs as a teenager, got busted for possession a few times and theft once. Then my parents died. My dad was her brother, and as much as his death wrecked her, being told she couldn't adopt me was the kick in the ass she needed to get clean and stay clean, but she always thought it was too little too late...even if I did end up in an amazing family.

I'm 22 now, and a couple months ago I got a random DM from a podcaster. They told me they'd done some...not so legal things to track me down, but they did it to inform me they were covering "my story" on their show, and wanted to know if I had anything I wanted to say, or any details left out. I honestly thought there'd been a mix up somewhere, and wrote them back saying that my parents died in a car accident and there wasn't really a story to tell. I was over at my aunt's house this weekend and told her about it in passing, joking that I hoped they hadn't spent any actual money to track "that girl" down.

My aunt went pale and told me to sit down. Then she laid it all out for me:

I wasn't her niece. We weren't related, at all, and we didn't even meet until the day I went into foster care. The people she told me were my parents really were her brother and his wife, but they died childless...my story, our story was so much worse than that.

At 17, she really did fall into a bad crowd. Painkillers were her drug of choice, and by 19 she had the wrapsheet she told me about when I was 16. She was out on bail, running around some middle class suburb, grabbing anything that wasn't nailed down to pawn. She managed to Jimmy open a window and get inside my biological mother's house, taking every piece of jewelry and electronic she could find.

She said she'd never be able to explain why, but she went to the basement. She didn't think there'd be anything worthwhile down there, but she just had to go check it out. It was dark, dingy and unfinished. There was the normal junk: old furniture, out of season decorations... and a dog kennel, pushed into a corner and half covered by an old blanket. She was just about to go back up stairs when the "dog" shuffled around.

My aunt's always had a soft spot for animals, so she went to let the poor little guy out and found...me. I'll spare you the gory details but safe to say, I was a mess. And my aunt...she didn't even think, she called 911 right there. I've since heard the call, and oddly, the thing that sticks out to me the most is her screaming, "I AM BREAKING INTO THIS HOUSE. I AM ROBBING THEM. I DON'T FUCKING KNOW THE ADDRESS" until they traced the call.

According to the reports I've seen, she didn't leave my side the whole time. She waited with me until the police kicked down the door, and cut the lock off the kennel, she testified against my mother, even without immunity, and promised her that she'd never see me again...

The last week of my life has been utter chaos, but throughout everything, all I can say is...thank God I have her in my life