I wake up early, every day, to my routine. Coffee brews, and the radio plays softly. The station—96.7 FM—is familiar and predictable. The DJs laugh, and the music flows. But one thing always stands out.

Every morning, they pause. Then, they say a name.

“David Miles,” they might say. It’s quick, out of place. They don’t explain. Afterward, the show continues, normal as ever.

I never thought much about it. Maybe it was a joke or a community announcement. The names meant nothing to me—until this morning.

As I poured coffee, I waited. The pause came. Then, I heard it:

“Rebecca Gray.”

My hand went cold. I managed to catch the cup as it tilted slightly. My entire name echoed around the kitchen. As if the air itself had stopped, the moment dragged on heavily.

The station went on. Then came typical, happy weather updates. However, I was unable to let it go. I felt like I was being watched, and my chest clenched. Why my name? Why now?

The sensation persisted. My mind was all over the place at work. I kept hearing the voice on the radio. The hours passed slowly, and at last, I went home. My sanctuary, the apartment, seemed different. Long stretches of shadow were accompanied by a dense, deafening quiet.

By 10 PM, I gave in. Something pushed me—urged me—to turn on the radio again. I hesitated, but my fingers moved. Static buzzed, then music returned, slower than usual. The rhythm unsettled me. My breathing quickened.

A pause interrupted the song. I braced myself.

“Rebecca Gray,” the voice said again.

This time, it was sharper. The sound felt closer, like it wasn’t just in the radio. I froze, waiting, listening. The air turned colder. My pulse pounded in my ears.

Then, the knocking started.

It was soft, tapping on the window. My head snapped toward the sound. Nothing was there. I held my breath. The tapping came again, louder this time.

With my pulse pounding, I edged closer. Outside, the grass was covered in the shadows cast by the swaying trees. There was no one, yet the wind whispered. Still, the knocking persisted, steady and insistent.

I stepped back. My legs felt weak. The room darkened, though the lights remained on. The radio crackled, and I turned toward it instinctively.

“Rebecca Gray,” the voice hissed. This time, it didn’t feel human.

The wind howled louder, and the knocking turned to banging, violent and desperate. My chest tightened, and I backed away. The radio buzzed, the music distorting. Shadows seemed to shift, reaching toward me.

“Rebecca,” the voice said, softer now, almost gentle. “You’ve been called.”

The banging stopped. The silence was worse. My name echoed in my mind. I couldn't tell if the wind outside was real or if I was losing control as it shrieked. I fell to the ground when my legs gave out.

They had called me. And I wasn’t ready.

Recently, Sasha Jones was assigned a client who had not slept in twelve days. This young man Lucas Porter looks dead on his feet. His eyes are bloodshot, his skin pale, and his hands tremble as he reaches to shake hers. She frowns, greeting him with a nod and motioning for him to sit in her office. 

"Good morning, Lucas. My name is Sasha Jones. Your papers say you have been suffering from night terrors. Would you like to talk about it?"  

Lucas sat in the chair offered to him and looked up at Sasha with tired eyes. 

"Miss Jones, have you ever been scared of your dreams?" he asked. 

She kept a professional demeanor answering "Our dreams often mirror our deepest fears and desires. But the notion of them materializing is unheard of.”  

Lucas chuckled "What if those dreams become real?" 

"What do you mean Lucas?” 

"The night terrors, what if they are real?" 

Sasha leaned back in her chair, perplexed at what Lucas asked. She knew that dreams could never become reality. Yet, wondered if he had become schizophrenic due to the severity of the night terrors and lack of sleep. 

"Lucas, I believe we should do some psychological testing." 

Sasha put on her best smile and scribbled some notes on her notepad. Lucas scoffed and slapped his hands onto his knees a little too hard, causing the sound to make her jump in surprise. 

"I'm not schizophrenic. I know it sounds crazy, Miss Jones, but what I am telling you is true. My night terrors came to life." 

Came to life? 

"Would you elaborate?" 

Lucas looked over his shoulder at the door and scooted to the edge of his seat, lowering his voice, "I trapped him in my basement. If you're skeptical, come to my house tomorrow night, and I will show you he’s real." 

Sasha sighed "Very well. Our next meeting will be a home visit but Lucas you must understand that I will only do this once.” 

He nodded, sitting back in his seat, pressing his lips tightly together. 

After they ended their session, she wrote down an appointment card and handed it to Lucas, who accepted it. "I'll see you tomorrow night." she smiled and watched him leave her office. 

Just what had she gotten herself into? 

Sasha wanted to help him, but...The thought of him telling her that his night terrors became real was a great cause for concern. Lucas could be suffering from hallucinations. What if he kidnapped someone off the streets thinking they were a night terror and locked them up in his basement? 

She would most definitely have to get the police involved. 

Sasha followed the directions she was given to a cul-de-sac where Lucas lived. She parked her car in the driveway and stepped out of it being greeted by her client who looked just as tired as he did before. 

“Did you get any sleep?” 

“A little bit.” 

“A few minutes don’t count.” 

She scolded him and he stepped aside for her to walk inside. Sasha pressed the button on the recorder. Just in case she thought to herself as Lucas closed the door and walked around her to lead the way to the basement. He opened the door and led the way down “Whatever you do don’t believe his lies. If he were to get lose there is no telling what he would do.” 

Sasha nodded and followed behind Lucas. At the bottom of the stairs in the middle of the room was a man tied to a wooden chair his head bowed. Her first reaction was to run over and check on him, but an outstretched arm stopped her. 

“Don’t get too close.” her client warned her. 

A chuckle reverberated from the man in the chair who rose hi head. He grinned his teeth far too large for his mouth. “Welcome Sasha. I would shake your hand, but as you can see, I’m tied up.” the man laughed. 

His eyes were colorless staring into her own. Sasha trembled what was this feeling she was sensing from this person? “I told you that night terrors are real.” mumbled Lucas. She looked at her client and then to the man swallowing the lump in her throat. 

“When did he appear?” Sasha sat in a chair across from the man in the middle of the room. Lucas fidgeted in place rubbing his right arm “Maybe a few days ago. I woke up with him standing over me.” 

She nodded and turned his focus back to the bound man “Why are you here?” 

“Ah an excellent question. Why am I here? To take Lucas’s place of course. It’s rare for an opening such as this to occur. Where a being such as I can slip through to the waking world.” 

The night terror wants to take Lucas’s place. So then where would Lucas go? 

The man laughed “You’re wondering where he would go aren’t you? It's obvious, isn't it? Oh! I have a wonderful idea. Miss Jones why don’t you see for yourself? Untie me and shake my hand.” 

Lucas placed a hand onto Sasha’s shoulder as if to try and convince her not to listen to this man, but her curiosity outweighed her logical thinking. “I think we should try it.” she stood and slowly walked toward the night terror. 

“Good very good you’re curious.” 

Sasha exhaled a shaky breath and sat down in a chair across from the man. 

“Who are you?” 

“I go by many names but I’m more partial to the name Alp.” 

She knew this name. It was the name of a malevolent spirit who caused nightmares but how was he able to manifest a physical body? It shouldn’t be possible. 

“Yet here I am in physical body. A living a breathing nightmare.” 

Alp chuckled and leaned back staring up at the ceiling. “I could have escaped so many times already but toying with humans is too much fun. Besides, I have a useful source of energy to feed from right here so why I would leave so soon before draining every drop of life force that I can.” 

He dropped his head to look at Sasha his eyes now entirely black. She stood from her chair and quickly stepped towards Lucas. “We must leave. Now!” she said in a hushed voice grabbing onto his forearm to pull him in the direction of the stairs, but he didn’t budge. “Lucas come on” Sasha urged but she was pulled backwards being made to investigate her clients-tired eyes. 

“I’m sorry Miss Jones” he paused and looked at Alp “He won’t leave unless he eats and I’m so tired.” Lucas walked her towards the nightmare who chuckled that unnatural smile. 

“Don’t worry Sasha it won’t hurt at all. You won’t feel a thing and it will be as if you just went to sleep. Dreaming an endless dream.” Alp broke free from his ropes and lunged at the woman. A scream echoed up the stairs and echoed off the walls of the basement. Lucas got busy cleaning up the mess Alp had made who was currently nursed his wrists. 

“Next time could you not tie me up so tightly.” 

“If I don’t, you’ll feed too soon and waste the energy.”  

Alp clicked his tongue and watched as Lucas skillfully wrapped up Sasha’s body and lifted her up heading up the stairs. He walked into the woods in behind his home and placed her body into a deep hole. Using a shovel, he covered her up until he couldn’t see her anymore planting a few batches of calendula on top of it. 

Using the back of his hand he wiped the sweat from his brow glancing around at the other mounds scattered about the small woods along with more flowers. Lucas frowned how any more times do I have to do this? he thought leaving the forest and using the shovel to wipe away his footprints. 

As he entered his home a note was left for him on the table. Leaning the shovel against the back door he walked over and picked it up. 

It’s been a pleasure working with you Lucas but it’s time for me to move onto another underling to do my biding. Don't worry about the bodies I will have them taken care of so you can rest easy. A friend of mine has been looking forward to a satisfying meal or two. We will meet again in your dreams. 

Lucas laughed and slowly sat down his laughter turning hysterical. 

He held his head in his hands trembling.  

Finally... 

FINALLY! 

Lucas could get some rest because his night terror was now gone. 

It all began when Mei, my sister, returned to our hometown. She was one of the top art restorers. But her last job had been too much. “It wasn’t the paintings,” she said, voice strained. “It was something inside them.”

She wouldn’t explain more.

When Mei returned, she brought only one thing: a huge canvas, wrapped in a dirty, yellowed sheet. It was as big as a door. I asked about it. She took hold of my arm. "Avoid looking at it," she said. “Not ever.”

That night, while she showered, I couldn’t help myself. I pulled back the sheet.

The painting showed a woman’s face. Not just a face, though—a visage that shouldn’t exist. Her proportions were wrong. Her eyes stretched too wide. Her lips were thin, frozen in a suffocating smile. Her irises were too dark—like endless wells.

Something struck me. The face wasn’t painted on the canvas. It looked like she was inside it. Pressed against it. Trapped. Her eyes followed me when I moved. When I turned to cover it, I swear I heard breathing. Soft. Shallow.

That night, I dreamt of her. The woman. She stood at the foot of my bed, smiling that same, thin smile. “You saw me,” she whispered. Her voice was dry, like paper. Her hand reached for my face.

I woke up screaming.

Mei burst into the room. She looked pale, furious. “You looked, didn’t you? You looked!” She dragged the painting downstairs to the basement. She locked the door. “It feeds on attention,” she muttered. “The more you look, the closer she gets.”

I thought it was over.

It wasn’t.

The dreams got worse. I stood in an endless gallery. Paintings covered the walls. Each painting showed her. The woman. Sometimes she wept. Other times, her grin split her face. The worst was seeing people I knew. Their faces were distorted. They screamed silently from inside frames.

One night, I heard Mei crying in the basement.

I found her there, cross-legged, staring at the painting. It had changed. The woman’s lips were open. Mei wouldn’t look at me. “She won’t let me go,” she mumbled. “I’ve stared too long. She’s almost here.”

I looked at the canvas. Something had changed.

The woman looked directly at me. Her mouth moved.

“Bring me more.”

The next morning, Mei was gone. Her shoes were still by the door. Her phone was charging on the counter. All that remained was the painting. It stood in the middle of the room. The woman’s face was clearer. More defined. Closer.

And she was smiling.

I can’t stop looking now. When I close my eyes, I see her. When I turn away, I feel her fingers on my neck. Last night, I heard a voice from the frame.

It wasn’t hers.

It was Mei’s.

“She’s almost out.”

If you find a painting—one wrapped in a yellowed sheet—don’t look at it.

And don’t let her see you.

“She just wants to be seen.”

I knew it was coming.

After building an empire, climbing the ranks of power and influence, you’d think you’d be safe. Untouchable. However, there is always a price. The higher you climb, the closer you are to the brink.

I saw it in their eyes. Those beneath me, watching from the shadows. Every decision I made, every deal I brokered, every move I made—there was always someone ready to take it from me. They knew my weaknesses before I did. They watched from the periphery, waiting, calculating. I always felt someone, somewhere, was out there—waiting for the right moment to strike.

But it wasn’t until the first sign appeared that I understood.

It wasn’t a threat at first. No, it was subtle. A small misstep in my day. A missed meeting. A lingering glance from a stranger. I dismissed it. I should’ve known better. Power clouds your senses, makes you believe you’re invincible.

The first message was simple: “I know your secrets.”

A warning, maybe, but not enough to scare me. Not yet. After all, I built this company with blood and sweat, played the game in ways most couldn’t even imagine. My secrets weren’t to be feared. They were weapons—tools to keep me ahead. But when the messages became more direct, more calculated, I started to feel it. A shift. A presence always just out of reach, behind me.

I didn’t know who they were. I didn’t know if they were inside my circle or watching from the outside, blending in with the faceless masses. But I felt them. Watching. Waiting.

The power I’d amassed, the influence I held—it wasn’t enough anymore. I had become a target, not just by the usual enemies wanting a piece of my empire. No, this was different.

The CEO Killer, they called them. A name floating through rumors, carrying terror. The first victim was someone I knew well. A fellow executive. At first, his death seemed an accident. But the details didn’t add up. A fatal fall. A random tragedy. Then it happened again. Another colleague. Another accident. The same pattern. The same calm, methodical precision.

It wasn’t until the third time that I understood. The CEO Killer wasn’t after the weak. They weren’t looking for an easy target. They were coming for the strong. They were coming for me.

I tried to prepare, to protect myself with security, surveillance, and deception. But they were always one step ahead. How could I have underestimated them? The one thing I hadn't considered was my own hubris, which I'd always taken for granted.

The CEO Killer is not just a murderer. They are a master of perception. They enter your mind and distort reality to the point that you can no longer trust your senses. It is too late to know you are in danger. You’re the hunted. You’ve already lost.

Although this is how it ends.

It's the Fourth of July, and the streets are lined with fireworks and flags. The air smells like gunpowder and joy. In the middle of the city, I stood on my balcony, viewing the throng below, ignorant of the shadow cast over me. They are celebrating their independence, their country, and their past. But I know the truth—this is my last moment.

The CEO Killer has come for me. The silence before the end is deafening, but the world below doesn’t notice. They’re too busy celebrating, too busy reveling in their illusions of safety. But I see it now. The killer’s hand, the one I never saw coming. I feel the cold steel, sharp and precise. And as I fall, the world spins, blurring into red, white, and blue.

It’s fitting, I suppose. The day the nation celebrates independence, it loses me—the one who thought he could never be brought down. But in the end, none of us are untouchable. None of us are free.

As the fireworks explode in the sky, I breathe my last. And the nation carries on, unaware that the man they once revered has become another casualty in the game of power.

The first time I saw the Bluefin Diner, it was exactly the kind of place I expected to find in a wasteland like this. Route 66 stretched ahead like a ribbon of asphalt through the barren desert, the air shimmering with heat under the relentless afternoon sun. The road seemed endless, with nothing but barren land and the occasional cactus breaking the monotony. It was the kind of desolation that made you feel small, insignificant, just another speck in the vastness of the universe.

I’d been on the move for weeks, drifting from town to town, with nothing but my old duffel bag and a sense of hollowness that had settled in my chest like a stone. After losing my job and falling out with the few friends I had, it felt like there was nothing left for me anywhere. The nights were the hardest-sleepless hours spent staring at motel ceilings, wondering if I would ever find a place where I belonged. I had no family to turn to, and each new town was just another place to pass through, another attempt to escape the emptiness inside. I have no family, no friends, and no place to call home. The kind of person who could disappear without a trace, and no one would even notice. It was as if I was a ghost already, drifting aimlessly, waiting for anything to give me a reason to stay.

When I pulled into the parking lot, there wasn’t a soul in sight … just a faded sign hanging by a single rusty chain that read 'Help Wanted' and an old gas pump out front that looked like it hadn’t worked in decades. The diner itself looked like it had been forgotten by time, the paint peeling, the windows dusty and streaked. It was a relic of a bygone era, a place that seemed to exist out of sheer stubbornness.

I paused for a moment, staring at the sign. Maybe this was what I needed. I had nowhere else to go, no direction, just a longing for a place to belong, even if just for a few nights. The thought of having something to do, even if it was just washing dishes or sweeping floors, was enough to make me consider it. I pushed the thought away, taking a deep breath, and made my way inside, the bell above the door chiming softly as I stepped inside.

The dim interior was a mix of peeling wallpaper, cracked linoleum floors, and flickering neon lights that cast eerie shadows across the empty booths. The air was thick with the smell of grease and old coffee, a mix that clung to my senses, making my stomach turn slightly. A single man stood behind the counter, his face lined and weathered, with hollow eyes that seemed to look right through me. He was the owner, though he never bothered to tell me his name.

I hesitated for a moment before making my way to a booth in the corner. I slid into the cracked vinyl seat, the material sticking to my skin as I settled in. The owner watched me, his expression unreadable, his hollow eyes following my every move as if sizing me up.

After a moment, he shuffled over, a notepad in hand. "What'll it be?" he asked, his voice gruff, his tone making it clear he wasn't interested in small talk.

I glanced at the faded menu lying on the table, the pages yellowed with age and stained with coffee rings. There wasn't much to choose from, and everything looked like it had been there since the place first opened. "Just a coffee, please," I replied, offering a small, tentative smile, though I doubted it would make any difference.

He nodded, turning away without a word. I watched as he moved behind the counter, the sound of the coffee machine breaking the silence. It felt strange, almost surreal, sitting there in the empty diner, the hum of the old refrigerator the only other noise. The neon sign outside flickered, casting brief flashes of red and blue across the room, adding to the sense of unease that seemed to permeate the place.

He returned a moment later, setting the chipped mug in front of me. I wrapped my hands around it, savoring the warmth, even if the coffee itself tasted burnt and bitter. It was something tangible, something to hold on to in the unsettling quiet of the diner.

"Thanks," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. He gave a curt nod, his eyes lingering on me for a moment longer before he turned away, his footsteps echoing across the empty floor as he retreated behind the counter. I couldn't shake the feeling that he was still watching me, even when his back was turned.

I cleared my throat, pointing towards the sign outside. "You hiring?" I asked, my voice sounding smaller than I intended, the words barely carrying across the empty room.

He looked at me for a moment, his gaze weighing on me, then nodded slowly, as if the decision wasn’t really his to make, as if he was resigned to whatever fate had brought me here.

"Need a job?" he asked, his voice flat and devoid of any warmth, like he had heard the same request a hundred times before and knew how it would end.

I nodded. The truth was, I needed money-enough to get me out of this place, to the next town, and maybe a little further. He didn’t ask any questions, didn’t want to know where I was from or what had brought me here. He just nodded back, a small, almost imperceptible movement of his head, like he understood more than he was letting on.

“Ok. You'll start tonight,” he muttered, his voice carrying a hint of something I couldn't quite place-was it pity, or maybe just indifference?

He hesitated for a moment, then gestured for me to follow him. “Let me show you around,” he said, his voice still gruff but with a hint of resignation, as if he knew that neither of us had much of a choice in the matter.

I got up from the booth, the seat creaking as I stood, and followed him through the diner. He moved slowly, pointing out the essentials with a practiced efficiency, his voice a monotonous drone as he spoke. “The counter, where you'll be serving. Coffee machine-temperamental, but it works if you treat it right. Kitchen's back here,” he said, pushing open the swinging door to reveal a grimy room filled with old pots and pans. His words were clipped, like he was simply going through the motions.

There was a weariness to him, an exhaustion that seemed to seep into every word he spoke. He showed me the storage room, the restrooms, and even the back exit, his explanations brief and to the point. There was no warmth in his words, no attempt to make me feel at ease. Just the basics, like he’d done this before, like he knew I wouldn't be here long.

After a while, he turned back to the front, pausing by the door. “That’s about it. Good luck, kid,” he said, his hollow eyes meeting mine for a brief moment. There was something in his gaze, something unsaid, but before I could make sense of it, he grabbed his coat from behind the counter and walked out, the door closing with a jingle of the bell.

I watched him disappear into the night, something about the way he’d said those words making my skin prickle. There was an emptiness in the diner now, a void that seemed to expand in his absence. But I ignored it. I needed this. I needed something to keep me grounded, even if it was just for a little while.

I walked around the diner, taking in the peeling wallpaper, the cracked vinyl booths, and the flickering neon lights that cast an eerie glow over everything. There was something unsettling about the place, something that felt… wrong, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe it was just the isolation, the sense of being completely cut off from the rest of the world.

I went to the kitchen in the back, a grimy little room filled with pots and pans that had seen better days. The air was thick with the scent of stale grease and something metallic, and I could hear the faint drip of water echoing from a leaking pipe. The floor creaked under my weight, and every surface seemed to carry a layer of grime that spoke of years of neglect. There was a window above the sink, looking out over the parking lot and beyond that, a lake. It was the only thing that broke the monotony of the desert, a dark, still body of water that seemed to go on forever.

I settled in behind the counter, a cup of lukewarm coffee in front of me as I tried to stay awake. The hours dragged on, the silence pressing in on me, until I heard it : a soft, haunting melody, drifting through the air.

At first, I thought it might have been the wind, but as the sound grew clearer, I realized it wasn't natural. There was a rhythm to it, an eerie beauty that seemed almost deliberate. It tugged at something inside me, urging me to move, to follow. I frowned, looking around, but there was no one else in the diner. The sound seemed to be coming from outside, from the direction of the lake. I glanced out the window, catching a glimpse of the dark water. The lake lay still, its surface unnaturally smooth, reflecting the pale light of the moon. It looked almost lifeless, an expanse of inky black that seemed to swallow all light and sound. There was something about it that made my skin crawl, a sense of wrongness that I couldn't quite shake.

I shook my head, trying to ignore it, but the melody grew louder, more insistent, until I found myself standing up, my feet moving almost as if they had a mind of their own. It was as if the sound was pulling me, dragging me towards the door, and I felt an overwhelming urge to step outside and find its source. I walked to the door, my hand reaching for the handle, when something caught my eye . A crumpled note, stuffed inside the lining of one of the cracked vinyl booth seats, the tear just big enough to hide it.

The paper was creased, torn at the edges, and in scrawled handwriting, it read: 

Do not, under any circumstances, go near the lake.

If you see wet footprints leading from the lake to the diner, clean them immediately with hot water.

If you hear scratching on the windows, keep your eyes on your work.

The diner lights must remain dim but never off.

I looked back at the door, the melody still calling to me, but I forced myself to step back, to sit down. I couldn’t explain it, but something about the note felt true.

The note was unsigned, but I felt a chill run down my spine as I read it. The old man hadn’t mentioned any of this. As I looked at the stains, the smudges of dark red that could only be blood, I felt something twist inside me … a sense that this wasn’t just some elaborate joke.

As dawn broke, I saw the owner return, his hollow eyes glancing at me without a word. He looked more tired than before, his gaze lingering on me for a moment longer than seemed necessary. He didn’t ask if I’d heard anything, didn’t seem to care how my shift went.

I watched him for a moment, wondering what secrets lay behind those tired eyes, before returning to my car to tried and get some sleep. Exhaustion weighed heavy on me, but sleep was elusive. When I finally dozed off, I dreamed I was drowning in the nearby lake, the dark water wrapping around me, pulling me under while the haunting melody echoed all around, muffled and relentless. I jolted awake, my heart pounding, the fear lingering even as I tried to shake it off. It wasn't much, but it was all I had-a few hours of uneasy rest before the next night began.

I found an old, half-stale sandwich that tasted like cardboard, and washed it down with a cup of coffee so bitter it almost made me gag. I forced it down anyway, needing the energy.

The next night was different.

I was wiping down the counter, the old man gone home for the night, leaving me alone in the dimly lit diner. The air was thick, the oppressive silence broken only by the faint buzz of the flickering neon sign outside. It was almost one in the morning, and the road outside was empty . Nothing but darkness stretching into oblivion.

The hum of the old refrigerator seemed to grow louder in the quiet, a low, unsettling drone that made the hairs on my neck stand on end. I could hear the occasional creak of the building settling, the soft rustle of something brushing against the outside walls , maybe the wind, or maybe something else. The air felt colder now, the chill creeping in, making me shiver.

I decided to take a break from the unnerving quiet and clean the restrooms. I grabbed a rag and some cleaning supplies and made my way to the back. The restrooms were just as grimy as the rest of the diner, the tiles cracked and stained, the mirror above the sink coated in a layer of grime that made my reflection look ghostly. I scrubbed at the sink and wiped down the counters, trying to ignore the growing sense of unease that seemed to be pressing in on me. The sound of dripping water echoed off the walls, each drop seeming louder than the last.

When I finally finished, I took a deep breath and made my way back to the front of the diner. But as soon as I stepped out of the restroom, my heart froze. There, on the floor, were wet footprints. I dropped the rag I was holding, the sound of it hitting the ground barely registering in my ears. The footprints led from the door, across the diner floor, and toward the counter where I stood. They were elongated, almost human but not quite, with webbed impressions that suggested something unnatural. My heart pounded as I backed away, my eyes tracing the eerie shape, each step seeming deliberate, as if whatever made them had been searching for me.

I remembered the second rule : clean them immediately with hot water. My heart pounded in my chest as I rushed to the back, my footsteps echoing through the empty diner. I fumbled with the bucket, my hands trembling as I turned on the tap, the hot water rushing out and steaming up in the cold air of the kitchen. Every second felt like an eternity, the feeling of something closing in on me growing stronger. I could almost sense eyes watching, waiting. I filled the bucket to the brim, the hot water scalding my hands as I picked it up, my grip shaky.

As I hurried back to the front, my nerves got the best of me. I stumbled, the bucket slipping from my grip, hot water sloshing over the sides and splashing across the floor. Panic surged through me, my breath catching in my throat as I scrambled to pick it up. The scalding water burned my hands, but I barely felt the pain . My only focus was on those wet footprints. They were growing darker, spreading across the floor like an ink stain, each print more defined, more deliberate. It was as if whatever had made them was gaining strength, its presence becoming more real, more solid.

I grabbed the rag, my hands trembling as I dipped it into the bucket and began scrubbing at the prints. The hot water steamed as it hit the floor, the vapor rising around me like a fog. I swore I heard something-a hiss, low and menacing, like the sound of steam escaping from a valve. It was followed by a whisper, faint but unmistakable, as if something was speaking to me, taunting me.

I scrubbed harder, my breath coming in ragged gasps, the fear clawing at my insides. The footprints slowly began to fade, the dark impressions dissolving under the hot water, but the feeling of being watched only grew stronger. My eyes darted to the windows, half-expecting to see something staring back at me, but there was nothing-only darkness and my own reflection, pale and terrified. For a brief moment, I thought I saw movement in the reflection, a flicker of something shifting behind me. I spun around, my heart in my throat, but there was nothing there … only the empty diner, silent and still.

I forced myself to breathe, to calm down, but the fear lingered, gnawing at me, refusing to let go. It was as if the darkness itself was alive, pressing in on me, waiting for me to slip up, to make a mistake. By the time I was done, the diner felt colder, the air heavy and oppressive, the silence almost deafening. I set the bucket down, my hands aching from the burns, and took a step back, staring at the floor. The footprints were gone, but the sense of unease remained, an invisible weight pressing down on me, making it hard to breathe. Something wrong was going on here and I knew this wasn't the last time I would see something like this.

I glanced at the windows, half-expecting to see something staring back at me, but there was nothing …just darkness and my own reflection, pale and frightened. For a brief moment, I thought I saw movement in the reflection, a flicker of something shifting behind me, but when I turned, there was nothing there. I forced myself to breathe, to calm down, but the fear lingered, gnawing at me.

When the owner came in to begin his shift, I told him about the strange things that had been happening : the footprints, the whispers, the movement in the reflection. He listened with an expression that seemed almost indifferent, his eyes tired and hollow. When I finished, he let out a long sigh and shook his head.

"You’re just tired," he said dismissively, his voice flat. "Working nights can mess with your mind. You start imagining things, seeing things that aren't there." He gave me a half-hearted smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Get some rest. You'll feel better."

His response left me feeling uneasy, like he knew more than he was letting on. There was something in the way he spoke, the way he avoided my gaze, that made my skin crawl. But I nodded, forcing a smile, pretending to believe him. Deep down, I knew what I had experienced wasn't just in my head. Something was wrong with this place, and he knew it.

I told him that I was only staying for this night and expected to get paid tomorrow morning so I could leave. He gave me a strange look, then smirked, his eyes cold. "Sure, kid," he said, his voice dripping with something I couldn't quite place. "Tonight will be your last night." I tried to rest during the day, catching whatever sleep I could. It wasn't much…if someone could even call it sleep but it was just enough to get me through the final night.

The following night brought a darker, heavier atmosphere to the diner. Shadows pooled in every corner, stretching long across the floors, as if something unseen was lurking within them. I held my breath, the silence thick, waiting for the familiar yet dreadful sounds that had haunted my nights here. Suddenly, the jukebox crackled to life without warning, spilling out a warped, haunting melody that didn’t belong in this world. The song was unrecognizable, distorted-echoed off the walls, grating against my mind like nails on a chalkboard. I rushed toward it, fingers fumbling over the buttons, desperate to shut it off. But the buttons wouldn't respond, as if they were locked in place. No matter what I did, the music only grew louder, more chaotic, each dissonant note stabbing through my head, making it impossible to think. It was as if the jukebox itself was alive, feeding off my fear.

Then, I heard it...

It started soft, almost like a gentle brush against the glass, but I knew better. I knew it meant that something was out there : something dangerous, something that had found me and wasn't going to leave until it got what it wanted. The scraping grew louder, more insistent, and with each drag of a nail against the windowpane, I could feel the weight of something… waiting. Rule three echoed in my mind: If you hear scratching on the windows, keep your eyes on your work. Swallowing hard, I forced myself to stare at the counter, at the dishes I was drying, moving my hands in a mindless rhythm to keep myself grounded. My pulse thundered in my ears, but I kept my gaze fixed, my fingers clutching the plates tightly as though they were my lifeline. The scratching continued, scraping deeper into the glass with each pass, filling the silence with a maddening rhythm.

The jukebox went quiet just as abruptly as it had started, and the scratching stopped. The diner fell silent, but I knew the danger hadn’t passed. I let out a slow, shaky breath, my heart still racing. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw it.

A figure stood by the window. Tall and gaunt, with matted hair falling over a face that was half-hidden in shadow, except for its eyes. Those eyes gleamed through the glass, piercing, like they could see straight through me. Its lips curved into a cruel smile, revealing teeth jagged and sharp, too sharp, as if they were meant to tear through something soft and fragile.

My hands trembled as I clutched the counter, fighting the urge to look, to meet those eyes. But I could feel it calling me, its voice slithering into my mind like a twisted lullaby, a hum that carried with it the weight of everything I’d tried to escape. The creature knew me. It whispered my name, my secrets, my regrets, each word laced with venom, each syllable pulling me closer to the breaking point.

Just as I felt myself slipping, the door burst open, slamming against the wall with a force that snapped me back to reality. The old man stood there, his eyes wild, his face twisted in terror. He looked at me, and in that moment, I saw more fear in him than I had ever seen in anyone. His voice trembled as he spoke.

"Sorry, kid," he whispered, his words thick with guilt. "You weren't supposed to make it this far."

Before I could react, he strode toward the window, his hands shaking as he reached for the latch. My heart sank, fear twisting in my gut as I realized what was happening. He was letting it inside. A thousand thoughts raced through my mind : Why was he doing this, and what would happen if he succeeded? The sense of betrayal and desperation made my pulse quicken, and I felt utterly powerless, my feet glued to the floor as the horror unfolded in front of me.

As the old man’s trembling fingers fumbled with the latch, the creature’s grin widened, its sharp teeth glinting as though it could already taste what was to come. I took a step back, dread coiling in my gut, every fiber of my being screaming at me to run. But I couldn’t move, my legs frozen in place as the man turned back to me, his face hollow and filled with a strange mix of desperation and surrender.

"I didn’t want this," he murmured, his voice barely a whisper, as if trying to convince himself more than me. "But I had no choice. It keeps her satisfied and it keeps me safe.” He swallowed, his voice dropping to a ragged whisper. “But it’s never enough.”

The horror of his words crashed over me. I was just one more in a long line of sacrifices, lured here to save his miserable life. The disgust was overwhelming, but there was no time to think. Behind him, the creature’s fingers curled over the window frame, long and dripping with a dark, murky substance that trailed down the glass like ink.

A rush of panic surged through me. I had to stop him, to prevent whatever horror was clawing its way into the diner. Desperate, I charged at the old man, my body colliding with his as I tried to stop him from opening the window. He grunted, his eyes flashing with a wild fury as he shoved me back. "You don't understand!" he shouted, his voice cracking, filled with both fear and anger. He lunged at me, his hands outstretched, trying to pin me down for the creature that was now moving steadily towards us.

We struggled, our bodies crashing into tables and chairs, the metal legs scraping loudly against the floor. His hands wrapped around my wrists, his strength surprising for someone who looked so frail. I could feel his nails digging into my skin, his breath hot and ragged against my face. My heart thundered in my chest as I glanced over his shoulder. The creature was inside now, its twisted form moving with a sickening fluidity, its pale skin glistening, its mouth stretched wide, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth.

With a surge of adrenaline, I twisted my body, managing to free one hand. My fingers scrambled across the counter until they closed around something cold and metallic : a kitchen knife. Without thinking, I plunged it into the old man's side. He let out a choked gasp, his grip loosening as his eyes widened in shock and pain. I pushed him away from me, his body stumbling backward, directly towards the creature.

The creature's eyes gleamed with a predatory hunger as it reached out, its long, wet fingers wrapping around the old man's shoulders. He barely had time to scream before the creature sank its teeth into his neck, the sharp fangs tearing through flesh with a sickening crunch.

His body went rigid, his eyes wide with terror as the creature dragged him down, its teeth still embedded in his neck.

I could see the blood trailing behind them, dark and slick, leaving a gruesome path as it pulled him closer to the open window. His screams echoed through the diner, a desperate, haunting sound that sent shivers down my spine. His eyes locked onto mine one last time, filled with a pleading, terrified look, but there was nothing I could do. He was beyond saving.

They reached the window, and with a final, jerking motion, the creature dragged him into the shadows outside. The old man’s screams were cut off abruptly, leaving only the sound of the creature’s rasping breath and the faint crunch of his body being pulled over the gravel outside. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. My heart hammered as I listened to the horrible, wet sounds fading into the distance.

Without looking back, I turned and ran, my footsteps pounding against the linoleum as I burst through the front door and into the cool night air.

Outside, the world was still and silent, a stark contrast to the chaos I had left behind. The cold air bit into my skin, grounding me as I staggered forward, trying to shake the horrifying images from my mind.

I kept walking, my steps unsteady, my heart still pounding. I started the car and floored it. I had survived, but I knew I would never be the same. Her whispers would always be there, a reminder of what I had faced, of the darkness that lurked just beyond the surface of the lake.

There are times in life when the world seems too tiny, too silent. Everything around you feels like a shadow of something far greater, something just out of grasp. It happens unexpectedly—a whisper in the night, a sudden sense that things is going to shift. It's not dread or worry, but an irrefutable pull, something old and unexplained, that calls to you.

At first, you ignore it. You dismiss it as imagination, your mind looking for something that isn’t there. But the whispers grow louder, clearer. Then you realize they're not just in your imagination, but actual. The world around you changes, as if the fabric of the cosmos is unraveling. You see glimpses of the hidden world—symbols you don't understand, messages meant for you alone. Your dreams contain visions of locations you've never been and people you've never met.

The Calling is not a message you can ignore. It pulls at your soul, urging you to step beyond the ordinary and into the unknown. It challenges everything you know about yourself, about the world, about your place within it. Some answer, drawn into ancient wisdom, forgotten paths of power, and mysteries hidden in the shadows of reality.

For some, the Calling leads to knowledge always within them, buried under years of doubt and fear. For others, it opens doors to realms beyond comprehension—a place where magic is not fantasy, but truth. The Calling demands courage. It asks you to trust in something greater than yourself.

What lies on the other side is a journey to reclaim your power, understand the forces guiding the universe, and embrace the ancient energies waiting for you to notice. The road is hard—there are obstacles, trials, tests of will—but those who answer the Call stand at the edge of the unknown, ready to walk a path few dare tread.

And in that moment, when you can no longer deny it, when you stand in the light of your own truth, you’ll understand: The Calling was never just a whisper. It was your soul’s voice, reminding you that you were never meant to walk this world alone.

I know this may sound laughable, but sometimes being richer than God is challenging. Emotionally, I mean.

Being incalculably wealthy since the day you were born can make life…flavorless. I’ve indulged in every imaginable depravity. I’ve ingested the cutting edge in mood-altering alchemy. I want for nothing.

And yet, I’m unhappy. Or maybe unhappy isn’t the right word - I’m indifferently indifferent. Hollow is pretty close, but isn’t exactly it.

It’s difficult to have never known hunger. I’ve tried to feed myself a great many things, but, apparently, I have no appetite for reality.

Until this most recent experiment.

I figured - some poor people seem happy. Maybe pretending to live like them will awaken some dormant hunger within myself.

After two weeks, I was ready to call the experiment a wash. But then there was this moment. I was at a local coffee shop, and I felt a smoldering warmth inside my chest. The sensation was so foreign that I genuinely believed I spilled coffee on my suit at first.

I watched the barista cheerily hand another patron their drink. A custodian walked by me who had a very peculiar melancholy about him. The temperature in the shop was crisp but not sweltering.

The experience was perfect. Transcendent, even. A quiet, beautiful comfort. Like I was inside an oil painting.

But when that warmth dissipated, I wanted more.

So, I bought the coffee shop. Bought every business on that street, actually - for privacy's sake. Filled the shop with paid actors, provided them direction and a script in order to recreate the moment. But it wasn’t the same.

An easy fix, I thought.

Local cops on my payroll pulled CC-TV footage from that day, which allowed me to determine exactly who was in the shop when I was.

I hired those exact people to come back to the coffee shop - my assistant told them it was for a “documentary”. At the rates I was paying, though, I could have told them they were coming to watch me castrate myself. No one would have batted an eye.

My assistant did neglect to mention they would be there for as long as I wanted them to be.

Three months later, something still wasn’t right. I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Maybe skinning the custodian’s family alive was too upsetting. I didn’t make him watch, though, I just told him that it happened, figuring that may be a happy middle-ground to reinvigorate his peculiar melancholy without breaking his mind.

I’ve had to re-cast the custodian, unfortunately.

Today, however, it finally hit me. It wasn’t the custodian’s demeanor after all. It was the way the barista looked - she was slightly off from how I remembered her.

Since that perfect day, the woman had undergone a nose job. That’s what was off.

I waved Gregor over, who will be assisting in reverting that change.

A hollow smile slinked across my face.

Soon - I would be warm and full again.

I wake up. Teams notifications on my phone. Someone asking me a question about a report. I don’t answer yet. Roll out of bed. Open my laptop. Clock in. Check the calendar. Got meetings today. Meetings with the VPs. My stomach tightens.  

Go to the bathroom. Scroll on the toilet. Scroll until I see something upsetting. Wash up. Jiggle the mouse. Back to the kitchen. Pour my coffee. Find something to eat. Take my pills. Look out the window. The air is thick with smog. Can’t see the sun. Can’t see very far at all.

I work. Teams rings. Outlook pings. My keyboard taps and my mouse clicks. They message me. They call me. They all want something. They want something from me. Right now. I stop what I’m doing to give them what they want so many times that I forget what I’m supposed to be doing. Between tasks, I scroll. I feel tension. I feel dread. I feel empty. But before I let myself feel, I scroll.

A funny joke. A cute animal. An unoriginal opinion shouted directly into a microphone. Violence unfolding in the streets of some distant country. Violence unfolding in streets that aren’t so far away. I need to stop scrolling. But I don’t want to feel. I switch apps. I repeat the process until I see something that might make me feel what I’ve already been feeling.

I work. I bend every which way and make every which thing happen for them. I do as I’m told and then some. I do more to try and improve my job, to help someone else. Not enough. They watch me closely. They decide if I am allowed to keep the privilege of earning a measly wage. I occupy a few cells on a spreadsheet. An ID number and a dollar amount. How do I convince them to keep me?

I finish work. I don’t feel accomplished. I don’t feel relieved. I feel empty. I feel nothingness. Not a peaceful emptiness. A pitch-black emptiness of lingering dread. Dread like the feeling of walking alongside a sheer cliff with no guard rail. Dread like the feeling of someone raising their hand to hit you and closing your eyes, just waiting for it to be over.

I try to relax. Try to watch something I like. Can’t relax. Can’t focus. The barrage of false urgency during the day has hamstrung my ability to just be. Can’t relax. Can’t focus. I try to watch something. Something I love. Can’t focus. I scroll. I eat. I scroll. I feel empty. I feel empty so I post something.

I check. I check after a few minutes. No likes. I check again. No likes. I scroll. I check. I eat. I check again and I finally got a like. Maybe I do exist. Maybe I do matter. But it’s only one like. It may as well have been a mistaken double-tap on my picture.

I don’t leave the house. I scroll until the sun goes down. I scroll into the night. I crawl into bed and scroll some more. I finally put my phone down. I tell myself I need to sleep. I struggle to sleep. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

My dreams are work. My dreams are dread. I find myself in a realm where my mind can take me to any mountaintop and to any depth of the ocean, to the edges of the universe and to the deepest layers of the human experience. And even here, my dreams are work. My dreams are dread. People are upset with me. People hate me. I can’t do anything right. I keep making mistakes. People are upset with me. There’s too much to do. Nothing is working. Nothing is making sense. No matter how much I do, I never feel any better.

I finally feel a sliver of relief once I realize that it’s just a dream.

I wake up. The relief transforms into ice water that shoots through my veins. Check my phone. Got Teams messages. Roll out of bed. Clock in. Bathroom. Jiggle the mouse. Coffee. Food. Look out the window. The air is thick with smog.

Can’t see the sun.

Can’t see very far at all.

Our mom's desire to 'become one with nature' is getting unsettling

My mom insisted we spend the holidays at our cabin in the woods. She said it was the perfect place to "become one with nature." I never liked it there. The cabin was old and creaky, buried under fresh snow that made everything silent and eerie. But my sister, Tori, didn't mind at all. She'd sit by the fireplace, flipping through Mom's worn-out fairy tales, her eyes shining like she knew a secret.

One evening, as the shadows outside grew long and dark, Tori stared out the window. "Do you think Mom's stories are true?" she whispered, her breath fogging up the glass.

I looked up from my book. "They're just stories," I said, trying to sound confident.

"But what if something's out there?" she asked again, her voice barely audible.

A chill ran down my spine, but I shrugged it off. "You're letting your imagination run wild," I replied, forcing a smile.

That night, Tori begged me to go into the forest with her. "Just for a little while," she pleaded. "I want to see if we can hear anything."

I didn't want to go, but the look in her eyes made it hard to refuse. Reluctantly, I bundled up, and we stepped out into the cold. The snow crunched under our boots as we walked into the trees. The forest was thick and dark, the branches above twisting together like a web. The paths we knew so well seemed different, like the woods had shifted when we weren't looking.

"See? It's just trees and snow," I said, rubbing my arms to keep warm.

Tori didn't answer. She was listening intently, her head tilted to the side. "Wait," she whispered. "Do you hear that?"

I stopped and strained to listen. At first, there was only the sound of the wind sighing through the branches. Then, faintly, a whistle threaded through the air. It was a haunting sound, low and hollow, that sent a shiver through me.

"It's just the wind," I said, but my voice shook.

The whistle came again, clearer this time. It seemed to wrap around us, drawing us deeper into the woods.

Before I could stop her, Tori stepped forward. "Maybe it's someone who needs help," she said, her eyes wide.

"Wait!" I reached out to grab her, but she moved too quickly, slipping between the trees.

Panic gripped me as she disappeared from sight. "Tori!" I shouted, my voice echoing. The only answer was the whistle, now sounding like a mocking tune.

I stumbled after her, the shadows pressing in. The trees seemed to close around me, their branches scratching at my clothes. My heart pounded in my chest.

Then I saw it.

In a clearing bathed in cold moonlight stood a towering figure. It was like nothing I'd ever seen. Its body was thin and stretched, limbs bending at unnatural angles. Huge antlers twisted from its head, seeming to swallow the light and cloak it in darkness. Its eyes were empty holes, and from its jagged mouth came the haunting whistle.

I stood frozen as it turned toward me. "Brooke..." it whispered, my name distorted and echoing in the stillness.

Fear rooted me to the spot. My mind screamed at me to run, but my legs wouldn't move. The creature took a step closer, its movements smooth and eerie.

Somehow, I found the strength to turn and run. Branches tore at my clothes and scratched my face as I fled. The whistle chased me, wrapping around me like a cold wind.

I burst into the cabin, slamming the door behind me. "Mom!" I cried out, gasping for breath. The house was dark and silent.

"We have to... we need to... it's out there—" I stammered, tears blurring my vision.

A soft sound came from the back porch. Heart pounding, I crept toward it. Through the window, I saw her standing there, her back to me. Her body shook slightly, shadows swirling around her feet.

"Mom?" I whispered, my voice barely audible.

She turned slowly. Her eyes met mine, but they weren't the warm eyes I knew. They were hollow and empty, just like the creature's. A chilling smile spread across her face. "You're home, dear," she said, her voice layered with that haunting whistle. "We've been waiting for you."

Behind her, Tori stepped into view. She moved stiffly, like a puppet on strings. Her eyes were vacant, and as she opened her mouth, the whistle filled the room, echoing off the walls.

I stumbled back, my stomach twisting with fear. The cabin seemed to close in on me, the shadows stretching into monstrous shapes. It hit me all at once—the creature wasn't just in the woods. It was here, inside my home, wearing the faces of my family.

I should have known that the interviewee looked fake as shit.

He had a very well fitted suit, with an expensive looking haircut, but I could tell his shoes were knockoffs. 

It was on his second round interview that I was called down to see him. He had all the right experience, and his voice wasn't grating, so in my mind, I was already thinking: sure, he'll do. But at the end of the interview, when we shook hands, a fiery pain shot through my palm. Like a bee sting.

When he pulled away I could see he had been wearing a sharp tack on the inside of his palm. I was flabbergasted. 

He gave a little laugh. “Gotcha.”

I looked him in the eyes. “Gotcha?”

With a shrug, he walked himself out the door. I told the front door security that he was never allowed back in.

***

Cut to: the next day when I took my morning shower.

Waiting for the temperature to turn hot, I held my hand out beneath the faucet and felt the water run down my hands. About thirty seconds into this, I noticed my skin was melting off.

I screamed. Ran out of the shower. Towelled myself dry.

Half my left hand had turned skeletal. The flesh in between my fingers had leaked off like melted wax. Other parts of my arm also appeared smudged. It's like I was suddenly made of play-doh.

***

A quick visit to a private hospital revealed nothing. No one knew what was wrong with me.

I had lost all pain reception in my body. Although I was missing chunks of skin, muscle and fat tissue in my arms, none of it hurt. Like at all. The doctors also couldn’t figure out why my body was reacting to water in this strange way. A single drop on my skin turned my flesh into mud. Water was able to melt me.

Two weeks of various tests proved nothing.

I was worried for my life, sure. But I was equally worried that the dolts at my company were messing up preparations for our biggest tech conference of the year. 

So I hired the doctors to visit me at my home. I wasn’t about to abandon the firm I had spent building for my entire adult career.

***

I came back to work wearing gloves, long pants and a turtle-neck. The only liquid I could drink without any damage was medical-grade saline.

No matter how much deodorant I put on, I would reek. It's what happens when you wear three layers of clothes and aren't allowed to shower ever again. But no one seemed to mind. Everyone knew I had developed some kind of skin disorder, and politely ignored the subject. As loyal employees should.

I was exclusively bouncing between my house—to my limo—to my office—to my limo—back to my house where sometimes doctors would await me with further tests.

My favorite restaurant remained unvisited. I skipped my oldest son’s birthday.  I even missed my fuckin’ box seats for the last hockey game for godsakes.

***

Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you're all laughing. 

But death is death. Billionaire or not, I’m sure you too would be terrified if you were being followed around by a maniac in a red hoodie.

A maniac who was clearly that shithead interviewee.  He obviously never got hired anywhere else because he’s constantly been spying on my house from across the street.

I’ve sent my security out after him, but he’s a slippery little fucker, with ears like a rat. Anytime anyone gets close, he skitters away without a trace.

It’s been a nightmare. I’ve hired four extra guards but the only thing they're good at is using their walkies to tell me everything is “all clear”.

The one time my personnel almost grabbed him, He left a large red water gun at the scene. A super soaker.  

That's how I know he's been planning to assassinate me the whole time. The tack. My new disease. He's trying to melt me.

***

Yesterday, they finally caught him. 

I wanted him sent straight to a cop car, straight to jail. But apparently you can't arrest someone for carrying a couple water balloons in their jacket. 

So instead I had them lock him up in my deepest basement office at my work. His hands were tied and he was stripped of all his belongings, including a diary riddled with slogans like ‘Wealth Must End’ and ‘Deny, Defend, Depose’.

I had his full name and documentation from when he applied at my firm. I threw his resume onto his lap. “So Mr. Derek Elton Jones, am I part of your ‘kill the rich’ agenda?”

He stared at his resume, not looking me in the eye. “Billionaires shouldn’t exist,” is all he said.

I scoffed. Incredulous at the accusation. “I’m not a billionaire. That’s an exaggerated net worth that can change at any moment. I run a tax software company. Is there something I’ve done wrong?”

“You help the rich evade tax.”

Is that what he thinks?  “That’s the exact opposite of what my software does actually. My customers are people who want to pay their taxes properly.”

He stayed silent, staring at the floor. I resisted the urge to smack the back of his head.

“Tell me exactly what sort of biological weapon you pricked me with 2 months ago, and then maybe we can discuss how I’ll let you go.”

He mumbled something under his breath. 

“Speak up. Derek.”

His nose wriggled. “...Haven’t bathed in weeks have you?”

I came up to his face. I was this close from slapping him.

“That’s why they call you stinking rich,” he smiled.

Before I could strike his cheek, his spit sprayed my face. My vision blurred instantly. I recoiled and yelled. 

When I settled down and carefully wiped his saliva off my brow, I could see part of my nose, lips and left eye lying on the floor.

He just stared at me, laughing. 

“Don’t you get it? I didn’t infect you with anything! You did this to yourself! Your greed, your untouchable ego—it’s all rotting you from the inside out!”

***

I had to leave my work because of the condition my face was in. I couldn’t risk infection.

My guards let Derek leave too, because my lawyer said I could face serious legal trouble if I tried to trap someone against their will. So I relented.

Now, I’m left alone, trapped in my crumbling body, surrounded by doctors who keep either drawing blood or injecting me with experimental drugs.

I haven’t told my ex, or my kids or any of my family really, because what would they care? They haven’t spoken to me since last Christmas. 

I’ve already paid off the local news to highlight one of my last big donations to a charity in Ghana because people have to remember the good that I’ve done. And I have done good.

I came up from a middle-class family and worked hard to earn an upper, upper class lifestyle. I’m a living tribute to the American dream. The power of an individual’s will to succeed.

I keep thinking about the last words Derek said. About my selfishness and avarice. I keep saying to myself that he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about, and that he’s just following some stupid trends on social media. He should learn to respect other people, our society, our whole system of capitalism.

But despite all this, when I stare at the twisted reflection of myself in the bedside mirror, at the exposed skull emerging on the left side of my face… a bizarre feeling of acceptance hangs over me that I can’t quite explain.

It's like… even though I look like a melting wax sculpture, like a godawful zombie that arose from the grave, and despite me knowing that I should book some reconstructive surgery, or at least some flesh grafts to even out my complexion, a small voice inside me says, “no don’t. You deserve to look like this.” 

I can’t help but wonder, maybe I do.

Lost Media, Now Found:

Excerpt from Strange Worlds, 1978. Found in the basement of the Philadelphia Public Library.

Written by Ben Nakamura

Calculated Temporal Dissonance*: Low, 2%

Ever since their conception in the early 20th century, Rorschach inkblot tests have captured the imagination of the American people—and I mean this quite literally. By design, inkblots are psychiatric tools that are aesthetically stimulating but, at the same time, inherently meaningless. The absence of meaning was theorized to allow the test subjects to “project” their imagination onto the inkblot, manifesting their pathologies more thoroughly for comprehensive scrutiny by the clinician administering the test. In other words, this vacuum of meaning allowed inkblots to magnetically pull and effectively superimpose dysfunctional thoughts on the vague images, especially thoughts that the subject may not consciously volunteer in the context of more standardized talk therapy. The practice was very much in vogue throughout the 1960s, but has slowly given way to more objective, reliable methods of characterizing mental illness. Even in the face of diminishing clinical relevancy, the intrigue and mystique of these inkblots still have some cultural representation - thinking specifically about Alan Moore’s Watchmen or Sofia Coppala’s The Virgin Suicides. But what if these enigmatic symbols manage to elicit something beyond pure imagination? What if, somehow, they served as the spiritual catalyst for something else entirely more unexplainable?

In this entry, we will explore the little-known disappearance of the Shoemaker family in the Alaskan wilderness and how that connects to a 4-year-old carefully reviewing inkblots in Austin, Texas.

In the summer of 1964, forty-five-year-old Tim Shoemaker and his family arrived at Denali National Park for a week of hiking, fishing, and relaxation. He was accompanied by his wife Grace, 9-year-old son Nathan, and 5-year-old daughter Ellie. This trip had been a yearly tradition for the Shoemaker family for almost a decade. Most other families would settle for quieter, more serene nature trails rather than braving the mighty, untamable north. However, this was par for the course for the Shoemakers - given that both Tim and Grace were park rangers for the neighboring Kluane National Park and Reserve. 

“They were both such tough cookies” says Andrew Brevis, a fellow park ranger and close family friend of the Shoemakers.

“It didn’t make a lot of sense to anyone that they had gone missing. Or, I guess, it made us really worried. If Timmy and Gracie found something out there they couldn’t handle, can’t imagine there was a good outcome around the corner.”

The Shoemaker’s campsite was eventually discovered by fellow sibling hikers Denise and Deandre, or more accurately, what was left of the campsite.

“It was really crazy lookin’, immediately set some scary buzzers off” Denise half-whispered, eyes wide, waving her hands like she was recounting an urban legend. 

“First off, the tent was cut open. When I found everything, I assumed we were looking at the aftermath of a grizzly [bear]” she paused, collecting herself. “But there weren’t any blood. I mean there was the arm and the leg, but there wasn’t a lot of…splatter? I’m not sure what the right word is. And the tent was cut way too nice.”

In asking her what she meant by “too nice”, her sister Deandre tagged in to pick up where Denise left off:

“Like, it was surgical. The tent, the arm, the leg - very straight and even, nothing a grizzy would do. Unless he brought some good scissors.” 

She’s right - whatever, or whoever, found the Shoemakers that fateful summer certainly wasn’t a wild animal. Their dome-shaped tent had been sliced cleanly from one of the tentpoles all the way down to the mattressed floor, leaving the remaining material to fall limply onto the ground. The other part of the tent, the part that was excised, still has not been found, even all these years later. A few feet from the damaged tent laid an adult arm and leg, determined eventually to be Tim’s and Grace’s, respectively. The limbs had also been cut cleanly, with some venous drainage causing small pools of blood at the incision sites, but no arterial spray - which should have been present if the dismemberment had been done at the campsite. 

“It was like someone took a machete and just cut all the way down to the ground, all vertical. Not haphazard like an attack or nothing. And why’d they take it all with them?” Denise pontificated

In doing so, she highlighted another odd aspect of the disappearance: whatever/whoever severed The Shoemaker’s tent from top to bottom also absconded with the detached material, amounting to about 40% of the large family tent, as well as the severed halves of some of their winter coats and of course, the remaining pieces of the Shoemakers. Something this outlandish usually does result in the creation of a mythos, an urban legend to help explain away the associated existential discomfort. In this case, it instead just added fodder to an existing legend.

“I was straight up terrified of The Half-Man when I was growing up” admitted Denise, big smile masking some lingering fear, perhaps.

The Half-Man was a legend born out of the eerily similar disappearances of a husband-and-wife mountaineering team that vanished around Denali National Park in the early 1950s. What was found of them paralleled The Shoemaker’s case: a tent with the end excised cleanly from top to bottom and half of a human skull. It was said that they, too, were visited by The Half-Man, the rotten soul of a greedy colonizer who had died at the hands of a cursed axe. In the story, the colonizer tried to take more than what he was owed in a trade agreement with the native peoples over land, and a warrior of the local Koyukon tribe subsequently dealt with his betrayal by splitting him right down the middle with the aforementioned weapon. When the colonizer died, the curse resulted in only half of his soul going to the afterlife, with the other half remaining on earth, perpetually trying to reunite with his twin. So it is said that when one encounters The Half-Man, they will be cleaved in twain (a fate shared by their material belongings too, apparently) and then he will try to attach half of their body to his halved spirit, but of course that will never sate him. In another, less popular version, the colonizer fell deeply in love with one of the Koyukon women and was denied courtship by the tribe's chieftain. The colonizer's want, love, and lust caused his soul to rupture in two, and from there, the legend and implications are very similar. The retelling with the cursed axe is still the dominant narrative in the area, horror once again trouncing romance in the arena of pop culture.  

Despite an exhaustive search of the surrounding area, the remainder of The Shoemakers were never found. This brings us back to inkblots, but with a new main character: enter 4-year-old Shelly Duponte of Austin, Texas.

At the same time as the Shoemaker’s disappearance, we would find Shelly in a psychiatrist’s office, reluctantly helping the young girl cope with the death of her father in a recent house fire. 

“We lost David in December of 1963” Violet Duponte, mother to Shelly Duponte, recounts. “An electrical fire that started in our bedroom took him. I was away on business. Our older daughter, Cherish, was able to rescue Shelly. We all struggled dearly after that, but Shelly just did not have the tools at that young age to swallow grief. She needed the help of a professional.”

As you might imagine, there was not an overabundance of specially trained child psychiatrists in America during the early 60s, let alone one in Texas, a state known for its “grit your teeth and bear it” attitude. An adult psychiatrist (one who does not want to be associated with Strange Worlds, go figure) reluctantly agreed to take on Shelly as a patient. He was a big believer in the clinical utility of Rorschach inkblots. Although they were never formally ordained appropriate for use in childhood, the psychiatrist figured it was worth a shot after other techniques did not seem to help Shelly. Little did he know of the pandora’s box he was about to open. 

To explain how inkblots work in practice, the psychiatrist starts by placing the ten standardized (as decreed by the test's creator, Hermann Rorschach) inkblot cards in the correct “order.” Next, the observer views each card in that order, with the psychiatrist recording the observer's thoughts and emotions while progressing through the set. The goal is for the clinician to better understand the root of a patient’s pathology by understanding the common dysfunctional throughlines in their responses to the inkblots. Shelly’s response to these cards was unexpected. 

“I was told the first time ‘round, Shelly could barely be bothered to even look at the cards, let alone tell the doctor how she felt about them. The doc decided to try one more time. When he did, Shelly became really interested in the first card, just kinda staring and squinting at it. After a minute, she apparently put both hands in the air and shouted, ‘there you are, Ellie!’, like she was greetin’  a friend at a birthday party or something. She didn’t know any Ellies, though.”

From there on out, Shelly was reportedly entranced by the first Rorschach inkblot. Interestingly, this inkblot is not canonically thought of as a human-like image (people usually liken it to a bat or a butterfly), in contrast to some of the later cards. She was so enraptured with the inkblot that Shelly ended up bringing the card home with her. She had a meltdown in the psychiatrist’s office when they tried to separate her from it. The card became a bit of an imaginary friend for the young lady - talking and listening to it, having it sleep next to her in bed, essentially bringing it with her everywhere she went. 

“At first it was great” remarked Violet. “I don’t think it was what the doctor intended, but it had the desired effect - she was opening up to me and her sister again. Maybe this was the end of it, we thought. I was mistaken, and the issues at school were the first red flag for me.”

Despite the enormous improvement in her behavior, Shelly started to have some cognitive back-slipping regarding her ability to count. Whereas she was previously well ahead of her peers at math in the throes of her depression, now it seemed like she couldn’t find her way from one to ten. Her teachers had reached out to Violet on multiple occasions, asking her to make an appointment with Shelly's pediatrician so that they could formally evaluate her. Alternatively, perhaps she found a new counting order with initially unforeseen importance.  

“Around the same time as the number issues she began to do some weird things with the card, too. Stealin’ oven mitts from the drawer and carrying the card around in them, lettin’ me know Ellie was chilly and needed a jacket. Nightmares about the big spider without skin spinin’ the ground too quick and hurtin' people, screamin’ about it every single night. All the while she forgettin’ how to count. Cherish can probably tell ya the numbers still, she was the one who figured it all out” Violet said with a short chuckle. 

In my interview with Cherish Duponte, she did recall most of the sequence - clearly still very proud of her clever deduction:

“She would stomp around the house just saying what sounded like random numbers. What stood out to me was that sometimes she would include a shape, and then she would go right back to the same numbers, in the same order. I thought it was some childhood game or, like, a weird nursery rhyme I didn’t know. But it was all so specific. It sounded something like:

SIX ! ONE ! CIRCLE ! SIX ! NINE ! SEVEN ! FOUR ! THREE ! NINE ! LINE ! ONE !

Shoot, I thought I remembered more” stopping to chortle, with a laugh nearly identical to Violet's. “But it was the same every time - over and over and over. It was driving mom and me up a wall. Whenever I asked her what she was doing, she told me she was playing Ellie’s favorite game. The only Ellie I knew was the missing kid on the news, so that was creepy”

“But we were studying cartography, or map making, in social studies. One day it just hit me - she probably doesn’t know the word ‘dot’ or ‘dash’ yet. She was four I mean, why would she. But was she repeating coordinates, longitudes and latitudes?”

61.697439, (-)150.209291 is the sequence young Shelly would repeat with a feverish delight. Thankfully, we do not need to rely on Cherish to remember the whole sequence. Those coordinates live forever in a strange and bizarre infamy, an unexplainable part of the police record for the Shoemaker Family’s disappearance. 

“I wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do” Violet recounted. “But Cherish was certain, she just had a feelin’ about it - tellin’ me over and over to call the ‘Alaska Police’, because Shelly could be an ‘X-man’ and that's how she knew something important about the disappearances.”

Over 400 miles away from Denali National Park lies an unassuming patch of land with a small body of water known as Willow Swamp. In the Fall of 1964, following those coordinates brought local police to the west side of swamp. They were not expecting much, but they were entirely out of other leads to pursue. To everyone's utter amazement, the phalangeal bones of a very small hand sprouting from the mire caught a deputy’s eye - knocking over the first domino that led to the urban legend of The Half-Man becoming international news. After a few days of excavation, the forensics department would unearth fifty percent of Ellie Shoemaker’s mostly decayed body - bisected straight down the middle, from head to pelvis. To date, none of the other Shoemaker’s remains have been located. No adequate scientific explanation has been provided to account for the state of Ellie’s body, as well as her distance from the site of her disappearance. 

“After they found that poor girl's body, Shelly lost interest in that inkblot card. Looking at the card before I threw it out, I thought the picture kind of looked like how they found that girl, half of her all hunched over. Maybe I’m just seein’ things though,” Violet remembers. “Her counting went back to normal after they found her. Thankfully, her mood stayed good as well. Ellie helped my Shelly a lot, I think”

“I really don’t remember any piece of it” remarked a now-adolescent Shelly. “Didn’t mind being X-man for a day, though”

In the weeks following the discovery of Ellie’s body, numerous callers claiming to be mediums reached out to give new coordinates to other Shoemaker bodies, none of which were fruitful. Shelly has not had an additional unexplainable event and does not believe she is psychic, a spirit caller, or a mutant.

“I think we were really exceptionally similar” theorized Shelly. “I mean almost the same age, both girls, nearly the same name - and we were both really hurting at that time, dealing with some big loss. Somehow, that allowed us to find each other. The worlds really scary, but we can always find each other when it breaks us, I think.”

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

The night air in Manhattan stung like a needle. The alley reeked of trash, piss, and death—his signature. I’d been hunting him for years. His name was Vincent Draven, though the name hardly mattered now. What mattered was the string of corpses left in his wake, Lexi among them. She’d been just seventeen when he drained her dry and dumped her like garbage.

Draven wasn’t like the vamps from books or movies. He walked among us, elegant and unassuming, with a charming smile that cloaked centuries of bloodshed. A Wall Street hotshot by day, by night he was a predator with no equal. His network of influence had bought silence, fear, and apathy. The cops called the killings random. I knew better.

I followed him for weeks, learning his patterns. He preferred blondes—young, naïve. Tonight, it was a girl who couldn’t have been older than twenty, teetering in heels she wasn’t used to. She laughed nervously at his jokes, her trust bought with smooth words and a crooked grin. He led her into the alley, away from the lights, and I followed, heart hammering.

When he pinned her against the brick wall, his hand gripping her throat, I stepped into the shadows, raising my suppressed Glock.

“Let her go, Draven.”

He turned, those sharp blue eyes narrowing. “Who the hell are you?” he asked, his voice like silk over steel.

I stepped closer. “I’m your death.”

I didn’t flinch as I fired. The shot was perfect, punching into his side. He staggered, blood dripping black in the dim light. The girl screamed and scrambled away as vile creature doubled over.

But then he straightened.

His body rippled, bones crunching, skin splitting. His human disguise melted away like wet paper. His true form emerged—a gaunt, pale thing with skin stretched too tightly over his frame, claws extending from his fingers. His eyes glowed like molten gold, his teeth long and jagged, dripping venom. The bastard grinned.

“Cute trick,” he snarled, lunging at me with inhuman speed.

I fired again, but my gun jammed. “Shit,” I hissed, tossing it aside. He was on me in a second, slamming me into the wall. His claws tore through my jacket, scraping flesh. Pain seared, but adrenaline kept me standing.

I’d trained for this. Years of sweat and scars, of learning every trick to kill one of his kind. My reached for the sharpened wooden stake at my belt. As he went for my throat, I ducked and drove it into his chest. He shrieked, an unholy sound that rattled my bones. He swung wildly, claws cutting deep into my arm, but I twisted the crude weapon, digging deeper.

“Die, you piece of shit!” I roared, digging the stake upward.

With one last gurgling scream, he collapsed. His body crumbled to ash, swirling away in the wind. I slumped against the wall, bloodied but alive. The girl was long gone, safe, I hoped.

I spat on the pile of dust. “That was for my sister.”

The police found her car parked on the side of I 70, abandoned. She was dead, most people missing past 48 hours don’t make it. 

“We found her this morning in a wooded area, the dental records were a match.”

“Yeah, it’s her, how did -”

“The autopsy hasn’t been preformed yet, but they’re assuming it was blunt force trauma. There’s an open investigation on details I can discuss.”

The phone went silent and I nodded, in a daze. Feeling sick to my stomach, I and told the officer I had to leave, hanging up the phone. Walking  into my living room I grabbed a pillow, crying until my throat hurt and my eyes swollen. 

Come on, you have to pull yourself together. I blew my nose and hiccupped. The silence was peirced by a phone call. 

“This is Detective Thompson. I know this is a difficult time for you, but can you come into the station for questioning?”

“S..sure.” All the tears had left my voice, at this point everything was cold and numb, like wading through static. 

“Will three-thirty work for you?”

No time was good for me, but what choice did I have? If I refused it would seem suspicious. “Yea, I’ll come down.”

“I’m so sorry this happened, Ms. Kelly, but the more information we have the sooner we can solve this.”

Or the sooner you can lazily pin this on someone and close the case. “I understand, you have my full cooperation. I want this solved too.”

“Alright, we’ll see you then.”

The phone went silent. 

She had died horribly, and I was going to find out who did this and make them suffer. Suffer worse than she had. Outside of my house was a pile of firewood. I searched it until I found a plank of oak. I would make a spirit board, but not the cheap Ouija that Parker Brothers shilled out to curious teenagers.

I carefully burned the words into the wooden panel. The smell of scorched cedar stung my lungs and my eyes were sore from crying , it didn’t matter. I found a pattern of the sun and moon and followed each detail until both images were pristine.  I struck my index finger with a sewing needle and the thirsty wood absorb my blood. Choosing a smaller block of wood, I carved a planchette, it was nothing more than a simple pointer but it would work. Finally, I placed a photo of Lily at the top. By the time my work was completed my hands were sore and the sun was breaking out over the sky. 

Concentrating I asked what the board wanted. I was so exhausted the planchette floated to the letters with no fanfare.

G O T O SLEEP.

“Lily, is that you?”

YES.

“How can I help?”

D R E A M

 The air suddenly grew cold and I wrapped a blanket around me. I wanted to sink into the couch, into the floor and into the cold damp earth, never to wake again.

I woke to the weight of cold chains around my ankles,  pleading with the man to let me go. The smell of exhaust at the engine started and the searing pain at my body dragged against the road. 

I woke to my heart pounding and my couch drenched in sweat. It was dark out, the clock silently ticking. My phone read that it was close to three am, the witching hour. There were five missed calls from the local police department. 

I made some coffee and drank it black, enjoying it’s warmth and bitterness. My phone vibrated against me and answered. The tired officer on the other line, I told him that I passed out and I was sorry and agreed to meet him in the afternoon for questioning. 

I reviewed my handiwork from the night before. A plain cedar board with ornate wooden letters carved into it. The sun and moon looked ornate, the yes and no were slightly off center but that didn’t matter. I took some silver and gold paint and filled in the sun and moon before slapping a clear code of lacquer over the board. Parker Brother’s eat your heart out.

I got into my small silver car and left toward the police station. Entering the office to a tired looking officer with thinning hair. 

“Candace Williams, I’m here to discuss the Lily Henderson case.”

The officer’s eyes dropped. “Ma’am, I’m sorry for your loss. I’m detective Thompson. please come on back to the office.”

The office was surprisingly cozy. A simple desk with a computer sat next to a few office chairs. I took a seat in one as the Detective sat across from me.

“Ms. Williams, can I get you anything, a coffee or donut perhaps?” He smiled warmly.

“Coffee, if that’s ok.”

“Sure thing.” He left the room and came back with a small paper cup. “It ain’t Starbucks but it’ll get the job done. I am so sorry for your loss. Any information that you have about Lilly that will help us solve this case is would be greatly appreciated.”

“Do you know what happened to her?” A tear fell from my eye.

“It’s still under investigation. We're working to resolve this for you and her family.” He lowered his head. “Do you remember the last time you saw her?”

I racked my brain trying to remember when I last saw her. “It was three weeks ago. We were going to meet up and she never showed. I called her phone she never answered, I thought she was busy.  I should have checked in on her and have been a better friend.” My chest tightened as tears clouded over my eyes.

“Candace, none of this is your fault.” His tone calmed my frazzled nerves. “I have a daughter and I’m terrified of what could happen to her. Ma’am I’m going to do everything I can to get this monster off the street, but you’ve got to help me. Do she mention anyone following her? Any stalkers, or any jealous ex boyfriends?”

“Lily did mention her ex, his name was James Martin, I think. They had a major falling out and she stayed at my house for a few weeks, he had been harassing her online but I never thought it would come to this.”

“Do you know his address? What kind of vehicle he drove? Anything you can remember.”

“A Toyota Tacoma, black. I don’t remember a plate number…” A flashback of the vision interuppted my thoughts, the black truck, the chains, the screaming. “663YET, I think, I’m not a hundered percent sure on it.” 

“It’s ok, anything you can remember, you’re a great help. Do you want some water? You look a little bit peeked.”

“I’ll take some more coffee if you have it.”

“You’re going to be up all night.”

His warm nature made me smile in spite of myself as he refilled my cup of coffee and handed me a glazed donut, my stomach growled as I realized I forgot to eat since afternoon yesterday.

“Thank you, and it’s ok, I work night shift.”

“Understood. do you remember anything else about James?”

“He’s a big guy, reddish brown hair. He had a beard the last time I saw him. Lily would stay at my place to avoid him. He used to work at Wells Fargo with us, before they had layoffs.”

“Was he ever threatening towards you?”

“Not to my face, he didn’t like her hanging out with me. That's really all I have right now”

“Ok. Are you ok to drive home?” His eyes had a fatherly concern.

“I’ll be ok, if it makes you feel better I can text you when I get home.”

“I’d hate to impose-”

“It’s no problem.” Nodding,  I gathered my purse and left the station. I went home scrolled on my phone to James's socials. They were full of the same misogynistic speeches, hunting pictures and the confederate flag. But the photo of his truck and plate were in plain view.

At sunset I placed the spirit board on the middle of my alter and lit a black and red candle. Holding the planchette in my hands, I called Lily's name. It trembled as hit floated to Hello.

“Lily, is this you?” I asked, my heart beating rapidly.

YES.

“Was James the one that killed you?”

YES.

My rage surged. “We got him. I gave the police his plate number, he’s going to go away for a long time.”

 N O T G O O D E N O U G H.

*“*Not enough? I’m doing all that I can, what more do you want?”

D E A T H P A I N H E L L.

*“*I hope he gets the death penalty. He needs to suffer.”

The planchette jumped in my hands once again.

Y O U C U R S E H I M

I was a practicing Witch, but I didn’t curse people, then again, I didn’t need to curse anyone up until now. The murder of my best friend seemed a justified reason enough to.

My kitchen started to shake and cabinet drawers opened and slammed shut. the air grew so cold I could see my breath in front of me. And at my feet there was my phone and a mason jar. Shaking I picked them both up. I wasn’t practiced in curses, but this was a place to start. 

Lighting some black candles and dragons blood incense,  my bedroom was filled with a soft glow and the scent of resin, wax and roses. I wrote the name James Martin Will Suffer on a sticky note, then I crossed out the vowels and repeating letters. Taking the remaining letters I  rearranged them into a cryptic glyf. Folding up the sigil, spat on it in the Mason jar and covered it with dirt before sealing the lid.

I drove to a near by river. In the past I had volunteered and cleaned litter from its shores, I collected rocks from her banks.

“River spirit, I need your help. Take this jar and run it’s namesake to the bottom. May your water fill his breath and may my sister have her vengeance, by the name of Hecate and Morrigan”   The river carried it before bashing it into a boulder, breaking the jar into sharp shards before whisking it downstream. I prayed that the bastard would meet his end.

 Lily would pound on my walls every night and move my furniture. I went back to the spirit board asking if there was anything she wanted but it was the same message every time.

The grief and lack of sleep were affecting my job, my boss told me to take some leave and provided me the number to a grief counselor. When I was younger I used to bury myself in work to avoid pain, but now it only left me exhausted. I felt brittle as though my whole world was breaking around me. 

I would give my testimony and along with the evidence, James would be sentenced to death. My job was done, the curse was only an accelerant for the inevitable. Except the trial would never come. I went back to the police office and asked for Officer Thompson.

“Ms. Williams?” said the detective. “Are you all right, you seem tired.”

“I am, have you heard anything from James Martin?”

Thompson looked back and fourth. “I think you should come into my office, I’ll get you some coffee.”

“Thank you,” I said, as he lead me back to a small stuffy room shaded by blinds.

“I’m technically not supposed to discuss this with civilians, but I know you were her friend. James volunteered his vehicle, the tire tracks don’t match and he has a fairly solid alibi. He was helping some family move some equipment.”

“With his truck.”

“Yes, his truck was out, that’s why we don’t have a lead. Did Lilly have anyone else? Like any one that was giving her the creeps, maybe on social media?”

“No. Her and James were constantly fighting, she never told me about anyone else. I’m sorry. “

“Ma’am, I promise you we’ll do everything we can. We’re talking to her family, we’ll let you know if anything changes if you do the same.”

I felt completely numb as I got into my car, as though I were on another plane of existence, slowly fading away. Rage welled up inside me. But not at the kindly old officer, he was just doing the best he could. James planned this out, and dragged an innocent woman to death where no one could hear her scream. I needed to find proof.

My phone vibrated with a text from an unregistered number.  

:I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.  THEY WON'T FIND YOUR BODY:

My heart froze in my chest as I looked for the number, but the message had disappeared.  Fear burned into rage, the bastard wouldn't get away with this.

I visited James's once for a New Years Eve party, before he forbade Lily from talking to me. He lived on a farm with his parents but in a separate house.  I parked my car in a field at the far end of his property and passed through a wooded area with a sharp ravine. Clambering down the steep path I crossed a wooden bridge over the river, the babble of the water over the stones calmed my jumpy nerves. Climbing up the steep slope I followed the path out of the woods. The estate loomed in the distance. 

Rather than taking the dirt road I walked through the pasture. A few sleepy cows walked passed me, unbothered by my presents. Reaching the estate, I  made my way to the enormous garage. The door was locked tight. 

The wind blew heavily against the garage, so heavy I had to brace myself. I ducked behind the structure as James walked out the door. Cursing under his breath he opened the door to the garage. In the corner loomed a stack of tires lying next to a chain. The image of Lily being dragged down the dirt road flashed through my mind and her screams made my flesh break out in a cold sweat.  A ringing cell phone broke the silence.

“Hello?” said James over the phone.

James's face fell, his skin paled as he ran back into the house. I took out my phone and snapped a photo of the evidence just as James  screamed as I took off running as fast as my legs would carry me. My lungs burned from the cold air as he was gained on me. My legs buckled under me as I made my way through the woods towards the ravine, the river churning beneath me. Turning around to face him, his eyes wide with surprise.

“Why are you trespassing on my property, Candy?”

The words caught in my throat, I was too scared to say anything as he inched towards me.

“Now, you’re going to be a good girl and give me you’re phone.”

“Or what? Why do you want my phone. If you have an alibi you have nothing to worry about.”

His eyes went blank. “What I did to Lily will be nothing compared to what I’ll do to you.”

Death, pain, hell. The words flashed through my mind. I listened to the river beneath me. James lunged towards me but I caught him off balance. He fell sharply down the ravine, landing on a large rock in the river. His bones poking through his shattered leg as he screamed in pain.

“Help!” 

Smiling,  I looked into his pleading eyes before pushing him into the current, not enough to sweep him away but enough to drag the broken limb. His screams were exquisite as buzzards began to circle overhead.

The drive home was peaceful, and I felt heavy and drowsy.  For the last time I rested my hands on the planchette as it drifted towards goodbye. 

Their courses used to be available back in the day and 100% free. Anyway could just stumble upon a flyer, their one and only method of advertising, place an order via a certain email that no longer exists nowadays, and receive a free VHS or DVD of the requested course, depending on the era. I remember that there were 3 sections advertised only at the beginning of a course, which are the Adults, Teens and Kids sections. The available courses I still remember seeing are: Music, Dancing & Physical Education, Acting, Drawing & Design, Literature & Grammar, Algebra & Geometry, Programming & Cybersecurity, Chemistry, Physics, Nutrition and many more, all of them supposedly taught by the same tutor, who is only known as Mosradael. Today, there are no traces of the media formats, but the video courses would just pop up randomly according to search results, uploaded by a nameless channel with no profile picture, that was the case for me at least. The videos themselves would have random yet decent number of views but with 0 likes, dislikes and comments.

My name is Holgha. I am here to be a voice for myself and the 2 other names I have for you: Betty and Keiko, 2 beautiful souls that are no longer among us to speak for themselves, so I will do it for them, reporting facts obtained from relatives and close acquaintances.

Victim: Betty (1990 - 1997)

Course: Music (Piano Lessons)

Year: 1997

Please allow me to start with the case that break my heart the most, so that I can find the strength to continue with the rest. This is the tragic story of little Betty. Since her very early years, Betty always displayed a real fascination and attraction for music and musical instruments, with her two favorites being the flute and the piano. It is unclear how her parents saw the flyer from the Mosradael Learning Academy but they ordered a piano course and received a VHS shortly after. They never saw who delivered the package. Big mistake. According to my source, one of her relatives, the tutor, Mosradael on the tape was a slightly older boy apparently from Spain of maybe 13 years old, thus getting Betty more excited and comfortable for the learning process.

The first sessions went well to the point that Betty's parents would grant her the privacy to learn alone, in her room, with her own TV, player and piano. However, things started to get concerning when her parents would hear her and also find her learning and playing at odd hours, from 2am to 5am for example. Betty started sleeping during classes and skipping school, strangely obsessed about her piano lessons that it seemed nothing else mattered for her. Soon, it became clear that there was a song, the only song she would play each time she could, or hum or sing when she could not play, and she would as well do it at odd hours. Her parents decided to stop the piano lessons and confiscated the VHS tape and the piano for her own good. Despite those measures, she would still wake up in the middle of the night to hum or sing the song plunging her parents into despair, before proceeding to harass her parents during the day so that they release the VHS and the piano. Her parents sent complaints to the academy through their email to no avail.

One night, her parents found Betty apparently sleepwalking, and trying with her eyes closed to open the room where the piano and the VHS were locked away, while calmly humming the song. Her mother wanted to shake her but the father stopped his wife, curious about what was occurring. Betty then stopped everything all of a sudden, standing still in front of the door for at least 10 minutes. When the parents decided that it was enough and they made the first steps towards their daughter, Betty used her right hand to push the door and it violently shattered into pieces, allowing her to enter the room. When her parents shook her, she screamed and fought them as if she was afraid of them.

The same day, at around 11am, Betty's parents contacted a child psychologist who was on her way to attend to the little girl. Meanwhile, they let Betty learn and play in her room, to appease her and also to allow the psychologist to see the circumstances for herself. They heard her play the song, again and again, until the psychologist arrived and she also, along with the parents, heard the melody and went to Betty's door. However, the moment they opened the door, Betty, the VHS tape and even the flyer were gone, leaving behind the piano, the player and the television on static, and especially distraught parents who for the rest of their lives have been crushed by their loss. To add more to the torture, they would sometimes hear someone playing the song on the piano locked in her room but the moment they open the door, everything would stop. They eventually had to break and throw the piano away. You cannot see me typing this, but maybe through my words you can feel the tears that I shed. For crying out loud, she was only 7 years old! Seven! But— okay, what can be done at this point?

Victim: Keiko (1989 - 2014)

Course: Drawing & Design

Year: 2014

Keiko was a bubbly woman filled with a passion for art and crafts. Around the 2010s, the world was really buzzing with everything art and design and Keiko wanted to take her passion to the virtual realm as she felt that her culture has design wealth that could largely contribute to the movement. According to her husband at the time, she found the course randomly on a video platform and decided to explore. Once again, big mistake. According to him, the tutor Mosradael seemed to be a young man of around their age and from the West.

As usual, the first sessions were okay. Keiko retrieved the video each time she needed to from the browser history as even keywords would not work in the search bar but she dismissed it. She followed instructions, bought a drawing book and pencils to practice on paper before moving things to the screen. She was very happy about the lessons and the designs that she painted some of them on several doors of their house. Soon, they started to hear strange knocks on the doors, at various times during the day or the night, only to verify and see that nobody was behind the doors or in the rooms. Sometimes, they would open a door, expecting to see the bathroom but would see the living room instead and mysteriously find themselves there, holding the door. One time, their baby crawled through a door and disappeared for at least 24 minutes before reappearing through another one completely and fortunately unharmed. Keiko would be the recipient of horrible nightmares in which the doors would open and let strange beasts invade their home and rip them apart. She would also sleepwalk, and draw strange symbols on the walls or in her drawing book, effectively intensifying the bizarre occurrences in the house.

The day they decided to leave that house, Keiko went back in to fetch something and never came back out. When her husband went to look for her, he saw the symbols on the walls and doors emit a strange light and catch fire so vividly that it burned down the whole house. At the same time, Keiko's computer and her sketchbook also caught fire and were destroyed totally. She was never found and left behind a grieving husband and their little son.

Victim: Holgha (2001 - 20??)

Course: Dancing & Physical Education

Year: 2024

I have always been a dancing addict. People know me for not being able to stay still. It does not matter if it is out of joy or to let any negative feeling out or to get my mind off things, I have to dance. I explored many genres from different parts of the world and it is with the intention of discovering new ones that I made a search on the Web and stumbled upon a free course from that— academy and unfortunately took it. Monumental mistake. Mind you, at that point in February, I did not know anything about Betty, Keiko or any other person who unfortunately interacted with the academy. Mosradael on the video I clicked on, was a young Asian woman of around my age and she introduced me to new dances she claimed existed before the year 700. I found it interesting and imagined how I could merge the very old and the very new to create something unique.

The first lesson did not really impress me to be honest, and since it was just some free and random video on the Web, I did not really want to continue but, I somehow felt compelled to come back, again, and again, and again. Soon, I was deep inside the course, and the movements were getting harder to learn and reproduce but I was slowly getting there. One day, the tutor taught me how to prepare a certain mixture that was key to the next level. I blindly followed the instructions and applied it on specific parts of my body before proceeding with the dance session. The mixture dried up, almost like sunk inside my skin as soon as I started the video and for once, I was really dancing and reproducing all the moves with strange ease. Soon however, I realised that I was no longer in control. I could see, I could hear, I could feel, I could not open my mouth so I could not scream or call for help, I could not stop, so I danced all around the room, gracefully without knocking anything off, for hours. My phone rang at some point but I could not pick up, my feet and knees turned red because of the atrocious pain, I cried and growled in agony, suffering and dancing. Meanwhile, the screen of my computer was flashing strange symbols and at some point, the tutor, Mosradael interrupted the piano music which made me freeze but I was not released, instead, I was standing on a toe, kept still in an unnatural position and by a supernatural force.

"Rejoice, rejoice daughter of mine. You have found your way to a new life that shall never end..." She said, speaking slowly with an unnatural growling voice, and smiling so eerily that I could not really pay attention to the rest of her speech, also due to the unbearable pain. As soon as she stopped, the piano music and the dancing resumed. I was a prisoner in my own body.

One of my friends came to the door, then to my window, seeing my shadow. She banged on the window and even called me on the phone but ended up leaving in anger, as she thought that I was ignoring her. It is only when she came back later during the night with another friend, that they understood that something was wrong. They broke the door and saw me crying and dancing, prompting them to stop the music. I immediately crumbled on the floor and burst into tears before being rushed to the hospital.

It was not the end of it of course. The video is gone, even in the browser history. The only people that can attest of its existence are the friends that rescued me. However, Mosradael still haunts me to this day. I can hear that voice in my head, even the piano song, and sometimes, I start dancing randomly out of control and no matter where I am or what time it is. It has put me in troubles and in danger severally. My relatives and friends are thinking of sending me to a psychiatric facility, and I believe this is where I will disappear and/or die like Betty and Keiko.

About Keiko, do you remember me telling you that I did not know anything about Mosradael before being one of the victims? Well, it is only after doing my research that I noticed something strange. I once asked her husband if he could send me a picture of her and almost jumped out of my window when he sent it through email. Mosradael on the video I watched was Keiko. Is it what that thing does? Will my appearance be used as Mosradael for the next victim? I hope not.

I have received other emails of people claiming to have relatives that fell victim to Mosradael. One family from Spain, said that they had a young cousin, Francisco, who was 13 years old when he was trying to study Chemistry through a free and strange VHS tape in 1991. His experiment killed his whole family including himself. They were found chanting strange incantations with their eyes rolled, after inhaling a bizarre orange smoke, and all died on their way to the hospital. I do not think I have enough time left to do research and report on that, they will have to continue without me.

Are we safe in this world? How somebody can just apply for a job, go to an interview and never return? How can someone go to a date trying to find love and find death? How can someone visits a house for rent and end up being a permanent resident, killed and buried under concrete? We only wanted to learn, was it a crime or too much to ask? Is it so easy to lose a life in this world? Well, this is Holgha reporting, and hoping to be the last victim of that entity. Please be careful, always.

To the beautiful souls we loved and unfortunately lost.

The hardest part about waiting was the emptiness. The kind of emptiness that envelops you, heavy and oppressive, where every second seems to stretch endlessly until hours feel like days. I sat next to Sarah in that sterile clinic waiting room, the faint hum of the air conditioning the only sound breaking the stillness. Sarah, my wife, sat beside me, her face pale, hands clasped tightly in her lap.

The strain of the last few years was etched into every line on her face, and her eyes carried the weight of every disappointment we’d faced. We had been trying for nearly three years to conceive. Three long years filled with tests, consultations, false hopes, and crushing letdowns. There had been times where we nearly gave up, where it seemed easier to accept the childless life that stretched before us.

But then, hope would rear its head again, stubborn and unrelenting, dragging us back into the endless cycle of anticipation and heartbreak. It was that hope, or maybe desperation, that had led us to Dr. Anton Gregor, a fertility specialist based in the outskirts of Boston. The clinic itself, tucked away in a quiet corner of the old financial district, was housed in a building that looked like it had been forgotten by time.

Red brick, ivy climbing up the walls, and narrow windows that reminded me of eyes. Eyes that watched but didn’t see. The building felt out of place amid the modern skyscrapers and bustling city life. It was an island, isolated and quiet, which seemed fitting, somehow. We felt like outsiders everywhere we went these days. We had heard of Dr. Gregor through a friend, a close friend who had been in a similar position to ours.

She had tried for years to conceive and had found success at this very clinic. When she first mentioned him, I remember feeling a flicker of hope, tempered by the kind of skepticism that comes after too many failures. “He’s not like the others,” she had said, leaning in with a kind of intensity that made me uncomfortable. “Dr. Gregor… he’s different. He doesn’t give up. He doesn’t fail.” The words had stuck with me.

We made an appointment, more out of desperation than belief, and here we were, sitting in that dim waiting room, waiting for our names to be called. Sarah shifted beside me, her fingers fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve. I could feel her anxiety radiating off her in waves, and it mirrored my own. There was something unsettling about the place.

The door to the back of the clinic opened with a soft creak, and Dr. Gregor stepped into the room. He was tall, with graying hair that was neatly combed back, and he wore a pair of thin, wire-rimmed glasses that caught the light in strange ways. He smiled, a thin, professional smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, and gestured for us to follow him. The consultation room was just as outdated as the waiting area, with faded wallpaper and old wooden furniture that looked like it had been there for decades.

Dr. Gregor didn’t waste any time with pleasantries. He sat behind his desk, hands folded neatly in front of him, and asked us to explain our situation. “We’ve been trying for three years,” Sarah said, her voice small and tired. “We’ve tried everything. Medications, treatments, IVF. But nothing’s worked.” Dr. Gregor nodded, as though he had heard the story a thousand times before. “And now you’re here.” It wasn’t a question.

“We were told that you specialize in cases like ours,” I said, glancing at Sarah. “That you have ways of helping couples who’ve tried everything.” Dr. Gregor leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers as he regarded us with a cool, clinical gaze. “I do,” he said. “My methods are… unorthodox, but they have proven remarkably effective. I work with techniques that push the boundaries of what conventional medicine allows.”

He paused, as if weighing his next words carefully. “Of course, with such experimental methods, there are risks. But nothing that I believe outweighs the potential for success.” My pulse quickened. “Risks?” He waved a hand dismissively. “Every medical procedure comes with risks, Mr. …?” “Alex,” I said. “And this is Sarah.” “Well, Alex, the risks are mostly mild: discomfort, fatigue, nausea.”

“But in some cases, the pregnancy may trigger more… unusual reactions in the body. Nothing that can’t be managed with the proper care.” The way he said it made my skin crawl, but Sarah’s hand slipped into mine, squeezing tightly. She wanted this. We both did. We had come too far to turn back now. After a long moment of silence, I nodded. “What do we have to do?” Dr. Gregor smiled, but there was something about that smile.

Something that didn’t quite fit. “Just leave it to me.” We signed the papers. We agreed to the treatments. We put our faith in a man we barely knew, because what else could we do? Desperation has a way of clouding judgment. The treatments started immediately. It wasn’t like anything we had gone through before. The medications were different, the injections more intense. But Dr. Gregor assured us it was necessary.

And at first, it seemed to be working. Sarah’s body responded to the treatments faster than it ever had. Within weeks, she was pregnant. The first few months were a blur of joy and cautious optimism. For the first time in years, Sarah had a glow about her... a kind of quiet happiness that had been missing for so long. The nausea, the fatigue, all of it seemed like a small price to pay.

But as time went on, things began to change. It started with the rash. One morning, as I was getting ready for work, Sarah called me from the bedroom. Her voice had a strange tone to it: uncertain, worried. I rushed to her side, finding her standing in front of the mirror, her shirt pulled up to reveal her growing belly. At first, I didn’t see it. But then she turned slightly.

My heart skipped a beat. There, just beneath the skin, was a faint network of veins: dark, almost bluish veins that seemed to spider out from her navel. It looked like something out of a medical textbook: a picture of blood vessels that shouldn’t be visible, not like that. “It itches,” she said, her fingers hovering just above the skin, as if she didn’t want to touch it. I didn’t know what to say.

My mind raced with possible explanations. Stretch marks, pregnancy hormones, maybe even an allergic reaction. “It’s probably nothing,” I said, my voice sounding more confident than I felt. “But let’s call Dr. Gregor, just in case.” We called the clinic, and the nurse on the other end of the line sounded unconcerned. “It’s a normal side effect,” she said in a monotone voice, as though she had said it a hundred times before.

But it didn’t feel normal. Over the next few days, the veins grew darker, more pronounced. Sarah tried to ignore it, tried to stay positive, but I could see the worry creeping into her eyes. The rash spread slowly, crawling up her sides and around her back, until it looked like her entire torso was crisscrossed with dark lines. And the itching... she said the itching was unbearable.

Dr. Gregor assured us again that it was nothing. “Some patients experience more visible side effects than others,” he said. “It’s a reaction to the medication. It will pass.” But it didn’t pass. The symptoms only got worse. Sarah began to complain of sharp pains, stabbing pains that would come and go without warning.

They started in her abdomen but soon spread to her legs, arms, and even her chest. She would double over in agony, clutching her stomach, her face twisted in pain. There were nights when I would wake up to find her sitting on the edge of the bed, her hands pressed to her belly, her eyes wide and glassy. “It feels like something’s moving,” she whispered one night, her voice trembling with fear.

I tried to reassure her. I tried to tell her that it was normal for a baby to move around, but deep down, I felt the same growing fear. Something wasn’t right. I could feel it in my bones, in the pit of my stomach. But we were too far in. We had already committed. And every time I called the clinic, every time I tried to express my concerns, I was met with the same calm, detached responses.

One night, about five months into the pregnancy, Sarah woke me in a panic. I could hear her ragged breaths even before my eyes opened. When I sat up, I saw her standing in front of the full-length mirror on the far side of our room. The moonlight filtered through the curtains, casting long shadows across her body. But even in the dim light, I could see the changes happening to her.

Her belly was unnaturally large, far bigger than it should have been at five months. The veins beneath her skin, the ones that had started as a faint rash, were now prominent, thick like black cords crisscrossing her body. Her skin had taken on an almost translucent quality, and I could see the outline of something shifting beneath the surface. Her hands trembled as she touched her belly.

And for a moment, I thought I saw something, a ripple, like a shadow moving just beneath her skin. “Alex,” she whispered, her voice strained and on the verge of breaking, “it’s not just the baby. There’s something else. I can feel it. It’s moving differently. It doesn’t feel right.”

I got out of bed, my heart hammering in my chest. Every rational part of me wanted to tell her that she was imagining things. That the stress and hormones were playing tricks on her mind. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t shake the gnawing feeling that something was terribly, horribly wrong. I walked over to her, wrapping my arms around her shoulders as she trembled. Her skin was cold to the touch, clammy with sweat. “We’ll go to the clinic tomorrow,” I said, my voice barely more than a whisper. “We’ll make them do something.”

She nodded, her body stiff against mine, but I could feel the doubt in her, the same doubt that had been growing inside me for weeks. What could we do? We had signed the papers, agreed to the treatments, and put our faith in Dr. Gregor. That night, I didn’t sleep. I sat in bed, listening to Sarah’s shallow breathing as she lay beside me, her hand resting protectively over her swollen belly.

The next day, we went back to the clinic. I had called ahead, demanding an immediate appointment, refusing to take no for an answer. Sarah was in too much pain to protest, her body visibly deteriorating with each passing hour. When we arrived at the clinic, Dr. Gregor was waiting for us, his calm, controlled demeanor as unnerving as ever.

He ushered us into a private examination room, the kind that smelled of antiseptic and cold metal. The room was too quiet, the kind of quiet that makes your ears ring and your heart race. “We’re going to run some tests,” Dr. Gregor said, his voice smooth and clinical. “I assure you, everything is progressing as expected.” I couldn’t take it anymore. The anger that had been building inside me boiled over.

“EXPECTED?!!” I snapped, my voice louder than I intended. “LOOK AT HER! THIS IS NOT NORMAL! SHE'S IN PAIN, SHE'S DYING!” Dr. Gregor remained unflinching, his eyes fixed on me with an eerie calm. “I understand your concern, Mr. Alex. But I assure you, everything is under control.” “No,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s not. You’ve been lying to us. You’ve been hiding things from us.”

“I want the truth. Now.” For the first time, something shifted in Dr. Gregor’s expression. It was subtle, a flicker of something dark in his eyes, a tightening of his lips. He glanced at Sarah, who was now lying on the examination table, her breath coming in shallow gasps, before turning his attention back to me. “There are things you don’t understand,” he said slowly, choosing his words carefully.

“The treatment you agreed to, it’s not just about fertility. It’s about evolution. Progress.” I felt a chill crawl down my spine. “What are you talking about?” Dr. Gregor took a step closer to me, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “We are on the cusp of something incredible, Mr. Alex. Something that will change the very fabric of humanity. Your child, Sarah’s child, is the first step in that process.”

I stared at him, my mind struggling to comprehend what he was saying. “YOU'RE EXPERIMENTING ON US?!” He didn’t deny it. Instead, he smiled, a cold, calculated smile that made my blood run cold. “Your child is not just a child, Mr. Alex. It is a breakthrough. A new form of life. Something beyond what we currently understand.” I couldn’t breathe. My chest tightened, my heart pounding in my ears.

“You’re insane,” I said. “You’ve put something inside her, something that isn’t human.” Dr. Gregor’s smile widened. “Not yet. But it will be.” Before I could react, the door to the examination room opened, and two nurses entered, their faces blank, expressionless. They moved toward Sarah, who was too weak to resist, and began preparing her for some kind of procedure. “No,” I shouted, rushing toward the table.

“Don’t touch her!” One of the nurses grabbed my arm, her grip surprisingly strong. “Sir, please step back.” I struggled, trying to pull away, but the nurse’s grip tightened. “Let me go!” I shouted, panic rising in my throat. Dr. Gregor watched calmly from the corner of the room, his hands folded behind his back. “You need to trust me, Mr. Alex. Everything I’m doing is for the greater good.”

“Greater good?” I spat, my voice trembling with rage. “You’re killing her!” Before I could say anything else, I felt a sharp prick in my arm. One of the nurses had injected me with something, something that made the world blur around the edges, my limbs growing heavy and sluggish.

I tried to fight it, tried to keep my eyes open, but the darkness swallowed me whole. When I woke up, the room was dim, and my body felt like it had been submerged in molasses. I could hear the soft beeping of machines, the sterile hum of medical equipment, but I couldn’t move.

Slowly, as my vision cleared, I realized I was strapped to a chair, my wrists and ankles bound with thick leather straps. Panic surged through me, but I couldn’t do anything, I could barely even speak. Across the room, Sarah lay on the examination table, her eyes closed, her chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. The veins beneath her skin had darkened even further.

Her belly had swollen even more, grotesquely large, as if something inside her was pushing its way out. Dr. Gregor stood beside her, watching her with the cold, detached gaze of a scientist observing his experiment. The nurses were gone, and the room felt eerily quiet, save for the faint beeping of the machines monitoring Sarah’s vital signs.

“She’s nearing the final stage,” Dr. Gregor said softly, almost to himself. “It’s almost time.” “Time for what?” I managed to croak, my voice weak and hoarse. Dr. Gregor glanced at me, raising an eyebrow. “For the birth, of course. The culmination of all my work. Your child will be the first of many, Mr. Alex. The beginning of a new era.” I struggled against the restraints, my muscles straining, but I was too weak.

“You can’t do this,” I gasped. “You’re playing god, and you’re going to kill her!” “She’s a vessel,” Dr. Gregor said simply, as if that explained everything. “A means to an end. Sarah understood that, even if she didn’t realize it.” My vision blurred again, tears of rage and helplessness clouding my eyes. I had been a fool to trust him, a fool to believe in his promises. I had brought Sarah here, and now I was watching her die.

Suddenly, Sarah’s body convulsed, her back arching off the table as a guttural scream tore from her throat. The machines around her beeped frantically, the monitors flashing with erratic readings. Dr. Gregor moved quickly, checking the machines, his movements calm and methodical, as if he had been expecting this.“It’s happening.” he said, sounding pleased. I watched in horror as Sarah’s belly bulged unnaturally.

The skin stretching and distorting as something moved beneath it, something large, something alive. Her screams filled the room, echoing off the walls, and I felt a sickening sense of helplessness wash over me. “Please, stop it...” I said, my voice breaking. Dr. Gregor didn’t even look at me. His focus remained on Sarah, on the grotesque transformation happening before our eyes.

Suddenly, Sarah's convulsions stopped. The room fell eerily silent. Save for the faint beeping of the machines. Her body lay still on the table, her chest barely rising and falling, her once-glowing skin now deathly pale. For a moment, I thought she was gone, that whatever horror had taken hold of her had finally consumed her. But then, I saw it. A movement, slow at first, but unmistakable. Her belly rippled, the skin stretching unnaturally and then something pressed against it from the inside.

I could see every detail, the shape of fingers, of an arm, of something far too large to be human. My breath caught in my throat. I realized that this thing was coming. It was coming now. Dr. Gregor stepped forward, his eyes gleaming with a mixture of excitement and awe. "This is it," he whispered, as if he were witnessing a miracle. "The birth of the future."

Sarah’s body twitched, her back arching once more. And then, with a sickening wet sound, her belly split open. From the torn flesh of her abdomen, something emerged. At first, it was difficult to make out, slick with blood, its limbs twisting in unnatural ways as it pulled itself free from Sarah's body. But as it fully emerged, standing in the dim light of the examination room, I could see it clearly.

It was a child... at least, it had the shape of one. But it was wrong, horribly, grotesquely wrong. Its limbs were elongated, too thin and too long, its skin an unnatural shade of pale gray. Its eyes, those eyes, were black, bottomless pits, too large for its face, like dark voids that seemed to swallow the light around them. The veins that had covered Sarah's body were etched into its skin, pulsing with a faint, sickly glow.

The thing...my child, if I could even call it that, stumbled forward, dripping with blood, its movements jerky and unnatural, like a puppet being yanked on invisible strings. It opened its mouth, but no sound came out. Instead, it stared at me, its dark eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that made my skin crawl. I felt like I was drowning in that gaze, like it was reaching into my soul, pulling at the deepest parts of me.

Dr. Gregor moved toward it, his hands outstretched, as if to welcome it. "Magnificent," he breathed, his voice trembling with reverence. "You see, Mr. Alex? This is the future. This is evolution. A new kind of life, one that will surpass humanity."

"Your child is the first of its kind." I wanted to scream, to rage against him, to demand answers. But all I could do was stare, my mind struggling to comprehend what was happening. This thing, this abomination, wasn’t my child. It couldn’t be. This wasn’t what we had wanted. This wasn’t what we had signed up for. But it was too late. Far too late.

And then, the creature did something that sent ice-cold fear shooting through my veins. It smiled. Not a human smile. Not the smile of a newborn child. But something far more sinister, far more knowing. It tilted its head to the side, studying me, and then, with a slow, deliberate movement, it turned its attention to Sarah’s lifeless body. Its black eyes flickered with a strange light as it reached down, its elongated fingers brushing against her still form. “No,” I croaked, my voice weak and hoarse.

“Get away from her.” Dr. Gregor ignored me, his focus entirely on the creature. “There’s more to be done,” he murmured, almost to himself. “So much more to be discovered.”

I don’t remember much after that. The drugs they had injected into me must have finally taken full effect, because the next thing I knew, I was waking up in a hospital bed. The room was white and sterile, and the hum of machines was the only sound I could hear. I sat up, my head pounding, my body aching. Sarah was gone. I knew that without even asking. The child, the creature, it was gone too.

But the memory of that night, of what I had seen, was burned into my mind. Dr. Gregor and the clinic...it had all disappeared. When I asked the nurses, the doctors, they looked at me like I was insane. They said I had been found unconscious in our apartment, alone, with no sign of Sarah. They said there was no clinic, no Dr. Gregor. No record of any fertility treatments. It was as if none of it had ever happened.

But I knew the truth. I knew what I had seen. I knew what had been done to us. The months that followed were a blur. I tried to find answers, tried to trace the clinic, but every lead went cold. It was as if the entire place had been wiped from existence. I couldn’t find any of the staff, any records, nothing. It was as though we had been part of some secret, underground experiment, and now, the evidence had been erased.

I moved away from Boston. I couldn’t stay there, not after everything. But even now, as I sit in this new apartment, far away from the city, I can’t escape the nightmares.

I see Sarah every night, her body convulsing on that table, her eyes wide with terror. And I see it, that thing that had come from her, that thing that wasn’t human.

But the worst part, the part that haunts me the most, is that I know it’s still out there. Somewhere, that creature, my child, is walking the earth, growing, learning, evolving. And I can’t help but wonder what Dr. Gregor meant when he said it was just the beginning. What other horrors has he unleashed? What other experiments is he conducting, in secret, in the shadows? I don't think I will ever know.

Lost Media, Now Found:

Excerpt from Strange Worlds, 2004. Found in a local book and record exchange - Sacramento, California

Written by Ben Nakamura

Calculated Temporal Dissonance*: 12%. Increased from previously analyzed media.*

***Of note, there are no records corroborating the existence of Justin Deluth, Victoria Giddleman, and Trisha Lewitt. There are records of one "Everett Peterson". He is currently alive and lives in Columbus Ohio with his wife and two daughters.

*The significance of increased temporal dissonance is yet to be determined, but we will continue to follow the measure as more LMNFs are located.

—————————

Think back to your childhood - were you ever pressured into whispering “Bloody Mary” into a mirror five times? Alternatively, did you ever reluctantly place your hand, shaky with nervous jitters, on the dial of a Ouija board? If you really had courage (or if you had some particularly insane friends), you may have visited your local “abandoned murder house” under the cover of darkness, looking to commune with a vengeful spirit or two. I imagine most of you have been subjected to at least one of these rites of passage, or something very similar.

Reflect on that experience now. If you’re anything like me, you are probably feeling a bizarre cocktail of emotions. Something along the lines of:

4 parts: “Wow, the absolute stupidity”

2 parts: Hairs on the back of your neck raising/a chill slithering down your spine

And a splash of nostalgia for good measure.

Rites of passage are powerful, coercive things - and nearly universal in all cultures across the globe. They seem practically baked into our species as a whole. A way for you to prove to your fellow cave-people that when the chips are down, you’ll have the prerequisite bravery to pick up a spear and defend the colony against a ravenous sabretooth tiger. 

Display your courage, and hey - welcome to the in-group. Refuse to participate, and face ostracization and isolation from your peers. To the fledgling adolescent, I can’t think of anything more motivating than the threat of being a social pariah.  

And to be clear, it has never been about facing true danger, at least not in American culture. Rites of passage have always been more about overcoming a fear of the unknown. No one has ever been killed by Bloody Mary or a Ouija board. I theorize some of you may have sprained your ankle on a loose floorboard if you were the “investigating the murder house”-type, but likely nothing more injurious than that.

But that was our childhood. In the age of the internet, has anything changed? Has the exponential increase in humanity’s connectivity put our kids at risk for more dangerous rites of passage? Well, if you were to carefully examine the exceptionally strange details underlying a string of child abductions in the Fall of 2000, as I have, you may start to think so. 

So, without further ado, let’s dive in. As an introduction, let’s look at a key piece of evidence that ties all eight cases together. Specifically, chat logs from the internet communication platform known as “American Online Instant Messenger”, or AIM, for short. 

See below:

XxCardboardNinjaxX: hey justin do we need to bring our textbooks to school tomorrow for bio 

Thund3rstruck1991: no thats on thursday

XxCardboardNinjaxX: cool i have no idea where mine is lolol

Thund3rstruck1991: lmao 

Thund3rstruck1991: have you thought about wat jeremy said?

XxCardboardNinjaxX: no i forgot tell me again

Thund3rstruck1991: its a game.we can try right now. i have the AIM username. its really not a big deal

Thund3rstruck1991: tim did it i think and he’s really cool. nothing happened to him

Thund3rstruck1991: dude dont be lame 

XxCardboardNinjaxX: sorry was taking out recicling 

Thund3rstruck1991: no you werent your just scared to try 

XxCardboardNinjaxX: im not. also how would you know i wasnt taking out the bin dick 

Thund3rstruck1991: i just know lol

Thund3rstruck1991: ok fine let me invite the account to chat. i bet its not even real. its prolly like a bot 

Thund3rstruck1991: i can only do it if your cool with it man its part of the rules

XxCardboardNinjaxX: ugh fine but i have to off the comp in 10 min

Thund3rstruck1991: nice

BlackeyedDiplomat has entered chat

BlackeyedDiplomat: Hello Justin. Hello Everett. 

Thund3rstruck1991: whats up 

BlackeyedDiplomat: Nothing much. I’m elated that you both finally decided to have a chat with me. You are both clearly very brave. Are you ready to begin? To prove your worth? Are you prepared to give yourself over, body and soul, to The Gray Father?

Thund3rstruck1991: yup

BlackeyedDiplomat: Everett? Have you lost your metal? I can only proceed with your consent. But it is always your choice. Maybe you are not ready to be a man. 

Thund3rstruck1991: dude jesus just say yes

Thund3rstruck1991: ev you there?

XxCardboardNinjaxX: yeah sorry mom was calling

Thund3rstruck1991: ev i know she wasnt

Thund3rstruck1991: we doin this or wat 

XxCardboardNinjaxX: fine 

BlackeyedDiplomat: Excellent choice. It is a very simple game.

BlackeyedDiplomat: First, find something of value to you. It could be anything - your first baseball, a family photo, a treasured video game - it does not matter what the object is as long as it makes you feel joy.

BlackeyedDiplomat: Then, hide that object in your room. Somewhere you cannot see it once you put it there. 

XxCardboardNinjaxX: is my desk drawer ok or is that like too close

BlackeyedDiplomat: That is perfectly acceptable, as long as you close the drawer so that you cannot see the object.

BlackeyedDiplomat: Next, say this phrase exactly as written: “I relinquish myself of this world. I seek the love and companionship of The Gray Father. May he come and spirit me to the ether, where I will remain until I have been emptied and cleansed by his lash alone. Ti-un-fel. Ti-un-fel. Ti-un-fel”

BlackeyedDiplomat: Almost done boys. Finally, close your bedroom door, turn off the light, including your computer screen, look up into the dark, and count to ten. 

At approximately 9:15 PM on November 3rd, 2000, Michelle Peterson would enter Everett Peterson’s empty bedroom. She always made a point of saying goodnight to her twelve-year-old before he went to sleep. Michelle was surprised when she opened the door - the room was pitch black. Her son was very rarely in bed before 10 PM, and he nearly always plugged in a night light before trying to sleep. Feeling something was off, she crept over to his bed to check on him, only to find it empty. Twelve minutes later, Michelle would call her local police station in hysterics. Her only son was missing. 

Eight minutes after that, the same police station would get a nearly identical call from Robert Deluth - his only son, Justin Deluth, was also nowhere to be found. Rob had been passing by the family computer room, expecting to see his son working on homework or goofing off online. Concerningly, he instead found the doors were closed. He quickly turned around and paced back towards the entrance of the room, deciding on which words he would use to scold Justin. Being on the computer with the doors closed violated a critical household rule. Justin's compliance with that rule was the only reason he allowed his son to browse the internet unsupervised. But Justin wasn’t in the lightless room. He wasn’t anywhere in the house. 

At first, the police were not overly concerned with the reports. There was no sign of a struggle in either home. Also, the boys going missing at the same time gave them false reassurance against the possibility of a kidnapping. Instead, the police assumed they had snuck out to “meet girls in the woods”, or some other equivalent peri-pubescent outing. Michelle knew at her core that this was not the case - Everett had never snuck out before, and moreover, the mechanics of him sneaking out made no sense. She had last seen him enter his room thirty minutes before discovering his disappearance, and Everett lived on the third floor of their home with no obvious way of safely making it to the ground from his window. She explained this, but it fell on deaf ears.

When dawn rose without a sign of either of them, the police relented, and the investigation began in earnest. 

Michelle Peterson had spent the night embroiled in her own amateur investigation. When the police indicated they weren’t willing to search that night, she began systematically calling all of Everett’s friend’s parents to determine if they had any information that would help find her son. No one had seen Everett. What's worse, she became acutely aware that Justin was also missing. Rob Deluth informed her that he had last seen Justin on the computer, which is what drove Michelle to probe Everett's PC.

That night, her son’s computer was still on, but the screen was turned off. When she pressed the power button under the monitor, there it all was - no other open tabs or programs, just the above chat logs. When Michelle asked Rob Deluth to do the same, he found something troubling. Rob was an honest man, though, so he shared his findings with the police that following morning, in spite of the fact that what he discovered on the family computer initially made his son appear as the orchestrator of both disappearances. 

Unlike Everett, Justin had been running two AIM profiles in tandem that night - one was Thund3rstruck1991, and the other was BlackeyedDiplomat. 

Or at least that is how it appeared at first. To this day, it is unclear if someone else was in the room as Justin that night, watching over his shoulder. 

The search of the surrounding area lasted two weeks, but no signs of either boy were found. While a majority of the police department and hundreds of volunteers were out scouring the suburban town and nearby woods, senior detective James Tulling made a horrific discovery:

“I spent that first few hours really reviewing the chat logs with a fine-toothed comb” the detective recounted. 

“Given that both boys were communicating with each other immediately prior to their disappearances, it became clear that the chat was related in some capacity. Justin, or whoever was typing as BlackeyedDiplomat, had mentioned placing valued items out of sight. Everett had asked specifically if his desk was an appropriate location for said item, so naturally, I wanted to see if there was anything revelatory in his desk drawer.”

Detective Tulling is unsure what the boy had initially placed in his desk drawer, but what was there when he looked clearly wasn’t Everett’s doing. 

“I reached in [to the drawer], and really had to dig through clutter till I found it. It was a statue, about eight inches in length. It appeared to depict an adult man holding a coiled whip in his right hand. There wasn’t any detail to the body itself, it was all just smooth and featureless gray. Almost like an oversized chess piece. Excluding the face, that is. The face, It’s uh, really hard to describe.”

James was right - I don’t know if I have the right language to describe the face either. The best I can muster is this: Imagine the face of a Moai easter island head, but instead of the expression being neutral, it’s one of intense, unbridled anger. 

“So I pull the statue out of the drawer, and as I bring it up to my face to look closer, something on the inside starts to rattle. Like it was filled with marbles”. Detective Tulling turned his head away from me, gently rubbing his shoulder like he was trying to self-soothe, and I’d understand why in a moment. 

“Of course, there wasn’t any marbles in it. When we cracked it open at the station, a handful of teeth poured out.”

Nine teeth, to be exact. They were all clean as a whistle, too. Detective Tulling had a terrible hunch when he turned the teeth over to forensics, which was confirmed two days later. Everett Peterson’s dental records were a match to the discovery. 

This finding was both horrific and baffling, in equal measure. Everett had been seen in good health, acting normally, less than an hour before he was found to be missing. So then, how did his bloodless teeth end up sealed in that grim relic? And I do mean sealed - there was no cap or hole on the statue. It is unclear how they ended up inside. It was like the figure was made around the teeth themselves, but again, how could that be possible?

An identical effigy would later be discovered behind a bookshelf in the Deluth’s computer room, which also contained a set of teeth - ten of Justin Deluth’s. 

“Nothing about it made any goddamn sense. At the time, there were people in our station who, despite that finding, still thought Justin was to blame just because of what we found on his computer. It was insanity to me then, and it is insanity to me now. Not that I have a better explanation. Maybe he was there in the room with Justin. Don’t know how he passed the entire family undetected. Don’t know how he removed the teeth without so much of a whimper from Justin. Like I said, none of it makes any goddamned sense.” And with that, our interview concluded. Detective Tulling could only spend so long recounting these memories, and I don’t blame him one bit. 

Three months later, Victoria Giddleman and Trisha Lewitt would vanish in a small town twenty miles from Everett and Justin's home. They disappeared under nearly identical circumstances: no signs of a struggle in either home, both girls were twelve and without siblings, both in a chatroom with the BlackeyedDiplomat directly before their disappearances. Reviewing the chat logs, Victoria had pressured Trisha into participating in the “simple game”. She was also logged in to both her personal AIM account as well as one with username “BlackeyedDiplomat”. Not the original - that one had been deleted. It was a new account made hours before their disappearance. Of note, details about the chat logs had not been made available to the public as part of the press report surrounding Everett and Justin’s disappearance. 

The FBI, now involved given the potential emergence of a serial child abductor, had only one lead to work from: Victoria and Trisha also mentioned talking to someone named “Jeremy.” In their logs, Victoria mentioned that this person had introduced her to the idea of playing the “simple game”, seemingly as a means to generate social clout by proving their collective bravery - just like Justin had three months prior. 

None of the victims' parents knew of a person named “Jeremy” in their child’s life. All of the children named Jeremy in the involved school districts were interviewed, but none were identified as possible persons of interest. 

Two more sets of teens would go missing without a trace before the FBI was handed an exceptionally lucky break. At a library in a suburb outside of Chicago, late into the evening, a young man was sitting by himself in the building’s small computer lounge. The librarian on shift, Eunis Lush, watched him intently from her desk:

“He just wasn’t right. I didn’t even need to look at him, in fact, I wasn’t looking at him when he walked in.” Eunis told me over the phone, now miles away from Chicago in a Florida retirement home. 

“He opens the door, and I can just feel it. You know when you quickly go up in elevation, like when you are driving up a big incline on the highway, and your ears start popping? It was kind of like that. He walked in, and immediately I felt the pressure. It’s tough to explain in words” 

I assured her that she was doing great. Moreover, I highlighted the fact that most of this case was hard to explain concisely, so she was in good company. I then asked her to continue:

“He looked like he was in his twenties. Had a sweatshirt and some denim jeans on. All in all, there was nothing obviously off with him. But when I looked at him, the pressure got much worse. My mom always told me to trust my gut, so I watched him sit down in the computer lab, even though it was hurting to look. I wanted to see if he was doing anything suspicious, which he didn't appear to be. But then, I saw an outline of something in his pocket - I thought it looked like a kitchen knife. That made up my mind to call the police. At the time, it felt like I may have been overreacting - but my gut keep pressing me. Also, I had called them before for less” She said, chuckling and then coughing a rough and phlegmy smoker’s cough. 

Jeremy Valis Jr. was clearly not anticipating being interrupted.

“When the policeman put his hand on the man’s shoulder, he practically jumped out of his seat. They asked him what was in his pocket, and I guess that's when he knew his jig was up”

Before the lawmen could say anything else, Jeremy reached into the pocket Eunis thought contained a knife, but he did not pull out a blade. Instead, he threw something small into his mouth and swallowed. 

It was a cyanide tablet, and he was pronounced dead at the scene one hour later. The police had no idea why this man had ended his own life after being asked one singular question, especially when what was in his pocket turned out not to be a knife, or anything threatening for that matter. Instead, when they searched his corpse, they found a small pad of paper. Eunis’ eyes were clearly not what they used to be, but despite that, her gut may have saved lives that day. 

Inside the notebook, there was a list of every missing child, as well as two more that were not currently missing. The missing kids had been X’ed out in red pen. On the computer, Jeremy was logged into AIM as “BlackeyedDiplomat”, but he hadn’t yet started a conversation with anyone. 

Was Jeremy Valis Jr. behind the disappearances? Looking into his background, he was a high school dropout but otherwise had no criminal record. The notepad was compelling, but it was circumstantial at best. The most damning piece of evidence was that the disappearances stopped after Jeremy died. At the time he died, he was homeless. The few people who knew of him only knew him as the gentleman who lived in the woods on the outskirts of town. 

Years later, the FBI would label these events as an unsolved cold case, but behind closed doors, they were satisfied with the explanation that Jeremy Valis Jr. had somehow been the culprit behind disappearances. None of the missing children’s bodies have ever been discovered, but no further children have disappeared under those same unique circumstances. 

Before we wrap up, a small aside on the effigies. Before the case was officially closed, the FBI noticed something about the statues and their contents that was peculiar enough to give them the impression that it was somehow significant. Four sets of two children, eight in total, had disappeared over the course of two years. Justin’s effigy contained ten teeth, Everett’s effigy contained nine teeth, Victoria’s contained eight, Trisha’s contained seven - so on and so forth all the way down to two. The police interpreted it as some sort of a countdown, but to what exactly?

Thanks to an elderly librarian’s clinical anxiety and prophetic gut intuition, we will never know what would have transpired at zero. If it weren’t for Eunis, we may have had more answers. But I, for one, believe we are much better off being starved for a perfect explanation, rather than learning what the point of all that horror was.

More Lost Media and Stories: https://linktr.ee/unalloyedsainttrina

Avery got himself an affordable apartment outside of town that was outdated, with peeling paint and creaky floorboards, and in desperate need of some TLC. But he couldn't complain about the price because it was within walking distance of his job at the nearby gas station.

The only thing he didn't like was the spiders, which seemed to keep coming from nowhere. Avery examined the apartment but couldn't understand where they were coming from. He started by swooping them up and simply putting them outside.

Yet it seemed they would return when he wasn't looking.

Avery gave up and decided to endure his eight-legged friends since they weren't bothering anything. The thought of swallowing one of them in his sleep made his skin crawl.

However, he opened his eyes to notice movement on the walls in the middle of the night. The shadows varied in size and shape and seemed to watch him. Oh, I must be dreaming, Avery thought, closing his eyes and turning to face the opposite wall.

In the morning, he busied himself getting ready for work and walked right into a newly built web in his doorway. Avery let out a pfft and rubbed his face, not knowing he had knocked the inhabitant out of its home. He stepped backward, and a loud squish made him look down.

Just great, Avery thought, lifting his shoe and seeing the now deceased remains of his intruding roomie. Grabbing a napkin, he unceremoniously scraped it off the bottom of his shoe and flushed it down the toilet, washing his hands afterward.

Once at work, his co-worker, who had worked the morning shift, was thankful to see him. Darcy greeted him with a wave. "You have no idea how bored I've been, man," he told Avery as he lifted his work vest and slung it over his shoulder.

"Has it been that slow?" Avery questioned, and Darcy gave a quick nod.

Avery put on his work vest, zipping it in the front.

"What's up? You look frazzled." Darcy clocked out and walked out from behind the counter. Avery waved it off, scrunching up his face. "Just a spider infestation problem."

"Spiders?" Darcy arched a brow.

"Yeah, no matter what I do, they keep coming back, and today, I accidentally stepped on one." Avery sighed.

"Uh oh. You know my Nana, she used to say that if you wish to live and thrive, let a spider run alive."

"Well, it was an accident."

"It's friends who probably don't know that." Darcy teased, leaving.

The spider's friends? He thought to himself and scoffed, turning to open a box of products to put away while he waited for a customer to come to the counter.

Before Avery knew it, his workday was over, and he was closed for the night heading home. Avery was thankful that the walk wasn't that far from his apartment, but the walk there was eerie and looked like something out of a horror movie.

He unlocked the door to his apartment, flicking the switch on the wall.

The light flickered to life and softly buzzed before going quiet. Tiny spiders scurried out of sight as if not wanting to be seen. "You've got to be kidding me." Avery sighed aloud, shutting the door behind him. He would need to call an exterminator in the morning.

He didn't mind how few were initially, but now there were too many.

Avery showered and dressed for bed, setting an alarm to wake up and call an exterminator. His hand shook as he reached for the light. A part of him didn't want to cut out the light like a kid afraid of the dark. Come on, Ave, you won't be such a big baby, he scolded himself.

Flicking off the switch, he laid down and hid under the covers, pulling them up over his head, hoping it would protect him from whatever came out at night as he slept.

Scraping across the walls startled Avery awake. He sat upright and reached for the missing table lamp. He moved his hand around the wooden surface, finding his phone instead. Shakily, he turned on the phone's flashlight, shining it around, watching dozens of spiders scattered with a loud, skittering noise. His heart raced, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. What in the name of hellfire was going on?

What in the name of hellfire was going on?

A hiss by his ear made him jump, almost colliding with the floor. Aiming his phone light up, he shone it on something that resembled a whistling spider. The sight of it sent a shiver down his spine. Screw this place! Avery thought, scrambling to his feet, and ran to the door, only to be met with countless spiderlings blocking his way. His fear was palpable, and his breath came in short, panicked gasps.

Instead, he ran to the bathroom and flicked on the light, locking its door.

This had to be a dream. Any moment now, he would wake up, and it would be morning. Avery pinched himself and winced at the pain. Nope, this was not a dream. Scrolling through his contacts, he found Darcy's name. He pressed the call button and placed it in his ear. His hands shook, and his voice trembled as he whispered a desperate plea for help.

"Please pick up...pick up," Avery whispered, pacing back and forth, chewing on his bottom lip as his heart thundered in his chest.

A groggy voice answered on the other end, clearly annoyed. "Man..do you have any idea-"

"You were right!" Avery quipped in a harsh whisper.

"Excuse me?" Darcy mumbled, confused.

"A-about the spiders!"

"Ah, that," a chuckle and then a sigh. "Man, I was just pulling your leg. It was something my Nana used to say: the spiders aren't going to hunt you down."

But they were.

What could he say to get Darcy to believe him?

"Come over and see." Avery pressed an urgency in his voice.

"There is no way I'm coming to your place in the middle of the night. Look, Avery, I think you're stressed and tired. You're in a new place that you're not used to. Just get some sleep."

The phone call ended, and he stared at his phone in disbelief.

Avery might very well die tonight. He hears scraping at the bathroom door, and something is trying to wrench the door off its hinges. Backing up and stepping into the bathtub, he closed the curtain, pressed his back against the shower wall, and waited.

It was already six, and Avery hadn't arrived at work, and to top it off, he wasn't answering his phone. Darcy groaned in frustration, rubbing a hand over his face. The least he could have done was call. Two paramedics walked in, and he greeted them, but they seemed too engrossed in discussing something to notice.

Being nosey, he listened as he wiped down the counter.

"It was so surreal to see something like that. That spider isn't indigenous to the area," one whispered. The female paramedic spoke in a low voice as she browsed the chip aisle before picking a bag.

"No kidding. Poor kid, he was, y'know, nothing but a husk," the male paramedic muttered, opting for a honeybun.

Who exactly were they talking about? It couldn't be Avery, could it?

When they came to the register, Darcy started a conversation to press for answers. "I couldn't help but overhear, but where exactly was the emergency call?" he asked, ringing up their items.

"Hunter Hollow apartments. A neighbor reported screaming from next door. When we got there, though," the female paramedic frowned and paused, her expression grim.

"Do you know anyone who lives there, kid? If I were you, I'd convince them to leave, " the male paramedic piped up, paying for their items and taking the bag.

"T-thanks, I'll do that. Have a good night."

"You too."

Darcy suddenly felt sick to his stomach. Avery had called him, panicking over those blasphemous spiders, but he pushed the call aside as if his co-worker was lying.

After work, he went to Avery's place, checked under the welcome mat for a spare key, and unlocked the door. Darcy flicked on the light.

There was a deafening silence in the apartment as he stepped inside, careful not to step on anything. He saw that the bathroom door had been ripped off its hinges and barely hung on. Darcy slowly stepped inside the bathroom and looked around.

Spotting the closed shower curtain, he reached up quickly, pulling it open.

There, etched into the wall, was a messy scrawled message.

They are inside the walls.

The walls are moving.

I'm going to die.

I'm going to die.

It's at the door, and soon I'll be gone.

Darcy could hear soft hissing all around him. It was a warning that he was not welcome here. Not needing another, he rushed out of the apartment, closing the door behind him.

As the bus winds its way through midtown Manhattan, and the guide goes monotonously on and on about the Empire State Building and Madison Square Garden, I see—between the metal and the glass of skyscrapers—daydreaming, through a fogged up window, a house incongruously out of place.

“What's that?” I ask too loudly.

The guide interrupts his monologue, looks outside and smiles. “That,” he says, pointing at the small, vinyl-sided bungalow—but he says it to me only—“is

//

The House That's Always Stood

a film by

Edison Mu // says, “It's a documentary. Uh huh. Well, about a building in New York.” He's talking on the phone. “No, it's already made. What I need now is distribution.”

//

* * * *

“A revelation!”



* * * ½

“...seamless blend of history and technology.”



* * * *

“Just indescribable.”

//

“As an aspiring filmmaker myself, I want to ask: how'd you do it, Mr Mu—make the 17th century, the Lenape, the freakin’ dinosaurs look so real?” someone asks after a festival screening.

“The shots are real,” says Mu.

Everyone laughs.

In the darkened theater, they'd let the film, its luminosity, cover them, filter into them through the pores on their passive, youthful faces.

 INT. CAFE - NIGHT

 STUDENT #1
 So what do you think it was about?

 STUDENT #2
 About time, colonialism, the degradation of the natural environment. About predators and sexism.

 STUDENT #1
 So interesting, right? I can't get it out of my head.

I can't get it out of my head.

 INT. BEDROOM - LATER

 STUDENT #2
 I can't get it out of my head!

 She runs screaming from the bathroom to the bedroom, where he's still lying on the bed, looking out the window. An axe is embedded in her skull. Her face is a mask of red, flowing blood.

 STUDENT #1
 (calmly)
 What?

 STUDENT #2
 The axe! The axe! You hit me with a fucking axe!

 A few LENAPE WARRIORS run past in the hallway, which has filled with vegetation. The carpet’s turned to dirt. 

 The Lenape chief TAMAQUA enters the bedroom, wearing a cape of stars and carrying a ceremonial pipe and a knife. He passes me both,

and I stabbed her with it,” he tells the NYPD officer sitting across from him.

The pipe sits on the table between them.

(Later, the police officer will have the pipe examined by a specialist, who'll confirm that it dates from the 18th century.)

“Why'd you do it?” the officer asks.

“I don't know,” he says. “I guess I'm just an impressionable person.”

 INT. HIS HEAD - NIGHT

 A pack of coelophysis pass under the illumination of a burning meteor. One turns its slender neck—to look you straight in the eye.

“That building doesn't actually exist. It's a metaphor. A fiction,” an architectural historian says on YouTube through the puppet-mouth of the guide on the Manhattan tour bus, before the latter returns to his memorized speech and the other tourists come to life again.

Yet here I am staring at it.

It's midnight. I'm off the bus. Hell, I'm off a lot of stuff. I should've called my wife; didn't do it. I should've stayed inside; didn't do it. Instead I picked up a hooker and went to see a movie.

It stands here and has stood here forever. Since before the Europeans came. Since before humans evolved. Since before dinosaurs. A small vinyl-sided bungalow, always.

No one goes in or goes out.

I zip up.

 ME
 It's your fucking fault, you know. You're the professional.

 HER
 Whatever.
 (a beat)
 You gonna pay me or what?

 ME sighs, looking at HER through coelophysis eyes.

 ME
 For what?

 HER
 For my time, blanquito.

 HER puts her hands on her hips. ME puts his hands on her throat, and as ME lifts her up, her bare feet kick and dangle just above the New York City skyline.

Pedestrians. Cars. The stench of garbage in black plastic bags sitting at the curb in midsummer heat. It must be boiling inside. Hard to breathe.

kick and dangle

If only they could reach a little lower they'd knock over the Chrysler Building and that would get somebody's attention, right? “Help,” she croaks, and I apply more pressure to her slender neck. kick and dangle. But who are we kidding? This Is New York™, everybody's looking down: at their phones, their feet. And even if somebody did look up and saw colossal feet suspended above Central Park, they wouldn't give a shit. “Mind your own goddamn business.”

kick and dangle and stillness.

This is the part where we sit together, you and I, in stunned, dark silence, watching the end credits and listening to the song that plays over them. Everybody's talking at me, I don't hear a word they're saying, only the echoes of my mind—“Hey, watch where the fuck you're going!” he yelled at me after we'd bumped shoulders on the sidewalk—and I exit the theater into the loudness of mid-afternoon Manhattan, as behind me the audience is still applauding.

I should get an M-65 field jacket like Travis Bickle.

I should call my wife.

 ME
 And tell her what, that in INT. SOME DINGY HOTEL ROOM you offed a prostitute?

I'm looking right at it.

The House That's Always Stood. Maybe we should see that one.”

The way her body dropped leaden after she was dead. The way it lies on the carpet like filthy sheets. I imagine its sad decomposition.

 SUPER: Pennsylvania, 1756

—the knock on the door startles me(!) but it's only the authorities. Lieutenant Governor Robert Hunter Morris. He's got my 50 pieces of eight and I run to the kitchen, grab the sharpest knife I can find and cut the dead squaw's scalp off, followed by SUPER: New York, present day, and the black kid's even adamant he can't see the house despite that I'm looking right at it. He tells me I'm “fucking crazy” and snakes away on his skateboard.

 ME
 Ever think about scalping yourself?

 ME #2
 Why would I do that?

 ME
 Arts and crafts. Why-the-fuck-do-you-think, dipshit? Film it, upload it. Fuck with them after they catch you.

 ME #2
 What are you, my conscience now? Quit messing. Just tell me to knock on the fucking door.

 ME
 Fine. Knock on the door.

 EXT. MANHATTAN - THE HOUSE THAT'S ALWAYS STOOD

 ME knocks on the front door. The door opens. ME #2 watches through a tour bus window as ME enters.

INT. > EXT.

What I see is “[j]ust indescribable, a seamless blend of history and technology. A revelation!” with STUDENT #1 discussing movies with Edison Mu (“...but it's those very psychedelic scenes in Midnight Cowboy…”), who points me in the direction of a man called MR. SINISTER (“With the period after the R in Mister, because this is America, friend.”) whose face looks pure black but in actuality is just a mask of ravens—which scatter at my approach.

I place my scalp on the table beside him.

Blood flows from the naked top of my roughly exposed skull.

“You’ve not much time left on the outside,” he says.

On the bus I struggle for consciousness, tugging on my red wool hat—encrusted with my blood—and my eyelids flicker, showing me the passing world at 24fps.

“Oh my God,” somebody says.

In the house that's always stood, Mr. Sinister offers me his hand and I take it in mine.

A spotlight turns on.

I’m on a stage.

STUDENT #1 and Edwin Mu are on the same stage, but beyond—beyond is darkness from which the audience watches. There are so many figures there. I sense them. I sense the impossible vastness of this place, its inhuman architecture. Everything seems to be made of bone. “Where—”

Stick to the script.

Sorry. I peer inside myself. Hungry dinosaurs hunt, meteors hit and dead Indian horsemen ride, and, knowing the words, I say, “It's a pleasure to finally meet you.”

And Mr. Sinister responds, “Welcome home, my son.”

And the figures in the audience applaud—a wet, sloppy applause, like the sound of writhing fish smacking against one another in a wooden barrel.

 INT. TOUR BUS - DAY

 I am slumped against the bus window. A few tourists gather around me, trying to prod me awake. One holds her hand over her mouth. The TOUR GUIDE rips my bloody hat off my head, revealing a topographical map of New York City on which he begins to illustrate the route the bus has taken thus far.

 MR. SINISTER (V.O.)
 The body may end, but the essence of evil lives forever in the house that's always stood.

 CUT TO:

 EXT. MANHATTAN

 A timelapse—from the formation of the Earth to the present day. Everything changes. Flux; but with a sole constant. A small vinyl-sided bungalow.

“That's some movie,” the festival director tells Edwin Mu.

Evil is the path to immortality.

We float like spirits in the darkness, but every once in a while in the distance a rectangle appears, usually 16:9, and we move toward its light. If we make it—through it, we pass: into the eyes and faces of those who watch.

In for a pound. That was Reg’s motto. You had to finish what you started. Otherwise, what was the point? He always tried to see things through and regretted it when he didn’t. He had gone to school to study law and halfway through the first year had realised it wasn’t for him. The sticking point was having to represent someone you knew was guilty. All the best lawyers could do it but he knew deep down he wouldn’t be able to. 

Still he had stuck it out for the four years and got his degree. He had made friends he still had today and he had enough legal knowledge that when he was unfairly dismissed from the insurance firm he worked for, he was able to represent himself. He won the case and saved a bundle in legal fees.

He had stayed married to Dolores, his first wife, even after the relationship went sour. They had two kids together. Tom and Diane. A kid is an 18 year commitment but the rot in their relationship started to set in after 8. She would snipe at him, even insulting him in front of their children. He knew any love between them was gone. 

But being a Dad wasn’t a job you could quit so he stayed for another 10. Dolores was vindictive and he was more than sure that if he had divorced her, she would have taken the kids just to hurt him and he wouldn’t have seen hide nor hair of them in their teens. And those times, though turbulent, he wouldn’t trade for anything.

He even watched Game of Thrones to the end. That wasn’t easy. Then at a role-playing convention, he had trauma bonded with another fan who had suffered through the finale. That fan, Lucy, later became his partner. She was a great person and he loved her more than he could articulate. Life kept teaching him that it was good to see things through. In for a penny, in for a pound.

Maybe it was curiosity that made him stay to the end. He remembered a book he had read. The Incredible Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson. He wasn’t really enjoying it. It was a depressing tale about a man who is exposed to a gas that makes him shrink and shrink.

His wife forgets about him and keeps him in the basement. On his shrinking journey he has a brief romance with a little woman from a visiting circus but he shrinks past her too. In the basement he gets so small that he has to fight for his life against spiders, using a pencil as a spear. 

Things looked bleak. Every time he went to sleep he would wake up smaller again. He was now miniscule and thought this night would be his last. But this time when he wakes up he has passed over to the subatomic realm where an exciting new frontier of adventure awaits.

Reg was glad he had kept reading to the end.

The philosophy of seeing things through had served him well in his 45 years but Reg’s brother Pat was a different story. Pat never finished anything. He dropped out of his English degree because the other students were too pretentious. He quit his job as a tour guide because his boss was an asshole. Reg tried to tell him, most bosses are assholes but it didn’t seem to matter. You put up with it, you do impressions of them in the break room, then you go home and put work behind you.

Reg had watched Pat break it off with girlfriend after girlfriend for the flimsiest of reasons. This one wasn’t funny enough, or smart enough. They had too many “red flags” but to Reg the flags looked pink. The same kind of little flaws everyone had. 

One lady, who he knew Pat regretted dumping. Her name was Alice. She was gorgeous, kind and great craic. However, she was always about 20 minutes late. “What’s the big deal?” Reg had asked his brother. “Just read a book, go on your phone.” But no, she was imperfect so she had to go.

After all the quitting and dropping out, Pat ended up without much of a life to show for it. No family, no job, and only one friend, Reg himself. Finally he had done the ultimate dropping out, ending his life at the age of 43. 

Amidst the maelstrom of grief, Reg kept coming back to the same question. Why kill yourself at 43 when 44 could be the year it finally all came together? Why walk out of the movie before the third act?

Reg missed him. He was a dour man, sure, but once he was done talking about his own problems he was a pretty good listener. He was also a great guy to watch a crappy dumb movie with. 

Not long after Pat did what he did, a publishing company got in touch, they wanted to publish one of his poems.With Reg’s help it was published posthumously. You just didn’t know what was around the corner.

It was a Sunday and Reg had nothing on. He intended today to be nice and relaxing. Lucy was out with her friends, at the Korean place in town. She was with her three besties and he knew they would eat Gochujang, and stay for hours, having drinks and catching each other up. 

He had the place to himself for the next few hours and he knew exactly what he would do. Listen to podcasts and finish his lego Death Star. He adored Lucy but it was nice to have some time to reflect on the week.

He had everything set up and ready to go when he hit a snag. Literally, there was something snagging on his cardigan sleeve. He carefully rolled back his sleeve and found the culprit, it was a hangnail, protruding from the left side of his left thumb. Irritating but nothing he couldn’t deal with. 

He had a system. He would fill a small dish with warm water and soak the nail to soften it. Then taking his trusty tweezers, he’d rip the bugger out. He prepared his surgical bay, placing the dish and tweezer on the arm of the couch. The whole thing shouldn’t take more than a few minutes, and soon he would be in his lego happy place.

His phone connected to a bluetooth speaker and the familiar jingle of the podcast intro rang out. It was his favourite, Pod People. It was dedicated to the dark side of life. True crime, cults, conspiracies and the like. 

This episode was dedicated to the terrifying case of Josef Frizel, who kept his daughter locked in a basement for 24 years, where he raped her and fathered children with her. He felt a twinge of guilt at listening to something like that but reassured himself that he wasn’t the only one, or the podcast wouldn’t be popular.

The hosts were two American friends, one Christian and the other into death metal. They had a running gag where the wholesome one would accuse the other of getting off on the macabre stories. Listening to it felt like being in the same room with some good friends. 

He set a timer on his watch and soaked his thumb, removing it after 2 minutes. He took the tweezers, the same ones he used to pluck his unibrow, and gripped the extruding end of the hangnail.

He winced at the pain he knew was coming. But it was necessary. A hangnail would seriously affect his dexterity when it came to building the movie accurate exhaust channels of the Death Star. The errant keratin would have to go. 

He braced himself and pulled. He felt the expected pain, saw the expected blood, but felt none of the expected relief. Dabbing away the blood he saw the hangnail was still attached, now jutting from the joint in his thumb. He paused, his mind working. This was a turn up for the books. He had never known a hangnail to extend this far and he examined it with fresh curiosity.

How was it even possible? Wasn’t the soil of a hangnail, so to speak, the nail bed? Could this be growing from some place deeper? The bone maybe? Thoughts of soil turned his attention to his garden. He looked out the living room window which gave a view of the back garden. 

It was a modest 5 by 7 metres with a small tool shed. He took particular pride in his roses. Scarlet Carsons. They were sleeping right now but he looked forward to spring when they would break free with their customary bold shade of red.

He wanted to turn his attention to happy things, lego, the garden, maybe a nice cup of tea, but the hangnail was now hogging all of it. The laughter of the podcast hosts grated on him and he realised he would not be able to really relax until He dealt with it. 

It was a hangnail, just a particularly long one, so the solution was the same, pull it out. It would be a funny story to tell Lucy when she got home. Perhaps he would even keep it and show it to her, though that would be cruel, as she didn’t like ghastly things.

He took the tweezers and started to pull. It was deeper than he expected and felt like ripping a cable from underground. All he could do was keep pulling, in a continuous motion, hoping that at any moment it would be torn free. He watched in confused horror as it kept going....showing no signs of reaching an end. Feeling light-headed and needing a break from the pain and exertion, he stopped, although the sought for relief was nowhere, the thing was still attached.

This was becoming...unacceptable. He felt sadness as he felt the prospect of an easy Sunday slipping away. The hangnail now emerged from the base of his thumb, at the place where his thumb met his hand. It was almost two inches in length. At a loss he decided to google it. Using one hand to work his phone while the other awaited its fate.

Google offered no salvation. People had hangnails that had to be surgically removed. There was also something called bone slivers but they only happened in serious accidents where the bone was shattered. He looked at the pictures with morbid fascination. They were horrifying but didn’t look like what was happening to him. 

While on the phone he got distracted and bought a book he didn’t need. He knew he was procrastinating and he had to deal with this before he coud return to his life. 

He grabbed the hangnail, it was long enough now that he didn’t need the tweezers and could use his other hand, and began to pull. The pain was...intimate. He felt like a robot that had gone crazy and was pulling out its own wires. 

The podcast hosts started to advertise a health drink. He didn’t want to let go of the nail so he couldn’t skip it which added to his torture. He had seen the drink on YouTube, it was green and looked like something you would give a sick cow.

He had to stop again and when he did the hangnail (if it could still be called that) was sticking out of his wrist. Just above the strap of his casio digital watch, which he removed. To his amazement he realised that he would actually have to remove his shirt as it still wasn’t over. 

He had to drag the sleeve over the hangnail and his fresh wound, causing a cruel jolt of pain. He threw the shirt aside. There was a wellspring of blood and the paper towel couldn’t cope, it was completely red with blood except for one white corner. He would need a towel.

He went to the hot press to get one. On the way he left red spots where his blood dropped on the living room carpet. He would be in trouble when Lucy found them. He found a white and red tea towel and wrapped it around his arm. 

He noticed how calm he was being but he knew he was like that, anxious most of the time but calm when the shit hit the fan. He sat back down on the couch, holding his hand in the towel like he was afraid it would fall off. The absurdity of the whole thing made him laugh.

He cleaned up the blood as best he could then used the towel to get extra purchase on the nail. In for a penny in for a pound. He started a new round of pulling. The uprooted nail dug a trench down his arm as he pulled it out. He screamed from the pain, which was like hot needles driven though his bone. He had to keep screaming to keep going. 

He wondered if the neighbours could hear. Norris, the man living next door, was a retired doctor. Rationally he knew he should be seeking medical help. Maybe it was some macho programming but he just wanted to take care of the nail himself without getting anyone else involved. The nail was now almost at the joint of his elbow, he could wrap it around his right hand to get a good grip. Doing so made him gag.

He took a second to rest and breath deeply. The thing was now almost at his shoulder. He could see the carnage he was wreaking on himself but he resisted his mind’s attempts to comprehend it, knowing it would probably steal all his conviction. Every single inch had been hard won, like ground in World War 1. With destroyed flesh the casualties.

He tried to pull again but this time the pain far outweighed any progress. He shifted it maybe a millimetre and was rewarded with an artillery shell of pain that hit his shoulder but sent shrapnel everywhere else. It also blasted away his resolve. 

I just need a second, he thought and leaned over face down on the couch. His nose was pressed against the cushion and he could smell the smell of the house. There was a faint hint of the curry he and Lucy had had last night.

Thinking of Lucy cut even deeper and he produced a little sob. When crying he never managed to get out more of a sob or two before something stopped him. That macho programming again. He’d give anything to be in her arms. Telling her about this rather than actually going through it. He thought of her coming home and finding him in this posture of defeat, and he hated it so he sat up.

Thoughts of defeat led to thoughts of capitulation. Maybe he and the nail could co-exist. He could cut it off at the shoulder, keep it covered under clothes and trim it every now and then. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. 

No, he drove out the thoughts. He couldn’t trust the nail. What if it wasn’t content with his flesh? What if one night as he slept it inched its way towards Lucy, searching for new lands to colonise. No, no peace. There was only room in his body for one of them.

His brain tuned back into the podcast. They were aughing at what that woman had gone through. How could they? He thought. Didn’t they know people were suffering?! Still he didn’t turn it off. Somehow he thought the silence would be worse. Just then he got the notion that running his arm under a cold tap would do the world of good, would cure him in fact.

He went into the kitchen and placed his arm under the tap. He looked at the water because he couldn’t bring himself to look at his arm. It ran red for much longer than he would have liked. He didn’t like that he was being afraid so he forced himself to look. What he saw made him throw up. It looked like he had shaken hands with a combine harvester.

He stood by the sink, the tap still running, washing away a rancid cocktail of vomit and blood. the taste of vomit in his mouth. It felt good to get it out of him but he knew he’d never feel right again until he got it out of him.

How long had it been in him, he wondered. Reg had always had a bad constitution, getting sick every flu season, tiring easily. Was it because this stowaway was there all along, taking the nutrients that were rightfully his to fuel its abominable growth? 

Reg’s curiosity was enflamed. How far did the thing go? He would find out, even if it killed him. He turned off the tap and dried himself with a mostly clean tea towel. The one he had gotten previously lay on the counter, soaked with blood and useless. He hated to think about how much flesh he had lost and how much more he would lose before the day was over.

To ensure victory he would need better weaponry. His thoughts turned to the garden shed where he kept his DIY stuff. His mind was filled with images from an old movie. In it the character loses his hand, then goes to the toolshed and with a few adjustments transforms himself into a killing machine with a chainsaw for a hand. He thought a chainsaw would be overkill but he still liked the imagery.

“You’ve got a big surprise coming to you” he said to the hangnail. It was approaching 2 feet in length. It had a stiffness to it and bobbed alongside his arm like a sinister erection. Just looking at it made his stomach lurch. He went to the backdoor and put on his coat and boots to go outside. 

Blood from his arm stuck to the lining inside the coat and the numbness in his left hand made lacing his boots difficult. It overcast outside, Mid-December in Ireland. Despite human attempts to derail it, Nature was keeping to her schedule and had made it chilly.

On his way to the shed he stopped by the rosebed. There was nothing to see and he wondered if he’d be alive to see his beloved roses bloom. He opened the door to the shed, or armory as he thought of it. He took his red toolbox from a shelf and placed it on the worktop. He rummaged around for the pliers, feeling a sadistic pleasure thinking of what he could do to the hangnail.

Then his eyes landed on something that stopped him searching and made him grin. In the centre of the worktop was a vice. What better tool to hold the damned thing in place while he ripped it out of him.

Knowing he would lose his nerve if he hesitated he guided the hangnail into the jaws of the vice and turned the wheel. The nail was thin so he had to turn the wheel all the way to clamp it in place. 

He realised the best thing to do was to sling the hangnail over his shoulder and turn away from the vice. That way when he moved forward he could rip it out. The shed was small and he was able to reach out and get the fingers of his right hand around the door handle. He was glad at how secure it felt.

He was atheist except for the most dire occasions and he mentally whispered a prayer. “Please God, let most of me be intact.”He pulled himself forward. The nail bit into him and scared it might re-enter him that way he found an old sheet used for painting, folded it into a kind of belt and placed it under the nail. 

He dragged himself forward again. It felt unnatural to cause himself so much pain, like asking a maniac to stab him in the chest.

Gouts of blood splashed onto the ground. With the nail slung over his shoulder he was reminded of the Strongman competitions he used to watch with his father and brother when he was a boy. He didn’t care much for sports but they had enough of the freak show to be fun. He thought now of those mountains of men, dragging train cars behind them. In their teeth he seemed to remember but that couldn’t be right.

“I’m weak, I can’t do it, I’m weak, I can’t do it.” He thought. Yet he was doing it. His mind was useless in this situation. It was only his will that mattered. He assessed the damage, there was a meaty canyon extending from his shoulder to his left nipple. He couldn’t actually see his nipple which might have been in laying with the blood on the ground. Oh well, he thought, I wasn’t using it anyway. The nail looked stronger than ever, its base an inch across and slightly concave. It had some nerve, acting like it was a normal part of his anatomy!

It was obvious where the final showdown would be. His heart. The soil where it gorged itself on his blood. Its roots like a cage around his heart. 

He kept pulling forward. It was like the nail was bonded to him at the molecular level and ripping it out split the atom, triggering atomic explosions of pain. He kept pulling himself forward. In for a penny...

His consciousness wavered and he held onto the door handle as much to keep himself awake as upright. His body begged for a chance to shut down. He didn’t have to look to know the hangnail was now coming straight from his heart, like a knife left by an unfaithful lover. It was only when he stopped screaming that he realised he had been. Somewhere in the distance he heard a lawnmower. That’s right. It was Sunday. Lazy Sunday.

His chest was almost level with the door now. So he opened it and let himself fall to the ground. As he fell he heard something snap as one of the nails moorings broke. The pain was like a point blank gunshot but he didn’t care, it was his first taste of freedom.

He could feel a puddle of blood underneath him, like taking a hot bath in the November air. This was the heart blood, life’s blood. He could feel the satanic claw of the nail loosen its grip. He didn’t care if it killed him, as long as he died free. 

He resumed pulling, and screaming. He was grateful for the money he had spent on the vice, which prior to now had mostly been used to crack walnuts. He grabbed handfuls of dirt and grass and dragged himself forward with strength that must have been drawn from the earth itself. He was numb to the pain, numb to the damage he was inflicting on himself, deaf to his own screams, he just wanted it gone…

He awoke and knew it was over. It was gone. He felt empty. Like a gutted fish. He could feel wind howling in the empty spaces inside himself where the nail had been. But it was gone. 

In a panic he looked around to check where it was. He didn’t want it to crawl back inside him. He didn’t think he could face another round. It lay in a black circle of blood soaked earth. It looked desiccated, like a dead spider. Looked dead, but he didn’t trust that. The base of it, where it had infiltrated his heart, looked like a mockery of a heart made out of twisted thorns.

He looked down at his chest and saw the sheet he had used had been remade as a bandage to cover the gaping wound. It was soaked through red. Although he could still see the little flakes of white paint. The part near his heart was crumpled up and looked just like a rose. 

That’s when he noticed there were arms around him. Lucy? No, they were a man's arms. White and strewn with freckles. They held him up in a sitting position. The owner of the arms spoke and it was Norris, his next door neighbour who must have come when he heard screaming.

“You’re awake.”

“Yes.” He answered weakly.

“What happened? Was it an accident with one of the tools?”

He must have seen the trail of blood from the shed to Reg’s resting place.

“No, a hangnail.”

Norris laughed.

“Yeah, right.” Norris said.

Reg gestured to the remains of the hangnail.

“What is it, some kind of root?” Norris asked.

“Some kind,” Reg answered.

“We need to get you inside where it’s warm.” Norris said, sounding concerned.

“No,” Reg said firmly. “First we get rid of it.”

“Okay, what would you like me to do with it?”

Reg wasn’t sure if Norris was just humoring him. But it didn’t matter as long as they did what was necessary.

“The compost bin,” Reg said, pointing to the end of the garden where there was a large black rectangular bin.

“Right,” Norris said, gently lowering Reg down. Reg continued to watch him, using a herculean effort to keep his head raised. Norris reached for the hangnail.

“No!” Reg shouted. “For God’s sake don’t touch it.” The thing could just be playing dead. 

“Go to the shed,” Reg instructed him, “there’s another sheet. You can use it to wrap it up. Carefully.”

The urgency of Reg’s tone must have gotten through to him and Reg was glad to see Norris now approached the nail with proper caution. Taking the sheet he gingerly wrapped it while being careful not to touch it himself. Norris took the mummified form over to the compost bin and lifted the lid. Reg watched him so closely that Norris could feel his eyes on him. 

Reg took composting seriously and the compost bin was big, about half the size of a skip. Layers of decaying matter would be left there for months until they turned into a rich fertiliser that was destined for Reg’s beloved rose bed. It would make a good tomb for his foe.

Norris dropped the nail inside.

“Close the lid”, Reg said.

Norris came back over to Reg. Swiping his hands together to signify a job well done. He helped Reg to his feet and carried him wounded soldier style back into the welcoming warmth of the living room. With a great delicacy he managed to get him onto the couch with only minimal agony. 

The couch, where the whole nightmare had begun, what seemed like an eternity ago. The podcast was still going but had moved on to another episode, this one about the Heaven’s Gate cult. He knew all about it but still he let it play.

“Where do you keep your bandages, Reg?”

“Upstairs bathroom, medicine cabinet.”

Norris had been in his house before and knew his way around. He had been over several times for a cup of tea. (he was the generation of Irish person where this was simply expected) He got to work and Reg could tell he felt much happier in the familiar territory of helping a patient, rather than whatever the hell had been happening with that strange root...

Reg had never thought highly of Norris, he had always seemed a bit aloof. He was a canny businessman as well as a doctor. He had purchased a floundering medical journal, restored it to glory and then sold it on for a phenomenal profit. Although they exchanged the usual neighbourly banter there was no disguising the fact Norris’s house was twice the size of Reg’s and he even had a Koi pond.

Clearly he had misjudged him because here he was, helping him in his time of need. You never knew who would be there for you. It was mid-way through these reflections that Reg passed out again.

He awoke to the sound of gentle mirth and clinking spoons from the kitchen. Lucy was home. The knowledge of that flooded him like a powerful tranquilizer. The haphazard dressing on his chest had given way to more expert bandaging. Norris’s handiwork. It was dark out. He checked his watch. He’d been out for 4 hours. 

The podcast was silent. Lucy didn’t like it, called the hosts as “cackling ghouls”. There was a steaming hot mug on the coffee table. He picked it up, the small movement was like doing the last rep at the gym but he was rewarded with a soothing sip of tea. Ah, tea, nectar of the gods.

“Hello”, he called out, announcing his presence.

Lucy entered the room. He blinked away tears and held out his arms, feeling like Karloff’s The Mummy. She hugged him tightly and he yelped.

“Sorry,” she said, and embraced him more gently.

“It’s okay.”

Tears stung his eyes as he gave in to the feeling of being looked after.

“How did you know I’d be awake?” He said, glancing at the tea.

“I didn’t, I just kept making them. That’s the fifteenth one. I wanted you to have something hot when you woke up.”

“Oh, I do,” he said, winking.

She shook him gently and he felt waves of pain emanating from his track of wounds.

“Ow.”

“Do you think you’re in a fit state to make those comments?”

“I am,” he said smiling.

“Why didn’t you call me?” She asked, becoming serious.

“I don’t know.” And he didn’t. Why not enlist her help in battle? She was his greatest ally after all.

“Silly man,” she said and leaned in for a kiss. Norris entered with impeccable timing. He held a cup of tea and wore a friendly smile. Lucy pulled away.

“Ah you’re awake.” He said. “How are those bandages holding up?”

He came over to Reg and started expertly tugging at the bandages. He seemed satisfied. He entered Doctor mode:

“I’ll be back tomorrow to change them. The ones on your arm aren’t that serious, it’s your chest I’d be worried about. You should really go to A and E.”

Reg shook his head. The Irish healthcare system was a complete shambles. Unless you were actually knocking down death’s door you’d be waiting 10 hours to be seen. In a cold waiting room with fluorescent lights, surrounded by strangers. He didn’t fancy it.

“I’ll take my chances”, he said. “I have a good nurse.”

“Suit yourself.” Norris said, shrugging. “Make sure you get plenty of rest and drink plenty of fluids.”

“You patched up my wounded soldier,” Lucy said to Norris. “How will I ever repay you?”

“Don’t worry,” he said, “the tea and biscuits should cover it.”

And you have enough money already, Reg thought and felt bad for thinking it. Money or not he was obviously a caring man. Feeling deep gratitude, Reg held out his hand to Norris who accepted it.

“Thank you,” Reg said.

“Not at all.”

“So,” Lucy said, “Norris said this was all caused by a hangnail? Is that right?”

“That’s right,” Reg said.

Lucy was incredulous.

“It’s true,” Norris said. “I saw it myself. It was...” He struggled to convey it. “One for the books.” This gave him an idea. “In fact, it would make a hell of an entry in the journal. Of course, I’d just have to take some pictures...”

“No,” Reg said adamantly, “no one goes near it.”

Norris retreated. “You’re the boss,” he said. “Well, the wife has been sending me texts. She’s ready to send out search and rescue. I better be off. Thanks for the tea, Lucy. Reg, mind yourself. No more life and death battles, for a while at least.”

“Understood,” Reg said.

Norris left by the front door, exchanging a string of goodbyes with Lucy as he went. With Norris out of the way Lucy gave him his deferred kiss. It too was one for the books and made the whole day of fighting seem worth it. She helped him up the stairs which had somehow transformed into Kilimanjaro. 

He got into bed with her, something that never failed to make him giddy, despite the 5 years they had been together. Under the covers, she began to talk to him in the conspiratorial whisper he knew well.

“Reg, hun, was it really a hangnail?”

“Yes,” he said, feeling indignant.

“But how did it get so big?”

“Beats me.”

There was a silence into which he felt like interjecting lots of things, but they all felt impolite. Finally he found what he wanted to say. “You believe me don’t you, Luce?”

Whether she did or not she chose to. “Yes, hun,” she said, and gave him an affirming kiss on the head.

She went to sleep quickly, as was her way, and he was left with the pain which was like a chorus of voices, vying for his attention. “Remember me?” They seemed to say. He found by resting his head against Lucy’s chest he could quiet them, and like this he slept.

It was March. A Sunday. Reg had taken the last 3 months off as sick leave but was scheduled to return Tomorrow. He looked forward to the return of normalcy. He stood in the living room, hot cup of tea in hand. 

The blood stains in the carpet had long since been cleaned. Lucy had put up a show of complaining but he suspected she was glad it wasn’t the outline of his body she was cleaning.

He felt like a new man after getting the nail out. There was a spring in his step and some days he felt 25 rather than the 45 he was. He guessed not having an unwelcome passenger siphoning his lifeforce would do that. 

He had finished the lego Death Star and a number of other builds as well. Including Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings which was over 7,000 pieces. 

People asked him what his secret was and he felt like telling them it was buried in the back garden. He looked out at the rose bed. He was delighted to see small green dots that showed they were starting to bud. Lucy had been applying fresh compost during his convalescence and it had done its job. He marvelled at nature, its resilience and immortality.

He noticed something else sticking out of the soil, whitish grey, and curved like a banana. A piece of trash that had blown over the wall he assumed. He went outside to pick it up. He wanted his roses pristine. His heart froze when he saw what it really was. The nail. Alive and about the thickness of his wrist, it extended about a foot from the soil and pointed at him threateningly.

Well, he thought, going to the shed to retrieve a trowel, in for a penny in for a pound.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

———————————————

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

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

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

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

———————————————

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

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

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

———————————————

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

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

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

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

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

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

———————————————

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

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

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

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

———————————————

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

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

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

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

———————————————

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

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

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

———————————————

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

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

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

———————————————

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Please respond directly to me.

Sincerely,

Ben Nakamura

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

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

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

It was supposed to be a fun day visiting a Christmas village. Just the five of us, coworkers and the best of friends, out for a good time during the holidays. Maybe it would have been, but how were we supposed to know the festive house with all the lights and snow wasn’t Santa’s workshop?

“Isn’t this wonderful?” Clarissa, my wife, said as we entered the Christmas village.

It really was. An open field just outside of town had been converted into a sprawling replica of the north pole. The buildings were designed to look like quaint cottages and shops, complete with themes of toys and candy. Colored lights were draped everywhere, making the entire village sparkle and twinkle like a starburst of colors. Actors dressed up like Santa’s helpers wandered about, playing roles, interacting with the customers, and hawking various souvenirs. There was even a petting zoo with reindeer, and an actual sleigh with nine reindeer hooked up, ready to take it on a tour through town for one of the scheduled candy parades. Finally, there was Santa himself, sitting on a throne atop a hill surrounded by decorated pine trees and brightly wrapped packages, greeting people and taking pictures with them.

How, then, could such a wonderful place harbor something so terrible as that house?

Most of the day was wonderful. It was crisp Saturday, and we had been planning this outing as a group all week. It was a pure delight being part of the fun as my wife and friends excitedly toured the village.  We did everything there was to do that day. We shopped in every store. We snacked in every restaurant and food stand. We played every game. We drank every warm, seasonal boozy beverage there was. We pet the reindeer. We took pictures with Santa. We role-played with the actors and generally goofed off.

It was a magical day, and then we found the workshop.

“What’s that?” Joel asked curiously, pointing down a narrow, unused side street?

“Let’s find out!” Carol said, laughing and smiling. “Whatever it is, I bet it’s fun!”

We all cheerily went along with her suggestion, singing Christmas carols as we made our tipsy way to the mystery place. What we saw when we got there was the most magical thing we had seen all day.

“They really went all out here!” John exclaimed excitedly. “I can hardly believe it! They even got real little people to play the elves!”

I looked again. Sure enough, all of the actors playing the elves were unusually short. There couldn’t have been one of them over four feet tall. They were busily working, rushing about like they were preparing for something big. “Unreal,” I said, and noticed my breath fog in front of me.

Clarissa hugged her arms around herself. “It’s cold here. Why don’t we go inside Santa’s workshop? I bet its’ fun!”

The workshop looked exactly as one might imagine Santa’s workshop to be. Red, white, green, silver, and gold were the colors. The architecture looked very fifteenth century, giving it a quaint appearance. There were snow men, small pine trees, and big candy canes scattered around the grounds. A warm light glowed inside, gently filtering out of the windows, and a thick curl of white smoke rose from the chimney like a serpentine cloud.

All of us were feeling the cold. The crisp air seemed to have taken a sudden plunge, and it only made the warm, festive building all the more appealing. We happily agreed that it looked like fun, and walked to it. The elves mostly seemed not to notice us as they rushed about their work, but I noticed one give us a stern look and a shake of his head and he rushed on by. Something about him seemed off, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on what.

“Hurry!” John called as I paused to consider the strange behavior by this small man.

I caught up as everyone reached the door. Joel opened it, and held it open as we all filed in.

Inside it was bright and warm. Not painfully bright like an office with too much overhead lighting, but comfortably bright, like an open field on an early Spring day. It smelled of sugar and baked goods.

The entry was an open room, festively decorated with a reception and a door that led inside. Behind the desk was a small man dressed as an elf. He smiled at us and waved us over.

“Before you enter the workshop, you need to sign the registry,” he said in cheerful tone.

“What’s inside?” Carol asked curiously, eyeing the door behind the elf.

The little man smiled widely. “It’s a place like no other,” he said brightly. “Where the wonders never cease, and everyone gets what they deserve!”

“Well, I deserve a million dollars!” Joel said with a laugh. “Let’s sign this book and get on in there!”

We were all there for a good time. We’d been having a good time. So how could we possibly know, how could we have any reason to expect, that by signing that guest book, our wonderful day would become the stuff of nightmares?

We happily signed our pages on lines at the bottom of individual pages. Most of each page was covered in ornate calligraphy, so fancy that none of us could actually read it. At the bottom was a heavy line with an X in front of it, indicating that it was where we should sign. The paper felt like old vellum, and the pen was a proper fountain pen that ink flowed out of in a dark line that varied in thickness with every stroke.

Something wasn’t sitting quite right in my mind. I couldn’t put my finger on it, just a general sense that all was not as it seemed. “What’s this say?” I asked as I was signing my name.

“Standard release,” the elf said in a tone that indicated it didn’t matter. “You know how these lawyers are, making everything into a liability.”

I laughed at this, as did my wife and John. Joel gave Clarissa a mock look of alarm, and she joined in the laughter. As soon as the last of us finished signing, the door opened, and we could see inside.

The ladies gasped, and the men’s eyes grew wide in wonder. I wish I had the words to properly describe what we saw as we looked through that door, but it was everything any of us could have thought, hoped, and expected Santa’s workshop to be. It was filled with toys, elves busily crafting them as they chatted cheerfully, laughed, and sang.

That’s when I noticed what had seemed off to me before. “Guys,” I said hesitantly. “These dwarfs are proportioned like a full-size person, just shorter.”

“Good for them,” John said dismissively. “Now let’s get in there and enjoy the best workshop setup I’ve ever seen!”

I didn’t share my friend’s lack of concern. Normally, a person with dwarfism is not proportional to a full-sized person. Their heads are large compared to their bodies. Their limbs are short compared to their bodies too. These actors were more like pygmies. People who do not suffer from dwarfism but are still extraordinarily short. It’s incredibly rare, and there was no way this seasonal fair should have been able to find so many.

“The elves in the rest of the village are full-sized people. These people are all pygmies,” I said with concern/ “Something’s-“

“In we go!” my wife interrupted, and she pushed me through the door with everyone else following.

At first, everything was fine. At first everything was exactly as it had seemed from the other room. That is, until a new figure entered the room.

“Look!” Carol squealed with excitement. “It’s Santa!”

And at first it seemed to be. In walked a large man dressed in an old-fashioned Santa outfit, green and brown, the kind he was best known for before the Coke company popularized the red variant. He was a large man, with a thick, long white beard flowing out from under his hood. He carried a large sack over one shoulder, and in his other hand he held a shining scroll.

His face was hidden in the shadow of his hood with only his beard and the tip a long, pointed nose poking out. “Welcome!” he said in a deep, booming voice. “It is time to check your signatures against the list and see if you’re naughty or nice!”

Everyone but me oohed and aahed in delighted anticipation. It was the nose. His nose wasn’t right. Wasn’t Santa’s nose supposed to be like a button, not long and thin? I shook my head to clear the thought away. “It’s not the real Santa,” I muttered under my breath. “Get over it!”

I convinced myself that it was just the actor. I couldn’t expect every Santa actor to actually look perfectly like the mythical version of Saint Nick after all. It was a silly notion, an unreasonable expectation.

And yet, this didn’t feel like the fun fakery of the village outside. And . . . and just why was the biggest, most effortful, most important part of the who Christmas village tucked away from everything else, hidden down a narrow side street where anyone could miss it? Why wasn’t it the literal center of town?

These thoughts raged through my skull, and I wanted to voice them, but I tamped down the urge telling myself that I was just being silly. That this strange paranoia was unfounded with no relation to reality.

“Joel Donaldson.” Santa announced in that booming voice. “Yours is the first name signed. Time to see if you’re naughty or nice.”

Joel stepped forward with a comical flourish. I noticed that his face was radiant with a blend of happiness and just a little bit too much alcohol consumed in our day of revels. “I’m ready for my present!” he announced with all the innocence and expectation of someone who truly thought that was right in the world.

“You will get your just reward,” Santa declared somberly. He held up the scroll in front of him and let it unfurl. He read it aloud. “Joel Donaldson, you are on the . . . naughty list!”

“Ooooo,” Joel said mockingly with a smile and a wave of his hands.

The elves all stopped working and began to gather around us. They sang “Naughty list! Naughty list! You are on the naughty list!” over and over again as they surrounded Joel, big, truly joyful smiles plastered across their smooth faces.

Santa stepped aside revealing a chair that had not been there before. “Come!” He commanded. “Receive your reward!”

The elves crowded in around Joel and began pushing him forward toward the chair. “Naughty list! Naughty list! You are on the naughty list!” they continued to sing.

Joel laughed and went along with it, believing that nothing was out of place, and it was all just part of the show. He walked past Santa and plopped himself down in the chair.

That was the moment when the truth of our situation revealed itself.

Heavy spiked leather straps erupted out of the chair and wrapped themselves around Joel, trapping him and pining him down. They squeezed and tightened around his legs and torso, and pinpricks of blood began to stain his clothing in slowly spreading circles of red.

He screamed in surprise and pain. “What are you doing to me?” he yelled, pain cracking his voice as he thrashed his head and swatted futilely at the straps binding him to the chair.

The elves laughed musically and began to chant. “Naughty list! Naughty list!” the tone becoming increasingly menacing with every syllable.

The floor opened up in front of Joel, and a large, ornate office desk stacked with papers and writing implements rose up before him.

The elves’ chanting ceased as Santa began to speak. “Joel Donaldson,” He announced in a tone was both businesslike and filled with malice. “You have been a naughty boy! You have been stealing from your employer, using your position as accountant to cook the books and move money from the business to your personal accounts.”

“I’ve done no such thing!” Joel insisted. “Let me out of here! I swear to God I’m going to sue you into oblivion!”

The rest of us were too stunned to say or do anything. What could we do? This was supposed to be a fun day. It was supposed to be safe and innocent, just five friends from work having a good time at the fair. We couldn’t properly process this sudden turn of events, and we stood transfixed in horror as the scene unfolded before us.

Santa laughed at Joel’s futile threat. There was no merriment in it. It was a deep belly laugh, but it was filled with such malice that I hesitate to call it a laugh at all, but there is no better word to describe it.

The straps tightened and moved, scraping across Joel like a sandpaper belt, shredding his clothing and the skin beneath. He thrashed and screamed in pain, and blood began to flow more freely.

An elf walked up and placed an old quill pen in Joel’s right hand before sliding a leatherbound ledger across the desk in front of him.

Joel protested and dropped the pen. The straps tightened and raked him some more in response to his defiance before the elf picked up the pen and put it back in his hand.

“Your punishment is to find the errors and correct the balances in these books,” Santa said with finality. “Every one of them is the result of a dishonest man lying and abusing his position his position to steal, just like you. I know you’re accustomed to different tools for your trade, but I’m afraid that you’ll just have to complete this task the old-fashioned way.”

“And if I refuse?” Joel said through teeth gritted in pain.

The straps raked him again and he screamed.

Santa chuckled evilly. “If you refuse, the straps will punish you. If you make a mistake, the straps will punish you. If you fall asleep, the straps will punish you. Make enough mistakes, and the straps won’t stop. They will drag across your body and tighten until they have cut you to ribbons.”

“No!” Joel screeched as the chair slammed forward so hard that he would have slammed his head into it if his tors had not been tightly strapped to the chair, pinning him against the desk.

“Naughty list! Naughty list!” the elves sang again. “You are on the naughty list!”

I watched as Joel reached forward with a shaking hand and took hold of a paper sitting atop one of the large piles. When he pulled his hand back, a bunch of the papers fell to the desk, and the straps on the chair reacted, slicing across his body like a belt sander.

Santa’s booming laugh drowned out my friend’s screams as the door to the next room opened. The four of us who were still free to move screamed in unison and ran back to the door we came in through, desperately trying to escape this nightmare version of Santa’s workshop. It was sealed shut, refusing to open no matter how hard we pulled, pushed, or battered against it. The only response to our screams for help was the laughter of Santa accompanied by the joyful singing of the elves as they continued their refrain of condemnation.

“You must go forward!” Santa commanded. “Go forward and receive your just reward!”

We continued our futile attempt at escape a while longer, but stopped when the elves crowded around us and began to push us to the open doorway to the next room. “Just reward! Just reward!” they chanted.

Joel screamed again as the wicked chair responded to some error he made, and I knew then that he was never meant to survive the task set before him, but to be slowly killed as he desperately tried to complete an impossible task.

The four of us tumbled through the door and into the next room to the sound of booming laughter over chants of “Just reward!” The door slammed shut behind us as the lights came on, bathing us in a gentle glow while we desperately pounded at the closed door, screaming to be let out.

The sound of many people talking stopped us, and we turned around in morbid curiosity to see what was going on.

The room was filled with people stuffed into old-fashioned telephone booths. They were babbling nonsense into the receivers with pained looks on their faces. Once in a while, one of them would drop the phone in a coughing fit and spit up a great gout of blood before picking the receiver up again and babbling some more.

A column of elves filed into the room from a hidden door. Wicked smiles plastered across their faces, they went about the room checking the phone booths, performing repairs, and washing out blood by connecting a hose to a nozzle on the outside of the phone booth that caused the water to spray right into the person’s face at high volume, rinsing away the blood by sheer volume of water that drained out the bottom to God-knows-where.

Booming laughter announced the arrival of Santa Claus, as he approached us from behind the phone booths. “Carol Jenkins,” he announced. “Time to see if you’ve been naughty or nice!”

He raised the hand with the scroll, but before he let it unfurl, I called out.

“Wait!” I pleaded. “What kind of Santa’s workshop is this? Santa doesn’t hurt people! The worst he does is give coal naughty children!”

Looking back, I know it was a pointless question. Silly even. Our captors were going to do what they intended with or without explanation. What did it matter if the man before us wasn’t actually Santa Claus? Why would it matter anyway? This was supposed to be a fair with nothing but human actors. Humans don’t follow Saint Nick rules.

Only the truth was even worse than any of us imagined.

The man dressed as Santa laughed. Not his usual booming laugh, but a low menacing laugh. “Santa Claus?” he chuckled. “What makes you think I’m Santa Clause? Is it the robe?”

He stood to his full height then, and he towered above us all. He pulled back his hood and grinned like a jack-o-lantern. “Behold!” he commanded in his booming voice. “I am Krampus, and I punish the wicked!”

We all stared in horror at the giant before us. His face was like gnarled wood, old and weathered, with hollow features, a long pointy nose, and deep, sharp eyes that seemed to look right through us. He dropped his bag and removed his gloves, revealing gnarled, knobby hands tipped with clawlike nails. The bag opened when it fell, revealing its contents to be nothing but stout reeds and human bones.

“I am not here to reward the nice list!” he continued. “I bear only the naughty list. If your name is on it, you will be properly rewarded for your behavior. It will be your just reward, and justice is harsh.”

Carol’s eyes opened wide, and her mouth worked rapidly, trying to speak, but failing to form any words.

Krampus again lifted the scroll and let it unfurl. “Carol Jenkins,” he announced. “You are on . . . the naughty list!”

As he announced this, the elves in the room began to sing. “Naughty list! Naughty list! You are on the naughty list!”

They surged around her and pushed and carried her to Krampus as she screamed in terror.

“You are a gossip.” Krampus declared. “You spread rumors and falsehoods about others without regard for the harm you’re doing. You destroy people’s names, reputations, and relationships with your wicked tongue!”

She struggled against the elves to no avail. As soon as she was close enough, Krampus reached out and snatched her up with one great, gnarled hand and pulled her in close.

“As punishment, you must confess the truth to every one of your victims,” he said in a threatening tone.

The floor next to them opened and a new phone booth rose up.

“Naughty list! Naughty list!” the elves chanted.

“But you won’t be using that lying tongue.” he continued. “A tool of deceit has no place in honest confession!”

Carol struggled in his grasp and started to scream for help, but Krampus shot his free hand forward and shoved his fingers into her open mouth. Her mouth was forced open wider than it could naturally go, and her mouth tore open into a wide, jagged smile and Krampus closed his fingers around her tongue. With a swift yank, he ripped her tongue out. Blood sprayed out of her mouth as she screamed in agony.

Krampus dropped her tongue and held out his hand. A smiling elf ran forward and placed a small candy cane in it. He took the piece of candy and shoved it into Carol’s mouth. The bleeding stopped instantly.

It was no mercy though as Krampus immediately threw her into the phone booth and closed the door. “Call them!” he commanded. “Once you confess your slander to all of your victims, you’re free to go.”

Carol beat on the door, desperately trying to break free. It was pointless. She was as trapped as the rest of the people in that room.

A door opened at the far end of the room. “Go,” Krampus commanded, “and receive your just reward!”

The elves began to crowd around us again. They pushed and prodded us in the direction of the door. We reluctantly went. My wife broke down crying. Tears streamed down her face as she sobbed in great, shuddering gasps. John yelled in protest about how they couldn’t do this to us. I was silent. None of it mattered anyway. We were trapped, well and truly, and no amount of protest, no flood of tears would change it.

We neared the door and were roughly shoved the last few steps. The door slammed shut as soon as we were through, leaving us enveloped in darkness.

We waited in silence for a few moments. The darkness was oppressive, and my anxiety climbed with every second. It could be hiding literally anything, and based on the horrors of the last two rooms, that anything was certain to be deeply disturbing at best, and outright horrifying at worst.

“H . . . hello?” I called out to the darkness in a shuddering breath.

As if in response, there was a slow grinding sound as part of the wall dropped down, revealing a roaring fireplace.

The inferno lit the room in a dancing, ominous glow. It might have been a comforting glow under other circumstances, but after the previous two rooms, there was nothing it could be but a sign of foreboding. In the center of a room was a large wrought iron framed bed with chains at the head and foot. In place of a mattress was an iron slab. Beyond that, the room lay barren, empty of all signs of life or habitation.

The fire blazed even higher and belched out into the room, licking the bedframe for just a moment like the tongue of some arcane, hungry beast. As the fire retreated, a now-familiar, horrifying figure stepped out of the flames, followed by an entourage of those despicable elves.

Without any further fanfare, Krampus held out his scroll and dropped the bottom roll. “John Valentine,” he announced in that booming voice. “You are on the naughty list!”

The elves were on him in an instant, singing that horrible chant, “Naughty list! Naughty list! You are on the naughty list!” as they grabbed him and lifted him overhead kicking and screaming. It was futile. Small as they were, the elves’ grip was like iron, and all John could accomplish was wrenching his own back and shoulders painfully as the proceeded to the bed.

The elves chained him to the bed, iron manacles locked tight around his wrists and ankles, then they pulled the chains taught to splay him out and immobilize him.

He screamed in pain and terror as his shoulders and hips were dislocated with a series of loud pops.

“You are guilty of adultery, many, many times,” Krampus announced with malicious glee. “You lied to cover it up. You betrayed someone close to you, exploited his trust, and smiled as you deceived a friend!”

John was screaming in protest. “It’s not like that!” he protested. “We’re in love! You can’t blame me for being in love! Love is a beautiful thing!”

Krampus laughed wickedly. “You continue to lie even as you face just punishment for your crimes,” he declared with absolute authority. “You never loved her. You had other women even as you took what didn’t belong to you over, and over, and over again.”

I was stunned. The john I knew would never do something so heinous. He was a good, upright man, and the only one I trusted completely.

I turned to my wife in shock. “Who did he . . .” my words caught in my throat as I saw my wife, my dear Clarissa, crying. Her mouth quivering with great sobs, and tears flowing like twin rivers from her bright green eyes, her head hung in shame.

“He said he loved me,” she sobbed. “He promised that he would make everything better and all of my problems would go away if chose to be with him,” she sobbed. She looked at me with profound sadness and regret. “It was me,” she confessed. “I’m so sorry, it was me. The happiness I felt in our marriage wasn’t there anymore, and he promised to make me happy again.”

Her words hit me like a bullet to the heart. My wife and my best friend? The two people in the world dearest to me, who I trusted with my life, betrayed me . . . together?

I felt my own tears begin to well up and pour out of my eyes. “Why?” I croaked, unable to think of anything else to say.

“I still love you,” she said with sincerity. “I always loved you. That never changed. But the magic was gone. I stopped being happy at the thought of you. The sweet things you do lost their magic and became routine. I wanted that happiness back. I craved the intensity of it, and he gave it to me. That’s all.”

“Her words were like a punch to the gut by a champion heavyweight boxer. I was left stunned, breathless, and unable to form a coherent thought.

“Clarissa Hart,” Krampus announced as if he had been waiting for this exact moment to speak. “You are on the naughty list!”

The elves crowded around my wife. “Naughty list! Naughty list! You are on the naughty list!” they chanted gleefully as they grabbed her, lifted her up, and began to march toward the bed.

“No!” I screamed. “I forgive her!’ I don’t care what she did! We’ll work it out! We’ll find our happiness again! Don’t take her from me! I love her!”

The only response I got to my pleas was a continued chant of “Naughty list! Naughty list! You are on the naughty list!” as those demonic elves joyfully carried my wife, kicking, and screaming apologies and professions of her love for me to the iron bed.

“You also are guilty of adultery, lying, and betrayal of the one person who loved and trusted you above all others,” he declared. “Your crimes were committed with the condemned man, therefore you will share his fate just as you shared your own marriage bed with him!”

The elves shackled and stretched her exactly as they had to John. I turned away as she screamed in pain and terror, every pop of her joints sending a shudder of sorrow and regret through my body.

“You must witness this,” Krampus said to me in an almost sympathetic voice. “She would have left you anyway only to get her heart broken in betrayal. She cared far less for you than she did for her own selfish desires.”

I turned back to face the bed and lifted my head. All I could see through the haze of tears was blurry vision of a black lump of iron with two patches of color on top. I heard the sound of metal grating and sliding as floor plates moved, opening a blazing pathway from the fireplace to the bed one panel at a time.

My wife and my best friend screamed even louder and began to thrash, desperation overriding the pain in their dislocated limbs as they realized what was going to happen. Over it all, I could hear the booming sound of Krampus’ voice as he declared “Your bodies will burn together just as you burned with lust together!”

The elves surrounded me and carried me bodily across the room to an newly opened door. They dumped me through it, and it slid shut just as I heard the screams of the two people I loved best intensify as the flames reached the underside of the bed and began to heat the iron slab they lay upon.

I lay in a crumpled head for I don’t know how long, sobbing with intense sorrow at all that I lost. My friends, my wife, all gone, victims of a demonic entity meeting out a twisted and final justice that nothing in me could reconcile as right or proper. We all fall short. We all make mistakes. None of us is truly innocent in this world, it’s only a matter of degree and amount.

Eventually, I opened my eyes, stood up, and looked around.

I was in a cozy sitting room. There was a perfectly ordinary fireplace with a non-threatening fir cheerily popping away. There was a table set with a fine feast. There was a long, overstuffed couch. The room was festively decorated with all the trimmings of a proper Christmas celebration.

And in a very large chair sat the demon Krampus, patiently waiting for me to notice him.

 “Take a seat,” he said gently, motioning to the couch with one large, bony hand.

Seeing no other course of action, I obeyed.

“You are not on the naughty list,” he declared with a soft authority, the wickedly mirthful booming voice somehow absent.

“What?” I replied dumbly, my mind not comprehending what I had just heard after seeing my wife and friends sentenced to torment and death.

“You’re not fully innocent,” Krampus explained. “But minor infractions do not condemn a man, therefore, you are not on the naughty list.”

I sat there in stunned silence expecting it to be some sort of malicious joke at my expense. I expected those horrible elves to show and start chanting about me being on the naughty list as they dragged me off to be tortured and killed.

It didn’t happen.

“Why?” I croaked after I finally found my voice.

“You think me a demon,” Krampus stated. “That’s understandable, but I’m not.”

“I don’t understand,” I said in soft confusion.

“Krampus nodded his head. “And you never truly will,” he replied. “All you need to know is that I am tasked with rewarding people for the evil acts they commit. “Not evil by any human understanding, but according to a universal truth that many deny even exists”

“What even is that?” I asked softly.

“The universe operates under certain rules,” Krampus explained. “Good and evil exist because of those rules. Good is whatever follows the rules, and evil is whatever breaks them. The catch is that your kind is bound to break them. The only question is which rules you break, and how often.”

I don’t know why, but something about being told that good and evil are universal and unchanging, that humanity has no say in the matter, incensed me. “That doesn’t give you the right to just murder people!” I shouted, all of my pain, sadness, and rage coming out in a single exhausting burst.

I slumped back in my chair. Completely spent, suddenly helpless and uncaring. “Just kill me and get it over with,” I sighed. “Stop toying with me.”

Krampus chuckled, a real one, like he genuinely found me funny/ “I’m not going to kill you,” he declared with finality. “You’re not on the naughty list. Instead, I’m going to give you a gift.”

I didn’t have time to aske what he meant by “gift” before he was on me. He grabbed a hold of the front of my shirt with one mighty hand and lifted me up. Then with his free hand he pulled back his hood to reveal that among his other horrifying features, he had horns like a goat, and this, straggly hair that seemed to flow and move of its own volition. He opened his mouth, and it stretched wider than any mortal man’s mouth ever could, so wide that I thought he meant to eat me in a single gulp.

Then he breathed.

He breathed on me, a deep sighing breath that seemed to have no end. I reeked of carrion rot smothered with mint and cloves. I tried to hold my breath to avoid breathing the foul fumes, but it wasn’t long before I found myself taking in a great gasp of air as my body overrode my mind and forced me to breathe whether I wanted to or not.

At first, I felt nothing other than simple revulsion. I gagged on the foul breath and coughed like my lungs wanted to jump out my mouth. Then it subsided, and I found myself inhaling. I inhaled like never before, seeming to have no limit to how much air I could take in. I inhaled until every last foul fume that Krampus emitted was sucked in, and then he dropped me to the floor.

I lay there coughing and sputtering as though my body were now rejecting the clean air now that Krampus had finished fumigating me. Krampus stood looming over me like the specter of death himself until I settled down and stood again on my own two feet.

I looked up and saw his hood drawn far forward yet again, like it had been when I first laid eyes upon him. His eyes glowed like embers in the darkness. He said nothing, waiting as if in expectation.

“What now?” I asked, coughing as I spoke.

A door that I had not noticed before opened up to reveal a familiar, snowy landscape. “Now you go out into the world and see it for what it truly is,” he said in a voice that grew deeper and more foreboding with every word. “That is your gift. You will always know the truth about the people you meet. Never again will you be deceived.”

I started to speak up, to ask what he meant by his statement, but he hushed me and pointed to the door. “Go!” he commanded in that booming voice I had come to know and dread. Leave my workshop and never return!”

I turned and walked out the door and into the Christmas village. All was as it had been before we found and entered that wicked workshop. People were blissfully enjoying the fair in the cold winter air, a recent layer of snow coating the land with a cozy, frozen blanket.

I turned around, and the workshop was gone. Where it once stood was a town center filled with bustling shops and Christmas themed carnival games. A drink vendor was off to one calling out for people to come and enjoy hot spiced mead and mulled wine to warm their bodies on a cold winter day.

I needed a drink, and I hurried over to the vendor fully intending to order a hot mug of mulled wine when I noticed something that stopped me in my tacks. I did a double-take, looking at the man in stunned disbelief. I couldn’t properly explain it, but as plainly as though it was written all over his face, I knew things about the man that I had no logical way to know.

I knew beyond all doubt that this was a con man. I knew that he served cheap drinks that he labelled as expensive premium ones. I knew that he was a habitual liar who lacked an honest bone in his body. I knew that he sweet talked many a gullible young woman into his bad for his own amusement with false promises and declaration of affection before moving on to a new town where he did it all again.

I knew that he had murdered his own mother and made it look like a falling accident so he could collect her life insurance before the term expired. I knew about the vial of oleander toxin he kept hidden in his inside coat pocket so he could poison the occasional drunk, knowing it would look like a heart attack and the coroner was unlikely to look any deeper.

“What can I get for you?” the man said cheerily, a wide smile splayed across his face.

“Do you have anything stronger than wine?” I asked, suddenly wanting nothing to do with anything this man touched.

He pointed behind me to a small building simply marked “Bar”. Go there if you want liquor,” he said with the same cheer and smile he’d originally had.

I thanked him and left, heading to the bar at first, then turning down the street and leaving, wanting nothing more than to put as much distance between myself and the Christmas village as humanly possible.

Beginning • Previous

Alan stepped back from the door, her eyes searching its surface and the surrounding walls, looking for anything that might grant them entry.

A glint of metal caught her eye.

A switch.

She turned toward Francis, seeking approval. Once he gave a nod, she reached for the switch and, hesitating only for a fraction of a second, flicked it. The door hissed softly as it slid sideways, vanishing seamlessly into the wall, and we stepped through the opening.

A blue beam of light streaked past, grazing Francis’s jaw and scorching the tips of his black beard before striking the closing door behind us, showering us with a cascade of sparks. Francis’s face turned ashen, his body frozen in place, caught in the grip of shock.

Before he could become an easy target, Alan wasted no time—her hand shot out, gripping the front of his shirt and dragging him forward, forcing him to duck and take shelter behind a large, solid circular table carved from something that gleamed like polished onyx.

I bolted to the nearest metal column, pressing my side against its cool surface before daring to peek out around its edge, scanning frantically for the shooter.

On the far side of the room, slumped against a long, curved control panel, lay a man in a dark blue metallic suit. One arm trembled as it struggled to aim a gun, while the other hand clutched his side, where dark blood seeped through a jagged tear, pooling around him. His pale, slimy and hairless complexion was distorted: his swollen lips drooling, his bloated cheeks sagging, and his bloodshot eyes bulging out of their sockets.

The gun wavered in his weakening grip, and when he attempted another shot, his arm gave out. The weapon slipped from his hand, clattering to the floor as his body slumped sideways, motionless.

We didn’t move a muscle, each of us waiting in uneasy silence for any sign of another shooter. When no sound came and no figure emerged, I dared to move first. Slipping away from the column, I crept toward the fallen body, my paws padding softly across the floor. My nose wrinkled as I sniffed the thick pool of blood surrounding it.

Human, but not entirely. There was something else—a sour, briny smell. It reminded me of the aroma that wafted through the air when I strolled past the fish market vendors on Old Rig. My nose twitched, and my whiskers tingled as I continued to investigate. Nearby, I found another body, also clad in a metallic suit. It lay face down, its head surrounded by blood. Leaning closer, I saw where the blood was spilling from—a ragged wound in its neck. Then I noticed something protruding from its mouth: a blob of flesh-like tendrils.

I hissed, the sound slipping out before I could stop it. My ears flattened, and my body tensed as I backed away, fur bristling and tail lashing. My eyes stayed locked on the tendrils, unease clawing at me. What if it wasn’t truly dead? What if it still squirmed inside the corpse, waiting for the right moment to strike?

From the state of the room, it was clear a fight had taken place between these strange humanoids. The walls were peppered with small holes. The control panel was damaged, its surface scorched and cracked, and wires jutted out in tangled clumps.

There had to be more of these humanoids somewhere on this massive submarine. The question was…where?

I sprang onto a chair, then leaped onto the control panel, sniffing cautiously at the cracked buttons and sputtering switches. Their faint, erratic flickers danced like nervous fireflies. Francis emerged slowly from behind the round table, straightened, and approached me. He gave me a quick scratch behind the ears before scooping me up with one arm.

“Page, don’t touch anything,” he chided gently, then set me down on the smooth, black stone table and turned his attention to the first body.

He knelt beside the lifeless form, studying it before picking up the gun lying next to it. The weapon had a sleek black body with neon blue accents tracing its edges. Its barrel emitted a soft glow from an energy core visible through a transparent chamber, where plasma-like energy swirled and pulsed.

Moving to the second corpse, his expression contorted in disgust as he noticed the tendrils protruding from its mouth.

“What the hell happened to their faces?” he asked, the question more for himself than anyone else.

Alan stood and moved around the table for a better look at the body. “I’ve seen something like this before.”

Francis blinked in surprise. “You have?”

Alan nodded grimly. “The apothecary owner; the one who sold Sarah Kelping the poison. When Page tore his mask off, his face and tongue ballooned in exactly the same way.”

Francis’s expression darkened, fear flickering in his eyes. He inhaled sharply as he began connecting a series of invisible dots.

“What is it?” Alan pressed, sensing his apprehension.

“They're not human.. they just couldn't be,” Francis said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “And if they're not human, then what are we dealing with? Just look at this place!”

He gestured to the cavernous room around them, its incredible machinery humming faintly, glowing white and blue.

“Where did all of this come from?” he continued. “I’ve never seen technology like this. I don’t think past generations even had anything like this before the Great Wrath. And after the apocalypse, we’ve barely managed to rebuild even the simplest tools.”

“Then it means we’ve never been alone on this planet,” Alan said with a mix of wonder and dread. “Not above us or beside us, but buried deep in the ocean. And now, finally, their existence is breaking the surface for us to see.”

As I padded across the table, my paws brushed against its dark, glassy surface, landing on a strange symbol of four interlocking squares. A faint hum began to reverberate through the air, growing steadily louder.

I froze. My tail shot up, rigid as a rod. My ears twitched and my whiskers bristled with an electric tension.

“Page! Didn’t I tell you not to touch anything?” Francis growled. “I—” He fell silent, his words swallowed by the incredible scene unveiling overhead.

The ceiling panels shimmered, a rippling effect spreading across them like water disturbed by a stone. Slowly, they transformed, revealing a breathtaking expanse of bright blue sky, streaked with wisps of clouds, and the roll of waves, lapping at the edges of the frame.

Francis and Alan stared upward, their words stolen by wonder. “Unbelievable,” they breathed. For a second, I braced for the water to come flooding in, but it didn’t. It was only a view, just like looking out a window.

But still, when another wave washed across the ceiling, panic gripped me. Without thinking, I pressed the symbol again. The ripples spread once more, wiping away the scene of the sky and sea, leaving behind the dull, sterile white of the original ceiling.

“Alright, off the table,” Francis commanded, his eyebrow cocked in annoyance but with a smidge of amusement. “And stop messing with things.”

I prepared to leap down, but as I shifted, my paw accidentally grazed another symbol. This one was a simple line marked with arrows pointing left and right.

For a moment, nothing happened, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Then, a ripple of white light spread across the table. Before I could react, the surface came alive, and a glowing three-dimensional map of the submarine sprang into existence, hovering just above the table like a ghostly projection.

The brightness of the light struck my eyes like a slap, and I hissed in irritation, my balance faltering at the table’s edge. Alan caught me just in time, pulling me securely into her arms.

As my vision cleared, the projected grid of corridors and rooms came into focus. Two levels were displayed, with our position marked on the upper level in the Navigation and Control Deck by three green dots, each labeled “Unknown.” I figured that they were us. These dots mirrored our movements—when Francis stepped toward the table, one dot moved accordingly.

Two gray dots lay where the corpses were, labeled Officer Eli and Officer Luke. Another gray dot appeared in a room called Preparation on the same floor, with a few more scattered across the lower level, likely other bodies.

But my stomach sank when I spotted three additional green dots on the lower level, all labeled “Unknown.” Two remained motionless in a room marked “Laboratory,” but the third moved restlessly, pacing the corridor before disappearing into a room called “Weapons.”

“We’re not alone,” Francis said, his finger pointing to the green dots on the lower level. Alan’s breath caught. “There could be more of them.” She scanned the room, her eyes darting across the space, looking for anything to use as a weapon. Then, she saw it—near the second corpse. She let go of me and moved toward it, her fingers shaking as she reached for the weapon.

Alan arched an eyebrow. “Do you know how to use this thing?”

I wondered the same. Weapons like that didn’t exist on our ship—or any vessel I’d known. Even Floating City relied on harpoons, spears, and muskets hammered from scrap. Muskets were cumbersome, slow to reload, and more of a gamble than a weapon.

Francis raised the gun, aimed at a wall, and pulled the trigger. A blue beam burst forth, sparking on impact with the wall.

The Unknown stepped out of the Weapons room and into the main corridor. They seemed to sense they were not alone; maybe they must have heard the shots fired. Their pace faltered, slowing until they came to a cautious halt near a bend in the passage. After a moment’s pause, they turned right, going up into a gently ascending walkway that spiraled toward the first level.

“Take cover,” Francis barked, slipping behind a column near the door where the Unknown would enter.

Alan pulled me close and crouched behind the table, one arm wrapped around me while her other hand rested on the corner, ready to peek out. I twisted in her grasp, refusing to stay put.

“Page!” she hissed, reaching over to grab me as I broke free. Her fingertips brushed my tail but couldn’t hold me back.

Without looking back, I sprinted toward the double metal doors. They slid open with a metallic whir, revealing a descending passageway ahead. My mind was racing– If I could draw the Unknown’s attention, I might buy enough time for the captain and Alan to gain the upper hand and take it down.

It was risky, but I had to try.

As I descended the passageway, I encountered another corpse of the fish-like humanoid. It was slumped against the wall, its head lolled to one side. Tendrils dangled limply from its mouth, and a blackened, gaping hole marred its forehead, the unmistakable result of a gun’s beam.

Around its body, gelatinous blobs were scattered on the floor, most of them unmoving. One stirred faintly, its slimy tendrils snaking weakly in my direction. Their movements were weak and uncoordinated, and I easily sidestepped its feeble attempt to grab me. The tendrils recoiled, retreating into the blob as if in defeat, curling inward like a creature ashamed of its own impotence.

Reaching the corner, I slowed to a halt, pressing myself against the wall as the Unknown’s footsteps echoed nearer. My heart pounded like a drum, the sound filling my head. Forcing calm into my chest, I drew a deep breath and released it as a soft meow.

The footsteps hesitated, faltering mid-stride, then fell completely silent.

“Was that a cat?” A man’s voice, tinged with disbelief, broke the quiet.

I meowed again, this time a little softer.

“Hey, come out, buddy,” he coaxed, his tone gentle, almost warm.

Something about his voice struck a chord deep within me. Familiarity washed over me, calming the storm of fear. Whoever this was, they weren’t an enemy. This wasn’t an Unknown—it was someone I knew.

Trusting the feeling, I stepped forward and turned the corner. My breath caught, and my heart leaped into my throat. Standing just a few yards away, staring back at me with the same look of astonishment, was a man I never thought I’d see again.

It was Louis Kelping, lost for over seven hundred days—the man whose children had been waiting all this time for his return, clutching onto hope he’d be back with treasures and stories from his journey, and whose absence had shattered Sarah’s heart. And now, here he stood, impossibly alive, his face a mirror of disbelief.

His appearance was unkempt, his faded brown jacket hanging loosely over a rumpled shirt and dark green pants. His hair, once neatly trimmed, now fell to his shoulders, and a scruffy beard covered his jawline. On the ship, he had always relied on the barber to keep him tidy with a clean shave and a sharp cut.

He lowered the long rifle, pulling the strap over his shoulder and sliding the gun behind him. He knelt, arms outstretched.

“I can’t believe it! Page!” His voice cracked with joy.

But before anything else could be said, a blue beam shot overhead. Louis ducked, rolling to the side, quickly rising into a crouch with the rifle back in hand. I jumped, startled by the shot, and spun to find Francis standing behind me, gun raised.

I hissed, frantic. Don’t shoot!

Louis blinked, then slowly rose to his feet, tucking the rifle behind him.

“Captain, sir!” he exclaimed, his voice bursting with excitement and relief, like someone reuniting with a long-lost friend after decades apart.

Francis lowered the gun, staring at Louis with wide eyes, as dumbfounded as I had been moments ago. “Kelping? What the hell… How did you… what are you doing here?”

Louis took a step forward, then staggered, swaying unsteadily before collapsing to the floor.

Hello. My name is.

Let’s try that again. My name is.

Okay, my name is irrelevant, not that you’d remember it if you did read it, or even if I told you in person. It’s an effect of my condition. I've had years to get used to it, but I still sometimes forget the . . . restrictions on my life. Restrictions, and a strange kind of freedom that comes with them. But before we talk about where I am now, let me tell you how it all began.

I love Google. Through it I have the knowledge if the world at my fingertips. All of the information accumulated by humanity can be found if you know how to use it.  Want to know how to bake some delicious chocolate chip cookies? Google it. Want to learn an ancient ritual for summoning the spirits of the dead? Google it. Want to find me, my name, or any evidence that I really exist? Don’t bother.

No. I’m not a secret government agent who had his presence on the web meticulously scrubbed by geniuses for my own protection.  And no. I didn’t do it myself or have it done for me due to any affiliation with a criminal organization. It was done involuntarily, and near as I can tell, irreversibly. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Google used to love me back. For years my website was one of the most trafficked in the world. It was on the first page of search results whenever people were looking for information about controversial topics. Science, religion, politics, and history were my forte. If there was strong disagreement or conspiracy theories surrounding a topic, my website was a top tier source of information, and people used it in numbers comparable to any three mainstream news outlets combined. When there was a story on my site, it would be shared widely through social media, and linked to hundreds, sometimes thousands of smaller sites that would use mine as a primary source of information.

It was beautiful, magnificent even. I was trusted by all the right people, and I was proud to bursting of what I had accomplished. I was in the elite of the internet, the virtual version of being a champion Olympic athlete.

And it was full of crap.

I was a troll extraordinaire. I gave the world bad information. I did it on purpose. I reveled in the social chaos that was the result of my magnificent prank on the gullible and ignorant masses searching for confirmation bias, and validation of their mistaken or groundless beliefs. I gave them what they wanted. I fed it to them like a parent spooning from a jar into the mouth of a hungry, ever so trusting baby. In exchange I gained money and fame in equally generous amounts. The great scam artists of history: P.T. Barnum, Charles Ponzi, and their ilk would have envied me if they were alive today.

Do you remember how huge the story of Hillary Clinton being outed as a lesbian who lets her husband go tomcatting around so she can fulfill true carnal desires was back in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary? No. Of course you don’t. It was one of my stories. An extraordinary hoax, complete with faked photos that cratered her poll numbers and moved the DNC to use their superdelegates to pave the way the way for the first interracial American president, and it’s as if I never existed. Sure, the effect it had on the world remains intact, but nobody remembers the real reason why. It’s as though there is a collective delusion to fill in the blank space where my work once held full credit, and all that remains are rumors of her closeted homosexuality among her political enemies.

Perhaps you’re familiar with the 9-11 Truth movement. I didn’t start that one, so you should remember it just fine. Thing is, I’m the one who gave it legs. I was searching the internet for stories for my site. I needed one with enough backing to be believable, but also so unlikely to be true that I could use it to play with people’s heads, and I came across this obscure gem. A conspiracy that the U.S. government took down that World Trade Center itself and blamed terrorists so it could start a war for oil that it never claimed as the spoils of war. It was pure gold.

Many people credit Alex Jones with popularizing this conspiracy theory.  Well, he first learned about it from me, not that he remembers. We were buddies back then. Like me he never met a crazy conspiracy he didn’t like. Unlike me, he actually believed them then, and he believes them now. I mean, seriously. The government is poisoning the water to make the frogs gay? How funny is that? We had so much fun together! I miss him.

So how it is then that you have no idea who I am?

Google has been working to improve the reliability of its search results practically from the day it launched.  Their product may be you, and everything you think is private so that they can sell your life to advertisers, but the lure that gets you to willingly give it to them is all that sweet free information in an easy to use, convenient, and reliable search engine that gives you exactly what you want. Chief among them being good, reliable information.

My website represented the exact opposite of this ideal. Hucksterism was my game, and deceit was my trade.

And business was good.

Nowadays, making money on a website can be challenging. The price of advertising is lower than it used to be, and people are less prone to clicking though ads. That’s where the real money is. You might get a pittance for eyes on, but it’s click throughs that really get you paid. Back when I started the money flowed like water. If you had a popular website you could go from a nobody to a millionaire with 300 employees in just a few years if you played your cards right.

I never hired anyone. That meant that I was basically chained to my computer every waking hour, but it also meant that I got to keep all of the money I made for myself . . . well, after Uncle Sam swooped in to take a grossly unfair portion of the fruits of my labors. Seriously. In what world is it fair to spend 3-6 months of your life every year working for free because some government goon is taking your money from you at gunpoint? How is that different from slave labor?

But I digress.

The point is, I was a one-man operation. Nobody was tied to my business but me. So don’t go around trying to figure out if that money I used to have is still tied to my or my business in any way. I assure you that it is not. I honestly have no idea what happened to my money. Where to millions of dollars go when they don’t belong to anyone? Perhaps Google took it. Maybe it was simply sucked into the infinitely hungry black money hole that is the federal government. Maybe it was simply deleted from existence. Our money is mostly digital these days anyway. Erase a bank account, erase the money. Regardless, my fortune vanished without a trace. Every penny earned over years of endless work gone in the blink of an eye.

Google was a multiplied blessing for me. It served both as my primary means of gathering information, and as my primary means of spreading my own brand of misinformation.

That said, if something isn’t on Google, not just buried and hard to locate, but genuinely missing entirely, does it really exist at all? If all of the information in the world, all of the known information, study, events, and general information of human history is online and searchable through Google, what does it mean if it can’t be found? And, relevant to my won story, what does it mean that I can’t be found?

It all happened in an instant, in one of those moments that should be entirely unremarkable, and, in this case, ironically forgettable. Forgettable for you, but never for me.

I sat down at my computer one morning, logged in, and opened Google so I could check for anything useful may have come up while I slept. I had every expectation that the same thing would happen that day as had happened every single day for years. It should have perfectly and satisfyingly ordinary with another day of bland but happy research, writing, and posting wonderfully deceptive stories for the hungry, gullible masses.

Imagine my surprise then, when I opened up my Google homepage and was greeted with the following message: ”You have been deleted for intentionally spreading false and misleading information.”

“What?” I muttered, mouth agape in confusion and surprise. This isn’t April first. What kind of joke is this?

I navigated to my website to log in and do a little work only to be greeted by the nonexistent domain error message. “Hmmm . . . Can’t reach that page? Odd. Lemme Google it.” So I did. I googled my own website and the search result was fruitless. No matter how I searched, no matter my search terms, I got no results that included my own website, and often I got no results at all. I searched myself and found other randos with the same name, but not the most famous one: me.

Frustrated, I went to Twitter to complain to my legions of followers. Every login attempt just got me the “Failed login: Username and Password do not match” message. I searched my account name without logging in, and there were no results to be found.

I went to Facebook with the exact same result. I tried to log into my various email accounts, and they all failed the same way. I attempted to recover my accounts with my usernames and a password reset link texted to my phone, but they all had the same result. “Incorrect Username”.

I broadened my search for anything I could still log into. World of Warcraft? Gone! Amazon? Gone! YouTube? Gone! Bank accounts, utilities, online subscriptions, credit card accounts, and anything that I could normally access online? Gone, gone, gone, gone, and oh-so-gone!

I ran a virus scan on all of my devices and they came back clean. I repeated the scan with three additional antivirus programs, and all came back clean as well.

I restarted my computers, phone, and every other net connected device I owned. When that failed I tried resetting my computer only to be completely unable to properly set it up again due to, you guessed it, no Microsoft account.

“Son of a bitch!” I screamed impotently as my computer rejected my login credentials. I pulled out my cellphone to call customer support, dialed the number swiftly and surely, my fingers stabbing the screen with quick, angry jabs. I put the phone to my ear and . . . nothing. Absolutely nothing! Not even a lousy “This phone number is no longer in service” recording. Just plain nothing!

I tried to open some apps to see if the phone had anything actually working. They all opened, but they all had forgotten me and had asked me to set up a new user account.

“Damn it!” I shrieked as I violently hurled my very expensive iPhone into my equally expensive oversized Ultra HD monitor. They both broke gloriously, bits and pieces flying off in random directions as I growled impatiently through gritted teeth.

“This is crap!” I angrily declared to nobody after I regained a modicum of composure. “I’m going to the library. Maybe I can get some work done from their computers while I get this sorted out!”

I got dressed. Yes, I actually did do most of my work in my underwear and a bathrobe. Yes, I knew it made me a living stereotype, but I was too rich and influential to care. Who was going to see me anyway? I worked alone out of my home office. I grabbed my wallet and keys and hurried out my front door. My next-door neighbor happened to be taking out his trash at the same time. “Good morning, Jim!” I hurriedly greeted as I rushed to my car.

I didn’t fully comprehend his response at the time. My mind was wholly preoccupied by my mysterious computer problems. He gave me a confused look, cocking his head to one side and saying nothing as he hesitantly raised his free and gave me a halfhearted wave hello.

I slid into the driver’s seat and slammed the car door shut. “I swear, when I find out who’s responsible for messing up my computer like this, he’s a dead man!” I groused as I keyed the ignition. The engine roared to life, and the sound of the powerful motor soothed me slightly.

I love my car, and I tried several times to describe it here for you, but apparently that would give you enough information to identify me. So just trust me when I tell you that you’d love to have a car like mine. Sadly, it seems that the page simply will not allow me to commit something that could allow people to pick me out in a crowd to print. Hence, I am reduced to speaking in generalities rather the details of my gorgeous, crazy fast, super sexy car for you so you could form the proper mental picture of this enviable machine. As it is, just imagine whatever car you think is gorgeous, super sexy, and crazy fast. You might even manage to picture mine.

I slammed the car in reverse, zipped out into the street without bothering to look. Yes, I know I could have killed someone, but at the moment I didn’t really care. Once on the road, I slammed the car in gear, floored the gas, and sped down the street like a two-ton bullet.

Yes, I was driving recklessly and I didn’t care. Have you ever been so thoroughly pissed off that you were fine with endangering other people and yourself in your fit of foolish rage? That was me. My world had just been upended, so I honestly didn’t care if I upended someone else’s world. Misery does love company after all.

I roared into the library parking lot in a third of the time it should have taken me to arrive and came to a screeching stop in the handicapped space. Spaces actually. I double parked. I was going too fast to fully stop in time, and I took out the handicapped sign and put a decent dent in the bumper of my year, make, and model I can’t tell you super-expensive sports car.

The minor miracle of having broken almost every traffic law, including speeding, running stop signs, running red lights, failure to yield, illegal passing on the right, illegal passing in a no-passing zone, and reckless driving without once encountering a cop in the eight-mile drive barely registered in my mind. I fixed my furious glare on the library doors and huffed like an angry bull. I held no appreciation for libraries at the time. They are increasingly obsolete relics of an age from before the internet put all that every library in the world contains and more into our homes, and even into our pockets as smartphones improved. I saw them as enclaves for the old, the poor, and the technologically illiterate.

The library was a large, sprawling, two-story affair with blocky construction and lots of windows on such a large lot of land that the utter lack of a useful public space like a playground, public pool, athletic fields, or all three since it had the space was utterly appalling to me. Seriously, if my taxes are being used to maintain the property, the least the people spending my money could do is get the most bang for my buck.

I stalked up the sidewalk, violently threw open the glass double doors, and angrily marched up to the librarian. “I need to use a computer.” I growled.

My demeanor hardly seemed to faze her, a plump, mousy woman in her fifties with long black hair streaked with gray, or, rather, gray hair streaked with black. She merely arched one thin eyebrow at me and said “Okay. Let me see your library card.”

“My library card? I responded incredulously. “Lady, I haven’t been to a library since the last time my mom took me as a kid. I’m only here because my computer got hit with the nastiest, sneakiest virus I’ve ever seen, and I desperately need to get online so I can handle some business and get my remote service guy to clean up mu PC before I get home.”

“No problem,” she said with absolutely no concern whatsoever for the massive info dump I just inflicted upon her. “Just fill out this form and I’ll get you a library card in just a few minutes, and then you can use the computer. Just stay off those porn sites unless you want to give our computers the same virus yours has. Also, it will get your computer privileges permanently revoked.”

She slid a stack of three blank forms and a pen across the desk to me. “We’re not too busy right now, so you can go ahead and fill the application out right here.”

She turned away and did whatever it is that bored librarians do on her computer while I filled out the forms. “Done!” I declared after a couple minutes of furiously jotting down the required information. “Can we please hurry?” I asked as I handed her the completed forms.

“This won’t take long,” she promised. She checked the forms, and a confused, annoyed expression clouded her features. “Is this a joke?” she demanded as she handed the papers back to me. “These forms are blank!”

“Bullshit!” I replied, annoyed at her sick sense of humor. “I just filled them out! You saw me do it!”

I looked down at the forms in my hands. To my utter surprise, the top form was completely blank as if I had never touched pen to paper. I frantically spread them all out on the desk so I could see them all at once.

They were all blank.

“That’s,” I stammered, “um . . . surprising. I could have sworn . . . I mean, I’m sure I . . . whatever. I’ll do it again.”

“Do you need help filling them out?” she asked with a tone that practically screamed “Say yes and prove you’re a moron. Come on. Do it.”

“No . . .” I murmured. “Just, give me a few minutes.”

Had I really made some incredibly stupid mistake in my haste? I checked my pen. The ballpoint was retracted, but I was sure I’d had it out while I was filling out the forms. I was sure I’d had it out while I was writing. I was sure that I saw ink flowing across the page as I worked. I was severely stressed. Was it possible that I never even had the point out and just scratched blank lines of nothing on the pages? Yes. That had to be it.

I clicked the top of the pen slowly and deliberately. The point came out and stuck firmly in place with a satisfying click. I put the pen to paper and took a few test strokes by slowly writing down my first name. Black ink flowed out onto the page and my name appeared on the white paper in solid black lines. I continued this way all the way through to the end.

“Okay. Done!” I declared as I drew the final letter on the final page. “Now can I please get my library card so I can use the computer?”

The librarian picked up the forms, looked at them, then set them down and fixed me with an angry glare. “This isn’t funny young man!” she scolded. “Now get out of here and take whatever is recording this lame prank with you!”

“What?” I asked, confused.

“This!” she snapped as she forcefully thrust the papers back at me and shook them under my nose before shoving them into my hands.

I looked at the newly crumpled papers, and my eyes grew wide with shock. “This can’t be.” I mouthed breathlessly.

The pages were blank. Every line that I had just filled out in heavy block lettering was as clean and white as newly fallen snow. There weren’t even the impressions that pressing my pen into the paper should have left even if I hadn’t clearly seen the black ink pour out and affix itself to the paper as I wrote.

“This can’t be,” I repeated. “It makes no sense.”

“Oh, it makes perfect sense,” the librarian retorted. “You’re screwing with me, and it’s not funny. Now get out!”

Look, I’m not a crier. I didn’t cry when Old Yeller died. I didn’t cry at the end of Where the Red Fern Grows. I didn’t even cry when my own pets died. Not ever, including as a kid. My parents are alive and well, as is my brother, and I was never close to our extended family, so I had never felt loss on that level. But just then, looking at those forms, I broke down.

“What are you doing?” The librarian went from angry to concerned the moment I shed my first tear.

“I don’t get it.” I blubbered. “All I want to do is check the internet, and I can’t even fill these forms out. What’s wrong with me? What’s happening to me?”

The librarian looked like she genuinely felt my pain. Women are amazing that way, able to feel other’s emotions almost as if they were their own. It’s called empathy, and they have it in buckets.

“Tell you what,” she said tenderly. ”I’ll log you in with my credentials. Do you promise not to access any porn, drug, or anything that’s against our use policy?”

“Yes,” I nodded, rubbing my eyes dry with the back of my hand. “I really do need to look a few things up. I promise it’s all safe for work.”

She led me to the computer lab and logged me in as a guest under her credentials. I thanked her profusely, sat down, and got to work.

I checked my website.

Gone.

I checked my social media.

Gone.

I checked my email addresses and commerce accounts.

All gone.

Then I looked myself up using every combination of data points that I could think of. I was famous. I was in the news. I was practically a household name.

Nothing.

Defeated, I logged out of the computer and pushed my chair away from the little cubicle. I was emotionally exhausted without the energy to be even a little mad anymore. My head hung low. I waved dejectedly at the librarian on my way out and thanked her again on my way out.

She gave a confused look and asked “Thanks? For what?”

I shook my head, taking a moment to appreciate her humility that made he see the great favor she did for me as nothing. Then I turned around and dejectedly walked out the door and to my car. There was a parking ticket on my windshield. I didn’t care. I left it where it was as I unlocked the doors, got in, and fired up the engine.

I slumped in my seat, leaned my head back, and sighed heavily. Not knowing what was happening or why. All I knew was that my life as I knew was almost certainly over, taken from me as surely as if I had never existed, and I had no idea how I was going to get it back.

Heading home, I was just as dangerous behind the wheel as I had been going to the library, but in a different way. Where once I had been angry and aggressive, now I was distracted and depressed. So, of course, I ran a stop sign.

I was barely through the intersection when the cop car on the cross street pulled out behind me and lit up like a child’s toy. What else could I do? I was fairly caught, so I pulled over.

“License and registration,” The cop said in a firm, but bored tone of voice.

“Okay officer,” I replied humbly. I reached into the glove box and pulled out the envelope that held my insurance and car registration and handed it to the office before taking out my wallet.

“What the,” I gasped when I saw the empty space where my driver’s license always resided. I showed the policeman my deficient wallet and pointed at the empty window slot. “I’m sorry. I don’t seem to have my license right now. I honestly don’t know where it could be.”

“Wait here,” the officer firmly ordered before returning to his squad car.

After what felt like an eternity, the officer returned, and this time I noticed that he had his hand on the hilt of his gun, and the holster was unbuckled.

“Get out of the car!” he barked.

I was confused. “Excuse me? What?” I blurted.

“Get out of the car now!” he repeated.

Truly clueless about the situation, I did as ordered, then asked ‘Okay. Why?”

“Now turn and place your hands on the hood of the vehicle!” he interrupted.

Again, I did as I was told. Nobody can ever say that my parents didn’t teach me to respect officers of the law, or the fact that resisting them is a great way to get beaten or shot.

The officer frisked me, found nothing, then handcuffed me. “The envelope you handed me was empty. I ran your plates and they aren’t on file, which makes them ghost plates. This vehicle also matches the description of one stolen from the dealership eighteen months ago, and I’m betting that the VIN on this car is a match for the stolen one.”

“There must be some mistake! I protested. “I bought this car with cash, well, a check so that there would be a paper trail to prove the purchase, but I paid for it!”

“Save it for the judge,” he mocked. “I’ve heard that one before.”

I was roughly shoved into the back seat of the squad car. I watched and listened as the officer relayed the vehicle identification number to the precinct and waited entirely too long for the results.

“It’s a match,” came the reply. The voice was female, but in no way sexy. It sounded like she’d been smoking razor blades without a filter for the last thirty years.

What came next was every cop show cliché that ever existed. I was arrested, read my rights, booked, fingerprinted, mug shot, charged, and tossed into a communal jail cell with a bunch of petty criminals, addicts, and at least one homeless man in desperate need of a very long, very hot shower. The worst part was the body cavity search. If I had to get a gloved finger up my rear, the least they could have done was have a good looking woman do it rather than the ham-fisted brute of a man.

I was left waiting in there forever. Nobody fetched me for interrogation. No lawyer came to represent me. It was as if the police simply forgot I existed.

I’d never been to jail before. Hell, I’d never even seen the inside of a police station before. My entire image of jail was formed by television and movies. I fully expected to be surrounded by dozens of nefarious criminals who all though that I had a purty mouth. Not true. The real dangerous ones were segregated from the ordinary criminals, and I was with a pretty chill group. Sure, some of them looked rough, and there was the homeless man who smelled like he hadn’t had a shower in a decade, but most were just ordinary people you wouldn’t look twice at if you saw them on the street, who may or may not have done something illegal and were just waiting for bail. And more than a few of them were actually pretty cool.

The hours passed. People came and went. Then lunchtime arrived. “Chow time jailbirds!” a young male officer with brown hair and impeccable grooming called out as he rolled a cart filled with bagged lunches into the hallway. The bags were numbered by cell, and there were exactly as may meals as there were inmates in that cell. All was well until he got to my cell.

Never having been locked up before, and more preoccupied with the mystery of my car falsely coming up as stolen on top of my online existence vanishing without a trace, I found myself at the back of the line. When it was my turn to get my food, the officer gave me a puzzled look. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “It looks like we miscounted the meals. I’ll fetch you a meal as soon as I’m done passing the rest of these out.”

“Okay,” I sighed in frustration. “What’s one more inconvenience in a disaster of a day like this anyway?”

I sat down on the bench nearest the cell door and waited as everyone else in the cell block got their food.

“I’ll be right back!” the officer promised as he wheeled the empty cart past my cell.

I gave him an insincere smile and a halfhearted wave as he exited the cell block and waited for him to come back with my lunch.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

“What the hell?” I grumbled after an hour had passed. “That damn cop lied to me!” My stomach gurgled loudly as if to punctuate my irritated claim.

The homeless man approached me on unsteady feet. Holding out his brown bag he said “Thake this. I didn’t finish mine.”

I was genuinely shocked by the offer. “I can’t,” I began to protest.

He cut me off. “I know what it’s like to be ignored, forgotten, and hungry. Please. Take it.”

“Thank you,” I said as I gratefully took the food, no longer caring about the stench that enveloped him like a billowing cloak.

Say what you will about the homeless. Dismiss them as drunks, druggies, and lunatics if you want to, but they have enormous empathy for the suffering of others. There’s something about life being genuinely hard, even out of control, that instills this in them. Most of them will give you the shirt off their back while someone who’s fully self-absorbed in their comparatively minor problems as they fail to appreciate their comfy little world will walk right on by without so much as looking at you. That’s why I go out my way to be good to the homeless, as opposed to the normies who I, well, genuinely don’t care for anymore.

We spoke while I ate, and long after until dinnertime. I told him my story, and he seemed to believe me with some obvious effort. He told me his story too. I’ll call him Tom here. That’s not his real name, but if I did violate his privacy, he wouldn’t remember me anyway, so Tom it is.

He was an Iraq war veteran. Before that he was happy. He was physically and mentally strong. He had a master’s degree in accounting and joined the army as an infantry officer to get his student loans repaid. He discovered that he loved the military and resolved to stay in beyond his initial six-year commitment. He married a beautiful woman. He made captain in just three years.

Then the war started. You all know how it went at first. The nation was reeling and out for blood, justifiably so, but in our zealous desire for revenge we made mistakes. It would be easy to blame the politicians for everything, but the truth is that they only did what the voters demanded of them, and many who resisted paid for it with their careers.

That’s the bargain you make to be in politics after all.

Tom’s unit was deployed to Afghanistan where all went reasonably well all things considered at the time. Then they were redeployed to Iraq instead of coming home when their tour was over. The fighting was easy at first, then became interminable and sneaky as the local zealots, with foreign backing and support, decided to start an insurgency that kept us bogged in that quagmire for far too long.

Insurgents caused many casualties in his unit, and as his deployment got extended many times, the stress, pain, and losses of a prolonged war got to him.

The final straw was when he finally returned home, a major’s leaf freshly pinned on his collar, only to discover that his wife that he hadn’t seen for over two years was pregnant with a six-month old baby in her arms. Obviously, neither child was his, and she had divorce papers waiting for him to sign on the kitchen table.

Broken, he signed them without reading them, went to the drug store, bought a toxic mix of over the counter drugs, and downed them all right in front of the cashier.

Naturally, she called 911. He got medical intervention, stomach pumped and all. Then he spent a month involuntarily committed to a mental hospital. Once he was released, he reported to his commander only to find that he was being discharged for mental health with a disability rating for severe PTSD.

That was the end of his life as he knew it. He began to disregard himself as he spent his entire VA check on booze every month. He ended up homeless, broken, and abandoned with nothing but a few taxpayer dollars every month and a bottle of liquor to keep him company.

His story still breaks my heart. What’s left of it anyway.

Tom, if you’re reading this and recognize your story, I genuinely hope that you got the help you need and have been able to rebuild your life. You deserve happiness.

Rebuilding my own life has proved to be impossible.

Dinner came, and the same officer who forgot to bring my lunch was serving dinner.

“You jerk!” I yelled when I saw him. “You promised you’d bring me lunch then left me to starve!”

The office scowled at me. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

“Don’t play stupid with me!” I shrieked. “This is police brutality! Or prisoner neglect, or whatever that crime is called!”

The officer spoke into his radio. “We have a disruptive prisoner in cell 3,” he said in an official tone. Looking right at me he stated, “I’ve never seen this guy before.”

That set off my cell mates. They all started talking over each other as they verified my side of the story. They accused him of tormenting prisoners for fun. One called him a racist even thought the cop’s skin color is as white as mine.

I guess telling you my race is general enough. It’s not like anyone can pick me out of lineup with that info after all. Still, I’m mildly surprised that I’m allowed to tell you even that much about me.

Several other cops showed up brandishing batons and tasers. They barked orders at us, and everyone backed away from the bars before one keyed the door and opened it. Two large officers manhandled and cuffed me before dragging me out of the cell. The one with the keys closed to door and locked it behind us.

“Who is this guy anyway?” the cop with the meal cart asked as I was being hauled away.

“No idea,” replied one of my escorts, a fit, compact woman with bleached blonde hair. Nobody remembers bringing him in. Booking is looking him up now.”

“I want a lawyer!” I demanded. “This is bullshit! Give me a lawyer!”

My police escort ignored my protests as they dragged me to an interrogation room and unceremoniously dumped me into the chair.

The lady cop’s radio crackled. “We can’t find a record on this guy. His file must have been misplaced. No idea why he’s not in the computer either.”

“You wait here while we find your file,” the lady cop ordered.

“Don’t go forgetting about me,” I replied sarcastically. “And where’s my damn dinner?

“You get fed when we know who you are and why you’re here,” she snapped back.

I laughed. “My name is –“ I told her my name. I can speak it freely even if it won’t take to print no matter how many times I type it out. “And I’m here because one of you idiot cops accused me of stealing my own car that I paid for in full. “I glared at them both. “Now can I go home, or are we going to play the bureaucracy game?”

One of the male cops glared back at me. “We’re going to find your file and ID you before we do anything. We never take a perp at his word. We’re not stupid.”

They both left the room and closed it over my loud stream of vile invectives. I’d never had a problem with the cops before. They do perform a vital service even if they do it imperfectly, but everything about that situation was bullshit. I was rightfully pissed, and I felt justified showing it.

I kept yelling at the closed door for awhile before giving up. I looked around the room. It was bare and sterile with one table and two chairs placed on either side of it. There was a one-way mirror in the wall, a door, and a camera mounted in the corner of the ceiling. The red recording light was not on. I assume that’s because they only use it during active interrogations.

I settled in and waited for the cops to return with my file and my dinner.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited for hours upon hours.

Being all alone with nothing but your own thoughts can be a good thing. Hell, it can be downright therapeutic, giving you a chance to work through your troubles or clear your mind so you can focus on a creative task or puzzle. It’s not a good thing when you’re enraged and obsessed. In that case you ruminate, marinating in a vicious circle of negativity that leaves you stewing over your situation until you can’t take it anymore and you explode.

I think you know which one of these cases describes mine.

“This is bullshit!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, violently rising to my feet, banging my knees against the table in the process. I wheeled around and kicked the chair away from me with all my rage. It flew across the small room and banged against the wall. The pain in my shin assured me that my outburst would leave me with a nasty bruise to remember it by.

I pounded on the door with both of my cuffed fists. “Let me out of here you bastards!” I screamed. “I’ve been stuck in here all night! I’m hungry! I’m thirsty! And I need to pee dammit!”

There was no response, but I didn’t give up. I kept pounding on the door and screaming. It felt like I was at it forever. My fists were bruised. My voice went hoarse.

Finally, someone opened the door. It was the lady officer who had been part of my escort to this damnable pit.

“It’s about damn time!” I spat. “How could you stick me in here and just abandon me like that?”

Next thing I knew, I felt a massive jolt of electricity surge into my body, and I went to the floor in a twitching heap.

The lady cop keyed her radio on. “This is officer Valdez,” She said in an official tone. “Someone’s in interrogation room two. I had to subdue him. This room is supposed to be empty. Do we have an ID on someone being put in here?”

“Negative,” Came the reply. “That room hasn’t been used since the double homicide last week.”

“Then who is the prisoner in it right now?” she asked her radio.

“You bitch!” I managed to spit out. “You tossed my ass in here yourself!”

She looked at me with pure scorn. “No,” she replied coldly. “I’d remember you if I had.”

The drive was supposed to be easy.

I'd been feeling restless for a while, even though my travel blog was doing well. Traveling and writing had become repetitive, and I felt like I was just going through the motions. I missed the thrill of finding new places and the sense of adventure that made me start the blog in the first place. Lately, everything felt forced, and I couldn't shake the feeling that I was missing something important.

I remembered when every trip felt like a real adventure, like the time I found a hidden village in the mountains or met a kind stranger who showed me a secret spot only locals knew about. Those moments used to fill me with excitement, but now everything felt dull. I needed something to remind me why I loved traveling - like when I found that hidden waterfall in Oregon or camped under the stars in the desert. I wanted that feeling of wonder again.

Driving from Chicago to Denver was supposed to help clear my mind.

But as the miles went by, everything looked the same: flat farmland that stretched forever. The monotony of the endless road was almost hypnotic, and I still felt lost and uninspired. It was like I was running away from something but didn't know what, and nothing I found along the way seemed to fill the emptiness.

Then I found Council Bluffs.

It felt different, almost like I was meant to stop there. The streets were unusually empty, and the buildings looked old and forgotten, like time had stopped. There was an eerie stillness in the air that made me shiver, like something was watching me from the shadows.

Council Bluffs was on the border between Iowa and Nebraska, next to the Missouri River. It had a simple charm - a gas station, an old diner that looked like it was from the 1950s, and a small church. Something about it made me curious, like there was more beneath the surface waiting to be discovered.

The motel I found was called the Silver Rest Inn.

It was right off the main road and looked old and run-down. The paint was peeling, and the old neon sign flickered as the sun started to set, casting long shadows across the parking lot. It was the kind of place people only used to sleep before moving on, and I figured it would be good enough for three nights.

As I parked my car, I felt the temperature drop suddenly, and I thought I heard a faint creaking sound, like an old door swinging in the wind. It made me uneasy. The air felt heavy, like a storm was coming, and my stomach twisted with worry.

I tried to ignore it and grabbed my bag, heading into the front office.

The room smelled like dust and something metallic that I couldn't quite place. Behind the counter was an old man with tired eyes. He nodded at me and spoke in a rough voice.

"Need a room?" he asked.

"Yeah, for three nights please…" I said, smiling even though I felt a bit uncomfortable.

He hesitated for a moment, then handed me an old key with a wooden tag. "Room 7," he said. He paused, looking serious. "There are a few rules you need to follow."

I raised an eyebrow. "Rules?"

He nodded and pushed a small, yellowed piece of paper across the counter. The ink was smudged like it had been written a long time ago.

"It's nothing too serious," he said, but I could hear the unease in his voice. "Just things to keep in mind."

I took the note and looked at it. It had five rules:

1. Always close the bathroom door before sleeping, even if the light is off.
2. Do not open the window after 10:00 p.m., even if it gets hot.
3. If you hear knocking, check the peephole first. Do not open the door if no one is there.
4. At midnight, place a cup of water on the nightstand and do not drink it.
5. On your last night, leave a coin on the bedside table before you go to bed.

A shiver ran through me. "Is this some kind of local superstition?" I asked, trying to sound amused, though my voice was shaky.

The old man's smile faded, and he looked at me seriously. "Just follow the rules. Room 7... it's different."

I wanted to ask more, but the way he looked at me made me stop. Instead, I nodded and took the key and the note. "Okay, I'll follow them," I said, trying to sound casual.

The room was at the far end of the motel, and the door looked worn from years of use. I turned the key in the lock, and the door opened with a heavy click. The room was what I expected-a bed with an old floral bedspread, a small wooden table, and a bathroom with a chipped mirror. The air was a bit stale, so I walked over to the window and pulled the curtains aside to let in some fresh air. Outside, everything was quiet, with only the sound of leaves rustling in the breeze.

I looked at the note again, feeling a strange sense of worry. It was just a room, I told myself. I had stayed in plenty of rooms like this. But I couldn't shake the look in the old man's eyes-it was like he was warning me. The air felt heavy, and I could swear I heard a faint rustle, like something moving in the shadows, making my skin prickle.

The first night, I ignored the rules. I left the bathroom door slightly open, even though I felt a shiver telling me I shouldn't. What harm could it cause? I got ready for bed, feeling exhausted from the long drive. The bed was surprisingly comfortable, and as I lay there, I couldn't help but think about the strange rules. The unease lingered, making it hard to fully relax. Eventually, exhaustion took over, and I fell asleep.

I woke up at 3:00 a.m. The room was dark, but something felt wrong. The air was damp, like just before a storm. I looked at the bathroom, and my heart skipped a beat. The door, which I had left partly open, was now wide open. The darkness inside seemed to move, almost like it was alive. My heart started to race, and then I heard it-a deep growl coming from the bathroom, like an animal in pain.

Fear took over, and I forced myself to move. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, the floor cold beneath my feet. I crept toward the bathroom, my heart pounding in my ears. The growl stopped as soon as I touched the door, and I quickly pushed it shut, locking it.

I stood there, breathing hard, waiting for any other sound. But the room was silent again, and slowly the damp feeling in the air went away. I climbed back into bed, pulling the covers tightly around me, keeping my eyes on the bathroom door until I finally fell asleep. My dreams were uneasy, filled with fleeting images of shadows moving across the walls and whispering voices I couldn't understand. Every time I thought I was about to make out the words, I would wake up in a sweat, only to find the room quiet and still.

The next morning, I tried to shake off the fear from the night before. Maybe I hadn't closed the door properly, and the strange growl could have just been the wind or old pipes. I didn't want to think too much about it, so I spent the day exploring Council Bluffs. I took pictures of the Union Pacific Railroad Museum, the old Squirrel Cage Jail, and the Missouri River. The town was quiet and had a sort of eerie beauty to it. People were polite but not very friendly, and they seemed to look at me strangely when I mentioned the motel.

"You're staying at the Silver Rest Inn?" the waitress at the diner asked, her smile fading.

"Yeah," I said, trying to act normal. "Why? Is there something I should know?"

She hesitated, then looked around like she wanted to make sure no one else heard. "Just... follow the rules," she said quietly. "People who don't... well, they are never found again."

A shiver ran through me. Something about the way she said it made me feel like I was already in danger, like there was some dark secret everyone in the town knew but wouldn't share with outsiders. That night, back in Room 7, I made sure to follow the first rule. I closed the bathroom door firmly before getting into bed. I looked over the list again, my eyes lingering on the second rule: Do not open the window after 10:00 p.m., even if it gets hot.

The room felt stuffy. The air conditioner rattled, but it wasn't doing much to cool the room. By 11:00 p.m., I was sweating, and my shirt stuck to my skin. I knew what the note said, but no matter how hard I tried, I felt like I couldn't breathe, like something was very wrong with my throat. I walked over to the window and opened it, letting the cool night air in.

The breeze felt amazing, and I sighed with relief. But then I heard it : footsteps on the gravel outside the door. Slow and deliberate. My whole body tensed up. The footsteps got louder, and then there was a soft knock at the door. Then another, louder this time, like whoever it was wanted to be let in. My heart pounded as I crept towards the door, my eyes on the peephole.

I looked through the peephole, but there was nothing...just darkness. The knocking continued, getting louder and louder, echoing in the small room. I backed away, my gaze darting to the open window. The curtains moved with the breeze, and I rushed over to close the window. As soon as it was shut, the knocking stopped. The silence that followed was almost scarier than the knocking.

My hands were shaking, and I stood there, trying to make sense of it. There had been no one there, but the knocking and footsteps were real. I rushed to close the window, but it was like something invisible was pushing against it, making it almost impossible to move. I struggled with all my strength, my breath coming in ragged gasps, until finally, with a surge of effort, I managed to close it. Suddenly, the bathroom door burst open, and what seemed like an obscure creature on four legs lunged out. It looked like a twisted, shadowy animal-its body was long and skeletal, with jagged, bony legs that ended in sharp, claw-like points. Its face was featureless, a black void that seemed to absorb the light around it. My heart stopped as it came at me, and I closed my eyes, bracing for impact. But then... nothing. The sudden silence was deafening, as if the entire room had been swallowed by emptiness. I felt a strange, hollow stillness, like the world itself had paused. When I opened my eyes, the creature was gone, as if it had never been there. I collapsed onto the bed, my heart pounding painfully in my chest. I felt like I was losing my mind. I picked up the note again, and the words seemed even more important now. These weren't just silly superstitions-they were rules meant to keep me safe from forces beyond my comprehension.

That night, sleep did not come easily. Every small sound seemed amplified-the creak of the bed, the rustle of the curtains. I kept my eyes fixed on the bathroom door, half-expecting it to swing open again. When I finally drifted off, my dreams were filled with dark figures standing at the edge of my bed, their faces hidden, their whispers growing louder until I woke up, drenched in sweat.

By the third night, I was terrified. I knew there was something in Room 7, something dangerous. I had to follow every rule exactly. I closed the bathroom door, kept the window shut, and made sure to listen carefully before answering any knocks. But there was one rule I had forgotten-the cup of water on the nightstand.

It was past midnight when I remembered. My heart started to pound as I rushed to fill a cup of water from the bathroom sink and set it on the nightstand. I lay back down, staring at the ceiling, trying to calm myself. The room felt different, like the walls were pressing in on me, the shadows growing darker and more defined. I could feel the weight of something unseen watching me.

When I finally fell asleep, my dreams were dark and unsettling. I was back in the motel room, but everything felt wrong. The walls seemed to move, expanding and contracting like they were breathing, and shadows gathered in the corners, whispering. Figures stood at the edge of the bed, hidden by darkness. I tried to move, but I felt like something was holding me down, a heavy pressure on my chest that made it hard to breathe.

I woke up suddenly, my heart racing. The room was completely dark, and as my eyes adjusted, I saw something that made my blood run cold-long, slender handprints on the outside of the window. A chill went through me, and then I felt it-a cold breath on the back of my neck.

I turned quickly, but there was nothing there. The room was empty, but I felt like I was being watched. I looked at the cup of water on the nightstand-it was empty. My stomach sank. I must have drunk it in my sleep, breaking another rule.

The growl returned, deep and echoing around the room. The shadows gathered again, twisting and shifting into shapes that almost looked like people. My breath caught in my throat, and I shut my eyes, trying to make it all go away. I couldn't help but think, 'This can't be real. Please, let it stop. I can't take this anymore.' The fear was overwhelming, and I felt a desperation I had never known before. The growling got louder, coming from everywhere at once, a horrible, guttural sound that seemed to seep into my very bones.

When I opened my eyes, the figures were there, surrounding the bed, their faces hidden, their dark hands reaching towards me. They were closer now, and I could see the outlines of their forms, the way their fingers seemed to stretch and curl unnaturally.

The figures paused, their hands hovering over me. The shadows seemed to ripple, as if they were deciding what to do. Then, slowly, they began to fade away, dissolving into the darkness. The growling got quieter until the room was silent again. The air was still and cold, and I lay there, shaking, tears in my eyes. I knew I couldn't stay another night-if I did, I was certain that whatever lurked in the shadows would consume me entirely. The feeling of dread was overwhelming, and every instinct in my body screamed that I was in immediate danger, that the next encounter would be my last.

I knew I couldn't stay any longer. After the encounter with the creature, my instinct was to run. I grabbed my things and rushed downstairs, my heart pounding, every step echoing in the silence of the empty motel. I needed to leave-right now. My hands were trembling, and the fear clawed at my chest, making it hard to think clearly.

But when I reached the exit, the door wouldn't budge. I twisted the handle again and again, my panic growing with each failed attempt. It was locked, as if it hadn't been used in years. The windows were boarded up, and the dim light filtering through made everything look even more hopeless. I pounded on the door, my breath coming in short gasps. Panic surged through me, and I turned to see the old man standing behind the front desk, watching me with those tired, emotionless eyes.

"I need to leave," I said, my voice shaky, barely above a whisper. "Let me out. Please."

The old man shook his head slowly, almost sadly. "You can't leave until you've stayed the full nights you paid for," he said, his voice almost apologetic, but there was something cold in his tone, something that made my stomach twist even more.

I felt the walls of the room closing in on me, the heavy silence pressing down, and I wanted to scream. A cold dread settled in my stomach. I realized then that I was trapped. There was no way out until I faced the final night, until I followed every rule perfectly. My eyes darted around the lobby, searching for another exit, a back door, anything that could save me from returning to that cursed room. But there was nothing.

The old man didn't move. He just stood there, staring at me with that hollow gaze. I took a step back, my body trembling, and knew I had no choice. My heart sank as I turned and slowly walked back down the hallway. Every step felt heavier, like I was walking toward my doom. The hallway seemed longer than before, stretching endlessly, the dim lights flickering above me. I could feel tears stinging my eyes, but I blinked them away. I had to do this. I had no choice but to return to Room 7.

On the final night, I knew I had to follow every rule perfectly if I wanted to leave alive. I closed the bathroom door, kept the window shut, put the cup of water on the nightstand, and left a coin on the bedside table. I lay in bed, my eyes wide open, the silence in the room almost unbearable. My body was tense, every muscle tight, as I listened for the first sign of trouble. The air felt thick, as if it was weighing me down, and every sound seemed amplified in the deafening stillness.

At midnight, the knocking started again. It was soft at first, then got louder and more demanding. Each knock seemed to resonate deep in my bones, vibrating through the bedframe. The whispers followed, voices outside the window, growing in number until it sounded like a crowd murmuring just beyond the thin glass. Shadows moved beyond the glass, forming shapes that twisted and writhed. I kept my eyes on the coin, focusing on it as my only connection to reality, trying to block out the chaos around me. The room felt like it was getting darker, the pressure in the air building until I thought I would scream. My chest felt tight, and it was hard to breathe, like the very air was being sucked out of the room.

I felt the mattress dip slightly, as if something had climbed onto the bed. My heart raced, and I clenched my teeth to keep from crying out. I could feel an unnatural coldness spreading from the foot of the bed, moving closer, inch by inch. My entire body was paralyzed with fear, my muscles locked in place as I tried to keep my focus on the coin. The whispers grew louder, more insistent, and I could swear I heard my name being called, mixed in with the voices.

Then, slowly, the darkness began to lift. The whispers got quieter, the knocking stopped, and the shadows faded away. The air felt lighter, and the pressure on my chest slowly began to release. A faint light started to filter through the curtains, and I realized that dawn was breaking.

The sense of relief was overwhelming. I let out a shaky breath and felt tears welling up in my eyes. I had made it. I had survived the final night. My entire body was trembling, but I managed to get out of bed and gather my things. The rules had been followed, and I could feel that whatever haunted Room 7 was letting me go.

I made my way to the front desk, the old man was there, watching me as I approached. He looked tired, but there was a hint of relief in his eyes as well.

"You followed the rules," he said quietly, nodding as I handed him the key.

I nodded back, my voice too shaky to speak. I could barely believe that I was finally leaving. Without another word, I turned and walked out the door, stepping into the early morning light. The fresh air hit my face, and I felt a sense of freedom that I hadn't felt in days.

I got into my car, started the engine, and drove away from the Silver Rest Inn. As I glanced in the rearview mirror, I watched the old motel grow smaller and smaller until it finally disappeared from view. I knew, deep down, that I would never return to that place. Room 7 was still there, waiting for the next person who wouldn't listen to the warnings.

Adelheid hummed a merry tune as she worked diligently around the kitchen. Although she was quite old, she loved baking treats for all of the little children who came to visit her from time to time. Her home always smelled like warm cinnamon rolls and sweet icing; her table, countertops, and cupboards were replete with a variety of cakes, tarts, cookies, and other sweetly spiced delicacies.

The poor dear was almost as round as she was short; over the years, her eyesight had gone from bad to worse, and she relied on a crutch to get around with. But considering just how old she was, she got along quite well for herself. She believed that three things were important for longevity: stay active, stay well-fed, and whatever your age—hold on to the heart of a child.

Adelheid lived alone but was never lonely. She was like the sun up in the heavens, who is also all alone but beams brightly, exudes warmth, and is always inviting. Even her modest home sat in the middle of nowhere. Yet, she never feared she would have no visitors, because someone always found their way. And when she welcomed guests into her home, it was considered a special occasion.

This was a special occasion. But Adelheid did not have to go at it alone. One of her guests, a sweet little girl, no older than ten, was helping her in the kitchen. Adelheid was overjoyed to have the company of such a lovely, soft-spoken, and industrious child. Adelheid loved the little children more than anything in the world.

As Adelheid read from her recipe book, the little girl gathered wood for the oven, fetched water, and swept the kitchen floor. Adelheid drew a chubby finger across a page in her book; she leaned in close to read the handwritten chickenscratch.

She reached down into a bushel basket of apples and placed half a dozen in front of her to begin slicing. She was careful when she first halved the apples, then quartered them. Before she furthered her task, she turned her attention to the little girl and said, "Dear, be a darling and check the oven for me; let me know if the fire is burned down enough just yet."

She watched the girl from the corner of her eye, and though she could hardly see more than a blurry smudge, she could make out that the young lady was having a time with the thick iron door on the brick oven.

"It's too heavy; I can't open it," the little girl whined.

"Those hinges are freshly oiled; it shouldn't be any trouble at all to open."

But she watched the little girl continue to struggle.

"It's stuck or something," she fussed.

"Alright, alright. Here I come." Adelheid grabbed her crutch and hobbled across the room to the oven. The oven door opened with ease for her, but before she could say or do anything else, her crutch was pulled away from her, and she felt a force from behind. She had been pushed! Adelheid plunged forward into the burning hot oven. The door slammed shut with a terrible bang as her face, palms, forearms, and knees slid through the glowing embers of the wood fire oven. She tumbled, kicked, and flailed violently as her hair vaporized and her once rosy cheeks blistered and popped. She beat her fists violently against the red-hot door while her flesh grew tight, blackened, and split. Her howl of anguished pain was little more than a muffled whisper, heard by none, on the other side of that heavy iron door.

The little girl raced into the other room. The room where her brother was. The room where her brother had been for a week now. She opened the cage and embraced the boy; both of their faces were drowned in tears. She said to him, "We're safe now, Hansel. We're finally safe."

See here for part 1

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

Three:

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

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

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

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

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

Snickering devilishly, Theo denied his request,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Four:

Once there was a lonely young boy named Christian.

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

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

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

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

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

The young man agreed to the terms.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christian would meet her there.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Lutzwater never saw it coming.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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One:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Apparently, the well was practically next to him.

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

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

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

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Two:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I…I…” Charlie blubbered.

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

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

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

In that last nightmare, he agreed to the terms.

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

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

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

His lips were moving.

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

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

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

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

Theo must be right.

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

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

I never really liked college that much with all the studying, the people, time management, and how much it cost. It never seemed like my thing, but my parents pushed me into it. One day my dorm mate Michelle came into the room and was getting ready frantically. I asked what was going on, and she said she was going to a dorm party and was running a little late. Michelle looked at me and asked me to go with her, telling me there is this cool drum set I have to see. I looked at my college books and wanted an excuse to stop studying, so I took her up on her offer and started getting ready myself, hoping I could attract some cute faces. I quickly threw on my violet blue dress and put my hair up in a bun. It took a second for my roommate to get ready, and we both headed to the dorm party. It was getting dark around the campus, and it was a little windy, causing chills to run down my spine. Something didn't feel right approaching the male honors dormitory building. We entered the building, and Michelle took me to a particular dorm where all I heard was people cheering and weird tapping. We knocked on the door. Michelle's boyfriend Randy opened the door with a brown cap, a patchy beard, and worn-out clothing. He had a big smile, thanking Michelle for finally coming and reprimanding her for being late.

We both came in; it was a normal-looking living room with the dining room to the left of us, the living room lit brightly, and all I saw were people crowding around a particular part of the living room. Randy came behind us and told us to enjoy the show. I pushed Randy away, not really trusting him since he tried setting me up with his fat, sexist friend, but that was a few years ago. Michelle was excited, so that at least set my guard down. wanting to go into the crowd and watch what was going on. I was very hesitant and didn't know what I was getting myself into and tried asking her what was going on. She then grabbed my hand and took me into the crowd, pushing people out of the way. We managed to see what they were looking at, and it was just a single bongo. One of the boys came and sat on the couch in front of the bongo. He stretched out his hand and touched it, and then the room suddenly went very quiet, and the space around us was unusually cold. The guy started shaking violently. I was horrified seeing what was happening. I wanted to leave as fast as I could, but the people behind wouldn't budge, and Michelle's hand wouldn't let me go.

That's when I heard intense and fast playing of the bongo. I looked back over, and the guy was playing the bongo. Everyone around me started cheering, almost dancing to the unusual beats of the bongo. His eyes were really wide, like he would die if he blinked once. All I could feel was fear and horror. I wasn't able to move, not that I was able to leave if I wanted to. It seems the room around me got darker and darker as it got colder and colder. Everyone, even Michelle and Randy, gave me a smile and cheer like this was extremely normal. The beats got louder and more intense as the crowd got louder. Someone at the party walked up to them and tapped them on the shoulder 3 times. They stopped and stared down at the ground; the crowd went quiet and waited as if something else was going to happen, and suddenly raised their heads and stared at the crowd, and everyone started getting loud again, cheering the guy's name. When the host of the party asked who wanted to go next, my roommate quickly nominated me to go. Of course I didn't want to, and I made it clear that I didn't want to go; I just wanted to leave. Michelle and her boyfriend insisted that I go.

They pushed and pulled me closer to the bongo, and against my better judgment, I finally agreed and told them to stop pushing. They took me to the host of the party, asking if I could do the bongo party trick. The host said yes but had some rules.

• Rule 1: If you feel any distress, you're still in control. Try to give anyone any sign to stop the experience.
• Rule 2: Go with the flow; don't try to fight the movements your body is making; it will only stress you out.
• Rule 3: People with health complications or who have pregnancy are not allowed, so nothing happens while they are in the experience.
• Rule 4: Goes for the people inspecting: do not try to physically stop the person in the experience; just tap either shoulder 3 times for them to stop.
• Rule 5: The most important and vital rule: do not, in any circumstances, DO NOT open your mouth.

The rules made me even more nervous and made me not want to do it even more, especially rule 5, and I asked the host about the rule, and he explained when he inherited the bongo recently. It had those rules written on it and specified to not violate Rule 5. I changed my mind and didn't want to go, but Michelle protested, even offered me 80 dollars. Telling me she and Randy have done it as well and they had the time of their lives. I ended up giving in, walking up to the bongos, looking at Michelle and Randy, wanting to strangle them for putting me in this predicament.

I saw everyone's intrigued smile and excitement, all looking at me, making me feel more anxious the more I stood there, making me regret ever coming to the party in general. As I slowly reached for the bongo, feeling more dread as my hand got closer. When I finally touched the bongo, I felt a numbing/stinging sensation all throughout my body, and I started convulsing. I panicked, not knowing what to do until it stopped, and then my hands, all by themselves, started playing the bongos with speed and accuracy. Everyone started cheering, dancing, and rubbing against each other like all from my unwilling performance on the bongo. I was very startled, not knowing what to do until I felt my mouth wanting to open. I gritted my teeth, scared to know what would happen if I even opened my lips. It felt like hands trying to pry open my lips, but I kept persistent. My hands are going faster and faster as the feeling of opening my lips gets greater and greater. I tried signaling, raising my eyebrows up and down, trying to signal to Michelle or anyone that something must be wrong, but everyone was just focused on the bongos and not me. I tried making any type of noise behind my closed lips, but everyone was too loud to hear me.

I was getting more and more frustrated until I felt my teeth slowly lifting up. I tried not freaking out, pushing as hard as I could to stop myself from opening my mouth, fearing what might happen, and then, as if the pressure of what's trying to open my mouth gave up, I accidentally chomped down as hard as I could. I felt a horrible, sharp pain on my tongue, and the taste of warm blood started to pool in my mouth. I felt completely helpless, like I was going to die that day, the feeling of that dread and despair. I could only express that with a single tear going down my face until blood slowly dripped out of my mouth, and that's when the cheering started to die down and everyone noticed something was not right. All I could hear were whispers of confusion and horror that started to spread throughout the room and the increasing speed of the tapping on the bongo. The host noticed what was going on and ran up to stop the experience. My leg lifted up as if someone were lifting it up as high as my leg could lift it and slammed it on the ground, breaking it and revealing bone.

I screamed as loud as I could from the unbearable pain. Allowing the pool of blood in my mouth to spill out all over the floor and bongo along with half of my tongue. But that didn't stop me from playing the bongo. Everyone seeing what was going on started screaming and headed out of the party, pushing and cramming the front door. Randy, Michelle, and the host stood behind, trying to break me away from the bongo. The host tried tapping my shoulder 3 times. But that wasn't stopping me from playing the bongo. I was sobbing, scared out of my mind, confused, and was in so much pain. Randy grabbed my wrists, trying to stop me from playing, and suddenly the palm of my hands pressed on the top of the bongo, and when everything seemed to finally calm down. Michelle and Randy tried taking me away from the bongo, but my hands wouldn't lift away from the bongo. The harder they pulled, the more I felt the skin of my hand being pulled off. I tried telling them to stop, but I wasn't able to speak, only making choking and gurgling noises. As all I could feel was my skin on my hands slowly parting from my flesh

Suddenly my hands lifted up, revealing the skin of my palms and fingers only dangling off my hands, and I started playing the bongo again. Feeling the skin sliding off and my bare flesh pounding faster on the bongo, I screamed and cried from the pain. Michelle tried grabbing my wrists like what Randy did. That's when I felt my face start slamming on the bongo with tremendous force. Over and over again, with everyone trying to restrain me and hold me still, all I could do was cry and feel my face distorting more and more with every hit. That's when my hands started to twist and pull in different directions. All I could do was cry, scream, and do nothing until I blacked out, feeling nothing but fear, pain, and tasting blood.

I woke up with my entire body feeling like it was on fire, and the lights around me were so bright I felt blind. It took a minute until I could barely open my eyes. As I slowly regained consciousness, I noticed I could only see through my right eye. And all I could hear were early morning cartoons. When I saw the remote and went to turn the TV off, I noticed I was missing both of my hands. I looked at what were supposed to be my hands; all I could see were useless fucking nubs. Out of frustration and fear, I hit the TV remote as hard as I could until I turned the TV off. That's when I saw myself through the reflection of the TV. I screamed at the sight I was seeing; what was supposed to be my nose was just a gaping hole of pure flesh, and where my lips are supposed to be is just a small hole that could barely fit a straw, and the worst part was most of the left part of my face was not there, just skin with staples holding it together. Nurses came in and tried calming me down. I tried telling them to leave me alone and to not look at me, but I was not able to speak. All I could do was flail and scream while all the nurses tried holding me down. This was not how it was supposed to happen. I was supposed to graduate with honors and become a teacher. Now all I am and all I am going to be is a fucking monster.

As Snow White passed through getting apples, an old lady gave her an apple. She gave her the Apple she had and Snow White happily said, “Thank you!”. As she has gotten the last Apple she needed.

Snow White then went back to her house with the elves. She made an apple pie, but when she ate it.. she felt a sudden sensation, an unknown one. Like something did not go as planned.

After that, someone knocked on her door. It was the same old lady who gave her an apple before. The old lady offered Snow White an apple, asking to eat it in a nicely matter.

Snow White then said, “But you already gave me an apple.”. The old lady now had a sudden look of shock and distress. The old lady then said, “That wasn’t me.”