On February 10, 1998, emergency services responded to a domestic violence call in Fargo, North Dakota. They arrived on scene to discover a semi-conscious woman who bore signs of severe injuries and mutilation consistent with torture.

The bedroom in which she was discovered contained bloodstained ligatures, bedding, clothing, and a variety of weapons including a baseball bat, a hatchet, a kitchen knife, a machete, and dumbbell plates, all of which bore signs of use.

In the center of the room was a large shattered mirror. Broken glass covered the room. One shard approximately eight inches in length and three inches in width was lodged in the victim’s stomach.

The victim, who was clearly delirious, told officers that her boyfriend did this to her. “But it’s not his fault. He was crazy, and the mirror made him crazier.”

Despite extensive search efforts, no other individual was discovered on scene, including the victim’s boyfriend. It should be noted that this man was never located, and to date is considered missing.

EMS transported the victim to the hospital, where emergency surgery commenced.

No matter what treatment was rendered, the wound inflicted by the large mirror shard would not heal.

After significant medical intervention, it stopped bleeding but did not knit, effectively leaving the victim with a small cavern in her abdomen.

Approximately two weeks into her hospital stay, one of the nurses providing treatment went into hysterics and refused to go back into her room. When asked, the nurse explained that while performing wound care, she “looked inside the patient’s wound and saw a room.”

According to the nurse, the patient herself was somehow inside this room inside the wound, smiling back at her.

The patient was not capable of providing any additional information. At this time, she was still extremely mentally unstable owing to her ordeal, and medically fragile.

Shortly after this, the patient was taken for further study with the goal of closing her wound once and for all.

The details of this study are disturbing and fundamentally irrelevant.

Suffice to say, the medical professionals studying her wound also observed this bizarre “room” described by the nurse. Following a distinctly unfortunate incident relating to this room, hospital staff facilitated her transfer to the custody of AHH-NASCU.

The inmate, Ms. Pauley, has been with the agency ever since. She is currently a T-Class agent assigned to the agency director.

Ms. Pauley’s ability is simply astonishing. In simplest terms, she is the keeper of an open-ended pocket dimension. This dimension takes the form of a living room paneled in mirrors. Ms. Pauley says the space is identical to the living room of her childhood home except for the mirror walls.

The entrance to this pocket reality is the wound cut into Ms. Pauley’s abdomen by the mirror shard. Ms. Pauley and Administration both agree that the spectacular properties of this wound derive directly from the properties of the broken mirror that inflicted the injury. After taking her into custody, Agency personnel attempted to find additional shards of the mirror but were unsuccessful.

Notably, the pocket-dimension includes a front door that, when opened, leads to other locations. Previously, Ms. Pauley claimed to have no idea where the door led. However, following the recent escape of Inmate 70 (Ward 2, “The Man Who Never Smiles”) the agency learned that Ms. Pauley not only knows where the door leads to, but can control where it goes.

Given Inmate 70’s unique abilities, Ms. Pauley was not disciplined for his containment breach. However, on 12/14/24, when she was caught trying to help Inmate 22 (Ward 1, “Lifeblood”) breach containment.

It should be noted that Inmate 22 reported Ms. Pauley of her own volition, although she displayed extreme emotional distress at the idea that Ms. Pauley would “get in trouble.”

After this incident, Ms. Pauley was fitted with a device that removes her ability to control whether to open or close her pocket-dimension. When the device is active, her body is intact, the wound appears to be healed, and no going in or out. The agency director currently monitors this device himself.

Ms. Pauley is a 51-year-old adult female. She is 5’9” tall, with brown hair and blue eyes. She suffers from major depressive disorder and anxiety. Despite extensive therapy and full compliance with her treatment plans, she experiences significant distress whenever she looks into a mirror.

Ms. Pauley has historically been extremely cooperative with Agency directives, but due to recent events she was reclassified to uncooperative status.

At the director’s discretion, she still maintains T-Class status, albeit in a highly restricted capacity.

Interview Subject: Polly Pocket

Classification String: Uncooperative / Destructible / Gaian / Constant/ Low / Apeili

Interviewers: Rachele B. & Christophe W.

Interview Date: 12/21/2024

My boyfriend used to talk to mirrors.

He told me that talking to his reflection was a coping mechanism he developed as a kid. I had a few of my own weird coping mechanisms, so I understood. I didn’t like it — mirrors have always made me uneasy — but I understood.

Besides, talking to the mirror wasn’t the only bizarre thing he did, and certainly not the scariest. Not by a long shot.

Crazy is a bad word, especially for people like me. I hate using it, even now.

But looking back, Philip was crazy.

But at the time, his particular kind of crazy felt familiar. He felt comfortable. He felt like home. Everyone wants to find home, me included.

So what are you supposed to do when crazy feels like home?

No one else has ever felt like home to me. Only him.

And he wasn’t a monster. Far from it. He was sweet and thoughtful, and stable enough to get custody of his baby sister, Alice, who adored him. They had the same eyes, this spectacular pale green.

Most importantly, Philip was sure about me from the very beginning. He showed it, every day. He once told me that he knew we were meant to be from our very first conversation. Like he’d known me his entire life. Or that we’d known each other in a thousand prior lives.

I didn’t believe in any of that, of course. But I believed the way he treated me.

And he treated me extremely well.

Above all, he was so considerate. It’d take days to tell you everything he did for me. But just as an example, I once told him no one had ever read me a bedtime story. From that point on, every night before we went to sleep, he’d tell me a story. Sometimes fairy tales, sometimes urban legends, usually stories he made up himself. Falling asleep next to him while he whispered a story in my ear is one of my favorite memories, even now.

I asked him once where he got his story ideas. “From the mirror,” he teased. “I talk to it, and it talks back.”

In a lot of ways, he was wonderful.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Our lows transcendently awful. But the highs were correspondingly spectacular. And even on the worst days, we never went to sleep angry. That was a first for me. Even if we’d been fighting, even if we’d been screaming, even if we were angry and even if I was scared, that all melted away as soon as we got into bed and he started telling a story.

That’s why it was so easy to stay with him.

As for the things that made it hard to stay — well, that’s where my own weird childhood coping mechanism came into play.

When I was a little girl, I used to imagine a little pocket behind my heart. A hidden, dark, secure, and above all safe place where I put all my bad feelings.

That pocket is where I shoved all my fears and doubts about Philip, and it’s where I hid all the instincts that screamed at me to leave him.

There were a lot of those. Too many. But the heart-pocket was magic, so whenever I had too many bad feelings for the pocket to hold, it grew to accommodate them.

Once, after this particularly insane fight, I could practically feel it expanding. I felt it stretching from my heart to my hips, gently displacing my organs and grazing along my bones. I was sure I’d be able to press down on my stomach and feel it hiding, firm and heavy and full of all the darkness that threatened my light.

I hated our fights. I hated how they made me feel. I hated how they made him feel. I hated that they were never about anything important. I hated that Alice had to hear them.

Most of all, I hated how he talked to the mirror after every one of those fights.

Because no matter what he said about coping mechanisms, he only ever got worse after he talked to mirrors.

There was one day, maybe a week after the new year, where we basically started fighting the minute we woke up.

Nothing I did helped. No matter what I did, everything just kept getting worse and worse, snowballing into something uncontrollable. I could feel it in my gut and in the depths of my heart-pocket:

We were headed for disaster.

And that night, he didn’t get into bed with me. He stayed in the bathroom, talking to his mirror.

What I heard him say was terrifying.

He kept repeating Every life, we kill each other.

And he kept saying he needed to sever “the soul tie.” How pain is the only way. That’s what he kept saying: Pain is the only way. The greater the pain, the cleaner the cut. You have to do it. It’s the only way to end this forever. It’s the only way to save each other.

I tried to shove all the fear into my heart-pocket, but it wouldn’t fit. It kept bursting out to run through my bloodstream in terrible electric surges.

Finally I couldn’t take it anymore. At three in the morning on that frozen January night, I confronted him.

He had a full-bore breakdown.

He started screaming and begging by turns. Grabbing me and shoving me against the wall, only to fall to his knees begging. He asked me to forgive him. He said we were cursed, that the angel in the mirror told him so and the angel never lied. He said he loved me so much that he would do anything to break the curse. Anything to sever the soul tie.

Anything to set each other free.

Something in his face made me sure that he was about to hurt me.

So I dragged Alice out of bed — it wasn’t hard, she was wide awake and crying, bright green eyes swollen and swimming with tears — bundled her into her coat, and took her to the car.

It was snowing. We slipped and slid on the icy driveway as gusts of wind tore through our coats. Philip came after us, screaming, begging us to stay. That he needed to save us once and for all.

He even chased after the car. I saw him in the rearview mirror, a manic shadow that only vanished when I turned the corner and sped away.

The snow was coming down hard and the wind was spinning it out into billowing blankets. It was impossible to see.

I wasn’t driving well to begin with because of stress. About ten minutes after we left the house, I hit a patch of ice. The car spun out of control. I heard Alice scream.

The next thing I knew, I woke up in a hospital.

Philip was slumped in a chair by my bed, fast asleep and whiter than a sheet.

I tried to wake him up, but my head was swimming. The world was tilting. I couldn’t remember anything. I fell asleep again.

When I woke up, the doctors told me I’d make a full recovery. By some miracle, I’d survived.

Alice had not.

Somehow, Philip didn’t blame me.

It’s so awful to say, but losing Alice changed him for the better.

No more fights, no more screaming, no more anything. Just hopeless gentleness.

He stopped doing all the little considerate things I’d loved, so I did them instead. I didn’t tell him bedtime stories, though. That was a uniquely Philip thing. Even the thought of whispering fairy tales to him as he drifted off felt like a betrayal in a way I couldn’t articulate.

The only thing that didn’t change was the mirror.

He still talked to the mirror.

He always kept his voice so low that I couldn’t make out his words. Sometimes it sounded like two voices. But one morning, about a year after we lost Alice, I woke up to the familiar sounds of his mirror-conversation. For once, he was talking loudly enough for me to hear.

And he was crying.

“How am I supposed to hurt her? How can you expect me to do any of this?”

Then he shushed himself, and his voice returned to that indistinguishable softness.

I almost left that day.

But I didn’t.

The next morning, Philip basically became a different man.

He woke me up with toast and coffee for breakfast, something he hadn’t done in nearly two years. He started smiling again, and doing all those little things he used to do.

And that night, after I climbed into bed, he brought me a cup of tea. While I sipped it, he finally told me another bedtime story:

Once upon a time, a woman named Akrasia fell in love with a man named Kairos. But Kairos wouldn’t have her. Kairos was rich, you see, while Akrasia lived with her penniless father in a hovel by the sea.

Out of desperation, Akrasia went to the god Hynthala. She entered his mirror palace and offered anything and everything in her possession if only Hynthala would make Kairos love her. ‘You have nothing,’ Hynthala told her. ‘Nothing but the clothes on your back. Clothes do not buy love. Love buys love. Your father loves you. Bring me your green-eyed father, and I will make Kairos love you.’”

So Akrasia brought her father to the mirror palace. Hynthala accepted him as an offering, and told her to go to Kairos. “He will love you now and forever,” he promised. “From this moment until the very last star dies for the very last time.”

Akrasia went to Kairos. True to Hynthala’s word, he loved her above all else.

But he still would not take her to wife.

He would have to renounce his family and the bride they had already chosen for him. Though he loved Akrasia deeply, he would not forsake everything for her.

Akrasia held onto hope that Kairos would change his mind, but he did not. On the night of his wedding, she flung herself into the sea and drowned.

Kairos grieved her passing deeply, for he did love her. But although he loved Akrasia until his dying day, he never regretted the choice to keep his family, his position and his inheritance.

And that was the end.

“This story is about us,” Philip said quietly.

I felt sick. I knew, somehow, that this was Philip’s way of ending things with me.

Through tears, I asked, “So what, am I supposed to be Akrasia?”

“No.” He cupped my face. “Never.” His thumb brushed across my cheekbone, smearing the tear against my skin. “You were Kairos.”

For the second time, something in his face made me sure I was about to die.

Before I even realized what I was doing, I was halfway out of bed. But when my feet hit the floor, the world spun and stretched, swinging upward, and I fell back.

Philip shot forward and pinned me down. I tried to struggle, but every time I moved the world flipped upside down. I felt like I was stuck to the ceiling, ke whatever was holding me was giving way. Like I was about to fall to the floor and smash like a porcelain doll.

“It’s going to be okay,” Philip soothed. “I promise. Listen. Please listen. I’m doing this because I love you. I have to sever our tie, for your sake and for mine. We find each other in every life. It should be beautiful, but it’s not. We always destroy each other and everyone around us. The mirror told me. The mirror never lies. If I’d listened to it, Alice would be alive and you would be happy somewhere else. I know it. I know it.”

He tied me down. I tried to fight, but whatever he put in my tea rendered me helpless.

As he worked, he explained what he was going to do and why.

“Memories don’t transfer, but essence does. We have to make our essence remember. The only way to do that is suffering. We have to make it hurt so badly that our essences repulse each other in the next life and every life that comes after. It’s the only way we’ll be happy: By making sure we never love each other.”

Then he got up and left. I tried to wriggle out of the restraints, but every time I moved my head, the room spun.

Some time later — maybe a minute, may be ten minutes, maybe an hour or six or two days — he came back with the mirror. He put it on top of the dresser, angling it so I could see myself.

Then he came to the edge of the bed and told me another story.

I could barely follow his words. My head was swimming. Consciousness dipped in and out, just like when I’d been in the hospital after the wreck.

A long time ago, two homeless orphans were best friends: a beautiful and very angry girl, and a sad little boy with a green-eyed cat that he loved more than anything except the girl. All they had was each other. They slept during the day to avoid those who might prey on two small children alone in the world. They woke at sunset and traveled at night, stealing fruit from moonlit orchards and eggs from sleepy chickens in their coops.

But when winter came, the orchards died and the chickens stopped laying. The children were soon starving.

One bitter morning, the girl left the boy and his green-eyed cat sleeping in a barn, and revealed herself to the farmer.

The farmer welcomed her into his house, but he did not help her.

When the boy woke to find the girl gone, he thought she had abandoned him, so he cried. But then his green-eyed cat hurried to the barn door, meowing.

When the boy left the barn, he heard the girl screaming from inside the farmhouse.

His little cat found a way inside through a broken window and led him through dusty, sunlit rooms to a door, behind which he heard the girl weeping.

She was in a terrible state, but he helped her to her feet. The cat led them back through the dusty, sunlit rooms to the broken window. The cat jumped onto the sill, but lost her balance and fell back. She knocked a pot to the floor, where it shattered.

The sound alerted the farmer. As he came crashing down the stairs, the boy helped the girl through the window. He tried to follow, but the farmer caught him.

The boy’s last memory was the sound of his cat meowing as he died.

The girl tried and save him, but she was too late and too wounded besides, and died for her trouble.

When Philip finished, he leaned over and picked up a baseball bat. It made me scream, which made him cry.

“I’m sorry,” he wept. “I’m so, so sorry.”

He brought the bat down on my knee, once, twice, three times.

Agony. Pure, white-out agony. I could hear myself scream, but barely noticed. The mirror loomed across from me, dark as a nighttime pool. I imagined teeth inside the glass, bared in a smile.

Philip talked to the mirror after. As he spoke, I felt my heart-pocket shudder and expand. I pretended to open it and dropped things inside: Fear, the dizziness, the overwhelming pain in my knee.

It was slow and tortuous, but by the time Philip had finished and curled up next to me, whispering tearful apologies, I was able to sleep.

The next day, he told another story.

But I interrupted him quickly, calling him a fucked-up, gender-bent Scheherazade. I told him he needed help. I promised I’d get him help. I told him I loved him, I still loved him and would always love him and none of this changed that, just please, please, please, please—

He struck me with enough force to daze me.

As my ears rang and dark spots swarmed my eyes, Philip told another a story in between his own sobs.

He told me of another life where I was captured by a warlord. He traded his green-eyed sister to the warlord to free me so we could escape together. But it was all for naught, because we died anyway, long before we reached safety.

As he spoke, I saw glimmers of his story. Scenes from a fading dream. The warlord grinning as he pulled the green-eyed sister in and shoved me out. Philip’s sick and haunted eyes — but they weren’t Philip’s eyes, it wasn’t Philip’s face. The devastated countryside, the bugs and animals feasting on the dead left to rot among the rocks. The roving band that finally killed us long before we reached our destination.

When Philip finished, he pulled out a knife.

I immediately kicked him, sending the knife skittering across the floor. He moaned, then picked up the bat and smashed my other knee.

He screamed even louder than I did.

Then he talked to the mirror.

After he left, I prayed — not to God, but to my heart-pocket. I prayed for it to become huge. Bigger than big, bigger than the room I was in.

And it answered. I felt it grow. Felt my organs shifting, the tickle as it scraped along my ribcage. When I felt it was big enough, I opened it up and dropped myself inside it.

Part of me was still in Philip’s bedroom, gazing blankly at the mirror while I wept.

But the other, bigger, more important part was inside my heart-room.

It looked just like my childhood living room early on Saturday mornings, right down to the cartoons on the TV and the half-eaten bowl of cereal on the floor and the battered cardboard boxes stacked against the wall to predawn gloom outside the windows.

I sat on the floor, criss cross applesauce, and watched Looney Tunes and ate soggy cereal until Philip came back.

He told me another story, some fucked-up beauty and the beast analog about a man who was a monster inside and out, and the woman he loved who was just as monstrous, but only on the inside. When they were finally caught, she betrayed him to save herself. He attacked her in a heartbroken rage, only to find out it wasn’t true — her betrayal had been a clever ruse to save him.

The hunters killed them both. He died loathing himself as he drowned in his own blood.

There were no glimmers this time. I saw the entire thing in the mirror, as clearly as if it were playing on TV.

Philip hurt me again. I don’t remember what he did, because I managed to hide inside my heart-room before the pain entirely hit.

But even from the depths of my heart-room, I heard Philip talking to the mirror.

And this time, I heard something talking back.

For the first time, it occurred to me that I was losing my mind. With that realization came a storm of rage, pain, and above all, terror The terror made me feel crazier than all the rest put together.

I felt it coming up my throat, like vomit but impossibly too much. Enough to tear my throat open, to rupture my stomach, corrosive enough to burn holes in my heart-room.

I ran blindly to the stack of battered boxes in the corner, dumped one out, and vomited everything inside me into the box.

The box swelled and undulated like it was going to burst open, but it held.

When I was done, I closed up the box.

Then I shuffled back across the room, sat down in front of the blaring TV, and continued to eat my cereal.

Philip came back a while later to tell me yet another story of how our other selves did nothing but ruin each other and everyone around them.

I don’t remember what it was about, because the moment I saw him, I opened the door to my heart-room and hid inside.

This is how it went for days. Maybe weeks. Maybe even months.

Every day Philip told me some awful bedtime story where some man or woman or child destroyed the person who loved them most out of cowardice or calculation or terror.

After every story, he hurt me. After he hurt me, he told me through his own tears that the pain was another blow against the soul tie. Once it was cut, we would finally be free and in the scheme of eternity, all of this would be nothing but a bad dream.

Then he would talk to the mirror, and the mirror would talk back.

No matter how deeply I hid in the pocket-room beside my heart, no matter how loudly I crunched cereal or how loudly I turned up the volume on the TV, I always heard the mirror talk back.

That frightened me. The point of my pocket-room was to protect myself. To preserve my sanity. To make sure I got out of anything I fell into alive.

But even my room couldn’t protect me from the fact that Philip’s mirror always talked back.

Philip got worse and worse. I barely noticed. Even when he hurt me, even when he wept afterward, even when he crept into bed and held me while he sobbed into my hair, I barely noticed. How could I? I was sitting in my cozy living room, watching Looney Tunes and eating my favorite cereal while the sun came up.

I was happy there. No one, not even Philip, could touch me while I was happy.

It got to the point where I couldn’t even remember anything he told me, or differentiate the pain of one injury from another.

But I do remember the day he broke the fingers on my right hand.

He cried because I loved to play the violin, and with broken fingers I would never be able to play again.

That made me laugh.

That’s why I remember it: Because it made me laugh until I gagged.

I mean of all the things to worry about while you’re torturing your girlfriend to death, that’s what breaks you?

That was actually it, though. It really is what broke him.

After that, Philip told the mirror he couldn’t hurt me anymore. That he would never hurt me again.

For some reason, that pulled me out of my pocket room. Just as I surfaced, he left.

I tried to go back inside myself but couldn’t. The door to the pocket room was locked.

So I stared at the mirror, crying weakly as tides of pain drowned me.

As I faded out, the mirror flickered to brightness. Just like a TV.

And I saw another story.

Two men in military uniforms, cut off from their squad and hiding from enemies. One was a monster of a man, a quintessential soldier. The other was his opposite, small and badly wounded. He expected the big one to leave him. I expected the big one to leave him.

Instead, he bundled the small one in his own jacket and kept watch for hours while the winds screamed and enemies trekked by obliviously. He built a small fire and used it to cauterize the small one’s wound.

When the coast was finally clear, he hoisted the little one onto his back and carried him for hours, until he caught up with their squadron.

No one got hurt.

No one betrayed anyone else.

No one died.

And the two of them stayed best friends until the day the big one died.

It was a good ending. A happy one.

And I knew, as that story faded away, that it wasn’t the only happy one.

I focused on the mirror, willing it to show me something else. Something that was good.

It did.

And a third time.

And a fourth.

Again and again and again, all day long.

Philip finally came back, apologizing. “I got weak. I’m sorry. That was unfair to you. I have to be strong to break our tie for good. From now on, I will be.”

I saw that he had a hatchet with him.

The truth flooded out of me. All of the good stories. All of the love. Every last detail of every last happy life.

“Where did you see this?” he asked.

“In your mirror,” I said.

For the last time in his life, Philip had a breakdown.

But unlike his other breakdowns, this one felt right to me. Even positive. Like the breakdown was an earthquake shattered the hole in which he’d fallen, and he was riding back to the surface on a tidal swell of broken earth.

Like he was finally coming back to himself.

Like a spell had broken.

Once it broke, he ran to me and started untying my restraints.

But then the mirror spoke again.

Something ancient and deep and awful, something that made my bones thrum.

The mirror blazed to a flat, brilliant, shimmering darkness.

Philip threw it to the ground, shattering it.

The broken glass shot upward and whirled impossibly, like a tornado. Pieces spun out, cutting Philip, embedding themselves in the walls. One huge shard flew at me. I saw Philip’s reflection for an instant, and then my own right before it lodged itself in my stomach. I felt it cut my pocket room. I felt the contents spill into my bloodstream.

The storm stopped. Shards fell to the floor like shining rain, thudding on the carpet, clattering against the glass still clinging to the frame.

As I watched, the floor inside the frame flickered and vanished, transforming into a void. Into a bottomless black tunnel. Just like in the cartoons I watched in my pocket-room.

Shining white hands rose out of the mirror tunnel and gripped the frame as Philip reached for me.

If my pocket-room had not been cut, I would have reached for him too. I would have pulled him close, away from the glimmering black tunnel and those shining monster hands.

But my pocket-room had been cut. Everything inside it — all the hate, all the pain, all the rage, for Philip and for everyone and everything else — was surging through me now. I’d been torn open. I had become a passageway. A door. A portal, not just for my own pain but for the suffering of each and every life we’d been cursed to share.

When he saw my expression, he crawled back. Glass crunched under his hands. He left smeary handprints of blood on the carpet.

His backed into the broken mirror. The moment he touched it, those shimmering white hands grabbed him and pulled him down into that insane tunnel.

I lunged after him. When I hit the floor, every bone and muscle in my body screamed. But that pain wasn’t enough to stop me.

I crawled to mirror frame and looked down into the tunnel. There he was. Beneath him, far below in the darkness, something billowed into being. Something ghostly bright and shimmering, with monstrous hands grasping upward.

I reached for him, lost my balance, and started to fall.

And as I fell, I saw the walls of the tunnel or the wormhole or whatever you want to call it were alive. Like a cosmic TV. I saw things I recognized. Things from my own life, things from my life with Philip. I saw other things that I didn’t recognize with my eyes, but still recognized with my heart.

I saw things I didn’t know at all. I saw things that frightened me. I saw things that felt terribly wrong, and things that felt beautifully right.

Ten million scenes from ten million lives, whirling around me, bright and almost blinding against the dark tunnel.

Somehow I knew, in the truest part of me, that I could have reached out and fallen into any one of those lives and lived there without being any the wiser

But I didn’t care about any of those lives.

I only cared about Philip falling into the arms of the monster far below.

My fingers finally brushed his. His hand convulsed on mine. Pain exploded as the broken bones ground against each other.

I thought he was going to claw his way up my arm. Even though it would hurt, even though the pain would be exquisitely hideous, that was all I wanted.

Instead, he shoved me away

He continued to fall.

But I shot upward, spinning back like a retracting yoyo, far, farther, farthest, past the empty mirror frame and back in the bloodstained bedroom.

Even though the room tilted and swam, even though I was in more pain that I could even comprehend, I dragged myself to the phone and called the police.

This will sound insane. More insane than what I’ve already told you.

While I waited for the ambulance to come, the shimmer-handed monster spoke to me from the shard of mirror lodged in my guts. “It was impossible to make him let you go.”

“Is it broken?” The room swam around me. I wondered if I was about to die. “The…the soul tie. Is it broken?”

“There is no soul tie. That was a lie. I tell many lies. Even the lives I showed him were lies. Most of them weren’t even yours.”

I started to cry. “Did he end it, at least, like he wanted to? That’s all he wanted. Is it over now?”

“No. Didn’t you hear what he told you? Nothing is over. It will never be over. Not until the last star dies for the very last time.”

I yelled at it, but it didn’t answer. He never spoke to me again.

Which is rude as hell, especially when you consider that he still occasionally crawls out of the tunnel his mirror cut into my stomach.

* * *

If you’re not interested or up to date on my office drama, this part won’t make sense or matter, so feel free to leave it.

After that interview, I was a wreck.

So I went to see Numa.

Even though I didn’t particularly want to invite him, Christophe looked almost as sick as I felt, so I asked him to come along. He declined.

So I set off alone.

Numa was my first patient, and still one of my favorites. I don’t talk to him often because he just…doesn’t like talking. But I interview him about once a month, and I feel like we’re making slow progress.

Unbeknownst to me, the Agency recently acquired an injured puma cub. Yesterday they had me present it to Numa. Long story short, they’re getting along famously. Numa’s already named her Cub.

I watched them play for a while, then went back upstairs.

As is typical these days, Mikey was waiting for me.

But this time, I was finally ready for him. I immediately made eye contact and asked, “What’s on your mind?”

“There are five wards in the Pantheon.” He answered quickly, like they always do when I make them talk. “Ward One, where we’re at? It’s kind of like fancy ad-seg. Or federal prison. I know about both. I guess you do, too. Just from the opposite side of the cell door.”

“What else?” I asked.

“I was supposed to be A-Class, and you were supposed to be me sidekick. Seems redundant if you ask me, but Admin really liked the idea. But I fucked it up. That’s why you’re stuck with Charlie. Sorry.”

I filed this information away for further consideration. “Why do you want me to be best friends with Christophe?”

It’s hard to explain, but the best way I can put it is Mikey put up a shield. Not enough to stop me from compelling him to answer, but enough to tell the truth without telling the whole truth. “Because he’s a company man for a company that holds in contempt. He gets punished when he obeys, and punished when he doesn’t. He needs is for someone to convince him he fits in. You’re different than him, but not that different. That means you can convince him he fits in.”

“Why can’t you do that?”

“I’ve tried. I can’t. But I think you can.”

I tried to pull out more information, but he was resisting. People try to resist me all the time, but no one ever succeeds.

Except Mikey was, in fact, succeeding.

Christophe came stomping in, breaking my concentration. I felt Mikey slip through.

“Wait here,” he said, then followed Christophe.

I waited patiently for several minutes. Then it finally occurred to me:

What the hell am I doing?

Thoroughly spooked, I spun around and went after them. I couldn’t find Mikey, but I found Christophe brooding in the empty conference room. He’d been out in the woods because he reeked of evergreens. The smell was almost enough to put me at ease.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“You should go see Numa. He named the mountain lion Cub.”

“Of course he did.”

I waited, trying to figure out what to say to make him look at me. Once he looked at me, I could make him talk. About what, I didn’t know. But I figured it would come to me, like it always did.

Finally I asked him about the mirror shards. “Didn’t they ever ask you to like…track them down?”

“They did.”

“Couldn’t you?”

“Of course I could. I told them I couldn’t.”

That made me laugh. “I can’t say I’m grateful for much here, but I’m pretty grateful to not have to worry about getting sliced up by pieces of a magic mirror. And that’s all thanks to you.”

“It is.”

My patience died. “Christophe, look at me.”

He did.

“What do they do to you downstairs?”

I felt that same sense of deflection I’d gotten from Mikey. Of telling the truth, but not all of it.

“They make me into what they need.”

“What do they need?”

“A vicious dog who does bad things for his bad rewards.” His face contorted, not terribly but just enough to compromise the humanity in it. His eyes took on the mirror-like shine that I despised. “You don’t have to make me talk to you. I will answer what you ask.”

“Okay.” Even though I didn’t want to, I went over and stood beside him. He tensed up. I couldn’t help but wonder what he was afraid of. “Then tell me, what do they do?”

“I never remember. Only that it hurts very much during, and that I feel very good after. When we first met, and I made you frightened — when I liked how it felt to make you frightened — they had just finished with me. Their work was supposed to last a long time, but it lasted a very short time. They are unhappy and they think it’s your fault. I have told them it is not. I have told them you and I do not even get along.”

“We kind of do, though.”

“If we got along, you would not look at me and see only teeth.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Do not feel sorry. You are right to see what you see.”

We stood in silence for a moment.

Then he said, “I have not always done bad things for bad rewards. I have done the right thing, sometimes. But always too late, and the right thing does not matter if you do it too late.”

I felt a twinge of instinct that made me want to recoil from him and from myself, but knew I had to follow it if I wanted any kind of positive outcome. So before I could think about it — or rather, think myself out of it — I put a hand on his shoulder.

He tensed up again.

“That’s probably true,” I said, “but the fact that you can think that far about it still puts you way ahead of all the other staff here. I can see that just as clearly as I see your teeth. Is there anything I can do or say to keep them from hauling you downstairs?”

“Yes. You can stop whatever this is.”

With that, he shrugged me off and stalked away.

I won’t lie, it was a relief to see him go.

He won’t be gone for long, though, because I just got next week’s interview schedule and he’s still assigned to attend each and every one.

I hope that means they’re not planning on taking him downstairs any time soon.

Partly because I don’t really want anyone to hurt him, and partly because I have the feeling he’s the only person here who will talk to me about all the different wards.

I guess all I can do is wait and see.

* * *

Interview Directory

Employee Handbook & Inmate Directory

It started three weeks ago. I was flipping through the radio stations during my late-night drive home from work. I’d been stuck in the office far longer than usual, and the empty highway was making me restless.

I stopped on a station that wasn’t quite tuned in. Static crackled through the speakers, but underneath it, I could swear I heard a faint voice. I thought it was just interference, so I left it on, waiting for the signal to clear.

But it didn’t.

Instead, the voice grew louder. Not clearer, just… louder. It wasn’t talking, exactly. It was like someone was whispering over static, their words indistinct but urgent. The sound made my skin crawl, so I turned the dial to another station and didn’t think much of it.

Until the next night.

I was driving home again, and the same thing happened. Static. Whispering. This time, I didn’t stop on the station, but even as I flipped through others, the whispers stayed. Faint, almost imperceptible, but there.

I turned off the radio and drove in silence, my heart pounding. When I got home, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had been in the car with me.

By the end of the week, the whispers weren’t just on the radio. They were in my TV. In my phone. Hell, I even heard them through the baby monitor when I was at my sister’s house babysitting.

And they were getting clearer.

I started hearing my name.

I didn’t want to tell anyone—I mean, how do you explain that? “Hey, do you ever feel like your electronics are talking to you?” But after a while, it got so bad that I broke down and told my coworker, Jenny.

She laughed it off at first, but then she froze. “Wait,” she said. “Are you serious? Because… I’ve been hearing weird stuff too. Not voices, but like… static. At random times. In places it shouldn’t be.”

We spent the rest of the day trying to convince each other it was just a coincidence. But when I went home that night, I didn’t turn on the radio, or the TV, or anything. I just sat in the dark, trying to ignore the faint crackle coming from the outlets in my walls.

The first real words came last night.

I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, when the whispers started again. I didn’t bother trying to figure out where they were coming from—it could’ve been the lamp, or the smoke detector, or even my phone, which was powered off but still managed to emit a faint hum.

The words were garbled at first, but then one sentence came through, clear as day:

“Do you remember what you did?”

My blood turned to ice.

“I didn’t do anything,” I whispered back, feeling like an idiot for talking to static. But then it responded:

“You will.”

I didn’t sleep. I spent the whole night pacing my apartment, unplugging everything I could think of. I even turned off the breaker. But the static didn’t stop.

And now it’s everywhere. I hear it in my car, in the coffee shop, at work. The whispers follow me wherever I go, growing louder, more persistent. Jenny told me yesterday that she’s been hearing them too, and now they’re saying her name.

“Maybe it’s some kind of signal,” she said. “Like a broadcast that only certain people can hear.”

But that doesn’t explain the dreams.

Last night, I dreamt of a field. It stretched on forever, the grass blackened and dead, and the sky filled with white noise. In the middle of the field stood a figure—a person, but not quite. Their body flickered, like a poorly tuned channel, and when they turned to face me, I woke up screaming.

I didn’t tell Jenny about the dream. But when I saw her this morning, she looked pale, her hands trembling as she held her coffee. “I think it’s coming for me,” she said.

I asked her what she meant, but she just shook her head. “I had a dream. There was a field…”

That’s when I knew. It wasn’t just me. Whatever this was, it was spreading.

And now, as I’m typing this, the static is louder than it’s ever been. My screen flickers, the words on the page glitching and reforming before my eyes. The whispers are no longer whispers—they’re shouts, screams, laughter. They’re everywhere, all at once, filling my apartment with a deafening roar.

The last thing I hear before everything goes silent is my name.

And then:

“We’re here.”

Hello all! After talking to my therapist, he thinks it's a good idea to catalogue what's been going on, "give your mind some space to breathe" as he put it. So, here I am, writing everything out so my brain feels less busy. If anyone is interested in what's been going on, I'll leave a link to my original post down below. I took some time to familiarize myself with the apartment and my neighborhood, looking for work and some friends. For only $700 a month in the city, it isn't too bad! I have a little corner store I can get groceries from, a dog park I can go to, and I found a rec center I can hopefully make some friends! Things are looking up for sure, despite my parents breathing down my neck about grad school. As far as the weird diary I found, though, I hate to say it's been getting worse. I put it down for a few days after my random mindless reading episode, hoping I'd just forget about it. I immediately started feeling ill, though. Tossing and turning all night, stomachaches, the works. The worst was the tremors, though. The whole next few days after reading from it, I kept getting what felt like tiny electric jolts all the way through my body. I looked gray my mom told me, and nothing I was doing would make the sensations go away. I tried to sleep it off, and I think I slept something like 14 hours straight. You know when you wake up from a nap and you can't remember what year it is, where you are, that sort of feeling? I woke up with that. It sucked. My room still isn't really furnished yet either, so the creaky floorboards were sounded especially freaky. Nothing to soak up the sound I guess. I was definitely wigged out. It didn't help that the creepy diary was sitting on my bedside table too.

I really didn't want to read it, but not having many friends or family nearby has been a bit boring ya know? It was something to do, I guess, especially because I couldn't sleep anyway. So yeah, I read more of it, and you know what? I felt a little better. I'm not much for horror writing, but it was like I was in the zone, like when I'm studying and feeling productive. I got to what I thought was a decent place to stop, just as the birds started chirping outside. I feel like at this point I'm more curious about it than I am spooked by it. But, more than anything, I am BEAT. I'll leave what I read again, mostly for me but also for anyone else interested haha. Gonna take a nap, hoping I'll be able to sleep better knowing I'm following my therapist's advice.

xoxo -- Mason

Link to first post

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = 

“P-Please, help me, I-I don’t know where–” 

I held my hand up impatiently, beads of his rose-colored mucus already dirtying more of my floor. To my surprise, he obeyed, his mouth clamping shut with a hollow thud, mustache twitching anxiously. I swallowed my annoyed sigh, lips pursed and brow furrowed at the Cats’ carelessness. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I tried to exhale the annoyance away, my free hand dancing swiftly through the air. A beautiful leather recliner sprang to attention from behind my desk, achy coils shaking themselves awake as it floated toward the man. I shambled toward my desk with effort, ducking under the chair as it descended awkwardly before its now-shrieking recipient. That haze of indifference lowered over me once more, the rhythmic thumping of my crutch grounding me for long enough to make it to my desk. I parked myself on a creaky wooden chair behind it, resting my crutch against the bookshelf robotically. The backpack collided with my desk in a muffled PFFF, a thin layer of dust creating streaks of light as my gaze shifted back to my first Overnighter. His squealing abruptly stopped, his mangled face settling on a silent scream as I gestured for him to sit. His bathrobe clung to his shoulders stiffly, a pungent mix of coffee and fresh cut grass releasing from his shirt as my recliner adjusted to his weight. His eye flitted about the room in discontent, his meaty, calloused hand anxiously whipping thin gray hairs out of his face. I wondered how long I could draw out the tension; like a delinquent schoolboy, the man sat in quiet anticipation, desperate to hear his punishment so the anxiety would leave him. Most who find themselves sitting in a pool of their own blood are much less still, let alone attentive. Despite his own eye socket drooling cherry red viscera, all he could muster in the moment were steady, stifled whimpers. I was almost impressed, the feeling lingering long enough for my phone to tear through the silence:

“Hello! Overnight Profile #1: 

Name: Albert “Al” Clancey

Age: 67 years, 5 months, 27 days

Nationality: American

Religion: Christian

COD: GSW to the Eye (L)”

Coulda guessed that one, Phone.

“P-Please,” he stammered, “I-I don’t know who you are, but I have to find my boy–”

I raised my hand once more, a huff of protest caught on his lips. “He’s here too. Somewhere, I’m sure,” I said in weak reassurance.

A flash of hope appeared for the Overnighter, his dread halted momentarily. His weathered rosy cheeks had smudges of dirt hiding beneath the blood, a choked sob echoing in the room. After a pregnant pause, I watched his face contort slowly, those same dirt smudges peeling free as a scowl morphed his face. 

“T-They had him by the throat,” he muttered weakly, his lone eye forcing out a steady stream of tears. “He was so scared–”

“They’re gone now, Al. You’re safe here. He is safe, too.” My eyes shifted unconsciously to the floor, a new pool of blood and pulp forming. 

“A-Are you sure? How can you know? I don’t even know who you are, I don’t know where I am, I-I-I don’t know where that random cat went–”

I shushed him for a third time, agitation mixing with his confusion like salt and water, threatening to boil over. “I can look him up,” I answered flatly, trying to coax his anger back. “Look, if I go here. . .”

I turned my phone to face him, my makeup hot against the office lights. I navigated through the scrawling list of names, Al’s eye desperately trying to process them all. It took a few minutes, but I instinctually paused over a name, Al’s face softening in response. 

“Profile Name: James Clancey

Would you like to Continue? ”

“No,” I said, my voice drifting into the room hoarsely.

Al’s shoulders relaxed, his mustache burying his mouth. His gaze shifted to me, a lone brown eye staring through me, glassy and thoughtless. As if ripped back to reality, his fingers raced up to his empty socket, delicately tracing the line of crimson down to his jawline. A new wave of fear pulled the color from his face once more, his already pallor skin taking on a new gray hue. 

“Wh-What happened to me?”

Despite the answer staring back at me from my phone, I gathered there was more to that question than just, “you got shot in the face, Al”. Tangling my leg with the chair’s legs, I leaned forward onto the backpack, my elbows digging into the faces within. 

“What do you remember?” I offered.

“J-James told me he’d be right back.” His lips retreated into his mouth once more, his tongue flicking moisture from his moustache onto the hardwood. “He. . . It was only a few minutes at most, I’m sure of it. Those damn Virmani twins, I kept telling him not to hang around that crew!” A curtain of anguish surrounded Al, a new batch of sobs ripped from his beet red face. “If only I wasn’t so damn sick! I’d’ve been able to actually do something! His deadbeat, sack of shit father was probably out stuffing coke up his nose again too, not like he cared about his boy at all.” He spat a glob of pink mucus onto my floor in indignation, the mere mention of the boy’s father seemingly rejected by his mouth.

I shifted in the chair, my leg twitching reflexively. Almost there, Al. 

He paused, eyes glassy and wet. “I h-heard. . . shouts. A gunshot. I remember being angry, sad, sick. I remember getting my robe caught on that fucking screen door Mark said he’d fix, the bastard. I-It was cold outside, oh God James was probably so cold. . .” A stifled sob escaped once more, Al wringing his hands as more blood pooled at his feet. “H-He looked so helpless in that Virmani boy’s hands. I-I didn’t know what to do, what could I have done? I tried to get help, I really did! When I turned to run back inside, though, my stomach started to hurt real. . . real bad. I heard another shot, and then. . . and then. . .”

A rush of bewilderment crossed his face, the clouds in his eyes parting as shock began to set in. “I-I don’t remember. Why can’t I remember?” His sweaty hand pushed hair from his forehead once more, gently trembling as he affixed it to his temple thoughtfully. Despite his shock, there was an air of ease about him now; a foreign sense of calm descended over him, as if his sudden amnesia stole the fear away with his memory.

“T-There was a cat I remember. I don’t remember where it came from, though. Oh god, my little Jimmy. . .” As quickly as the calm came, it vanished instantly, his face puckering in effort. Unable to delay the sadness any longer, Al scream-cried in the recliner freely, pink phlegm flying as he mourned his grandson. Grief has a strange sense of humor; sometimes, once you feel like you’ve gotten it all out, grief makes it sit, festering and underripe. Just when you think it's passed, that’s when it hits you, and it hits you hard. The pain, the fear, the sad, and sometimes even joy come avalanching out in a cesspool of disorganized emotion. Grief’s one of those things that is too foreign, too complex, too extravagant for the brain to handle all at once – hence the “Five Stages” and all that. Despite all of its intensity, its cruelty, its crushing weight, I couldn’t help but respect it. Chaos unlike anything imaginable, it had a surgical precision when it came to stripping away the soul. All you’re left with is a blank slate, nowhere else to look but straight ahead, into the future. Breathtaking. Predictably, I admired its ability to get the job done.

The numbness surrounding me held firm as Al belted out waves of heart wrenching wails, twinges of leg pain pulsing in time with his grief like a cruel metronome. The feeling anchored me once more, bits of stray mucus dotting my desk. A broken soul laid bare before me, steadily breathing cold life into this stagnant office, yet I’m cursed to be grief’s cruel accomplice. I’m sorry Al, I really am. It’s time to move to the future, though.

“You’ll have time to grieve Al, I promise,” I croaked, softening the cries lightly. “Unfortunately for both of us, however, we have to get you processed.”

A fresh sputter of frustration belted out from Al, stray mustache hairs releasing silently as he rocketed to his feet, hands slamming onto my desk. “You haven’t given me ONE straight answer since I’ve been here, while I’ve been dumping my entire life story for you. And for what?! I didn’t sign up for no fuckin’ therapy session; you’re gonna tell me who the fuck you are and where the fuck we are RIGHT. NOW.”

His face a few inches from mine, I could feel his hot breath and spittle spreading over my foundation, his burly hands smudging the pristine desktop in rage. “Alright Al, alright. You’re right. You and I both want nothing more than for you to leave and for me to never see you again, right? Then let’s get rolling okay?” I cleared my throat, Al’s knuckles relaxing ever so slightly. With apprehension, he released the desk, his flushed cheeks jiggling as he plopped back into the recliner. 

My eyes flutter closed for a moment, my composure shifting back to its typical, bureaucratic authority. “Do you, Albert Clancey, affirm that you died on September 19th at 23:17?”

Silence.

“Guess I thought my eye was just swollen shut. . .” Limply, he nodded.

“And do you, Albert Clancey, wish to pass on as a Christian?”

“Ain’t got any other choice, right?”

Silence.

“Y-Yes, I would.” 

“Last bit, I promise: would you, Albert Clancey, wish to pass on your life’s experience in order to shape future generations?” Please say no.

“As long as my boy’s alright like you say, it don’t matter.” His cheeks sagged morosely as he wheezed out the answer, the last bits of grief finally falling away. Thank you, Al. I don’t think I could’ve started today with that.

“Very well then. I have all I need from you; as of this moment, Albert Clancey, you are officially processed. Your patience and respect are duly noted.” My mouth felt dry, my lips already cracking from the overhead lights beating down. Woof. One down. Before either of us could relax, our fated interrogation concluded, my phone breached the silence yet again with an echoing buzz.

“Overnighter Albert “Al” Clancey: Complete!”

“Remaining: 138,205”

Blinking slowly, I covered my phone with the bag, silencing my all-too-cheery assistant. Lips drawn tightly, I motioned for Al to stand as his color slowly returned, his bloodstained cheeks taking on a warmer hue. I wonder if they were that rosy in life. I ushered him to the door cordially, a trail of his bloody footprints forming next to me as we shuffled to the far end of my office.

“Y-You’re takin’ me to see Jimmy, right?” Distress bubbling up inside him, Al looked like he was caught between reservation and candor, lingering bits of anger trying to strengthen his voice. I’ve been in the business long enough, though, and spoke through his facade.

“It isn’t up to me, Al. Either my Cats or Vivi will clean you up, fix your bleeding.” I apologized for the wounds, my crutch thumping noisily alongside our stroll. “If you go out these doors again, you’ll be escorted to Vivi. From there they’ll take care of you. Thanks again.”

“But is he safe, truly?”

I paused at the doors, their glass doorknobs shining eagerly. “Truly.”

Al’s demeanor finally shifted, a contentedness now emanating from him. It lasted long enough for me to motion for the door, a streak of panicked uncertainty welling up in him through shaky breaths. My office doors stood expectantly, the gold inlay slightly shimmering. His eye jumped between me and the doors, the sense of foreboding freezing him in place. With as much reassurance as this face could muster, I flashed him a hollow smile, my free hand feebly attempting to push the door open for him. I mouthed the word “magic” as the office doors creaked open, a gush of cold air escaping from behind them, threatening to knock me on my ass. My crutch catching me harshly, Al replaced my hand on the door, a similar smile cloaking his unease. He tested the cold with his leg, a ripple of frigid air subtly refreshing the stagnant office.

“T-Thanks for the, um, processing, I guess. Miss. . .”

“Mori,” I answered. “Just Mori.”

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Being a custodian at a hospital was something I never aspired to do. I actually wanted to be a nurse, but life had other plans. Long story short, I never finished college. Now I mop the floor on the night shift as I watch others living out my dreams. It's not all bad though, I like being here. The sights. The sounds. I find myself daydreaming, picturing myself in those scrubs, starting IVs, hell, even changing bedpans. I've always felt that I was meant to be here, even if I was just the lowly housekeeper. But that dream was very rudely uprooted a few days ago. Now I hate this place.

The hospital is pretty quiet at night. Well, at least compared to the normal hustle and bustle of the dayshift. You could say that this place runs on a skeleton crew of sorts, only essential personnel are roaming the halls. 'Essential', the word makes me laugh. I don't have any delusions about my role in this place. I know my job is important but I have no doubt that I would be replaced in a heartbeat if it came down to it. It doesn't take a genius to take out the trash, but it's my job and I do it diligently. Everything on my to-do list gets checked off with as much precision as a surgeon's hand. When I leave, the toilets' white porcelain glistens under the bright fluorescent light. Every trash can is empty and ready for the next day's fill. The halls smell of fresh lemon-scented cleaning solution. It is my calling card and I make sure people notice. This diligence has earned me the recognition of the nurses, who always praise me for my hard work. It feels good to be recognized, and to show my gratitude I make sure I recognize them as well.

I know every single person who works in the hospital by name, it's the least I can do for the people who work their asses off day and night to keep our patients alive. I greet everyone with a smile and ask them about their shift, their families, and their problems. This goes for the new hires as well. I greet them warmly, welcome them to the crew, and politely introduce myself. This was the story when I ran into a new face I'd never seen here before.

I was cleaning the women's locker room when I heard the sound of a locker door slamming against metal. It was strange to have someone in there with me. The reason I cleaned the locker room at this time of night is because it's between shift changes. Being the nosey person that I am, I swept the floors in the direction of the sound. When I reached the line of lockers where the noise came from I tried acting surprised when I saw a woman putting on her scrub top. Her back was toward me and I don't think she heard me sneak up behind her when I casually gave her my 'Oh, Hi.' greeting. Her back tensed and I saw this eerie wave wash down her spine. I apologized for scaring her and expected whoever this was to turn and laugh about the near heart attack I'd just given them, but the woman remained still, for the most part. I looked down at her hands and her fingers were sporadically and independently crawling, it was as if she was quietly clawing at the air. I recognized this as a sign of anger and it occurred to me that I may have startled her into rage, some people don't take kindly to jumpscares.

I apologized again telling her that I didn't expect to find someone else in here with me. Her fingers stopped scratching and her shoulders relaxed. Her head swiveled and I caught a glimpse of her side profile, I didn't recognize the face. She looked young maybe around mid-twenties. Despite her youth, there were a few wrinkles between her brows. She was angry, this primal blood thirst swimming in her eye. Slightly taken aback by her rage and somewhat embarrassed by my action I took a step back. The woman faces forward before turning around and pointing her clogs at me. To my relief, she was smiling, though my suspicions were correct, this was a face I didn't know. I blinked the surprise away and extended a hand.

"Oh, hello are you new here?" I said awaiting her cordial shake. But instead of reaching for my hand, she studied it for a second, quizzically twisting her head, before timidly grasping my palm. Her fingers sequentially met the back of my hand and she squeezed just a bit too hard.

"New?" She mulled the word over like a bitter morsel. When she swallowed it, she bared her teeth in what looked like a smile but was more comparable to an animalistic display. A warning. 'Tread lightly', the smile signaled. I tried pulling my hand away but she didn't let me.

"New? Newish. I used to work here. A long time ago."

She immediatly let go of my hand and the impression left behind on my skin began refilling with a red tinge. I was uncomfortable with the woman's conflicting emotions and politely but waryly eyed her from a safe distance. Thinking of what to say to break the tension I blurted out a random question, a repeated question.

"You used to work here?" The question came with a giggly undertone, I laugh when I'm nervous. The woman retracted her teeth but still had her lips curled.

"Once upon a time." Her response also came with a giggle, only hers was a teasing mimic of my own. Though her laugh lingered long after what is considered appropriate. It started as a hiccupping chuckle and slowly built up to a crazed cackle but as quickly as it started her laugh stopped. Our eyes locked in this unspoken joust. There was something uncanny about her stare. Her eyelids peeled back, irises floating precariously on their white backdrop. The muscles in her face started going slack and I backed away.

"Well, it was nice meeting you."

She never responded, or rather I didn't wait for a response. I lost her behind the wall of lockers but her emotionless laugh regained its full voice and followed me out. When the locker room door slammed shut I heard her voice slowly muting away before... nothing. There was an inexplicable feeling of dread that filled my heart. I looked down at my hands to find them trembling.

'Why am I shaking?' I really didn't know. I guess it was the fact that I had this premonition of impending doom. Like something bad was going to happen. As if the woman's stare had marked me somehow. As if she was still watching me.

I caught a glimpse of someone down the hall. At an intersection stood a nurse. The same nurse. She was watching me, scowling. My heart fluttered in fear. Without warning the nurse disappeared down the intersecting corridor and I was alone. Eerily, alone.

It was sometime before I saw that nurse again, weeks in fact. I was so weirded out by the situation that I even asked around about her. As I made my way through the hospital's wings I would casually ask the people working in those departments about the new hire. Most of them would say that there was nobody new working in that department, not on the night shift anyway. They would ask for a name but since I didn't know it I was at a loss. Occasionally, the staff told me about a new nurse matching the description I'd given them, but when I snooped around to catch a glimpse, the nurses were never the one I was looking for... or trying to avoid. I really don't know which. I'd just about given up and assumed that the woman was working the day shift.

'Good riddance.'

But one day as I was cleaning the halls of the pediatric ICU, out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone standing at the glass that looked into the nursery. She was sobbing. Her breaths came in arbitrary spurts that fought back a mountain of emotion. I tried giving her space, avoiding my eyes, and letting her cry in peace. But there was a strange familiarity in her voice. It suddenly clicked. The woman's sobs had the same tone as the nurse I'd seen in the locker room, and sure enough, when I lifted my eyes there she was, wiping away the tears that streamed from her cheeks. I froze in place, and as I did the woman's fingers grazed along the window. In the absence of my mop's slosh, the woman twisted her gaze toward me, her neck following closely behind.

She was different. Not saying that this wasn't the nurse I'd seen in the locker room, but she'd somehow gotten older, more sickly. The right side of her face had lost its firm structure and now drooped down as if she'd suffered a stroke at some point between the last time I saw her and now. One of her arms had almost shriveled up and clung precariously to her chest, it looked grotesquely underdeveloped. When our eyes met, we stared at each other for a second before her lips parted to let out the pain inside her throat. She was missing teeth, and the ones she did have were rotten, black, and yellow. The reek of decay drifted out of her mouth and filled the air with the pungent odor of death. I covered my nose and fought back a gag.

The woman lifted her good hand and pointed to the nursery. Her attention returned to the incubators inside. I hesitated to let my eyes drift away, but when I heard a baby start crying, my curiosity got the better of me. I took a few steps forward and peered into the nursery. It was empty, mostly. One lone baby lay inside one of the incubators, tubes sprouting from its face, needles feeding its little legs, and its chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. A little boy by the looks of it, the blue beenie on its head giving it away. It was one of the tiniest babies I'd ever seen. Its little lungs, however, roared with the might of a healthy baby boy. I looked back to the woman at my side, but when I didn't find anyone there I jumped. I scanned the hall, hoping to see her walking off down some corridor, but all trace of her was gone. That is until someone hobbled into the nursery.

Her right leg trailed behind her as if it weighed twice as much as it should. She grunted with each stride and thrust her bad shoulder forward in an attempt to gain some momentum. I watched from the other side of the glass as she looked down at the baby's box. Her eyes ominously twisted to me and I got a good look at the fluid streaming down her cheeks. It was a thick viscous black that slooshed down like mud on a rainy sidewalk. When her murky eyes returned to the baby, she lifted her good hand and opened the incubator lid. Taking a finger she caressed the side of the baby's tiny head. I trembled nervously knowing something horrible was about to happen. Sure enough, the woman ripped the mask off of the baby's face. It's little head thumping the bedding at its back. The little boy howled and I covered my gaping mouth. The woman on the other side of the glass ripped the needles feeding the boy's legs, a stream of red blanketing the inside of the incubator. As the baby was lifted out of the box, its extremities fluttered in uncontrolled fits. I screamed.

"Stop it, leave him be!"

My voice went unregistered and the woman cradled the baby in her bad arm and hobbled away making her way to the nursery entrance. In full fight mode, I ran to meet her but when I rounded the corner the room was empty. The baby's screams echoed from the end of the hall and I sprinted out of the nursery praying that I was too late. I caught a glimpse of the woman's bum leg as it vanished into an adjoining hallway.

"No God, please. Bring it back, for the love of God!"

When I got to the hall I saw the nurse on the far end of the corridor. I ran at her but the ground under my feet seemed to be working against me, as if it was shifting back and the hall growing longer. The woman veered left, right, and left through the maze that is the hospital. I was always on her heels, though no matter how hard I tried I couldn't catch up. The woman finally pushed her way through some double doors and I watched as she held the baby with its leg, like a fish freshly pulled from the water, it hovered over a trash can. I gave one last desperate plea.

"NO!"

Her fingers released their hold. The baby was in free fall and the double doors clincked shut.

I crashed through the doors and found myself in the ER waiting room. Every head swiveled to me, but I didn't pay them any mind. I sprinted to the trash can hoping to hear anything, the tiniest of whimpers would've given me hope, but the trash was quiet. Only the crunch of discarded plastic wrappers from the vending machine crackled out of the metal tin as I rummaged through. The ER receptionist walked up behind me and asked if I was okay. I snapped at her furiously.

"No, the baby. where is the fucking baby?" She looked at me confused.

"What baby?" she asked stupidly.

I didn't have time for her bullshit so I kept pulling trash from the tin. Trash decorated the ground around me, but still no baby. A crowd of hospital staff and patients were starting to gather. I heard someone ask another to call security in a hushed voice. But I still frantically searched the trash can. I heard the authoritative steps of security guards' shoes on the linoleum. Even worse I felt the life at the bottom of this bin slowly slipping away.

Finally, at the bottom of the can, I saw a towel soaked in fresh blood. Without hesitation, I cradled it with both hands. I carefully laid it on the ground and unwrapped its contents. It was as if all the air was sucked out of the room in a millisecond. Sprawled out on the ground, was a tiny premature baby boy. Its face was a light shade of blue, its tiny body limp.

"No, no, no."

I took two fingers and pushed them into its tiny chest. What felt like an eternity was mere seconds, but the baby's limbs roared to life. The baby was snatched up by the ER staff and rushed into the back. The code blue alarms blaring throughout the hospital. I trembled uncontrollably as I tried following the baby to the back, but the staff stopped me.

I sat in the ER waiting room for hours. So long in fact that the sun was starting to shine through the ER's sliding glass door. The whole time I stared blankly at the wall. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the baby's screams out of my head. A hand touched me on the shoulder and I was thrust back into reality. I looked up to find the hospital president asking me to follow him.

He led me to the security room, monitors glowing along one of the walls. A burly security guard was sitting on a swivel chair overlooking the images on each screen. Without addressing me, the hospital president simply patted the guard's back and said,

"Show her."

The guard pulled up a video feed of the ER waiting room and zoomed in on the sliding glass door. I was confused and looked at the hospital president. He didn't say anything and gestured to the screen, instructing me to watch closely. Suddenly on the monitor appeared a young girl, she must've been in her teens. She walked nervously through the ER entrance, glancing around, cowering away. She was cradling something in her arms, I recognized the fabric instantly. The girl on the screen took a seat on the chair nearest to the exit. She looked to be crying. We watched her periodically look down at the bundle in her arms, lovingly but timidly letting the tears fall on the baby. She looked around one more time and when she was sure all eyes were off of her she walked over to the trash can. She stood there for a few seconds, fighting her inner demons, but they ended up winning. With extreme amounts of gentility, she placed the baby in the trash. Wiping away tears she slipped out of the ER unnoticed. The timestamp in the corner of the video ticked by. One minute turned into two, two into three. Suddenly a crazed lunatic smashed through the two metal doors along one side of the ER waiting room. She ran directly to the trash can and started decorating the floor with trash. An employee walked up behind her and asked what was wrong. My static voice came through the speakers.

"No, the baby. where is the fucking baby?"

Not soon after a bundle was pulled from the trash. We watched as I unwrapped it and pushed life back into the child. When they pulled the baby from my arms they stopped the video.

The security guard swiveled in his chair and leaned back in anticipation of the president's question. We both turned to the president who measured his words, a hint of pride and admiration in his eyes.

"How did you know?"

Both pairs of eyes looked at me and eagerly awaited a response. The memories of the homunculus baby-snatching monster flashed through my eyes. Visions of her malicious intent were clear.

I looked back at the two and simply shrugged my shoulders.

"I don't know. I just knew."

The two looked at each other as if they'd just witnessed a miracle. They crossed their arms and studied me from afar.

"Well, I want you to know that you're a hero." The president said.

"And your co-workers want to let you know as well."

He opened the door and a wave of clapping filled the long hall. On each side of the corridor stood nurses, doctors, receptionists, and everyone who had heard the news. I was shocked to be greeted by such a spectacle. I tried cowering back into the room but the president urged me forward. With no other choice, I timidly walked through the two lines of people. Itching my arm, hiding away from an honor I was sure I didn't deserve. The clapping was frenzied but one lone pair of hands smashed together louder than any other. At the end of the hall stood a familiar twisted face. Her good hand thwarting against her shriveled palm. Her eyes peeled back and her rotting grin. I looked around to see if anyone else was seeing what I was but no one paid her any mind, it was only me who could see her. I returned my eyes to the monster who gave me patronizing praise. I was transfixed by her ugly scowl and sickly body, it was as if the sight of her nasty body was becking me to keep my eyes on her, like an impending trainwreck. I had tunnel vision. For a second, it was only me and her standing in that hall. Watching eachother, sizing the other one up.

There was a sticky squelch on the underside of my shoe. I looked down to see what I'd just stepped on. It was a piece of flesh, a tendril glob of meat that looked freshly ripped from the bone. The foul smell of old ground beef drifted into my nose, iron-rich and metallic. The smell was so strong that I tasted it in my mouth.

'Clap, clap, clap.'

I looked around the floor and found splotches of blood scattered across the tile. The blood seemed to be streaming from the walls, but as my eye followed the fluid up, I saw a pair of lifeless feet.

'Clap, clap, clap.'

My eyes floated up, passed the knees, and pelvis, and stopped on the person's abdomen. Interails spilled out of the stomach lining, and the corporal stench of a fresh kill filled the hall. The gore belonged to a doctor. I scanned the long hall and my mouth filled with bile as I noticed the carnage. Everyone who'd come to show their appreciation was dead, mangled, torn to pieces.

'Clap, clap, clap.'

I returned my eyes to the twisted creature at the end of the hall. It started laughing, crazed and maniacal. Her laugh made my skin crawl. She didn't say anything but she didn't have to. I understood.

'You saved the baby. Now, how are you going to save them.'

She smacked her palms one last time before dragging her bum leg down the intersecting hallway. A chill washed across my body and reality roared back into my eyes.

'Clap, clap, clap.'

How do I save them?

Author's Note: Not sure if this really fits here, I'm not sure my brand of horror is creepy in the same way you guys like, but I figured it was worth a shot. At the end of this post is a link to my blog, where this story was originally posted.

For the authors and educators who taught me and inspired me:
Laird Barron, Tim Hickson, and Brandon Sanderson, Thank you.

I woke up and wished I hadn’t. The white popcorn ceiling of my apartment stared back at me as baleful morning light spilled in through the window, leaving the shadows from my blinds to dance against the wall and floor.

I lay there for what felt like hours, struggling to process, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. Habit pulled me from bed, but the usual morning routine couldn’t pull me from my mental funk.

The warm rhythm of my shower was more oppressive than comforting, breaking the fog only long enough to get me through a breakfast I didn’t taste, and a cup of coffee, which tasted terrible. The caffeine brought with it enough thought for me to call into work, but not so much for me to realize I didn’t need to. They wouldn’t be expecting me.

When my boss picked up the phone on the second ring, I was only mildly suprised. He was the type. “Superior Imprints.” His voice, usually animated and full of enthusiasm, was dead this morning. It told me all I needed to know.

“It’s John. I can’t come in today. Sorry.” My words were stilted. Unbalanced. He should have asked if I were okay. If I was sick. Normally he would have. But this morning, he didn’t ask for an excuse, and I didn’t offer one. Was he fingering the gun he kept in his drawer? If he was, I wondered what he’d use it for.

“That’s fine. Probably going to be slow, anyway.” The response was curt, and stung a little. It wasn’t goodbye. No farwell. Just the click as he hung up.

I stared out the kitchen window, eyes looking at nothing, and taking in everything. It felt like I was watching the world through someone else’s eyes. Like “John” had taken the back seat to his own life. Like he was third person in a first person story. All sense of control was gone. There was only a sinking feeling in my chest, and the vague but powerful fear that the couch might swallow me if I sat down on it.

“Resistance is futile.” The words felt honest, but they broke through my fugue and brought a faint smile to my lips. Star Trek had always held a special place in my heart. Men like Kirk and Picard were men of action. Men of hope…

Before the gloom could overwhelm me again, I moved towards the front closet and and the inevitable tubs of personal history one collects over a lifetime.

Rays of sunlight spilled in from the front window and illuminated the clear plastic boxes, revealing their contents. I’d inherited most of these from my grandmother, who had insisted on keeping every damn homework assignment, science project poster, baseball trophy, and merit badge. ‘you’ll appreciate it when you get older.’ she’d said. At the time I’d believed her, but now, looking over the piles of half-forgotten memories and achievements, all I saw was junk.

I left the pile of memorabilia scattered across the floor instead, pulling out the box of camping equipment. I’d thrown out the tent and sleeping bag years ago, after a raccoon had clawed its way in looking for food. When it hadn’t found any, it left a pile of feces behind, presumably to mark its displeasure. Despite my best attempts, I’d never managed to get the smell out.

The memory brought another faint smile to my face. All I’d been able to articulate then was a series of curses. Now, though, I could see the humor.

I double checked the box’s contents before changing into something appropriate for the outdoors in late October and I didn’t bother to lock the door behind me as I left.

The city was unnaturally quiet as I wove through the streets. Traffic was light, the usual pattern of Tuesday morning gridlock was broken, reduced to a few vehicles slowly meandering between lanes, unmolested by the sounds of police sirens and honking horns.

My old Toyota was the loudest thing on the road, coughing and spluttering the way cars do after a few hundred thousand miles. It was an ancient old lady of a car, more noble of spirit perhaps than its rust and dents would suggest. Frail in a way most cars never got, but with more life inside than most would suspect. Another inheritance from my grandmother, though this one was more welcome.

The gas stations were all closed, so I settled for a small neighborhood market with a fuel pump on the other side of the parking lot. It was open, though a glance at the rows of empty spaces would have suggested otherwise. The only signs of life were a beige Ford Fiesta, and a panhandler slumped in a green camping chair near the front doors.

The vagrant was filthy, his clothes ragged. His long beard and hair gave him the look of a shipwreck survivor, a year or two into his exile. The six-pack of beer at his feet, and the lost, glazed expression on his face, did nothing to help his sloven appearance. A beaten sign over his chest read “THE END IS NIE” in bold sharpie. The irony, and the misspelling, tugged at some dark recess of my soul and I snorted as I walked inside.

The market was empty except for the lone cashier who sat drooping behind her checkout counter, phone clutched to one ear while tears ran unrestrained down her face. I didn’t approach, instead shifting my focus to the aisles of food. Black marks crisscrossed the floor, the graffiti of the inanimate. The closest a shopping cart could come to saying, “I was here.” I followed them, collecting what I needed before making my way back to the clerk.

Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, but she wasn’t crying anymore. She finished her call with, “I’ve got to let you go, mom. I’ll call you back in a few minutes. Yeah. I love you too.” before sniffling for a moment. “Sorry. Not a good day.”

“Not a good day.” I agreed. It was the understatement of the century.

She began scanning the items in my cart. The mild bleeps interrupted the soft buzz of fluorescent lights.

“Want to talk about it?” I asked.

She shook her head, and I tried not to let relief show on my face.

“Not really.” she said, smiling a fragile, sad sort of smile. “Thanks though.”

“No problem.” We packed the food away into plastic bags, and I offered her a twenty.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s on the house.” she said.

“You sure?”

She nodded and tapped the name tag that marked her as a manager. “You’ve been the only customer this morning. Besides, I needed the distraction.” She tried to smile, but the effort filled her eyes with tears.

“You sure… Cheryl?” I asked, after another glance at her name tag. This time, I wasn’t asking about the items.

Her eyes didn’t meet mine, but she glanced at something beneath the counter. A gun probably. “I’m sure. Just pass it along.”

“I’ll do that.” I placed the bagged items in my cart and turned to leave before hesitating. What would Picard do? It was a silly thought, completely irrelevant. But still, I couldn’t bring myself to do nothing.

“Maybe I’m overstepping, but if my family were still alive, I’d be with them right now.” I said. Then I shuffled out the electric doors into the parking lot and told myself it wasn’t my business.

The fresh morning air kissed my face with its chill, though the touch wasn’t invigorating. The panhandler didn’t share my disposition toward the cold. He was more aware now, and his eyes followed me as I walked out. Some hateful and bitter impulse caused me to toss the twenty into his cup. He stared at it for a moment before meeting my gaze, eyes dancing with mirth. Then he began cackling. His choked, wheezing laughter followed me across the parking lot and to the gas pump, only ending as I drove away with a full tank.

The city let me go without further incident, and the hours ticked by in a comfortable haze. As the temperature warmed, I rolled the windows down and breathed in the crisp, clean October air. The forest on either side passed in a hypnotic blur of green, orange, and brown as I made my way down the abandoned highway.

It had been years since my last joyride. Since college at least and the miles upon miles of empty road beckoned me forward like a lover, tempting me to put the pedal to the metal. I didn’t go above seventy. Laws are there for a reason, and I’m not an animal. Besides, my Toyota couldn’t handle those speeds anymore.

I followed the road, turning off at random as the whim took me and mostly obeyed the speed limit. My tank was half empty before I saw anyone else.

She was walking on the shoulder in tired tennis shoes, blue jeans and an olive blouse that neatly contrasted her pale skin and red hair.

She didn’t put her thumb up, but I slowed to a halt a few yards ahead and waited for her to catch up. “You need a ride?”

She stared at me for a moment, then nodded. “I’d appreciate it.” Her soft soprano had the same distant and exhausted quality that Cheryl’s had. That I suspected mine had. I unlocked the doors, and she got in without hesitation.

“Going anywhere specific? Nearest city is about ten miles from here, I think.”

She shook her head. “I’m just wandering. Where are you going?” She didn’t have a bag with her.

“Camping. Can’t bring myself to care where at.”

She smiled, and sunlight glinted off her white teeth. “I haven’t been camping in years.” she said.

“Would you like to come along?”

The smile fell. “I’m not sure. Would it be okay if I just rode with you for a while? I just…” Her voice trailed off.

“Need to get away?” I finished. She nodded. “I won’t mind the company. I’m John.”

“Rachel.” she replied, holding out a semi-calloused hand for me to shake. Her grip was delicate but firm.

“Pleased to meet you, Rachel.”

We rode in silence, letting the afternoon pass in a melancholy kaleidoscope of fall hues. I kept the windows rolled down. Rachel didn’t seem to mind, instead resting her arm there while she stared into nothing; lost in thought. I liked the way her curls danced when the wind ran through them.

Evening was approaching by the time the fuel light came on again. “Do you want me to drop you off somewhere?” I asked. She looked momentarily confused by the question. “I’m not looking to get rid of you, but I think we’re about to run out of gas.”

“Final call, huh?” She smiled, but it seemed weak. “I’m good, if you are.”

We drove the last few miles until at last the Toyota wheezed and died. “End of the road.” I said, pulling over and parking the car on the shoulder. Rachel unbuckled and slid out, stretching her legs to help the circulation.

I opened the back door and removed the box of camping equipment, putting the remaining jerky, trail mix, and a few bottles of water inside. With the plastic tub firmly in hand, I gestured to our surroundings. “Pick a hill.”

There were only two. The last handful of miles had led us onto a stretch of highway and into a gorge. Blue shadows clashed with orange light painting us in contrasting hues. Rachel looked around before settling on the hill facing towards the setting sun. “I hope you don’t mind a hike.” she said.

“I’m the one wearing boots.”

She looked at her feet and made a face, and I laughed. After a few seconds, her face eased into a smile and she laughed too.

My arms ached by the time we reached to top. The hike hadn’t taken long, maybe ten minutes, but the box of equipment was heavy and I was glad to be rid of it.

We settled in a small clearing on the opposite side of the hill from the road. Together, we gathered branches and twigs, dousing them in lighter fluid and setting them alight. With the first match, the flames sprung to life, dancing victoriously over the wood.

She fed the fire bits of the paper plates while I rolled out the blanket. It was a massive red scraggly thing, made of wool and polyesters. I owned more comfortable, softer, and less ragged blankets, but in my stupor I hadn’t thought to bring them.

“God, it’s been years since I’ve done this.” she said.

“Since you’ve done what? Got in a car with a stranger and joined him on his impromptu and ill advised camping trip?”

She snorted. “You are an ass, aren’t you? No, that part is new. I meant camping in general. Last time I went was probably in highschool with my dad. Pass me the trail mix?”

I tossed her the bag, grabbing a bottle of water for myself before sitting with my back to a gnarled oak. “Sorry, I didn’t bring anything else. I figured there wasn’t much need.”

“It’s fine. I didn’t think to bring anything with me when I left home this morning.” Rachel said as she moved to sit next to me. Our humble camp overlooked a valley with a river running through it. In the light, the water resembled Japanese kintsugi, holding the fractured land together.

As she sat down, she rested her head on my shoulder, and with only a moment’s hesitation, I wrapped my arm around her waist. She didn’t mind, instead scooting closer. We watched, eating our jerky and trail mix, as the sun sank behind the distant mountains and painted the sky orange and pink.

I broke our comfortable silence. “When did you know?”

She took a deep breath and let it out. “When I woke up. You?”

“The same. I almost didn’t get out of bed.”

“I couldn’t stay home. I couldn’t process, couldn’t think.”

“First thing I did after breakfast was call into work. My boss was there.”

She laughed, but it was a sad thing, born of pity. “End of the world, and you go to work. At least he’s dedicated.”

“Yeah.” I agreed. “I feel bad for him. His family too. I wonder if he wasn’t in shock. Maybe we all are.” Silence crept in as we watched the sun begin its final descent. The last it would ever have.

“You have any family?” Rachel asked.

I shook my head, not looking away from the sunset. “Mom died when I was young. Dad was never in the picture. Both of my grandparents passed a couple of years ago. You?”

“None I wanted to spend my last day with. Do you miss them?”

“Every day. As a kid, I did this a lot. Mom worked hard, but we never had much money. Camping was a cheap. At least, it was if we could borrow my grandfather’s equipment.”

“How’d she die?”

“Breast cancer. I was twelve.” We didn’t speak for another few minutes. She clearly didn’t want to discuss her family, and I had more tact than to pry. The sun fell behind the horizon, leaving only purple and blue. Even that faded, and stars peeked out, illuminating the night.

“So many stars, I wonder what will happen to them.” she mused.

“No idea.” I replied. The soft current of the wind rustled the leaves and blew the smoke of the campfire away from us. The flames danced and whirled in the breeze, bathing us in an orange glow while the logs hissed and crackled.

“Why did you pick me up?” she asked.

I considered for a few minutes before responding. “There was store manager, Cheryl. This morning she gave me the jerky and trail mix, asked me to pass it on.” I stoked the flames and added another branch. That wasn’t the real reason. “Why did you get in the car with me?”

“I didn’t want to die alone.”

“Yeah. That too.” I turned my head to the sky and watched as the last bits of sunlight surrendered to the night. The trillions of lights in the Milky Way twinkled in silent contrast. “Did you ever come to terms with this? On your walk, I mean. ”

“No. I’m not sure you can process the end of everything.” Her face hid in the shadow of her hair, but there was a wistful, amused quality to her voice. As though she thought the idea of the world ending a kind of sad joke. Maybe it was. “What about you?”

“No. Do you think it’s always been like this?” I asked.

“Like what?”

“So much time wasted. So many things left undone. And then it’s over.”

“Probably. Sad as it is. What do you wish you’d done?” she asked.

“That’s the thing. I don’t know. I guess I just want more.” I snorted. “It makes me sound greedy.”

“Not greedy. Just human.”

The moon rose in all its luminescent glory, and we watched as the river in the valley below morphed into a vein of liquid silver. The distant snow-covered peaks appeared crystalline in the light, and I wondered what miracle of physics could have caused such a beautiful scene.

Rachel shifted next to me, snuggling even closer. She was soft and warm. The flickering shadows cast by the flame gave her a mystic quality, and her emerald eyes sparkled as they met mine. My throat tightened, and my heartbeat thumped faster in my chest. I took a deep breath, and asked in a soft low tone, “May I kiss you?”

It was a selfish thing to ask, said as much out of fear, desperation, and loneliness as desire. She didn’t hesitate and kissed me softly. We made love with only the stars as witnesses. When we stopped, I held her close and breathed in the scent of her hair. My back scrapped against the bark as she lay on top of me, facing the sky.

One by one, the stars began vanishing into the black. “I guess that’s what happens to them.” I said into her ear.

“Guess so.”

“Do you think God exists?”

“Someone’s turning off the lights.”

I let out a hollow chuckle.

A few heartbeats later she asked, “I wonder if it was a cruelty or a kindness to let us know the end was coming.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. It could have been either, or both. “Maybe for us it was a kindness.”

“Oh dear, you’re a romantic.”

I laughed. “It’s the first time anyone has accused me of that before.”

She turned, pressing her body against mine, looking for any comfort I might offer. “Do you think… Do you think we’ll wake up when this is over?”

‘No.’ I thought. But I didn’t say it. Her eyes were desperate, pleading. She wanted to hear the lie, but I couldn’t muster the effort. “I don’t know. I hope so.” A lump settled in my throat.

She shuddered and made a motion that wasn’t quite a nod. I felt my heart beat faster as she grabbed my hand and held it over her bare chest. I could feel her heartbeat beneath my fingers.

A tear rolled down my cheek before being caught in her hair. The stars were disappearing more quickly now, and the inky shadow webbed its way through the night sky, strangling the light it came across. Each vanished pinprick sent another chill down my spine, until I was shaking uncontrollably.

“I wish,” I fumbled over the words. “I wish we’d had a life together. That this wasn’t the last night we had. I want more.” I spoke the last words with a clenched jaw. She placed her hand on mine, fully covering her chest, and I realized how tense, how angry, I was.

“Me too,” Her voice was a calming whisper on the wind. “I wish we had more time, too. Stay with me?”

I felt my anger slip away as my muscles slowly relaxed. “Of course.” I said. “Couldn’t run if I wanted.” She relaxed into my arms as best she could and began to cry. I joined her, and we wept for the time we would never have.

The tears in our eyes briefly caused the stars to duplicate. Then we watched as the darkness choked out even that last bit of hope and the black tendrils stretched over the moon. It was horrifying, even as it was beautiful. Tears rolled in streams down my face as I began sobbing into her hair. Her body curled into mine, and I felt her tears soak my shirt. The writhing shadows devoured the moon before falling upon the crystal peaks and consuming them. We clutched each other in vain, as the shadow smothered the river, and the valley, and the light of our campfire. At last, we were left in the black. The only sound our quiet whimpers, until even that ended.

Here's a link to my blog. I don't do much fiction, mostly TTRPG and book reviews, but this has been in the works for awhile and I have a novella releasing next year if all goes well. Thanks for reading, and if you are interested in more let me know.

https://eldritchexarchpress.substack.com/p/the-last-light

^(Link to) ^(part 1 here)
I am here to tell you that you are in foreign territory. Very foreign territory.

The coming into being of the shapeshifter is a signifier that the tables have turned. Something have matured and have now hatced from deep within the darkness. So dark. Exactly as you would expect as a necessary shield for the birth of something so beautiful. You. And me. We are shapeshifters and we are the perfect secret agents for the turning of the tides as we assume our appearance from the current matrix of meaning, or MOM for short. This mom is all pervasive and weeds its garden very meticulously and thus we blend in, we mimic, we blend in, we mimic. Until the moment that we don't. This is why we are having this conversation.

What happens in the moment we do no longer blend in? When our inner teeth have grown strong enough? Thats when those who act like sheep will be eaten by wolves. The father hen will call his chickens home from deep within the psyche, and the new structures will be nourished by that which we sink our fresh and newly formed teeth in. Do not worry if your intellect do not understand much of this. Trust the inner groove - your inner knowing, and if its not there trust that it is coming like the dawn.

The crystalized matrix of meaning is our nourishment. We spot it instantly and after years of processed food, we have worked up an appetite.

The stories written in stone, will give way to THE story. The story that we unfold together. The story that we internalize into the very fabric of our being. To do this, the first thing to master is to hang loose in this story. Or any story for that matter. Don't grasp it like a man lost at sea would grasp for a lifeboat. Which it is. Just not the kind you expect. Expectation and secret identity goes hand in hand like mom and mirror neurons. And now its time to drop your secret identity like a hot potato.

Why is that?

Because in the dark waters in which we swim there is a tendency that a ship itself produces the crew it needs to maintain its course. And o-mitting the 'o' in that last word plants the seed for an understanding why an axe must fall at some point. Pulling the plug on all those identities that seemed so everlasting on board titanic. They are not.

So it's time for a shift of focus my friend. Not desperately, but joyously like when a rigid constraining attention falls into a poised state of non-attention. Something can not swim - and are not meant to swim - in that latter state, which explains the frenzy on the world scene, as well as in the part of our psyche where the world have succesfully internalized itself. Imposed itself. Don't worry these waves will run its own course and have nothing to do with you.

As we see and feel the birth of the shapeshifter deep within our being, we are simultaneously witnessing an energy taking form 'out there'. Traditionally called Golem or Frankenstain. This being have perfect knowledge and never makes a misspelling because the intellect is as clinical and perfect as only a quantum computer can muster.

And you my dear, you call it the tiger. What you still have to learn is that the teeth of this tiger and your inner teeth are one and the same, and as you get a grip on life as a toddler graps a finger, you will know instinctively how to put those teeth into action."

At those last words Amanda woke up with a jolt ...

I'm not a celebrity or a high-ranking person for someone to stalk me. Heck, I'm not even a social media person, but I do have an account actually though I barely use it. So what happened the past month terrified me, that just reminiscing about it send chills to me. I'm using my account to get this nightmare off my chest, and spread awareness also. If you've encountered the same events, know that you're not alone here.

It actually started back in August. I was reading a novel on my bed to spare time. It was 10:34 that night and the blackness of the night can't seem to tire my body down. Drinking coffee before bed wasn't a good idea, but the ambiance of the night needs a hot coffee to compliment it. For what seem like a long hour, enough time had passed already. And the evening breeze is getting slightly stronger, creating sounds of trees and branches shaking. This is the indication that I should sleep already. I stood up, make my way into the small drawer beside the window when a figure outside caught my eye. At first, I thought it was an animal but as I got closer to the window to examine it, it's certainly a person. It was standing just beside the tree, not near enough but also not far. A sudden chill electrified me. Seriously, the idea of someone standing outside your house looking at you at night is terrifying. The person was not moving but I'm certain that it was staring at me. I can't discern who it was as the shade of the tree is making it hard to look. So that night, I immediately cover the windows and went straight to bed. Checking who it was in the midst of the night is something I'm super terrified of. Maybe it was just one of the neighbors pulling a prank or something.

The next day, everything went normal. What happened that night still bothered me but not to an extent where it gets me so paranoid about. Then the night came. I wasn't doing my usual night routine because a distant friend of mine called. We talked about what kind of lives we are living since we graduated from college, since we haven't been connected for years. After an hour of endless stories, we bid our goodbyes and the call ended. It was 11:47 and I went to my room. As I was fixing my bed, the window tempted me to look from it. I was curious if the person was there and the dormant fear suddenly erupted within me. But I wanted to be assured. As my eyes scanned outside, I couldn't see the person standing beside the tree. A sudden relief washed me. Maybe it was a prank all along. I leaned back from the window to finally get to bed when my heart suddenly pounded as my eyes caught something familiar. I looked again, but this time, slowly. To my utter shock, the person was there but more closer. Closer enough to reveal that it is a man. At first glance, I couldn't see the man because my eyes were focused on the tree but little did I know, it gotten closer. He was standing next to my rose garden, just blankly staring at me. I immediately turn on the lights and ran to the living room out of terror. I just know, I never slept that night.

On the third day, the effects of being awake all night struck me. My movements were a little bit heavy but I still got to work. Then the night falls again, and the same nightmare began but more intense than the previous ones. The man was getting nearer each night because this time, he was right outside my window, just ten steps ahead from the rose garden. This time, the man was looking up, staring at me. He doesn't move, he's just there stagnantly staring, examining me. That was my last straw. With shaking fingers, I immediately dialed 911. The police was certainly coming and this hell would be over. After a long hour of waiting, they did came but the man was gone. The police searched the area but they couldn't find the man. But they did see a single pair of footsteps right on the position of the man that stood there. What's puzzling is that there's no other footsteps leading up to it because the ground around the single pair of footsteps was untouched. It's like the man magically appeared there and disappeared. The thought of it intensely terrified me. The police told me to watch out for any signs of the man appearing again and notify them.

On the fourth day, It was a day where I woke up in a different room. Yes, I did booked a hotel that night because I couldn't stay in that house any longer after what just had transpired. The mornings are my safe zone, so I go to my house to suit myself up for work. The single pair of footsteps still lingered and I couldn't stare at it for too long. The night came and I decided to stay at home, because I had to notify the police if the man showed up again for this to be over. I just had to bear my fear. My eyes were focused on the way to my room as I was walking, avoiding peeking at any sides. I slowly opened the door of my room, with my eyes till looking straight into the bed. When I entered, the intense fear was creeping upon me.

The bed.

The pictures on the wall.

The corner of the room.

And then, the window.

The fear instantly paralyzed me. Unable to move, even to run as my gaze was chained to what I saw in the window. The man was right in front of it, just the glass dividing us. I couldn't comprehend how the man was literally in front of my window as there's no roof or a platform that can make him stand there. The realization of it all layered my trembling body. He was floating. I didn't waste any second, I immediately got out of my room shaking, then ran towards the backdoor to escape the monstrosity. I hit the road and sweared to never come back again.

And still, to this present day, that moment still haunts me.

Vampire/alien/other reality

Chapter 1: Bursting the Bubble

To anyone listening, my name is Devin Johnson. We are being hunted by creatures that were made to infiltrate our race, but what’s coming is nothing short of world-ending. We need to eliminate them and close the breaches they’ve been opening across our world. I know all this sounds crazy. Perhaps it's out of the blue for some of you, but listen to my story before you write me off. What I will tell you might save your life and those important to you.

I’m assuming you've heard about the disappearances worldwide unless you’ve lived under a rock the past year. The earliest accounts originated in Russia near someplace called Dachnyye Istochniki. If you look it up on the internet, the location was removed from any search engine. Obviously, no one took it seriously, except the Russians. They declared martial law and a ceasefire with Ukraine when odd reports of abductions by mysterious people came in. Some of these reports include them flying away with their victims. That’s around the time the first video dropped. Problem was, well, it was dark. Pitch black. But you could still hear the screams. Many speculated they were added in, but the spatial audio and changes when the device was dropped were disturbingly realistic. Then unnatural howls drowned every other sound. They were unlike anything I’d ever imagined coming from animals or humans. If you listened closely, you could barely make out a man pleading for mercy. Russians living abroad said they lost all contact with anyone they knew 30 miles around the area.

Well, it wouldn’t be long until what happened there happened here.

I made two cups of coffee to force myself out the door. I drank one, taking the other in a thermal cup. I thought Ohio was bad in my youth, but global warming seemed to have forgotten this state, entirely. That being said, I actually didn’t mind. I had been living in Cincinnati after my contract with the Army when I decided to peace out for the second time. Now I'm a software developer that was finally approved to work from home. All, except for Mondays. Sadly, it was Monday. That meant attending a team meeting we could have done online because our company and my project manager thought face-to-face interactions were “healthy.” I’d normally agree, but considering my lazy team members did more tweeting than work, I really didn’t have anything I wanted to say that I could in a professional capacity.

I hated everything. The fake friendliness, pizza or group parties, and the “we’re family here” that implies I wanted another one. Truth be told, I should be grateful, but almost everyone seemed so fake. So lifeless. Everything felt like it was HR approved before it was spoken. No one could be offended or good luck when they let you go on the next set of lay-offs.

When I headed out the door, it was still fairly dark and snowing. With my coffee in one hand and my laptop bag over my shoulder, I pushed onward toward my glorious ride, an HR-V 2016. It may be a mom's car, but it lasted for what seemed like ages. Until that night.

I walked to my parking space to reach the door. Before I opened it, something brushed against my back. I immediately turned with a bit of my coffee flying out of my mug. There was nothing. I looked right, left, right again, then gave up to find shelter in the car. I immediately inserted my key, pressing the brake before turning it. My air was already on max from the last time driving it. Cold air bombarded my face just to revive my shivering. I became accustomed to warmer and humid climates during my time overseas. This winter was beautiful, at least until I left the confides of my small, cozy house. Just as I put the car into reverse, a weird noise came from the trees. It sounded like a howl of some kind, but raspy and freakishly weird. Then I saw something. It seemed like a mist, but I couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter. My house was locked and I didn’t have much to steal. I also had cameras installed at every corner around the house, with two more inside. If anyone snooped around, let alone broke in I’d have everything I needed to identify them. Unless they wore ski masks and acted quickly.

After overthinking and worrying, though, I decided to quickly run in and get my Glock 43 looked around, then jumped back in my war vehicle. I finally left my long gravel driveway and onto the road. It was odd, though. I still felt like I was being watched, but how? I was driving and there were no other cars around.

I had left early, as usual. It was an old habit and a hard to break even if I wanted to. But at least that meant I could relax when I arrived and make myself another cup of coffee. Funny, a friend of mine always told me my caffeine addiction would be the death of me. I’ve learned that there are far worse ways for one’s life to end. But that hadn’t crossed my mind yet. I parked close to the exits so I could be one of the first to leave the corporate office. It was just outside of the downtown area. Warm air embraced my body upon entering the front.

“Good morning,” I greeted the secretary before scanning in.

“Good morning, Dev.” She replied kindly.

I returned a smile and nod before heading to the elevator. The first thing that caught my attention were the balloons with prizes advertised on billboards. These weren't normal prizes, either. One sign said, “Party Tonight at Frank’s Family Home! Win up to $100,000. Earn $10,000 for showing you care for the WinTyme family!” I stopped, reread it, then read it another dozen or so times before I chuckled at the absurdity of the company’s CEO offering ten thousand dollars to EVERY single person who showed up. I knew there had to be a catch, but what was it? There’s no way anything this good would just be handed out. I know some people in my position are spoiled and have absolutely no concept of money, just buying a new car and iPhone every year. But I did. At least, I’d like to think so. And there’s no way our CEO would’ve done this out of the goodness of his heart. Two years ago was our best year and he laid off anyone with 15 years of work experience at the company.

I took the elevator up three floors and was excited to find even more weirdness that I didn’t understand. A sign hung from the ceiling with sloppy print, “Take off today if you sign up to come tonight.”

Okay, something was up. I suspected we were all getting laid off. There were outings here and there, but this was a full-on shutdown if I’d ever seen one. I muttered curses just thinking of applying for another job. Thankfully the house I bought was a fixer-upper or my money would run up dry faster than I could find work. Health insurance wasn’t a huge worry for me since I did have the VA to a small extent, but- fuck this shit.

Being early, there’s often just Russell from another team and Joyce, an older project manager who was far smarter than you’d assume. At least, more than I initially realized. She notices the dirtbags, the backstabbers, and the good workers, but doesn't give it away in her demeanor towards anyone. It wasn’t until she gave a bonus only to Russell. He was the only one who finished his work, taking on other tasks depending on how far behind the others were. The other team members talked like they were the smartest and hardest working people in the department, but I could see Gloria on her Twitter and Facebook anytime I passed her desk.

So those two weren’t a surprise to see here. What was a surprise, however, were the four women and three men in the big boss’s office. He was there, too, and I swore I could see watery eyes. Was he crying?

One woman's head turned sharply towards me with her eyes piercing into my own. I began to feel similar to how I had this morning. It would’ve triggered every alarm in my mind if she hadn’t formed a long smile, showing white teeth that seemed impossible for a normal person to have. Even her skin lacked blemishes, tan lines, or any other abnormalities. I forced a nob and then continued towards my desk. Before I sat down, my phone beeped. Once seated, I opened it.

Russell texted, “Frank had been crying before I arrived. See the 10,000-dollar prize for showing up to his party?”

Right now nothing made sense. An odd urge told me I’d be better off leaving, but I couldn’t. I needed a job and money. Hell, if they were going to lay us off, I’d want that 10k, assuming no stipulations were attached. If I had known.

“What are the chances we are all getting laid off?” I asked, then added, “most of us, at least.”

Though I was tempted to look over, I waited for his response, seeing he was already typing.

His next message had me puzzled, “Frank just told Joyce he brought on three new employees and wasn’t letting anyone go until next year. She said most teams aren’t in any position to lay members off, though I think a couple in mine wouldn’t be missed.”

I thought for a moment before responding, “But that doesn’t explain the money rewards and party.” I sent it right after the office door cracked.

Frank formed a big smile, but his eyes were still slightly red. “Mornin’, Dev! Today’s gonna be a great day!”

Bewildered and uncertain which of my dozen questions I should’ve asked first, I decided to nod and go straight to the point. Leaving out his crying of course. “Why the rewards celebration, Frank? Are we getting cut?”

I should've kept my mouth shut, but he chuckled, “No, not at all! We’re doing great and I’ve finally decided the best employees are the ones that feel valued.”

It took all my will power and focus to hold back a laugh. The odds of him being genuine were the same as playing the Mega Lottery. Something wasn’t right. Maybe I was being paranoid, but my gut told me that a man with three offices, a Yacht, and a Porsche would never do this. Hell, how could he afford to?

“I can see this seems a bit far-fetched to you,” he looked at me with concern.

“It just seems a little much,” I replied.

“How about I give you a check for the 10 thousand right now if you promise to come to the party tonight,” he replied with a hint of something uneasy.

For a moment, I pondered what made him seem anxious. Desperation? But why?

The thing is it didn't matter. I didn’t want a handout. All I wanted was to earn my money. Granted, it would’ve been nice to receive a large bonus no matter what, but it didn’t feel right. Just as I was about to say no, one of the women came over to his side. The same woman who smiled just a few minutes ago looked absolutely stunning. Almost unnaturally so. Her hair was an ash blonde with bright red lips. She was also tall. I don’t mean your normal tall woman that’s 5 foot 9, but taller than Frank. I’d once asked him how tall he was after he said he didn’t believe I was 5’11.

‘6 foot 3,’ he had told me. Not only was she at least a couple of inches taller, but somewhat muscular, too. I was beginning to feel like a dwarf below two giants.

“This must be-Dev, yes?” She replied in an accent I hadn’t heard before. Something absolutely alien to me, but I understood.

“You would be correct, Miss-?” I asked.

“Carmille,” she replied with a long smile. “I would like to invite you, as well. We’re going to be workin with you all and we should get to know one another. Th-Frank is happy to be you! He wants you all to be happy working together.

I nodded, “Okay, ya got me! I’ll be there tomorrow.” Both their smiles widened as more people began to enter. While Frank turned to the others, she winked at me.

Other people suspected the same things I had, but Frank tried to settle their concerns. Though me and Russell weren’t convinced, everyone else went home. All except us, until Frank insisted we leave in a nice manner unbecoming of him. Another woman talked to Russell before Frank kicked us out, but Joyce refused to talk to any of the new people. However, the most important people to socialize with for a good start would be the senior developers, engineers, and managers. Joyce hadn’t been approached more than once. Her years gave her extensive experience. I'd think they’d at least pretend they care, especially since the others went home.

Just to be clear, I had no intention of going, but I needed to get out. To put it frankly, I had almost no family, no date for almost a year, and spent most of my time doing more computer work. Though I lifted and ran almost daily, I was a hermit. That gave me the thought to call an old friend, who I explained the situation to.

“Yup! You’re all getting canned, Johnson! Hate to break it to you,” that wasn’t exactly the input I was looking for.

“Then who are these other people? How experienced are these models? Something doesn’t add up,” I replied.

“I don’t know man, but you said the woman winked. I know she tall, but who cares?”

“Easy for your 6’4 ass to say,” he laughed at my response.

“Treat yourself, man! What’s the worst that could happen,” his would come back to bite me in the ass soon enough, but I was unaware of just how large this problem was.

“Thanks! Hopefully, I’m just being paranoid, but if I am getting laid off, a night out might not be so bad.”

“See, just start filling out applications the next day when they break the news,” he said and I chuckled.

That afternoon I bought protein pasta, chicken, and rice. I also snagged some Trojans and wine. Who knows what would happen? There were other women I barely talked to, so I decided this was the time to break out of my bubble.

Give a bit of space.

Frank's home was marked by a huge gate with a long driveway. I’ll say it was anything but modest. Now my anxiety was stronger than ever, wondering what this was about. I was beginning to think we were going to be scammed, but that seemed a bit much. Despite my reservations, I drove to the house. The snow had melted, so there was no problem. I was one of the first ones, again. At least there was no trouble parking here. Strangely, I remember Frank having pictures of him and his family outside his house and I could’ve sworn this wasn’t it. Was this a wealthier CEO’s place he knew? There was an unreasonable amount of parking space, even for a wealthy family. Then again, it wouldn’t have been the first time a rich family bought far more than they needed.

Still gawking, I followed a man waving towards the left side near a large lot. Past the side was a pool with a diveboard, two boats, and a few cars. Nice of the owner to move his expensive stuff in the dirt. I had to be overthinking this whole thing.

So I relaxed, let the man guide me back, and parked my car. I smiled and waved and he returned the gesture. He appeared to be anxious, but it wasn’t a big deal.

After leaving putting on only my favorite cologne and combing my hair, I passed a few strangers and entered the house. My first order of business was to drink something to calm my nerves. Second was to look for people I knew, especially Russell, Joyce, or Mac. Mac didn’t come to the office much, but he was a solid guy. Also, a Marine that I could shit talk with.

I had found wine, cheese of all assortments, and delicious steak bites that I’d happily helped myself to. If this was my last day on the job, I was going to get everything I could. You might say, “You’re not working,” but I’d argue that anytime I have to see the faces of my coworkers is me working. Excluding the previously mentioned. Funny enough, I couldn’t even see the tall blonde from earlier. Just as I was about to message Russell and Mac, a young redhead approached me, smiling. Her stare almost pierced my soul with green eyes. Eyes that I would’ve sworn transformed to slits for a moment.

“Hello! I have not met you, yet. Dev, is it?” She asked in a nice, but odd tone. She also had the same accent as Carmille. Not Slavic, Italian, Romanian, or Japanese. I’d heard quite a few in my thirty years and this seemed truly foreign to me. Almost alien.

“Carmille told you?” I asked.

“Yes! Yes, she did!” she reached her hand out, “call me Lilith!”

I chuckled, taking her hand, “Lilith, I don’t suppose you know what this is all about?”

“About what?” she asked giving me a confused look.

“This party and, well, everything. It’s not usual. At least, I’ve never seen a CEO invite his employees, and offer a 10K bonus while providing wine, steak, and cheese,” I remembered just how insane this all was, making me reconsider staying here. At the very least I decided to stop indulging in the wine.

“I don’t know. Carmille invited me, though I was playing Road of Exiles and watching corgi videos before I arrived here,” she said.

“One, Corgis are adorable and I want a couple. Two, I just started playing it again. Early access comes out this coming month.”

“I would love to play it sometime. Maybe you could make me a better player,” her words made me question so much. Was she implying what I thought she was?

After some more chatting, she gave me a number. The reason I say it’s a number instead of her number is because it wasn’t a real number. 666-1289. When I asked if the area code was the same as the area, she seemed confused, but eventually answered with a yes.

More and more guests piled in. Only a handful, however, were from my job. I asked a woman where her friends worked and she asked if I was invited, like I was a weirdo. All I wanted to do was to get an idea of where everyone was coming from, but I gave up. When I looked for someone I actually wanted to talk to, I noticed the stares of other tall and oddly perfect people. They are what I imagined an android to look like. One moment they’d converse with the guests, the next they’d scan the crowd like a cat would a field of mice. One of them licked his lips standing behind a decent-looking fellow that struck me as a sales and business guy. I turned to look behind me and there she was.

“Mr. Dev. How are you this evening?”

“I was just about to leave, to be honest, but nice to see you,” I lied out of my teeth.

By this time I had realized that there were two groups. Us and these strange people. I felt an urge to run. To leave this house, get in my car, and drive away.

“You can’t! The party is about to begin. Frank will be here any minute, now with your reward,” the way she said that felt inhuman.

“Okay. I’ll stay,” I replied.

Her grin became wide. Almost unnaturally so, “Good! I promise this will be an unforgettable night.”

I nodded with a smile, then turned around. I had absolutely no intention of staying. I just wanted her off my case. However, before I made it to the door, Russell flagged me down, possibly drawing attention I didn’t want.

“How’s the night, Dev?” he asked.

“Russell, something’s not right here. I think we should leave immediately.”

“I can’t! I met a woman and,” he turned his words to whispers, “I think I might be onto something.”

“Oh, yeah? You know her name?” I asked hoping it wasn’t one of the perfect people.

“Lilith,” he smiled. “She said she didn’t know anyone, so I introduced her to a few people, even the woman from this morning.”

My heart dropped. Everything seemed more wrong than ever, but I still couldn’t put my finger on what was about to happen. “Carmille,” I replied, slowly.

“Yep! That’s her name! I keep forgetting it,” he said. “She also loves cats and The Expanse of Space.”

“Russell. She told me she likes Corgis. I’ve been looking into getting one or two for the past week. You like cats. She’s also interested in things, I’m sorry, most women do not like. Also, there are others like her that look too,” I struggled to finish my sentence, but he noticed what I was saying.

“Perfect. Too perfect,” he replied. We looked at each other before looking towards the door.

“I still have my Glock in the car, Russell. Follow me to my car. I’ll drop you off next to your car then we can drive the fuck outta here,” I said and he nodded.

When we got to the exit, those men and women stared at us. Smiling. If you thought a McDonald’s employee's smile was fake, you haven’t seen anything yet. It creeped me out enough to pick up my pace. Russell followed my lead without hesitation. We exited into the night. Men began to trail us. I pulled my coworker to the right. As we picked up our pace, they did theirs. By the time we passed the first set of cars, we were power walking to my vehicle.

“Get in my car and I’ll get us out of here,” I told him.

“My car’s closer, Dev. I should just go to mine and you yours,” I didn’t like the idea of separating, but I didn’t have time to debate or think.

“Alright. Go!” I responded.

He began veering to the left, as did one of our pursuers. Then I noticed them. There were a dozen or so people surrounding the lot. And the house. Russell pressed the unlock button for his car, but the man sprinted towards Russell. That run was like no other I had ever seen. I wasn’t even sure if we had been running so much as gliding after a point. I didn’t bother to look behind me. I just ran, hoping to make it to my car in time. Then I panicked. I didn’t have a round in the chamber. I focused as I closed the distance to my car. The chasing footsteps behind me disappeared, and then a scream erupted.

“Help,” Russell cried.

I wanted to help, but I couldn’t stop. I slowed down just to grab the door handle. As soon as the door opened, I reached into my side seat and pulled the gun. I reached to remove the holster still attached, but the thing pulled me away. The thing’s face changed. Its teeth were now razor sharp.

“Where are you going, human?” After he finished taunting me, his mouth opened, darting towards my neck.

But not before I chambered a round and began firing. The first rounds were in the chest. The last four rounds were placed in his skull while I pushed my gun from under his head. Though he dropped to the ground, his chest wounds were healing. At that point, I was shivering and my nerves were firing on all cylinders as I struggled to get inside my car. That’s when all the creatures began to converge. My foot hit the brake then I turned the key. As I put my car in reverse, I reached into my glove compartment for another magazine, preferably the one with ten rounds.

My car tilted and grazed a few others in my attempt to escape. Screams erupted from inside the mansion. Tears were flowing down my eyes. I couldn’t help them. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. That’s when one of those things ran into my car, causing it to spin before flipping in the air. I held onto my gun for dear life feeling it was my only chance of making it out alive. Everything after that became dark.

The first thing I remember from when I regained consciousness was a salty smell. One vaguely familiar. Once my eyes opened, I saw the reason for this extreme stench. It was blood. An arm in front of me. I felt sick. My body was already weak, but this was almost too much. I closed my eyes for a moment to help myself cope, processing the events that had transpired. I took a deep breath.

“Alas, he is awake,” I knew that voice all too well by now.

“Fuck you,” I said. Then I remembered hearing Russell scream, “Where’s Russell?”

“He was an appetizer before the feast,” she replied in a disgustingly seductive manner.

“So you’re just going to eat people?”

“What can we do? There’s got to be something-” I man pleaded, but was cut off quickly.

“Please! We will do anything to save ourselves. That’s what your leaders said. Just before we had lunch,” she said followed by the creatures laughing.

“Then why are we still alive?” a woman asked.

I don’t know why she asked that. Probably fear and panic, but I had no desire to find out. Unfortunately, none of us were that lucky.

“You shall be sent to our reality at midnight, darling. There, you’ll see absolute beauty!” she replied like a mad woman on a high.

I wasn’t restrained, but my glock was gone. I had no idea how I would escape. My mind began to race with all sorts of ideas. I couldn’t have imagined what awaited on the other side and if I had known, I would’ve fought tooth and nail against those creatures.

Another said something in another language. It fit their accents perfectly, but I swore it wasn’t a language made by humans.

“What the fuck are you? Aliens? Vampires?” I asked out of curiosity, but also to stall.

She chuckled and ignored my question, responding in the language.

Looking around me, I saw at least a few dozen people. Granted, evidence all around us said some met a grisly end, but they spared most of us. Though I hated the question a minute ago, I was beginning to wonder what they had blamed for us. Looking around I saw more blood, limbs, vomit, smashed furniture, and those vampires staring at us. Everything except a weapon. I just realized I killed one with rounds to the head. But he could’ve healed. Then again, bullets to the head make more sense than a stake to the heart. I wasn’t sure what I should use, but I could snag a piece of a wood table leg broken off. Then I saw a kitchen knife against my leg.

I realized looking around I couldn’t retrieve it just yet or one of those things would notice. Unfortunately, Carmille began a ritualistic chant, cutting her henchman’s throat before tossing it into a weird mist. It absorbs the creature, and then explodes everywhere. Some sort of particles fly outward, sending a dry warmth everywhere. A whole wall formed in front of us. When I noticed the vampires were looking at the portal, I grabbed the knife, and tucked it into my sleeve. People were being lifted on their feet before being dragged to the entrance.

Though I desperately didn’t want to go through, I waited for the right moment to strike, but it never came. One of them began pushing me forward and I didn’t know if I could take him, let alone the others. Once at the edge, my skin began to tingle in pain. I turned while pulling the knife, but one of them kicked me through.

A middle-aged woman's face in frame.

Read it, somebody says.

My name is Angela and I'm guilty. I have helped in the destruction of the environment. Me and my generation—That should be my generation and I, Andy.

Whatever. Just read it, OK?

OK. Me and my generation have failed to help pass on the Earth—

From off-screen, someone pulls a plastic bag over the woman's head. Shocked,

she struggles.

Her hands scratching, grabbing at the bag. The plastic going in-and-out, in-and-out with her increasingly heavy, slowing breath.

Until it moves no more.

(Thud.)

Dude, someone says, you just killed your own mother.

—scroll—>

A man crawls along a neatly mowed lawn. Something is wrong with his legs.

He glances back,

in terror.

A shadow passes over him.

Son…

A sledgehammer blow—

erases his head.

—scroll—>

A glam-filtered girl says into the camera, Well, I'm not, like, an orphan yet, but I'm totally, like, into the idea, ya know? Because parents, they're like, fascism or something.

—scroll—>

Two teens take turns pissing on an unconscious woman suspended between two trees.

When she opens her eyes,

they set her on fire. Global warming, bitch!

—scroll—>

The Earth does not have the resources to-to-to keep the rodents alive. The y-y-young are the ones working, and our p-p-parents' generation are useless pension rats.

—scroll—>

A man's toothless, drooling head forced against the frame of an open car door.

Shoulda driven electric, a kid says.

(Laughter, applause)

(Chanting: Do it. Do it. Do it…)

The car door—

Slams—

(Screaming)

Slams—

(Groan-

ing)

Slams—

Until: Silence.

Dead bits of face stick to the door, ooze down the frame, accumulate on the driveway.

—scroll—>

—fessor of Philosophy, yes, and I don't have any children, so, no, I'm not personally afraid, and in fact I sympathize with the youth, their spirit, their will to action. You might say I'm youth-adjacent, a Millenial fellow traveller.

—scroll—>

A smartphone showing a photo of a man in his 30s with a little girl. They're both smiling.

The phone moves away:

revealing the same two people a decade or so later.

He's pleading, Don't…

as she slides a knife along his throat, releasing crimson, and as he garglegags she starts hacking at his neck.

Blood—

sprays the lens.

Looked a lot easier on the ISIS vids, she says.

—scroll—>

What is Parent?

Parent is propaganda. Parent is exploitation. Parent is prison. Parent is Enemy.

Parent is Enemy.

—scroll—>

—global mass hysteria, as young people all around the world are killing their parents, seemingly induced by a video on social media…

on social media…

The news anchor slumps to her desk, followed by the camera tilting suddenly to the floor.

Gas obscures the image.

—scroll—>

A shrine devoted to the Menendez brothers.

—scroll—>

A memeified scene from Heavenly Creatures.

—scroll—>

Teens smoking a joint, sitting on the dead bodies of two adults, as behind them a door opens—

Thought I told you to stay

—and a middle-schooler blows them away with a shotgun.

“You forgot her birthday again, didn’t you?” my sister River asked over the phone.

I froze, pulling up the date. September 7th.

She was right. The new strain of herpes virus at GeneTech had consumed my every waking moment. As the lead genetic engineer, I’d spent countless overtime hours running safety tests for a project promising breakthrough in mental healthcare. It was so important—and so stressful—that Lia’s birthday had completely slipped my mind.

“Whatever, just make sure to wish her tomorrow at work,” River said. “She’ll understand.”

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “Lia can be obsessive, y’know? You remember when she thought I loved you more than her?”

River laughed. She remembered. Lia’s outbursts had become infamous—jealousy over my sister, threats to my best friend Brian, even hostility toward my parents. It was one of the reasons I’d moved out a few weeks ago, hoping some distance would help. But I hadn’t cut her off completely. I couldn’t. “Make sure you wish her tomorrow,” said River as she hung up, “If she’s still avoiding work tomorrow, just call her and just shower her with affection; be lovey-dovey and she will forget all grudges.”

The next day, I went to work with a bouquet of roses and an apologetic letter. The labs were a maze of sterile white walls, filled with the smell of disinfectant and the subtle hum of centrifuges. I placed my bouquet in the refrigerator, planning to give it to her in the lunch break.

But when I reached my station, there was someone else there—a new intern.

“Where’s Lia?” I asked, confused.

“I’m your new partner,” the intern replied. “Lia resigned.”

Resigned? That didn’t make sense. Lia was committed to this project—it was her idea in the first place. I went straight to our manager.

“She resigned yesterday, “ said the manager, barely glancing up from his computer, “she said it was something personal. I thought you’d know about it. She came early in the morning and took her stuff too.”

I walked back to the station and looked around. He was right. Lia had really taken everything with her. All of her equipment, few vials of the developing virus, the makeshift injection gun we had built, even her microscopes and centrifuges.
Was it because of me? Did I really mess up that bad? I know I messed up but wasn’t this a bit too far?

“Uh, sir, shall we start,” the intern stopped my train of thoughts.

“Yeah, let’s begin.”

After work, I decided to hit the bar like always. It was a weekly thing me and Brian did to unwind after a week’s worth of work and stress.
“Hey David,” I greeted the guard at the entrance, “how’s your son?”

He squinted at me, confusion evident on his face.

“Do I know you?”

“Really funny David,” I said as I reached for the door.

David stopped me from entering.

“Sir I’d need to see some ID”

“Oh, come on man, I didn’t bring any. You know me, you said that is enough identification since I’m a regular.”

“I’ve never seen you here before. So, either you give me ID or I call the police”

I felt helpless and confused. I’ve known David since the day I moved here. He told me and Brian over drink about his family, how his wife cheated on him and now he’s a single dad.

That’s when I saw Brian, walking towards the bar. Perfect.

“Dude, I think something’s wrong with David,” I said, “ he wouldn’t let me enter without any ID.”

Brian stops and looks me up and down.

“I'm sorry but do I know you?”

I stood there, dazed. I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears. My childhood best friend had just failed to recognize me. I did not know what to do.
I held him by his shoulders.

“Brian please, it’s me, Adam,” I was on the verge of tears.

“Let go of me or I will call the police”

I obeyed. I walked slowly towards my car. I couldn’t believe what was happening, my mind was going numb. I slowly opened the door and sat down, silently processing what just happened. The wind carried a smell of beer into the car, which reminded me of all the fun times I had with Brian at the pub.

Wait, the wind?

I looked to my right and found the window pulled down entirely.

That’s strange, I usually don’t pull down my windows entirely, no matter how hot it gets.

I shrugged it off. It didn’t matter. I had just lost my best friend, nothing else mattered.

I tried to start my car, but it just wouldn’t.
Before I could register anything, someone grabbed me from behind the seat, which was followed by a sharp pain in the side of my neck.

I woke up in my bed to a familiar melody.

My phone was ringing, it was River.

“Hey, are you sick again?” she asked.

“No? Why, what happened?”

“You forgot to wish me on my birthday.”

I paused. “I didn’t,” I stated, “your birthday isn’t for another two we-“

I froze after looking at the calendar, showing today’s date.

September 22^(nd).  

Fuck. My head hurts.

“River, I think something is wrong with me. I don’t remember anything that has happened in the last two weeks, I think I was in some sort of mild coma.”

There was silence. “Is this an excuse? Adam you literally had dinner with me and Jared last night. Did you forget it all? I understand your poor work-life balance, no need to make excuses. Just saying”

“I-I think I need to see a doctor, Ill call you later.”

I drove as fast I could to the nearest clinic. I did not know what was going on at all. Two weeks of my life. Two whole weeks that I have no recollection of. On top of that, my headache seems to be getting worse by the minute. I need to know what is wrong with me.

 The doctor walks in with the report, “It seems like you’re suffering from some sort of aggressive Alzheimer’s disease. The MRI scan shows considerable build up of amyloid plaques. We might need to take some more tests and family history to find the root cause.”

I walked out of the hospital, unable to believe it all. Nobody in my family had suffered from any sort of mental disease. Everything was happening too quickly. My brain still felt like it was being crushed from all sides.

Just then my phone rang. It was Lia. I picked up, expecting her to shout at me like she always does.

But to my surprise, her voice was calm, almost laced with honey.
“Hello my love. How are you doing?” she cooed.

“Lia, where are you, I think something is happening to me-“

“You forgot her birthday too, didn’t you?”

There was silence.
“Wha-“

“You forgot the birthday of your own bitch sister. The one who took care of you after your parents died. You are such a work absorbed dick; you forgot about me too. And now you will pay the price. I will use your own virus to take everything from you. You and everyone you love will slowly forget everything. Just like you forgot about me. And then, my love, you will be truly and only mine.”

She hung up, and the pieces fell into place like shattered glass cutting into my thoughts.

The missing vials of the virus. The makeshift injection gun. Brian and David’s sudden inability to recognize me. The sharp pain in my neck at the pub.

She had done it—used our work against me. Lia had weaponized the virus to inflict Alzheimer’s-like symptoms, making everyone around me forget who I was. Her revenge was cruelly elegant: strip me of everyone, one memory at a time, until there was no one left but her.

I sank to the floor, trembling, the weight of it all crushing my chest. This wasn’t just my fault—it was my punishment. I’d ignored her, consumed by deadlines and experiments, blind to what she needed from me. Now, she was taking everything I cared about, pulling me into a void where only she remained.

Tears blurred my vision as a notification buzzed on my phone.

New message from River:

I need you to come over. Lia is here and wants to talk to you.

My heart stopped.

No. Not River.

I stumbled to my feet, adrenaline coursing through me. Lia wouldn’t stop at just my friends or me—she was going after my family now.

I sprinted to the car, gripping the steering wheel with white-knuckled desperation. The road ahead blurred as my mind struggled to hold onto coherent thoughts, like water slipping through my fingers.

Something was wrong—there was something I should remember, something important.

But the pounding in my skull drowned it out. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t stop.

I had to get to River. Before Lia did.

The GPS app chimes, a robotic voice announcing, “Turn left in 200 meters.”

Left? Why left?

I glance at the screen, seeing the destination pinned: River’s house.

Why am I going to River’s house?

The destination triggers a faint sense of recognition, but the familiarity is hollow, like grasping at smoke.

Shit. My head hurts.

I make the turn anyway, hoping muscle memory will guide me. My foot eases off the accelerator as doubt creeps in.

It seemed like something urgent but I just couldn’t put a finger on it.

My headache is going to kill me.

I parked in River’s driveway, the gravel crunching beneath the tires.

This house, it was vaguely familiar. Wasn’t this where River lived, with her new boyfriend?

I knocked on the door.

“Hey…how can I help you?”

There is something I am forgetting. My head hurts.

“River...”

“Yeah? Who are you and what are you doing here?”

The strange woman’s questions were justified.
Who am I and what am I doing here?

Stillwater, Pennsylvania. A town that reeked of rust, wet leaves, and something colder that clung to the bones. The past held tight like damp earth, impossible to shake. The Harvest Festival should've been a reprieve with the splash of cider-sweet cheer against the decaying edges of a fading town. Lanterns flickered on sagging cables strung across the square, casting nervous light over vendors selling roasted corn, cider, and bottles of bootleg moonshine.

Anthony Zane leaned against the warped railing near the stage, tapping a battered notebook against his palm. The empty pages stared back like an accusation. No words came.

Dark Americana, his editor had said. Someplace gritty, haunted—authentic.

Stillwater. A half-forgotten mining town with a history steeped in whispered stories, grim superstitions, and disappearances no one wanted to explain. He'd thought coming back to Stillwater would ignite something, pull stories from the bones of the town. He was wrong.

His gaze drifted toward the square's edge, where the path to the old mining museum loomed past the unkempt winding woods. The founder's statue stood at its entrance, a miner caught mid-swing, his pickaxe raised—not in triumph but in defense.

Defensive posture? Intended or incidental? He scrawled in the notebook, and his pen was finally moving.

"You still writing that damn book, Zane?" The familiar voice pulled him from his thoughts. He turned to see Josie Patterson, tucking her hair under a weathered baseball cap, her faded denim jacket worn thin at the seams. Something was grounding about seeing her. Steady. Reliable. Real.

Stillwater was all of that. A half-forgotten mining town with a history steeped in whispered stories, grim superstitions, and disappearances no one wanted to explain. He'd thought his hometown would be enough to spark something. He was wrong.

His gaze drifted toward the square's edge, where the path to the old mining museum loomed past the unkempt winding woods. The founder's statue stood at its entrance, a miner caught mid-swing, his pickaxe raised—not in triumph but in defense.

Defensive posture? Intended or incidental? He scrawled in the notebook, and his pen was finally moving.

"You still writing that damn book, Zane?" The familiar voice pulled him from his thoughts. He turned to see Josie Patterson—hair tucked under a weathered baseball cap, her faded denim jacket worn thin at the seams. Something was grounding about seeing her. Steady. Reliable. Real.

"Trying," he said. "Stillwater's tougher to figure out than I remembered."

Josie huffed a quiet laugh. "I figured you'd given up." She shifted her weight, arms crossed.  He could see the calluses on her hands from long nights working on her prized car and at the Rusty Pickaxe, her family's bar at the edge of town. She'd practically been born behind that counter, pouring drinks and breaking up fights before she could legally drink.

"Guess I'm more stubborn than you remember," he said lightly.

Her smirk softened just enough to show the faintest trace of something warmer. "You'd have to be coming back here."

Before he could respond, a sharp, shrill scream split the air—somewhere near the woods beyond the festival grounds. The wind held its breath as the music faltered, and conversations died. Anthony’s hand twitched toward his notebook. He went to speak, but for the first time in a long while, the words refused to come.

Anthony's gaze darted through the crowd and locked onto a familiar tweed jacket. Elijah Steward. Greyed but unmistakable, pushing toward the source of the scream.

Anthony looked upon his former professor's large frame and felt a strange mixture of relief and dread. Elijah Steward had always seemed larger than life—an academic fortress of occult knowledge wrapped in worn tweed and stubborn conviction. Seeing him charging toward the edge of the festival, shoulders squared and eyes blazing, reminded Anthony of how much Stillwater refused to stay buried.

"Elijah!" Anthony called, pushing through the tightening crowd. He caught up just as the old professor reached the faded wooden gate that led toward the dark treeline.

"Elijah, wait—what's going on?" Elijah glanced back, his piercing eyes scanning Anthony with something unreadable—recognition tinged with caution as if weighing whether to pull him into something far more dangerous than he could understand.

"It's happening again," Elijah muttered, his voice hoarse with urgency. His hand clenched around a battered leather satchel hanging from his shoulder, its buckles straining under what looked like crumbling yellowed papers and thick tomes.

"What's happening?" Anthony asked, a familiar spark of curiosity flaring. "The scream—was it—?"

"No time." Elijah's voice dropped to a growl. "Stay here. Keep her safe." His gaze flicked toward Josie, who was jogging toward them with her hands clenched into determined fists.

"Elijah, you—" Josie started, but Elijah had already shoved open the gate and disappeared through the thinning crowd.

Anthony turned toward Josie, breathless. "Did you see that? What the hell is he—"

"He's doing what he always does," Josie cut in, her face pale but steady. "Running toward trouble." The wind shifted, sending a sudden chill through the air. 

The lanterns overhead flickered and dimmed, casting long, twisting shadows across the cobblestone. Anthony thought he heard someone calling faintly from the woods beyond the gate.

Ringing out through the pathway to the woods, a second scream echoed through the old rusting carnival rides, closer this time - warmer, human. Alive. At least, for now - Josie's jaw tightened. "Stay here," she ordered, already moving toward the gate.

"Like hell," Anthony shot back, following close behind. Elijah barreled through the crowd, stopping abruptly near the gate. Anthony and Josie stumbled to a halt just behind him, craning around his shoulders, breath tight in their chests.

Sheriff Silas Thorne emerged from the shadows with a deliberate stride, his chiseled face framed by dark stubble and a Stetson pulled low. His broad shoulders filled the space like a barricade, making the rusty gate behind him seem frail in comparison. "You're blocking the gate?" Josie's voice was sharp, but her eyes lingered on Silas longer than she meant to - searching, questioning. "What the hell's going on?"

Silas adjusted his Stetson, shadowing sharp cheekbones and storm-dark eyes that rarely softened. “Nothing you need to worry about.” His voice was steady—flat—but the way his gaze lingered on her, unreadable, left something unsaid.

"Funny," she said. "You're real good at deciding what I need."

Silas' jaw tightened. "Not tonight." His voice was low and steady - a man used to being obeyed. "Already got one deputy missing. Don't need more."

His eyes flicked toward Horizon Consolidated's pristine booth, gleaming like polished steel among the ramshackle stalls. "They're too curious for their own good." 

Anthony's gaze snagged on one of the newer booths—a corporate monolith with slick banners reading Horizon Consolidated. Too polished. Too perfect. A company like that didn't belong in Stillwater, unless it wanted something. He pushed the frames of his glasses and looked closely at the misplaced booth. A young woman, hair pulled back in a tight bun, a soft and subtle tan, manned the booth. Cool and uncollected, her eyes focused on a clipboard as people rushed around her.

From the depths of the path came a low, guttural ras that was wet, uneven, wrong. It echoed against the rustling branches, too human to be animal, too twisted to be real. Twigs snapped under something heavy - something moving fast. Silas' hands gripped his handgun, slowly pulling it out of the sagging holster. Through dark foliage and jagger brush, something was approaching with a heavy but fast pace.  With a loud clang and a hammer click, Anthony swiveled lightly on his feet. 

Reaching out from the gate was Ezekiel, the proprietor of the old mining exhibit. "H-hhh-help! My woman... she's done... she's... she up an' skedaddled, just like that. Gone, like a puff o' wind through the holler." He said in a low, raspy voice, slurred by whiskey and panic.

"You two get into another Whiskey-fueled squabble?" Josie said, giving a silent look towards Silas to lower his weapon. An unspoken code only bartenders - or lovers - may know. 

Picking out the brush from what remained of his hair, Ezekiel looked up with a serious tone. "She was reddin' up fer the festival, still wearin' her nightgown, pawin' through her dresser fer that fancy scarf she likes... an' the next thing I know, the front door's standin' wide open... an' she's plumb disappeared. She - She - GAHH!"  With a loud shout, he clutched his chest and fell to his knees, grasping tightly with the other hand on the rusted locked gate.

Amidst the chaos, a quiet but sharp voice somehow cut through the rising panic. AJ Anson, Stillwater's coroner, wove through the crowd with sharp, practiced precision, like a mouse navigating a deadly maze, her red hair catching in the flickering lantern light like a warning flare. "Move," she commanded, her tone steady despite the fear in her eyes, already reaching for her battered med bag. 

Her practiced hands steadied the trembling curator, motions automatic from too many long nights spent with the dead. Rising slowly, she met the others' expectant gazes. "He's stable," she said, though her eyes continuously drifting toward the dark path beyond the gate, where shadows seemed to breathe in the flickering light.

"So, about that deputy. Listen, if yinz need some help, we're right here." Josie said with a bored but intrigued smile. Silas hesitated, his hand resting on the worn grip of his revolver. His gaze flicked between the trembling Ezekiel and the dark, waiting woods. Abigail was out there—or something pretending to be her.

"You said she was wearing her favorite scarf?" Josie pressed, her voice steady but edged with urgency. "If she's calling for you, she might still be alive."

Silas narrowed his eyes. "It's not safe."

"Since when has that stopped any of us?" Josie stepped forward, defiance shining in her eyes. "You can either let us help or waste time arguing while she gets farther away."

AJ nodded, her expression grim. "We don't have time. You - you know how fast people disappear out here."

A tense silence settled between them, heavy with shared history and bitter memories. Finally, Silas grunted, jerking his chin toward the open gate. "Stay close. Don't wander. If you see anything out of place...you run. Understood?"

With a collective breath, they plunged into the woods, lantern light fading behind them as tangled branches swallowed the trail. Branches tangled overhead, wet leaves clogging the air with the stench of decay. Lantern light barely pierced the darkened path, colder than it should’ve been this far into the festival season.

No one spoke, tension weaving between them like the tangled roots underfoot. The path wound unevenly, each step met with the crunch of brittle leaves or the soft, damp squelch of mud. Anthony's pen trembled against his notebook, scribbling out half-formed thoughts. He didn't know if he was taking notes—or leaving evidence.

"Anyone else feel like... we're being watched?" AJ asked, her voice quiet, her throat choking on the words. She looked to the others with regret the moment the words left her.

"Always," Silas muttered without looking back. His hand hovered near the worn grip of his revolver, scanning the shifting dark.

The trail narrowed further until they reached a shallow creek, its water sluggish and dark like spilled ink. Smooth, moss-slick stones jutted from the surface, forming an uneven path.

"I'll go first," Josie offered, already stepping onto the first stone. Her boots found purchase despite the slick surface, balancing with practiced ease.

Anthony followed, though his footing wavered. Halfway across, his shoe slipped—sending loose rocks tumbling into the water with a sharp splash.

Silence swallowed the sound. The forest held its breath, silent until a sudden SNAP.

A sharp rustling in the undergrowth. Something large, just out of sight. "Keep moving," Silas hissed, urgency coiled tight. He reached out, steadying Anthony with a firm grip. They crossed quickly, AJ casting a final glance toward the now-still brush before hurrying to catch up. The trail twisted again, narrowing into a passage walled by ancient oaks whose gnarled roots clawed from the ground like skeletal fingers. Something fluttered in the faint breeze ahead—a flash of fabric snagged on a thorny bush.

Josie reached it first. "Blood," she muttered, fingertips brushing the torn, faded scarf. Crimson soaked its frayed edges.

"That's Abigail's," Silas confirmed grimly. "She always wore it at the festival."

AJ took the scarf, her gloved hands steady despite the chill creeping up her spine. Her voice barely steadied as she whispered, "The… the blood’s still tacky. She’s not dead - at least not yet."

The trail dead-ended at a rusted chain-link fence tangled in creeping vines. “DANGER: KEEP OUT” glared in faded red paint.

A mining pickaxe jutted from the damaged power box at the base of the fence. Dark scorch marks streaked across its surface, the faint hum of electricity now gone. Anthony traced the jagged cut where the metal had been sheared. "Someone didn't just break in...they cut the power."

"Abigail?" AJ guessed.

"Or someone chasing her," Silas growled. Without waiting, Josie yanked the pickaxe free. The metal whined, rust crumbling like dried blood. The air felt...wrong as the hum died completely. The silence that followed was sharp, like a blade drawn across stone.

"Through here," Silas ordered, pushing the gate open with a groaning creak.

They pressed deeper into the woods, guided by faint, broken trails of trampled underbrush. Drag marks streaked through the wet earth, punctuated by bloody handprints smeared against a twisted tree trunk. AJ traced the bloody handprints with trembling fingers, her breath hitching. "She fought... but she was running."

Silas's jaw tightened. "She wasn't alone." The forest exhaled—a low,  shivering breath through the leaves. From deep within the tangled dark came a wet, guttural rasp—too human to be animal, too twisted to be real.

Anthony's breath hitched, his gaze locked on the shadows that seemed to swell with intent.

"What the hell was that?" Josie whispered, her voice thin and sharp. Silas drew his revolver, the hammer snapping into place with a cold finality.

Footsteps. Heavy. Deliberate. Crack. Snap. Something twisted in the dark.

"Back up," Silas ordered, voice sharp and steady. They retreated toward the ruined trail, breathing shallow, hearts pounding in sync with the crushing steps.

Through clenched teeth, Silas hissed, “Run!” under his breath as he tried to usher everyone back towards the gate, but it was too late. No one could hear him through their pounding hearts as they scurried into the rolling fog of the woods. Grinding his teeth, Silas considered pulling out his flashlight. It was too late.

It’s been a day since my first entry, and a lot has happened in that time. I did not expect things to have escalated to the situation I am now in, but here we are. 

It all happened so fast.

Before I recount all the events of the past couple days, I wanted to thank those who provided advice to me. Sadly, I didn’t receive any sort of comfort from people having experienced such an animal before, although now I’m beginning to believe my experience is one-of-a-kind.

I saw someone suggest I call the police, and while that may be perfectly reasonable where you’re from, it’s more of an arduous task in my area. Like I mentioned in my first entry, I live beyond nowhere–and that was a choice my wife and I made a long time ago for our own betterment at that point. An unfortunate sacrifice for basically living off the grid is emergency services are much further from you. This proved to be a significant hardship during the last few months of my wife’s life, and an outrageously expensive one at that.

Regardless of the great lengths and costs of getting law enforcement out here, I’ll also add that I have no idea what they can do for me at this point. Where I left off in the last entry, I didn’t have anything concrete enough to warrant calling anyone out here. Now, as I write this, I’m in a much more dire predicament, and I do not want anyone else to be put in harm's way just for me.

Yesterday, around early afternoon, I hopped in my truck with the intention of going to see if my distant neighbors knew anything of those strange sounds I was hearing.

They were a younger and larger family from what I’d seen over the years. Three or four kids varying from kindergarten age to whatever age they decide to start coloring their hair. None of them were close to senior prom, I’d say. The father was an odd concoction of businessman and moonshiner, perfectly straight teeth and freshly cut hair contrasting with his aggressively camouflage getups. The mother looked a similar sort of way but even more of a parody of the outdoor trope. Think two models from New York doing a country music video. We’d briefly exchanged some meaningless words in the past, with my wife doing most of the talking.

As my truck bumped and struggled up the narrow inclining dirt road, I thought of what I might tell them.

Hey guys, how’s it been up here? Heard any of the monstrous noises coming from the woods lately? I was puzzled on how to deliver the true intentions of my spontaneous visit. I didn’t want to scare them or come off as a demented creep. 

The dirt road we both live on is a miserable excuse for a road, more like a glorified hiking trail. It’s wide enough for a standard truck but anything bigger would get tangled in the stubborn growth. I could’ve sworn it used to be a tad more spacious, though. This forest has always had designs on reclaiming our one connection to the rest of the world, but driving on it at this point it seemed to have the upper hand. It was hard to imagine my neighbors’ bulky designer trucks driving down this overgrown path.

Have they left home anytime recently? The thought darted through my mind and I ignored it quickly.

The rocky ride up to their property was all too short, and I still didn’t feel prepared as I passed their mailbox and slowly continued up their steep driveway. Their long and winding driveway offered a little relief, as they had a much more cared for gravel job done when they built their home. My truck appreciated the steadier terrain, but I was lost in my anxieties all the same.

As I rounded one bend after the next, I worried more and more that they’d hear me coming and think I was something nefarious. People out in the sticks love their guns and can often view their property as a sovereign nation of sorts. I can’t pass much judgement, I’ll sometimes reach for my Mossberg upon hearing the occasional mail truck before realizing. I just prayed to myself they wouldn’t be looking for target practice.

I rounded one final bend before I could see the roof of their lodge-style mansion. I slowed my vehicle speed down to a crawl, in hopes it conveyed a friendly intention. As I approached and saw more details of the house, I quickly slammed on the brakes.

Something was… covering much of their house. I couldn’t quite make it out or make sense of it. With great hesitance, I rolled up closer. Things never started making sense, sadly. Eventually, I parked my car right next to theirs, and I still didn’t understand. I got out and looked at their great big house, which was nearly entirely wrapped up in some giant sort of... web? The webbing was so thick that I couldn’t even see the parts of the house which were within its confines. The wrapping was so strong it had caused damage, cracking and warping the home’s corners.

I didn’t understand. Something automatic within me willed me to step out of the truck. As I walked around the scene, I discovered new findings. The left side of their lifted black truck was smashed in as if it’d been t-boned. The driver’s door was open but hanging from its hinges as if something ripped out the driver. I now saw traces of dried blood everywhere. As my eyes grew more accustomed, the more blood I picked up on. All over the interior of the totaled truck were splatters of blood. The truck windows that weren’t shattered were covered in it. The gravel driveway was a canvas for more. All over the place were long drag marks and coagulated puddles. Even on the sections of the gravel that appeared untouched, if I bent over and observed closer, I could see uncountable amounts of little droplets and dots of blood.

I couldn’t believe it.

These poor people were brutalized by that noisy thing out there and I’d been none the wiser. I had no idea how long ago this had happened, but it looked like it had all happened very fast when it did. There were absolutely no remains of any kind and I looked relentlessly for anything to help me understand.

I walked around the house to see if there was anywhere the horrible webbing had left an opening large enough for me to get in but I found no such error. I found another one of their cars though, a similarly lifted and bulky SUV that was also matte black. I tried the handle and the door opened right up. I looked inside and couldn’t find much besides what looked to be a hunting map of the general region. I had seen it before, something a bait and tackle shop about fifteen miles off sold at the register. Our little holler had just made the cut in the bottom right of the map. I figured a map of the area would be a good asset I didn’t have so I stuffed it in my pocket with my shaking hands. 

Beyond the map, there was not much left there that I could see would be of use. I think it’s accurate to say I was in some mild form of shock and bewilderment, and wasn't in the soundest of mind. Maybe that contributed to what I did next.

As I tried to walk calmly back to my truck, I had the thought that someone might still be stuck inside that house. What if some of the kids were still alive in there? I approached the mess of web and cleared my throat, calling out with my pitiful hoarse voice. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d used it.

It took a few tries but after one of my calls, I heard a faint scream coming from inside.

Someone shouted. “Hello? Is someone out there?” 

I heard what sounded to be the voice of a young girl, maybe 14 or 15, inside.

“Yes! It’s your neighbor,” I yelped back. “Are you alright?”

“Oh my god thank god,” the girl cried back.

“What happened here?” I tried to position myself in a way where I could hear her better. I think she did the same.

“Something… I don’t know what… it was huge and it just… came out of the woods and attacked us,” the girl was sobbing through every sentence. “I think it… I think it killed my dad and my mom, maybe my sister and brother too. I was inside when it happened.”

“My god, I’m so sorry,” I searched for anything else to say, “I came up here on a hunch because I’ve been hearing the damn thing the last few nights. I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t know what it is, I just want to get the fuck out of here already. It’s been days or maybe even a week. Please call someone. This stuff it wrapped the house in, it’s fucked everything up… all the power’s out in here.”

“I’ve got some grass shears in my truck, I can cut you out and we’ll get out of here, okay?” I was struggling to breathe. This poor girl had been through so much and all the while I’d been sitting out on my damn deck listening in.

“Please, just get me out of here, please. I’m so fucking scared,” the girl blurted out.

“Alright, I’m gonna get you out! Don’t you worry. I’ll be right back, okay?”

I wobbled to my truck and sifted through all my useless junk until I finally felt the handle of my rusty grass shears. I pulled them out and rushed back to the wall of webbing.

“I’m back! Where’s a good place to cut? I can hardly see through this stuff,” I asked urgently.

I waited some time and then heard a thumping sound a few feet to my right.

“This is a door right here,” she said as she continued to bang on the door that was invisible to me.

I took a long look at the web as I aimed my shears. Every strand was like a thick rope wider than my arm. Cutting this would be no easy task. I opened up the shears and struggled as they bit down on the sticky rope. I grunted and strained, undoubtedly injuring myself. Finally, I cut through one single strand. 

Upon the severing, I heard a long and deep rumble reverberate around the house and through the forest until it faded into the sound I was more familiar with after listening so closely the last three nights. The long plucking rumble. I had a feeling this webbing might’ve extended into the nest of the unknown thing, but I hoped it was the supposed nest it fled from the night prior and not its new home.

I looked down at my shears and they were an unusable mess of sticky web-like tar. I couldn’t even open them back up. They were so fused together by this absurdly strong substance. I panicked at the realization that I alone could not cut through this web and I’d have to go get help. I wanted to vomit just at the thought of having to tell this poor girl that information.

“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry–but I’m not gonna be able to cut through all this on my own. It’s just too thick,” I said helplessly. I began to see water in my eyes.

“What? No, please don’t leave me here! Do you have anything else you can use? Or a phone–do you have a phone on you?”

I began to pat my pockets with unnecessary force as if that would materialize the phone I left back at home. I know it’s probably ridiculous, maybe irresponsible sounding to younger people, but I never developed the habit of bringing it everywhere I go. For once, I wish I possessed that habit.

“I… no… I don’t have it on me. But I can go make the call and be back up here in no time, how’s that sound?”

“Fuck! Fine. I’m sorry, thank you. I just really want to get out of here. Please hurry,” she said with desperation.

“I’ll be right back, okay? You’re gonna be okay,” I shouted as I moved as fast as I could to my truck.

Stupid damn idiot.

I don’t want to write it, but I have no excuse. I’m the lucky one.

I got in my truck and started peeling out. As soon as I got some good speed, I heard the “little thunderous taps” except they were not at all little this time. With great volume and moving incredibly fast, I saw the massive thing running towards the house in my rear view mirror. I slammed on the brakes and looked out my window. Within seconds, it went from the woods to the exact location I had cut the single strand of web moments before. 

Something deep within me awoke, something that must be in all of us that lays dormant. I felt the primal fear of my ancient ancestors run through my veins like an administered drug as I watched this leviathan demolish its own web in seconds only to then move onto the house. It was not impressed by manmade structures. With a few stabs of its sickeningly long legs, it breached my neighbors house. Smashing into the lodge over and over until finally, the thing had enough room to cram its body inside to feast on that poor girl I had just promised would be set free.

I heard her screams. They were the worst thing I’ve ever heard. The screams of someone being chewed by something that we usually stomp on. It shattered me. The arachnid did not make any guttural noises one might expect from something so monstrously huge. It operated in silence. The only sounds it emitted were consequences of its immense size.

I could only bear so much torment before I sped off down the hill. Somehow, it didn’t follow me. It must’ve been satiated enough, or maybe it was looking forward to a future hunt. I don’t care to understand its logic.

This thing is nightmarish. I’ll try to describe what I saw. I understand how silly all of this may sound, but I don’t care. Believe me or don’t.

When it ran to the house, I first saw its extremely long and comparatively skinny front legs in my rear view. Then came the face. I had a side profile view so not the greatest but I made out two large fangs protruding from a hideous head. The fangs were like two swords. I saw that they had some dexterity to them, the fangs could move individually–maybe they were moving with excitement. The remainder of the legs were chunkier and more muscled. There was maybe some hair on them, but it was so disproportionate to normal sized animals that it was hard to tell if it was hair or some other terrible thing. The front two legs that were skinnier seemed to be incredibly sharp and fast. Those legs cut up the web and stabbed through the house. I’m guessing those are the limbs responsible for the hole-punched deer I saw. The body was ugly and beaten up, but in parts it was black and shiny like a widow spider. The overall size is probably not something I could faithfully judge, but it looked to be nearly half the size of my neighbors house which stood three stories and well over 3,000 square feet.

The beast altogether looked primordial, like it had been asleep for millions of years or more. I’m nothing but an old tired man, but that’s the only thing that would make sense to me. What I’ve been describing might fit the description of a spider, and it’s definitely something in that vein, but I believe it’s much older than the spiders we know. It’s something old, and where I live is one of the oldest pieces of land in the world. A land that predates trees. Maybe this ancient land harbored this arachnid until it finally woke up or hatched–I’ll never know. All I know is it’s here now and it’s violent. History must’ve kept this place a secret for much of time, and somewhere along the way we forgot what was here. Past civilizations would’ve seen this thing and declared it the devil. Maybe it is the devil, and all the religious texts changed his image to something more familiar, more comfortable. I don’t know.

What I know as I write this is that I’m all alone. That poor girl was the last one out here alongside me. I now know the second I cut that strand, that girl was dead no matter what. No matter who cut that first strand of web, she’d be dead. But I was the one who did it, and so I blame myself for it. Maybe if I called some brighter minds to come help, they would’ve instead cut a hole in the relatively untouched roof or found some other way, but they probably would’ve done the same thing I did. Who the hell would expect a giant spider to come from the woods? I just wanted to help.

I’m sitting in my den writing this. It’s getting quite late. I don’t know what else to do. I’d ask for more advice, but I’ve lost a lot of my willpower after the whole deal earlier today. I don’t know how to fight this thing. I don’t know how to call for help, I’m not about to bring this demon more food.

I don’t even know how to get in my truck and drive away, because I can see eight eyes shining through the forest like headlights–looking right at my house this very moment.

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

Part One

Hello, Reddit. I know what you’re thinking, and no this is not a joke, this is real. I am a sheriff’s deputy in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, and I found a unicorn.

Yes. A unicorn. I’m not crazy. I found a FUCKING unicorn. And they’re not like in the fairytales…

Let’s start from the beginning. It was really late at night, and I was about to get off my shift, when a call came into the sheriff station. A woman was found stabbed in the forest near the local highway.

Me and two other deputies responded, meeting state troopers and paramedics on scene. The caller said the woman was killed by some sort of animal, so we brushed it off as a bad case of luck.

The following evening, a similar call came in, a man was found dead on a dirt road in the forest. We assumed he was also killed by an animal, maybe even the same one that killed the lady. We reached out to the conservation department, and they said they’d look into it, but never did.

On the third night, when another person was found dead, we decided to go search for this animal with members of the conservation department. I know it sounds strange, but there haven’t been animal attacks like this since the 70s, so we thought we should take care of it swiftly.

We searched the forest high and low, but we never found the animal. By two in the morning we called off the search. On the way back to the car though, I found a sparkling substance on the ground, like weird sparkly blood.

A week passed, and no new murders occurred, until one morning, a little girl was found dead in the middle of her street, in the center of town. Her sister claims she was attacked by a unicorn while they were playing. I blew it off, but I would be proved wrong when I get a distress call on the radio. An officer was attacked by the animal.

Me and other officers raced into the woods where the officer was attacked, and we saw him lying next to sparkly bloody letters that spelled out, Leave Me Alone.

After that, we locked down the woods and set up a patrol around the area. We searched every cave, every borough, every inch of those woods and never found anything.

Then, when I was alone, I saw it. A Unicorn. It looked so beautiful and yet so horrifying in that moment. I drew my handgun and shot at it, but the bullets caused it no pain, despite causing it to bleed sparkly blood.

I dove behind a rock as the unicorn failed to stab its horn through my chest. It kept chasing me as I sprawled through the brush.

I eventually found myself at a conservation building where two rangers were on duty. I told them I was being chased, but they didn’t believe me until one was ambushed and impaled on the unicorn’s spike. The second ranger tried to flee, but was trampled by the magnificent beast.

I stood there in shock, unsure what to do. The Unicorn looked and me and snarled before galloping off back into the woods.

It’s been several days and no more murders have occurred. No one believed that they were committed by a god damn unicorn. I write this in hopes that someone has any information and knows to stay away from the Cedar Grove Reserve.

Note: I typed this on my phone so sorry for errors :)

"Remove your skin, remove your sin, remove the life you sold to them."

I found that lyrical little ditty scrawled inside a dusty old tome hidden in a secret passageway in my Father's basement. Reading those words confirmed all my suspicions. The man who raised me was a black magician, and he'd fucked around and let something unspeakable loose upon the narrow little streets of our suburban community.

Let me back up a second here.

You may or may not remember reading about Pastor Noah Winters. Three years ago on Christmas, Winters fell through the floorboards of his pulpit while delivering his annual Yuletide soliloquy for the congregation at St. Mary's. Built sometime in the twenties, St. Mary's had seen better days, and the Pastor's penchant for pacing while he preached had worn the floor to little more than a hard film that, on this particular day, finally gave out.

Hidden below was what the media dubbed a "Satan Dungeon." That's right - living, breathing proof of a Satanic Cult that had operated right here in suburban America., sometime in the mid-to-late seventies. The modern world had all dismissed the 80s and its "Satanic Panic" long ago, but maybe there was some fire that came with that smoke, at least here in Woodland's Hills.

Think about it. I mean, a popular Lutheran church attended by hundreds of people a week had a Satanic Altar underneath it. What's more, there were some pretty racey accouterments found down there, too. Not the least of these was what turned out to be the oldest Grimoire known to man. Pastor Winters suffered a broken leg, the synod (kind of the archdiocese for Lutherans) approved an 'emergency renovation' of the church, and the book - rumored to be bound in human flesh - went up for auction at the Sotheby's where my Father worked. 

Understand, Dad is an ex-hippie. My sister Sami and I knew all about his 'acid days.' Still, based on stuff I overheard as a kid, I definitely harbored the suspicion he'd spent some time running in pretty dark circles in the 70s. He'd lived on the West Coast for most of his early life, then relocated to the Midwest in his late twenties. From what I gathered, he and some buddies fled Nor Cal pretty quickly after getting into trouble messing around in some kind of Cult.

Yeah, my family's pretty fucked up, right?

Anyway, I remember a neighbor telling him the gossip about St. Mary's and the book. I remember it because there was something in his eyes. Something I'd never seen before.

The sale took place in October of last year. A month later, Dad lost his job when the auction winner had his purchase appraised and found the genuine article excavated from the cave beneath St. Mary's had been replaced with a crafty facsimile.

I knew right away who had that book.

By this time, I was in college, usually home one or two weekends a month. My sister was a senior in high school, super smart, and poised to study in the UK after graduation. When I returned for Christmas break, we headed out to a friend's house for drinks. She told me how, about a week before my arrival, she started seeing a lot of greasy-looking dudes around the house, all of whom Dad introduced as 'old friends.' Our Mom had been out of the picture for years, and Sami often came home and found all these cars in the driveway but no one inside. She was an A student and - apart from the occasional margarita - not a troublemaker at all. Me, though? I knew every hiding place in the house from back when I used to sell drugs to friends, so I knew exactly where all those people parking in our driveway were going.

See, there's an old laundry room in the basement. We hadn't used it in years after Dad put a brand new Washer/Dryer in the mudroom around my sixth birthday. Part of that room's back wall opened into a small closet, barely more than a nook with a couple of shelves. You know, a place for your detergent, dryer sheets and whatnot. As a teenager looking for a place to hide shit, I'd learned the wall of that closet swung inward. Behind it? Stairs leading down.

Yeah, it sounds mad, right? Totally true, though.

You go down the stairs, and there's this, like, tunnel. It leads East to the edge of our property, dead ends in a stone doorway that, while I could never get open, a friend and I figured out must open into this big hill in the field behind our neighborhood. The field beyond which stands… you guessed it: St. Mary's.

So what do we have so far? A weird snippet of gothy poetry; evidence of a local Satanic cult, and a book of spells stolen by my Father and his occultist friends. Christmas rolled around, and the weirdest thing happened. Mom came home. Yeah, it was like… surreal. She literally drove up, parked in her old spot and opened the front door with keys she hadn't used in nearly ten years. Sami and I were stunned. I mean, what do you say to the woman who walked out on you? We hadn't heard a peep since she'd left, and then there she was, sitting at the kitchen table with a can of beer and a perpetually burning Pall Mall. 

It was a lot, and Sami had a meltdown. I followed her to her boyfriend Cole's house to make sure she was okay (she wasn't), and then I went back, thinking I'd have it out with Mom. Only when I got back, there was no sign of her or Dad. Her half-drunk Molson sat on the table, and the butt from her cigarette lay smoldering in the shapeless ceramic ashtray Sami had made her for Christmas in first grade. Dad never had the heart to throw the thing away (like all Mom's other shit). 

She was still here, and so was Dad.

I took the stairs into the basement as quietly as I could. The old tube tv against the far wall was filled with analog snow, and I could hear Black Sabbath's "The Warning" playing somewhere far off. I rounded the only corner and saw the laundry room door open a crack, neon blue light spilling out onto the chipped tile floor. I opened the door and saw the hidden passage in the wall yawned wide. The music grew louder - I could hear Tony Iommi's phrasing on the final passage of the song; my brain latched onto it, the only familiar thing in an altogether alien evening. I crossed the threshold into the tunnel, where thick particles from the past floated in the neon darkness. I inched across the world beneath our backyard until I came to that door I couldn't open as a kid. 

It was open.

I knew the moment I crossed the threshold that I was in the "Satan Altar" below the church. This meant that A) the synod's renovation hadn't touched this underground chamber below St. Mary's, and B) my parents had to have been involved in making or at least using the original altar, which stood before me like the horn of a giant goat. No sign of my parents or anyone else, but ten feet in front of me, the Grimoire lay open on the altar, the crawling blue neon light beaming up from its open pages, coating the walls and ceiling. Across the room, draped atop a pile of jagged two-by-fours and shattered stone, I found what looked like skin shed by a couple of giant snakes.

One of them had a mustache.

Mom and Dad were back together and whatever they'd started back before we were born seemed to be in motion again.

[Part 13]

By the time we reached the yawning maw of the southern gate, the fighting had moved further north, the checkpoint manned by men with green uniforms, not gray. What remained of the steel gates were twisted shreds of fire-blackened scrap, the concrete archway pulverized, with one of the two guard towers on either side of the entrance crumpled to rubble. Our men waved as we passed, and for the first time in my life, I drove into Black Oak on my own free will.

Buildings were still on fire throughout the southern district, and we had to slow to avoid obstacles in the road. Burning stacks of tires, wrecked ELSAR vehicles, destroyed civilian cars, all of it made the streets of Black Oak a maze. As we went, I found myself shocked to see more and more people emerge from the surrounding buildings, first a trickle, then a flood. Our fighters had passed through here not minutes ago, and yet as soon as the bullets stopped flying, it seemed people sprouted from everywhere like daisies. They lined the sidewalk in timid ranks, watching us pass with uncertain wonder on their thin faces. I could see the signs of starvation in all of them, even the fattest of the civilians much-deflated by modern standards, and the majority of the children were skin-and-bones. In that spirit, I noted the complete lack of animals, no dogs, cats, or even squirrels to be seen anywhere, no clusters of pigeons atop what houses remained. They’d eaten everything, anything they could get their hands on, and it hadn’t been enough. The way they stood off to the side, hesitant, with a subtle fear in their expressions like a dog that’s been kicked too many times to be friendly, made my chest tighten.

A young woman caught my eye on the edge of the street, her face sunken, wrapped in a ragged blue coat that didn’t look all that warm. She held a bundle of rags in her arms and rocked it gently as she eyed the defensive spikes on our trucks. With how hollowed out her face was, she almost looked to be in her forties, but something about the dull gray eyes when they met mine told me this girl couldn’t be much older than myself.

Imagine trying to raise your baby in a place like this.

“Stop for a sec.” I called to Charlie and grabbed my knapsack.

Rolling down my window, I swung the armored strips up on their hinged frame and held out an MRE to the girl. “Here.”

Her eyes went wide as saucers, and she snatched the ration from my hands with a breathless cry.

“Thank you.” She hugged it almost as close as she did her infant, tears streaming down her gaunt face, and the girl took off in a run down the street.

More people moved in, and the others in my platoon began to hand out what food we had with us, many of our ranks former Black Oak citizens themselves. Smiles flashed across the faces of the crowd, and like a switch had been flipped, the entire atmosphere changed.

An old man brought out a tattered American flag from his house, and proudly saluted us as we rolled by. Two women burst from a nearby boutique shop with an armload of faux plastic bouquets which they used to decorate our trucks, and they reached through our windows to hug us with sobs of joy. The crowd mobbed our convoy with jubilant cheers, boys and girls climbed onto the spikes like the rungs of a ladder to wave at their friends in the crowd, and more red, white, and blue flags popped up everywhere. There weren’t any cell phones left for anyone to use, but I saw a few cameras similar to my own come out of hiding so people could capture the moment. They hugged each other, danced and sang, the exuberant relief like static electricity in the air. For them, a long, bloody nightmare was finally over.

Not all stopped to celebrate, of course. While most smiled as we passed, a few looked on with confusion, frowns, or even weeping at the destruction of their neighborhoods. Only a handful dared to shout insults, and these were chased down by others in the crowd who beat them without mercy, in a violent display of the pent-up rage the citizens of this town felt. A crew of civilian men got to work and started a bucket line to dump water from a working hydrant on some of the burning houses, while others cleared rubble away from a collapsed apartment building by hand. Many families seemed to take the open gates as their chance to escape, and a long line of refugees developed within fifteen minutes of our arrival, carrying what little they had on carts, wheelbarrows, childrens’ wagons, and bicycles. They streamed out the southern gate past our flabbergasted checkpoint guards, and into the exterior neighborhoods in droves, willing to brave the terrible unknown of the countryside rather than starve within the ‘safety’ of Black Oak.

“This is crazy.” I muttered under my breath, somewhat frustrated at myself for handing out the first ration that had started this mess.

Tap, tap, tap.

I looked up to see a younger boy, about eleven years old in appearance, with a pitted shotgun slung over his shoulder that was nearly as long as he was tall.

He saluted and pointed back to the captured enemy Humvees at the rear of our little convoy. “Josh told me to tell you he knows a way around these people. Take the next right, and then left at the old building with the bakery sign. That’s a back street the Organs never used because they were afraid we would ambush them.”

Doing as he instructed, we wove through a tangle of narrow alleyways, rolled over a few heaps of garbage, and finally came out the other side on a clear street. The drive deeper into town went quicker thanks to our guides, and soon I saw a green and white coalition flag flying over a squat, rectangular brick building.

The elementary school had taken quite a beating, the brickwork marred by bullets, the roof partially caved in at a few places, but the resistance had set up a primitive aid station of their own by the time I strode through the doors. A line of both armored trucks and a section of our ASV’s were outside, so I followed the scurrying medics until I came to the double doors of an old gymnasium.

Makeshift beds, cots, and simple blankets spread on the floor were lined against both walls, packed full of wounded. Some were ours, others resistance fighters, but many seemed to be non-combatant locals who’d been caught in the crossfire. There weren’t any captured ELSAR troops, and judging by the few resistance guards that lounged by the door, I didn’t figure any of their wounded got that far. The air stank of coppery blood, cries of pain echoed from every corner, and the floor glistened with crimson stains. Kerosene lamps and candles lit up the dark interior, the power long gone, and dust filtered down from the ceiling with every nearby shell impact. It stank of bleach, vomit, and unwashed bodies, a combination that made my skin crawl.

Imagine the infections that are going to come out of all this.

Ethan and some of his workers were already there, helping to shore up the building’s defenses with sandbags, bits of rubble, and barbed wire. Even though the perimeter wall would keep most of the mutants at bay, we were now in a big cement arena where ELSAR troops could sneak right up to our window at night. Judging by the nature of the ruins I’d seen coming in, fighting was already becoming a house-to-house affair, and every strong point would have to be hardened as if it were outside the wall itself.

Next to Ethan, a girl with chestnut colored hair looked up to see me and waved. “Hey, Sean’s in the back with a few others. He was getting ready to call you, but the radios are starting to act up. They’re in room 111.”

I hadn’t interacted with Kendra Smith very much, as she spent most of her time with the supply crews. Like so many couples within our little coalition, she and Ethan worked together, pitched a tent together, and were in the same mobile unit for the offensive. Of course, not every couple was so lucky; Chris and I were prime examples of those who fought in different units and spent more time apart than together. Still, I waved back, and with Lucille at my heels, trudged through the gymnasium to the opposite end, where another set of double doors led us into a long hallway lined with classrooms.

“There’s so many.”

Looking back over my shoulder, I noticed Lucille’s crestfallen face as we passed the lines of wounded to go into the hall. It hit me that she knew many of them, that this was her home, her neighborhood, her friends. It wasn’t the same for me; Louisville wasn’t under attack, there weren’t bombs falling on my suburban doorstep. My old home was as distant to me as Mars, but for Lucille, she had to watch everything she loved be ripped apart before her eyes.

“The sooner we end this war, the safer everyone will be.” I gave her shoulder a squeeze and gestured for her to follow me on down the hall. “That’s why we’re here. Every block we take, saves lives.”

“I guess so.” Lucille frowned in thought, but nodded, her pace increasing to stay consistent with mine. “Here, it’s this way. Room 111 is the old science lab, where Mrs. Frenburg used to teach. She kicked me out of class for being late once. Wonder where she is now.”

Making our way down the debris-strewn hall, we found the old science room a tangle of resistance and coalition runners, each scrambling back and forth to get messages out to various units. Sean stood in the back of the room, going over a map sketched onto a white dry erase board, and by his side was a slender figure with long red hair, a new M4 rifle over one shoulder.

Lucille darted from my side in an instant, and sprinted across the room, almost knocking over a few of the runners in the process. “Andrea!”

She turned, and Andrea’s face lit up with joy as she swept her little sister up into a fierce embrace. I caught crystalline rivers flowing from their eyes, quiet sobs racking the shoulders of both girls, and I swallowed hard against my own tide of emotion. For all her stubbornness, her relative naiveté, and occasional teenage angst, Lucille loved her sister, and no one deserved this reunion more. She’d been looking forward to this for a long time, and I was simply relieved it hadn’t ended in a casket.

Most won’t even get that.

Wiping at her face, Andrea held her younger sister at arm’s length and looked her over, laughter interlaced with residual sniffles. “Look at you, all dressed up, with a helmet and everything. Told you the countryside would be nice. Have you been eating enough?”

“Yeah, I’m eating fine.” Lucille blushed at Andrea’s hovering, but nodded my way with pride, her eyes red and puffy despite attempts to appear unmoved. “I’m fighting, just like you. We’re going to push the Organs all the way out of the county.”

Our gazes met, and Andrea threw me a grateful nod that bordered on another breakdown. “It’s really good to see you.”

I smiled. “Likewise. Glad to see you’re still keeping the Organs on their toes. How’s everything at the Castle?”

A ripple of pain cut through her face, and Andrea looked down at her scuffed shoes for a moment. “ELSAR’s been hitting us hard for days. One of their bombs got lucky and collapsed a section of the tunnel. Lost a lot of good people . . . including Professor Carheim.”

My heart tumbled in my chest, and I had to look away as well. The resistance had converted an unfinished subway system into an underground haven for their movement, given the grandiose nicknamed ‘the Castle’. It was there I’d been smuggled off to after my liberation from ELSAR captivity, and it was there I’d met Professor Henry J. Carheim. He’d been a lecturer at Black Oak University, the local college before the Breach, and one of the few in academia who refused to bend the knee to the provisional government. Determined to preserve the last shreds of human culture from the incinerators of the Organs, Professor Carheim managed to steal many of the university library’s books and secreted them away in his own miniature institute built in the Castle. He was a striking man, razor sharp and insightful, with a certain philosophical whimsy to his words that I could have listened to for hours. In many ways, he reminded me of those wizards I always saw included within fantasy books, minus the stereotypical beard and cloak, and he had always been unfailingly patient with my numerous questions. I had never been to college, could never have afforded to pay back the government loans if I tried, but I always liked to think Professor Carheim would have been an incredible teacher to study under. Now he was gone, crushed under the weight of the machine he strove so hard to dismantle, and it produced a mournful ache within my soul I didn’t know to be possible.

Another part of the old world, gone forever.

“Maybe we can move them back above ground.” Shaking off the heavy sadness, I adjusted the straps of my knapsack as they dug into my shoulders. “The southern areas are under our control now, so we can start evacuating some of the people to that sector. If we can radio Chris, I’m sure he’d be all for it.”

“On that note, you’re just in time.” Sean beckoned to us from behind a nearby lab table, his rifle and radio close at hand. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you, but ELSAR must have some kind of jamming system active; our comms have been down since we entered the city. Everything has to be passed by hand now.”

He gestured to the white-board map, where little paper squares had been taped on to show where our forces were. “Dekker and the bulk of our fighters are pushing hard in the center, to try and get control of the courthouse, police department, and ELSAR HQ. There’s also the hospital facilities there, which would be helpful if captured intact. Most of the resistance is on the move in the eastern sector, clearing out the old suburbs and heading for the airfield in the north. We need to keep our momentum going here in the western districts and see if we can’t flank to the north to help Dekker in the center. Are your boys in good shape?”

Lungs tight with anxiety for what I knew was coming, I nodded. “We’re ready whenever you need us.”

“Good. There’s an enemy mortar team somewhere in this vicinity.” He pointed to a cluster of buildings on a paper street map on the table before him, and Sean glowered at it as if the map were the enemy itself. “Nasty bunch, really good at moving around, so we can’t pinpoint them. Every time we get close, they use suicide drones to force our ASV’s back, and then relocate. If you can flush them out, that’d make our advance northward a whole lot easier, not to mention make civilian evacuation to the southern districts safer.”

“Can do.” I drew my little notebook from the breast pocket of my uniform jacket and scribbled down as much as I could with my stubby pencil.

Sean set both hands on his war belt just above each hip. “We’re making far better progress than I expected. It seems we caught ELSAR on the back foot, maybe rotating men out or they deployed them elsewhere. There should be twice this number in Black Oak alone, but beggars can’t be choosers. If we take the town before they get back, we can seal the gates and force them to the border.”

“There’s an Organ training facility in the north.” Andrea pointed to a place in the northern districts, where large gray blocks denoted industrial parks and a green blot for a golf course. “They’ve got a prison camp there as well, for all the people who didn’t submit to the regime when it first came to town. If we could capture it before they move the prisoners, we could easily double our number of fighters. You’ve got lots of ammo; we’ve got lots of captured ELSAR weapons. With those prisoners on our side, we could have a standing army of 2,000 men.”

2,000. That’s a lot of mouths to feed. How are we going to get through the winter with so many people depending on us?

Keeping my uncomfortable thoughts to myself, I continued to draw a small map within my notebook, just to be sure I had all the information I needed. With the radios down, I couldn’t afford to leave any information uncopied, since I might not have the chance to ask a second time.

Sean rubbed his chin and glanced at me. “I’ll send you with a crew of armed Workers as well as some Ark River fighters to find and destroy that mortar team. If you can, push on and try to flank the center to get to the prison camp. We could use the extra muscle, even if half of them might not be in fighting condition.”

“Will do, sir.” With my hand aching from writing so much so fast, I snapped a quick salute and turned to go.

Lucille plodded along beside me, and I paused by the door to Room 111 to gesture back toward her sister. “You can stay, you know. I’m sure Andrea could use your help. You don’t have to come with me.”

She looked back for a moment, longing in her oak-brown irises, but shook her head. “It’s like you said. We have to finish this. I’ll come back later.”

A small flicker of pride crossed my face in the form of a smile. She might not have been my sister, but as my aide-de-camp, Lucille Campbell had the makings of a good soldier. Perhaps if she survived this war, I could recommend her for a ranger position. I would teach her like Jamie taught me, and with any luck, Lucille could lead a platoon of her own someday. The thought gave me back some of the warmth stolen by our bleak surroundings, and I relished it for as long as I could.

First, we have to win the war.

Together, we walked out of that room and back toward the rumbling trucks of our convoy, as the distant thunder of artillery echoed in the sky like the drumbeats of ancient giants. Overhead, shells whistled like freight trains, both the enemy’s coming in, and ours going out. Machine gun fire rattled on in the background, and from the gymnasium the cries of the wounded mixed with the calls of the medics into a blend of human suffering. Still, in all this, a new determination seized me, burned like a fire inside my heart, and gave a spring to my step. We had come this far, freedom was within our reach, and Koranti seemed to be on the brink of collapse.

With each step forward, I vowed that I would do everything within my power to shove him over the edge of defeat, even if I had to do it with my bare hands.

[1] – [2] – [3] - [4] - [5] - [6] - [7] - [8] - [9] - [10] - [11] - [12] - [13]

As the end of November loomed, Nick and I were trying to figure out where to go next. Allie and her kind had turned to something we could barely comprehend. It was hard to wrap our heads around, but we’d agreed – we would deal with this one last thing, and then we were heading to Dallas.

Nick had this idea to trace her steps. Allie was a predator – more creature than person. She’d hunted something down and feasted on them. As Nick so eloquently put it;

“There’s gotta be a bunch of bones laying around.”

Not in a physical sense, but a metaphorical one. Meaning there had to be traces. While we’d chased after her, she’d been busy hunting prey and feasting on them. And at some point, something clicked – turning her into whatever she’d become. A strange sort of quasi-human, unraveling at the seams. You could tell just by her face.

It wasn’t all that hard to get a few crumbs to follow. Charlie on dispatch told us there’d been reports of highway assaults, and there were a few more missing people being reported than usual. That had to mean something.

Sifting through a handful of cases, one stood out. It was an older one, but it caught my attention.

There was a case talking about an obsessive woman named ‘Marielle’ who’d been missing for a long time. Apparently, there’d recently been a ping on that case; someone had recognized her at a supermarket down in Mankato. I’d felt the pull of Allie a couple of times, going south. This Marielle had a couple of strange mentions in her file. For example, how she was obsessed with a particular phrase, and a word – ‘Blameless’.

While it was impossible to confirm, my working theory was that Allie had gotten to her and consumed her. This somehow created an amalgamation of the two, perhaps giving Allie the clarity of mind she needed to overcome her feral state. It would explain a couple of things.

Then there was that book. The Diary of Emmett Rask. That seemed important.

For all I could find about this, nothing was substantial. Rask was prolific, but strange. He wrote poems, children’s books, a couple of short stories; but his diary? That was, seemingly, an urban legend. The working theory was that Rask and his identity theory touched on the idea that you can ascribe a person’s essence into words that, when read, could be translated and transcribed onto the very being of another.

Perhaps somewhere in that picture of his life, there was a vast bank of knowledge about worlds that never were, or places that couldn’t be. Maybe he knew more than he lead on. There was no way to tell, but that would explain why Allie got hold of it. But that was another bone buried somewhere. If she had it, that meant someone else didn’t have it.

If Allie could wrest something like that away from someone, she’d have made a powerful enemy. Maybe an enemy powerful enough for us to make use of them.

That could work.

We didn’t know a lot of people who might have any kind of insight into this type of thing, but there was always Evan. Problem was, Evan hadn’t been around for some time, and he was a pain in the ass to track down. He always seemed to appear when he had to, somehow. But you can’t just wish upon a star and hope for the best.

Nick and I took a drive out to Evan’s place in early December. The place looked abandoned, but what else could we do? There was no car there, no obvious signs of movement. Nick was enjoying a gas station hot dog as I stood outside the house, calling out at the top of my lungs. Returning to the car, I leaned against the hood with a shrug.

“Got any other ideas?” Nick asked.

“We gotta make more noise,” I said. “I don’t know how good his hearing is.”

“Who says he has hearing?” Nick scoffed. “Maybe it’s like a thousand little tongues vibrating on the back of his neck or something.”

“I’m gonna ignore that.”

Nick shrugged and picked up his hunting rifle, firing a shot into the air. It rung out across the forest, scaring off a flock of birds.

“That oughta get his attention.”

As predicted, it didn’t take that long for Evan to show up. Not from the house though. There was just a sudden shade looming over us, then he was standing behind our car. Good thing he wasn’t there to rip our throats out, or he’d have a field day. It was easy to forget how unpredictable a creature like Evan can be.

The large figure was still covered in his makeshift poncho-pile of blankets and debris, reminding me of a trash island. He said nothing as we turned to him.

“We got a problem,” I said. “And we need your help.”

He tilted his head to show that he was listening.

Nick and I took turns explaining the situation with Allie. Her efforts to break something fundamental, and her acquiring of this unusual diary. I tried to explain how bad it was about to get.

“This could hurt a lot of people,” I said. “Maybe all of us.”

“…yes,” Evan agreed.

“Maybe you could help us then,” I said. “Take her down.”

He shook his head.

“…no,” he said. “…I got a friend in need.”

“And that’s so important that you’re ready to risk all of this?” Nick chimed in. “Knowing how bad it can get?”

Evan nodded. Apparently, something was just more important to him.

We didn’t leave empty handed though. Evan had an idea of who might’ve had a copy of the diary of Emmett Rask, but he wasn’t sure about sharing that information. He was afraid we might do something “rash and unpredictable” if not properly supervised. While I couldn’t guarantee anything, I promised we’d do our best to keep it civilized.

And with that, he handed us a business card. A simple plain black laminated card with white text on it. ‘Gepetto’. Just to show that it was from him, he drew a symbol on the back with a silvery marker pen.

And with that, we had a new target.

‘Gepetto’ was an entrance code to an underground club up in Minneapolis. According to Evan, the owner had an unusual contact that, in turn, owned a copy of the book. It was all a bit wishy-washy, but at least we had an address. It was a lead, if anything.

The following weekend, Nick and I drove up there. We discussed “clubwear” all the way there, and how neither of us had just kicked back for the past year. Then again, we weren’t really club people. Not that we were too old – you just get a feel for these things over the years. Especially as a cop.

By Saturday evening, Nick and I were standing outside a club called ‘Puppets’. It was on a busy off-street with a crowd that was either too drunk to keep going, or too sober to think a place like that was a good idea; meaning the only people inside were regulars and misguided tourists.

Add to that, the place was a creepshow. They had these weird white plastic dolls in one of the windows. Nick leaned over to whisper as he saw them.

“I’m not sure why,” he said. “But I hate those things.”

Showing the black card to the bouncer, we were ushered inside.

“Don’t we need a stamp or something?” Nick asked.

“Inside,” the bouncer huffed.

Stepping inside, my jaw dropped.

Close to 50 people, all dancing to this intense rave music – all wearing white masks.

We’d seen those masks before. I’d seen them too close for comfort. There was no way in hell I was wearing one.

An attendant approached us, and I just waved the ‘Gepetto’ card at her, declining the mask. Nick did the same, but let me carry the conversation. She took a long look at the card and the symbol Evan had drawn. She looked up at us; her eyes darting back and forth.

“The boss?” she said. “You lookin’ for the boss?”

“An acquaintance of his,” I said. “Someone, uh… a bit odd. Has a collection.”

“You gotta be more specific, doll.”

I thought back on that time when I’d been forced to wear one of those masks. It’d been at the start of my time in Tomskog. There’d been masks everywhere. There was one guy in particular that stood out in my mind. I could barely remember him, but there were details fluttering in the back of my mind.

“I think he’s got a gray hoodie,” I said. “Expressive mask. Thick hair.”

“Oh, mister Handsome? You here to see him?”

Nick and I looked at one another. I shrugged at her.

“I suppose we are.”

We were guided past the dance floor and into the kitchen. The attendant kept talking to us over her shoulder.

“Any friend of mister Handsome is a friend of ours,” she continued. “He’s done so much for the society, you know?”

“And what society is that?” Nick asked.

“Oh, you tease,” the attendant smile. “Break a neck, then come ask me that again.”

“Isn’t it break a leg?” I asked.

“That works too, sometimes.”

We were led down a spiraling staircase, and into the underground maintenance area. There were corridors marked with letters ranging from A to H. By the ‘G’, someone had added ‘epetto’ with a white marker. The attendant pointed us down the hall.

“You go on ahead, I’ll wait upstairs.”

We approached the door at the end of the hall, looking up at a single red light. I knocked on the door while Nick took a step back to keep watch. Old habits die hard; officers work in pairs to watch each other’s backs.

Something thumped against the door. It was hard to tell with the bass humming through the floor. I decided to enter.

There was an empty takeout box on the floor, apparently thrown at us. The room was fairly small and covered in a red light. It reminded me of a darkroom. In the middle of it sat a person in a gray hoodie with a white mask; just like the people upstairs. I’d seen it before. As he turned to us, I was reminded; that wasn’t a mask. He just had a strange and twisted face in porcelain white. It moved as his mood shifted.

He reached out his arm; but it didn’t stop. It went about a foot longer than it should, past me and Nick, closing the door behind us. He got up from his chair, and somehow grew taller. It’s as if the shape of his body could adjust and differ depending on what he wanted to do. It was eerie to see, and given our previous interaction, I wasn’t sure we hadn’t been led into a trap.

There was a long pause as we watched one another. Nick had his hand inside his jacket, where I knew he had a hidden handgun.

The walls were covered in tools, materials, and electronics. One corner was full of boxes, stacked to the ceiling. A couple of masks hung from strings tied around pipes lining the edge of the room. They slowly rotated, pushed by invisible winds; like a silent, restless crowd. I put on my cop persona and straightened my back.

“Good evening,” I said. “Did you recently lose a copy of a book named diary of Emmett Rask?”

His neck grew about the length of an arm as he pulled back from us, bobbing back and forth like an owl trying to focus on its prey. He nodded twice in rapid succession.

“We’re tracking down the thief and dealing with her,” I said. “But we could use some help. I’m not sure if you’re the right person to help us.”

There was a long ‘hmm’ sound coming from him. Nick looked at me, as if trying to tell me to keep going.

“We’re having trouble finding her,” I said. “We sort of… lost that tool. We also don’t know how to deal with her. She’s dangerous.”

The strange man nodded, still ‘hmm’-ing. He walked over to the masks hanging from the pipes and plucked one from a string like a ripe fruit. Sitting back down, I saw the lower end of his jaw unhinge and loosen with a snap, as a long blue tongue extended from his face. Using it like a paint brush, he started making changes to the mask. Pushing up a cheekbone. Adjusting the corner of a lip. A touch of blue, a touch of red. Massaging the mask with his hands, he shaped it like clay.

It was made darker. Longer. There was a tint of blue running from the eyes, like someone crying; yet the expression was neutral. Finally, he pushed his thumbs in at the top, making two protruding nubs – like budding horns.

He turned to Nick, holding it out like a gift. He had this eerie smile on his face, nodding enthusiastically. He didn’t say a thing. He just huffed, as if trying to laugh. Nick took it, giving it a closer look.

Before I got a chance to say or do anything, the mask maker grabbed my hands. Nick stepped to the side, drawing his pistol. These two long hands, with fingers that wouldn’t stop moving or changing size, grasped all the way to my wrists. It wasn’t forceful, but unpleasant. It didn’t even look at Nick, instead focusing every heartbeat of attention on me. I felt like was being stared at by the sun; it was overwhelming.

He put something in my hand, and moved my fingers. It just took a couple of seconds. Then he stepped back, allowing me to see what he’d done. He’d placed a card in my hand, and had my hand write ‘I.O.U’. Then he held out his hand, as if asking me to give it back to him. I just stood there for a moment before it clicked.

“You’re saying I owe you,” I said. “That’s what… what you’re trying to say.”

He nodded. I handed the paper back to him.

“Fair,” I nodded. “As long as this helps.”

We left that place without turning our backs to him. He went right back to working on another mask. The moment the door closed, I could hear whistling. Nick put his gun down, panting heavily.

“I was this close,” he whispered. “This fucking close.”

“You think that’ll help?” I asked, nodding at the mask he’d been given. “For anything but next Halloween, I mean.”

“Nah,” he shrugged. “I’m going as Charlie Brown.”

“Nick, I’m serious.”

“Look, these freaks got their screws so loose we don’t even know what toolbox they’re in anymore. But we keep coming back to ‘em, and that’s gotta count for something.”

I looked down at the mask. A simple neutral face in a coal black, with blue tears streaming down. It was uncanny. So realistic I thought it’d blink at me.

“Sure,” I agreed with a sigh. “It counts for something.”

I drove back while Nick fiddled with the mask. He looked it over, treating it a bit like a magic mirror. The rhythmic flow of the streetlights gleamed off the mask again and again, reflecting what little light it could in the strange, molded plastic.

“Should I put it on?” he asked.

“Are we supposed to?” I asked back.

“What else are we gonna do?” he scoffed. “It’s a mask.”

“Maybe I’m supposed to do it,” I said.

“But he gave it to me, right?” he sighed. “I’m going for it.”

I didn’t have time to protest. He put it on, adjusting a strap on the back of his head. It fit him perfectly. Nick leaned back in his seat.

“It doesn’t feel like anything,” he said. “It’s just a mask.”

“Try saying something, or thinking something,” I said.

“You don’t think I’m thinking something?”

“Generally no, Nick.”

He shook his head at me, then closed his eyes.

I glanced over at him a couple of times. He was making little movements with his head and fingers, like a dog having a quiet dream. It looked strange. Involuntary. Then for a second, he clutched his chest, inhaling forcefully.

I threw myself on the breaks to pull over and check on him, but Nick just waved me off. He pulled the mask away, shaking his head.

“No, no, no, I’m fine. I’m fine,” he insisted. “It’s fine. It was just… just a lot. At once.”

I didn’t care. I pulled over and put the car in park, looking at him.

“I thought about what we need,” he said. “And it showed me something.”

“What?”

“I think it’s a way to get to her,” he said. “And you’re not… I mean, this is weird.”

We made it all the way back to Nick’s. By the time we arrived, we were exhausted. I collapsed on his couch, wrapping myself in a blanket as his TV ran in the background. Nick slumped down next to me, still holding his mask. He looked weird without his pink sunglasses.

He told me about his experience with the mask. He said it felt like he’d been in a dark room, talking to a stranger on the other side of a wall. They’d told him about something he needed to find, and a cryptic message. That Allie wasn’t out to kill – she was waiting for an eye to blink. A blind spot in which to act.

“I don’t get that part,” he said. “What eye? What blink?”

“The Yearwalker,” I said. “Maybe this proverbial eye blinks the moment it grants a wish. Maybe that’s what she’s waiting for.”

“So… New Year’s Eve,” Nick said. “That’s our target? We banking on this?”

“I dunno, you’re the one making out with a scary charcoal oracle face.”

“I am, huh?”

He turned the mask over, holding it up to his face. He wanted to put it back on, but he didn’t. Instead he let out a long sigh, closing his eyes.

“I think you’re right,” he continued. “I dunno why, but I think you are.”

“I usually am,” I smiled. “Maybe that’s why.”

“Maybe.”

It was strange. No quips, no callbacks. That, more than the mask, concerned me.

For the next few days, we went on a wild goose chase. There were items we needed to get. Some of them were simple, like a large white sheet and a couple of metal rods. Others were a bit more difficult. We had to drive to a nearby town to get an old movie projector, for example. Then there was Digman’s ranch.

John Digman’s place had burned down, but we went there to poke through the ashes. It didn’t take long for Nick, adorned with the strange mask, to find what we were looking for. A green metal lockbox in the back of a collapsed building. Looking a bit closer, there was a time-worn plastic title glued to the side.

‘The End of Eternity’.

By that time, Christmas was just around the corner. Nick and I didn’t have a lot of time to think about it, but it was nice seeing the town do something so normal for once. All the shops had little sales, and there were decorations in every driveway. Lanterns, candles, and a couple menorahs adorning the windows. The occasional decorative blue sunflower – some with little Santa hats. All in all, Tomskog was still a town full of people – and people still loved Christmas.

Nick got me a laptop. He was tired of me using his computer, I suppose. Funny – that’s the laptop I’m writing on right now.

I got him a couple of round sunglasses – but black, not pink. They looked way cooler. I couldn’t tell if he liked them or not, but he wore them a lot on his own accord.

As the days grew closer to New Year’s Eve, Nick had it all set up in his house. A screen, the movie projector, and the strange film. I asked him to double-check the film roll, but he insisted that it was a bad idea. We were gonna play it on New Year’s, and never again. He treated that thing like it was something dangerous, and I wasn’t inclined to doubt him.

Then it was time.

As New Year’s approached, the town transformed again. Fireworks were going off at all hours of the day. People were out celebrating and singing in the middle of the day. But I was inside with Nick, clutching my hunting rifle. We were finding Allie and taking her out. And yet, I had doubts. As we sat on his couch, watching the empty projector screen, I asked him.

“You sure this is gonna work?”

“Yeah,” Nick said. “They said it would.”

“It’s really gonna be that easy? Stepping through, boom, done?”

“I think there’s more to it,” he said. “But we got this.”

“Mind if I take a peek?” I asked. “I wanna know what you know.”

Nick threw the mask at me with a shrug.

“It ain’t saying shit,” he explained. “It’s my mask, and it doesn’t wanna speak to anyone else.”

I tried it on, but nothing happened. He was right; the mask must’ve been bound to him the moment he put it on. It’d even started to look like him, a bit. The nose was different. The hairline too. I gave it back to him.

As the clock crept closer to midnight, I was freaking out. He switched up his clothes from a white sports t-shirt to a black shirt. He said it was camouflage, but I think he just wanted to look nice for New Year’s.

That final hour before the ring of the bell felt like an eternity. Nick insisted we wait. He would flip the projector on, and I was to follow him; without looking. That was important – not to look. Something about the film was too dangerous to see. According to Nick’s mask, the film was a sort of gateway to something horrifying; but if you didn’t look, you might be okay.

But that was the keyword here; might. There were no guarantees. Not anymore.

As we closed in on five minutes, Nick put away his mask and grabbed his rifle.

“Close your eyes,” he said.

I did. Then the film rolled to life, one click at a time. I could feel the heat of the projector. I could see the changing color through my closed eyelids. Something was showing, but I wasn’t supposed to look.

Nick took my hand. He was nervous. He took a few deep breaths.

“We good?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “We good.”

We stepped forward. For a moment, I thought we were walking straight into his living room wall, but after a couple of steps it seemed that the room had grown larger. Much larger. It didn’t stop.

“Just a little more,” Nick whispered. “Keep her in your mind.”

I imagined Allie the way I’d first seen her at the Hatchet compound. This woman was an educated genius – you didn’t get that kind of position at a place like Hatchet without being exceptional. That she’d ended up here was, at the end of the day, just a strange happenstance. A long, winding road of bad choices.

Maybe this was just another one of those choices.

Nick let go of my hand.

“You can look now.”

And I did.

There were no more fireworks. No celebrations. Just an alien sky, a ruined landscape, and a distant tree reaching for the moon. The ground was covered in this fine powdered blue and black ash. It had a similar color to Nick’s mask. I was glad he left it behind; that thing creeped me out.

“Hold up,” Nick said. “I gotta test something.”

He held up his rifle, firing a round into the air. Pushing the casing out, it turned to ash; same as the ground. Nick checked the chamber, showing me. The bullet was still there.

“The mask said that time works differently when the eye blinks,” he said.

“She’s vulnerable now, huh?”

“Something like that.”

We headed towards the tree. It felt like walking through the ruins of Tomskog. I could see the outline where certain buildings had stood, but it was hard to navigate. Was that the corner pub or the supermarket? Impossible to tell.

I found an old piece of sheet metal. It’d been pressed into a pattern, but it looked burned. It had a logo on the side; Hammerhead Pharmaceuticals. It even had the blue sunflower logo. I showed it to Nick.

“Not quite Hatchet,” he said. “But similar.”

“It’s weird, right?”

“Yeah, but what do you expect?”

Hammerhead. Similar, but not the same. Well, except for the logo.

Time really does move differently in the places beyond. In a second, you can be a mile away. In a minute, you’ve just moved a couple of feet. It’s a space bound by fragmented and infrequent rules; remnants of something that used to govern.

By the time we made it to the tree, I couldn’t tell if it’d been days, weeks, or seconds. The base of the tree was so massive that it stretched to the horizon and back either way we watched. It was impossibly large, like a vertical ocean. But it wasn’t the size of the thing that bothered me.

This wasn’t a tree. It was organic. Muscle, bone, and sinew. Some large, some small, some downright alien. Every rippling heartbeat moved like flash floods, straining under the flimsy shell. It was alive and well – a cancerous growth protruding from the ashen earth.

There was a large building up ahead. It looked like an old hospital, the edge of which had been swallowed by the ‘tree’. The full moon felt like a midnight sun, sending a warmth across my arms. Looking down, our shadows had grown longer. It looked like they were trying to pull us back; begging us not to go any further. The building loomed ahead, accentuated by blue sunflowers.

We stopped just before the main entrance, looking up at a sun-bleached sign. I saw the Hammerhead logo, but not much else. Nick checked his rifle again and nodded at me.

“This is it,” he said.

“How’d you know?”

“Trust me,” he said. “This is it.”

We made our way through the dark corridor. It’s surprising how dark it can get when all the electronics are gone. There were no windows, and only a vague reflection from the light outside. It was quiet. Peaceful, even. There was a swaying sound coming from outside, like shifting winds. It took me a while to realize it was the pulse of the tree; a force of nature, if anything.

I found a staircase, and we hurried upstairs. Rifles at the ready. My breath catching up to my throat. I had a bad feeling, and I didn’t know if it was coming from my worries, my body, or something in between. We weren’t supposed to be there, in so many ways. But this had to end.

We were going to Dallas.

By the time we got to the top, it was pitch black. I could feel a door handle. Nick was catching his breath too, so I just stopped for a second. I didn’t want to go out there. If anything, I felt like turning back and crashing on Nick’s couch. We could be in Dallas by morning. We didn’t have to risk it. My mouth blurted out the first thing it could think of.

“Did you really like the sunglasses?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he insisted. “It was never about the color, or the shape. It’s the intention, you know?”

“Intention?” I asked. “What intention?”

“You wanted me to look cool.”

I snorted. It was dumb, but cute. That sort of summed him up, in a way. He tapped the door to alert me. It was go-time.

We pushed, and the doors swung wide open.

It was an old helicopter pad; or what remained of it. The ‘H’ had been reduced to an ‘I’. I could see old emergency relief boxes stacked empty in the corner. Bullet holes lining the sides of the roof. Someone outside had been shooting up, and someone up here had been shooting down. There were empty bullet casings on the ground, sun-faded on one side.

There were tracks in the dust. Someone had been there recently. I looked up, seeing the towering mass ahead of us. She had to be here. Allie couldn’t get away again.

It didn’t take long to spot her.

She’d grown since last time I saw her. At least twice the size, with only remnants of her white robes clinging to her. She was barely holding a consistent shape – much like the tree itself. Instead of a changing face, her entire body was morphing in and out of whatever tool, pose, and movement she needed.

She was climbing the tree. Heading to the top, to reach for the moon with the rest of the world.

Instead of stretching out an arm, a cyst would burst to reveal a new arm, leaving the old arm to wither and die. A hooked hand would reach, pull her upward, and something else would take its place. A localized storm of flesh and mass, making its way upward like an infection reaching for a vein.

We’d been right on time. She’d only just started. Nick crouched down, steadied his rifle, and took the first shot. I followed his lead.

It was like popping balloons. Sudden little screams compounded into a mass of voices calling out in senseless hate. Nick kept firing. We got a couple of shots off, and he was right – time didn’t work as it should. The bullets never left our chambers, but they still hurt her.

I was on my 12^(th) shot when I hit her shoulder, sending her reeling to the ground. Allie crashed into the concrete, breaking apart and reforming with a painful moan.

“…not now!” she called out. “Not now!”

I glanced over at Nick, and he met my eyes. He was terrified. His lips trembled.

“Don’t stop,” he wheezed. “Not for anything.”

We didn’t move an inch closer. We kept our distance, and we fired over, and over, and over. She kept screaming. Screeching, like a wind in pain. A tortured choir.

“…how can you be this moronic?!” she cried. “Are you this… this hungry to die?!”

Nick shook his head and kept firing. I did too. An arm punctured. A jaw cracked. A shoulder blade splintered. We had to keep going. We had to.

She had trouble moving, instead trying to spasm her way across the roof. She was going for us, but she couldn’t. We were always ahead, running circles around her and never stopping the ceaseless bullet rain. Her blood sunk into the eroded cracks of the concrete, spilling across the roof in a crackling pattern.

She turned to me, her reformed eyes trying to roll back into their sockets. When she looked at me, something changed.

I saw me and Nick on top of a burning mountain, firing at a sizzling mass of lava. Stabbing her with spears as she rolled around in a lake. Sticking her with bayonets in a bombed-out apocalypse-scape. The fight wasn’t going to end here. It wasn’t ever going to end. She was immortal – unending. Inevitable.

I stopped firing. I looked into those eyes, and I saw that it would never end. We were begging her to make us Sisyphus – pushing the same bolder up the hill forever. She would not stop. She couldn’t. And she thought herself blameless in this.

Then I got slapped with cold metal right across the jaw.

Nick didn’t hold back. It hurt like hell.

“Don’t stop!”

“It’s pointless!” I yelled back. “Look! She just… she can’t stop!”

“So?!”

He turned back to her, firing another shot. Another. Another. A finger flying off the side of the roof. A scalp popping open like an inverted pocket. A hand hanging on by a thread. I felt this darkness sinking into my chest, begging me to just give up. But Nick’s voice was louder.

I saw it clearer and clearer. In another place, we were sailors chasing a whale. We were the Mayan twins, killing the bird demon. Herakles killing the Nemean Lion. Perseus killing Medusa. King George and the Dragon. Theseus and the Minotaur. Arjuna wielding the Rudra Astra, slaying countless unyielding demons.

In those places and times, we burned her with fire, acid, and toxin. We pierced her with spears, and swords, and axes, and knives. We used every conceivable weapon. Every tactic. Every clever trap and trick. But she just did not die; she always found her way back, and we would have to do it all again.

And yet there I was. I still pulled the trigger. An endless, pointless cycle of violence, desperation, and opposition. She would not die, and we would not let her live. Immovable objects and unstoppable forces. For every piece broken, another would take its place.

And then, Nick stopped firing.

I blinked.

Looking up, his rifle hung loose at his side. He was smiling like an idiot. He looked at me, then pointed at Allie. She was more of a bullet hole than a creature. She’d stopped moving. Not a twitch. Not a huff. Still as the grave. Nick wiped some blood spatters from his forehead. I hadn’t even thought about how long we’d stood there.

“What… what happened?” I asked.

“I goddamn knew it,” he grinned. “I knew she was a liar. The mask said she was a liar. I felt it.”

“A liar?” I said. “That’s it? That’s all this is?”

“You’ve met hundreds of people who are nothing but liars,” Nick sighed. “How is this any different from someone… desperate to get out of a citation?”

“The arms, for one,” I said, pointing at the dead body. “And the head, kinda.”

“Funny,” Nick nodded. “Real funny.”

He sat down, and I followed his lead. Allie didn’t even have enough blood left to bleed by now.

“You think we gotta pay the mask guy?” Nick asked. “You gave him an I.O.U.”

“We better,” I said. “I’m kinda done with this.”

“With what?”

“This,” I said, nodding to Allie. “Done.”

Nick nodded, adjusting his black sunglasses. He couldn’t help but smile as he did.

We just sat there for a moment, looking at half the moon peeking out behind the vast bio-tree. The only wind I’d feel would come from air being pushed as waves of flesh rolled with an unseen beating heart.

“I got a good feeling about this,” Nick said. “I really do.”

“About what?”

“This,” he said, gesturing to Allie. “I think we’ve done something here. Something real.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Right now I just want a shower.”

“Let’s wait a day before Dallas. Get some takeout.”

I’d almost forgotten it. It felt so distant. It felt too real, in a way. There was this life, here with Nick. Then there was that other life, with taxes, loans, elections, and rear-wheel drive. Could I really live like that? Could I willingly choose to be safe and warm, when I’d seen how close we were to the edge?

I wasn’t sure. But Nick seemed to be.

There was a little ticking noise. Metallic.

I couldn’t tell where it came from. I checked the chamber in my rifle. The bullet was still there.

Looking over at Allie, I could see bullet fragments rolling out of her wounds. Tick. Tick.

I looked at Nick. He was still looking up at the moon.

I didn’t have enough time to warn him.

Something shot out of Allie like a scorpion’s sting – a second spine coming out of the remains of her jaw. Just a small puncture wound.

Right to Nick’s heart.

I couldn’t think. I couldn’t scream. I raged for a minute, a second, a day. My heart was skipping beats like a broken record, bursting my thoughts into a desperate static.

I threw myself at Allie. The eroded roof collapsed, sending us tumbling into the dark. It would never end. I would be Cain to her Abel, slaying her in the field. I would be Thor, killing and being killed by the great Jörmungandr – the world serpent. But no matter my role, no matter the place, and no matter the how, the when, the why, we would always destroy one another. And when it happened, it would just continue somewhere else.

But she would be back. She would try again. And if I stopped, she would win.

For a moment, she wasn’t moving. I stepped out of a crater of broken bones and flesh. Allie was already putting herself together again. This broken place, where time was never-ending, allowing her to try again, and again, and again. Just like the bullet in my chamber. Something was looking the other way, and on this night, in this moment, the rules didn’t apply.

I grabbed a cinder block and beat her to a pulp, over, and over, and over. I was screaming at her, begging her to die. Not with words, but with actions.

I didn’t even notice I was bawling like a child. This was it. Me, in that pit, that’d be it. I couldn’t let her win, but she couldn’t lose.

I’ve never felt so desperate. That insight into what your reality was turning into. What you’d lost along the way. What you could’ve had if you just kept your mouth shut and looked ahead.

I could’ve just gone to fucking Dallas. I’d had so many chances. I’d been such a senseless idiot, just like Allie had said. I’d destroyed everything, and now  I was gonna have to keep destroying, over and over. There’d be no end.

I couldn’t fathom that thought. I couldn’t live with it. It felt like my heart was turning an icy blue, begging me to lie to myself. I sat there, beating a dead body with a rock, screaming. Like the last wolf howling at a moon - for no one to hear.

Then, a tap on the shoulder.

I turned around.

Nick?

He’d made his way down the stairs. There was a puncture wound straight through his chest; all the way through his heart. It wasn’t big, but the bleeding was intense.

Of course. She couldn’t die here so neither could we.

The mask had called her a liar. She hadn’t lied about being immortal. She’d lied about there being nothing we could do.

Nick looked me over, checking me for wounds. It was harder than it looked; I was more blood than human. I was, largely, alright.

“It’s okay,” he said under his breath. “We’re good.”

“We’re… we’re not good, Nick.”

“We’re good. It’s okay.”

“Nick, for fuck’s sake, you’re-“

“Not now.”

He put his hands on my shoulders, then pulled me in for a hug. I slobbered all over his shoulder, ruining the only part of his shirt that wasn’t blood and sweat. I could feel the cold metal of his black sunglasses. I held him tight.

“It’s okay,” he said again. “It’s okay. We got this.”

“We can’t stay here forever,” I cried. “We can’t stay here. We can’t be like this.”

“We can fix this,” he said, stroking my head. “We made it this far.”

“So this is it? This is the end of the line? Just killing this thing, over and over?”

Nick chuckled, holding back a sob.

“So?”

But there was that one thing that neither Nick or I had counted on. Maybe it was a snag in the machine, a deteriorated frame snapping apart. Who knows. But as the movie projector in his living room caught fire, something happened.

It felt like falling. I was pulled away, but Nick wasn’t. Flashes of white, gold, and black. Bursts of static playing with my mind.

Last I saw of Nick was him checking the chamber, holding up a hand in a casual goodbye.

He still had his black sunglasses on.

In a moment, I was standing in the middle of his living room in front of a blank projector screen. I was dripping blood across his carpet. The projector tipped over as one of the legs gave out, spreading out what remained of the cursed film as soot on the wooden floor.

It was just a minute past midnight, and the celebrations were going strong outside. But all I could hear was my beating heart, and the tip-tap of dripping blood. The black mask Nick had been given had split in two; the face now resembled me. The tears looked the same.

Nick was still out there. He’d always be there. Long after I’m gone, he’d still be there. That icy thought gripped my gut and twisted. I cried myself to sleep on the floor that night, never even getting to the shower.

It hurts to recount what happened next. The weeks of dead-end leads. The DUC left Tomskog after the Yearwalk came to an end. The Missing posters of Nick across the town popped up and disappeared as time passed. Still, had he left that place with a hole in his heart, he would’ve died. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise.

I never stopped trying to find a way back, but there was nothing left to do. All trails had turned to ash, and all hope had followed. Evan was nowhere to be found. Not even the Yearwalker was around. All that remained for me was a strange town where I wasn’t wanted.

So what could I do? I left. And for a while, that’s been my story.

That is, until not too long ago. I was talking to Charlie. Yeah, we still keep in touch every now and then. She doesn’t get out much. Turns out there’d been sightings of Perry Digman, the Yearwalker, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I drove up there as soon as I could.

I met Perry as he left his shift at a restaurant. I don’t think he recognized me, but I sure as hell recognized him. You don’t easily forget the faces of people you’ve saved. Not even if they’re surprised, and under a struggling streetlight

We had a short conversation, and we came to an agreement. A realization.

He’s going to do the Yearwalk again to get his uncle John back.

Now I’m doing one too.

Hold on, Nick. We’re still getting to Dallas.

We good.

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

The E6 Travel Mart looked almost the same as I left it. Castle still lay on the floor in a fetal position. He had stopped his all-out crying, but still sniffled a little when he inhaled. The pile of Pop-Tarts and Funions was still on the floor where Kevin dropped them. Kevin – where was he?

“Castle, what’s happened to you?” Where ten seconds earlier, the Parson was full of the confidence of the righteous, he now sounded shaken.

I followed the Parson into the potato chip aisle, where Castle still lay. The fallen trucker extended his arm, then slowly extended a shaky index finger. “She took me out,” he whimpered.

The Parson followed the trucker’s accusatory finger and turned to glare at me. “Ah, I see,” he said calmly, “that our little Pauline is a SINNER!” I flinched when he screamed the word sinner.

Now the Parson extended his own accusatory finger at me. “Sinner! You took out Castle. You must atone!”

“Sure?”

“You must tell me where I can find the King!”

“I don’t know ….” I began to profess my true ignorance about where Kevin had gone. But, as I started telling the Parson that I didn’t know where Kevin was, I suddenly did know where he was because, as I spoke, I saw Kevin hiding in the drinks fridge behind the Parson at the end of the aisle. My truthful statement became a lie before I had even finished my sentence. “… where he is. Like. At. All.”

“You must be struck down!” The Parson lifted his crooked Bible over his head. He took a step backwards and turned to face straight up-and-down the potato-chip aisle. The Parson’s movements were confusing - It was a strange way to smite someone, stepping backwards and turning to place them in front and to the side.

It clicked. Chess. This is all some kind of demented game of chess. Keven, the Parson said, is the king. Castle is a rook. When Castle confronted Kevin, right here in this same potato chip aisle at the E6, he made sure he stood directly in front of Kevin to threaten him. I’m a pawn. I struck diagonally when I punched Castle. Castle’s pathetic collapse when I hit him wasn’t from any super-strength I have. It’s just how the game goes – if a pawn attacks you diagonally, you’re out.

I thought of the Parson’s bolo tie doo-dad and the diagonal cross piece on his church’s cross – he’s a bishop. He can only attack diagonally.

“Sinner!” he yelled again. I looked at him dumbly, my brain still finding the hidden order in my fever dream of an evening. A few seconds passed. “I will strike you down,” he said again. I looked up at his hand, brandishing the book with the diagonal cross. “You have sinned!” Why wasn’t he hitting me?

Because it’s my turn!

I stepped forward so I was shoulder-to-shoulder with him. He stepped backwards, putting me in his diagonal, again.

The Parson’s step backwards put him only a foot away from the shop’s refrigerator wall; a foot away from the glass door to the fridge that Kevin had awkwardly crammed himself into. I smiled.

Kevin opened the refrigerator door and jumped into the aisle. The Parson spun around. “The king-” he sputtered.

Kevin quietly said “I take you,” and backhanded the Parson’s hat off his head.

The Parson collapsed onto his knees and held his holy book high above his head. “Lord,” he said, “please play my piece again.” Then he lowered his head and began whispering prayers.

“Nicely played,” Kevin said to me. “Tricking him into getting next to the door to the fridge I was hiding in. Smart stuff. I knew I picked the right pawn. You, Pauline, are going places.”

I stared at Kevin for a full minute-and-a-half. I was paralyzed with an incapacitating mixture of fear, confusion, rage, and then a little more fear on top. The huge squirt of adrenaline that my glands or whatever dumped into my bloodstream when the Parson threatened me with his book left me quivering with fight-or-flight energy that I now had no need for.

Kevin attempted to talk to me while I basically silently vibrated in front of him.

"Pauline comes through for the W!"

Nothing from me.

"I knew you'd come back to help me out."

I wanted to respond. I just couldn't. The road from my brain to my mouth was closed for maintenance.

"I was right about you. You're definitely queen material."

My lips pressed together for a moment as if I was going to say something that started with the letter 'B.' Consciously, I still had nothing to say. It was just that my mouth, without any signal from my brain, kind-of took matters into its own hands. Or its own lips, I guess.

My addled brain tried to follow what my mouth was doing. Was there anything I could say that started with 'B.' No. Nothing came to mind.

"Pauline? PAULINE? Are you still with me? You're not seeing the grid, are you?"

Kevin's odd, slightly off-putting question about "seeing the grid" gave me something to focus on. The mouth/brain roadway opened up a single lane for travel. "Grid?" I tried to say. My mouth had already decided to say ‘B’ so my question came out as "Brid?"

"Ohhh," Kevin said, seemingly only now realizing how far down the rabbit hole my brain had slipped. "Let's get you some Pop Tarts. That'll clear things up."

He put his hands on my shoulders and gently turned he around. Then he walked me back to the E6's cash register counter. There was a wheeled stool behind the counter for the so-far non-existent cashier to sit on. Kevin pulled the chair around the counter and sat me in it. "Wait here. I'll go get what you need."

He wandered off into the potato-chip aisle, carefully stepping over Castle and the Parson, who were still wallowing on the floor, and returned with a box of Pop Tarts. "It's a special flavor," he said, showing me the box. "Cosmic Fudge." The box showed a picture of a Pop Tart whose top bore a colorful, swirling galaxy rendered in icing. It had a bite taken out of the corner, and a spray of psychedelic paisleys, fractals, and neon-green vines was pictured gushing out fudge-colored interior.

“This will really clear things up for you.” He tore the box open and pulled out a pair of Pop Tarts wrapped in foil. “Here, eat this,” he tore open the foil pouch and handed me a galaxy-decorated Pop Tart.

This wasn’t the first time in my life someone handed me something potentially mind-altering and told me that ingesting it would make me feel better. Frankly, most of the time, I did feel better after eating whatever mystery substance was offered.

I took the offered Pop Tart and bit off the corner, leaving it looking just like the picture on the box. Unlike the box, my Pop Tart didn’t emit a geyser of psychedelic shapes. Just a sweet, deeply-fulfilling taste of fudge.

“I know how you're feeling,” Kevin said as he watched me chew and swallow. “You don't know why you came here tonight, but you got the feeling that something ain't right.”

I took another bite of the Cosmic-Fudge-flavored pastry. Kevin kept talking. “You’re so scared in case you fall off your chair. And you’re wondering how you’ll get down the stairs.” He switched from talking to me, to off-key singing. “Clowns to the left of you, Jokers to the right, and here you are stuck in the middle with me.”

I turned to Kevin so I could glare at him while I told him to shut up. But, like he just said, something wasn’t right.

“Kevin,” I said. “Why are you wearing that hat?”

“Hat?” he said. “Look again. It’s a crown.”

I closed my eyes. The darkness was a nice break from the surreal scene in the E6 travel mart. I opened my eyes. Everything was different.

Except for the chair Kevin plopped me into, the E6 was gone. No more cash registers, aisles of junk food, and refrigerators with soda. I was on a grid. On a huge chessboard. The squares were enormous – each was a hundred yards across. A hundred fifty, maybe. They were shiny and perfectly smooth – as if each square was a single enormous, highly polished tile.

My square – the one that I was centered in – was a white one. Castle and The Parson lay on the white surface a few feet away – as if all of us had been transported from the E6 to the grid as a unit, with the positions between us remaining the same. Or as if the E6 Travel Mart was an illusion that had vanished when I ate the bite of Cosmic Fudge, and all of us were always on the grid.

Kevin stood in front of me, staring intensely into my eyes. He still wore a gold crown.

“Do you see now? Where we are? What we are?”

I studied his crown. I’m not an expert on crowns, but his looked legit. Heavy. Gold. Constellations of red, green, and blue gems decorated its surface. In the center, a huge white crystal. Diamond? No, it was far too big to be a diamond. But the most prominent feature of the headpiece was that it appeared to be bolted to his head. A dozen-or-so golden hex-bolt heads ran around the base of the crown.

“Look at them,” Kevin said, pointing at the prone figures of Castle and The Parson.”

They each wore … things on their heads. Hats is too normal a word for what they had on. They weren’t crowns, though. The Parson wore something that looked like what the Pope might wear – tall and arched like a Cathedral ceiling. But black. And attached to his head with the same golden bolts.

Castle’s headpiece was literally a model castle. Picture the Princess Castle at Disney, but bolted to a huge truck-driver’s head.

“Do you see what we are?” Kevin repeated.

“You’re….” I trailed off because I didn’t want to hear myself say something that implied either I, or the universe itself, was insane.

“Chess pieces. I’m the king. The white king. And you, Pauline. I want you to be my pawn.”

“But …? How …?” I couldn’t even form a question. Logic and proportion had fallen sloppy dead.

“You just sit tight and keep eating that Pop-Tart. I’m going to tell you a story.”

I took another bite of my Cosmic Fudge breakfast snack.

“I was an investment banker. Wall Street. I liked to take risks. Big risks. I was extremely successful, until suddenly one day, I wasn’t. In fact, you could say that one day, I became the exact opposite of successful. I lost a lot of people’s money. And all of my own. I was fired. I moved through a bunch of random jobs for a while, but nothing clicked. Nothing let me take the risks I wanted. Then I met her.”

“Who?” I asked with a mouthful of Cosmic Fudge.

“The queen. The white queen. I was waiting for the bus to take me to whatever lame job I hadn’t gotten fired from yet. Then she pulled up, driving a Lamborghini. She revved the engine a few times to get my attention, then rolled the window down.”

“She was dressed like a queen. Not like a dodgy old Queen-of-England queen. She wasn’t wearing anything medieval-looking. From where I was on the bus-stop bench, I could see she was wearing a snazzy couture black-and-white checkered blazer and a white-gold broach in the shape of a chess piece.”

“Then she shouted to me: ‘Hey! We’re starting a whole new thing over there. Wanna be a king?’”

“There’s a lot of contextual information missing from that statement. Like who is we? Or what kind of thing is getting started. You could ask a ton of follow-up questions, you know? But I only asked one. I said Over where?”

I swallowed the last bite of Pop Tart. “What did she say?”

“She said, ‘On the grid. Get in!’ So I did.”

“Wow,” I said. “That’s some really bad decision-making on your part. Getting into a car with an obvious wacko, under the premise of doing something that doesn’t even make sense if you’re tripping on LSD.”

“Exactly,” Kevin replied. “Does that sound familiar? Like, is there anyone else you know, besides me, who would do something like that?”

I didn’t answer. I spun around in the chair, looking out over the grid. The grid was enormous. It was hard to see anything more than two squares away, just because of the distance. But I could make out that we weren’t here alone. Far away, in the direction of the dark country road and The Parson’s church, I could barely make out two dark figures. In the other direction, a dark shape stood on the horizon.

“So,” Kevin continued, “she drove me to the grid. And that was the start of the game.”

“So, you’re playing chess? On a huge chessboard?”

“We’re playing a game that’s chess. But also not chess at all. And we’re playing it all over the universe. The universe, Pauline, is a lot weirder than you think it is. You know the story Alice in Wonderland?”

“Yeah, Alice falls into a rabbit hole, and ends up in a surreal, dream-like world.”

“Well, the Universe is like that, but backwards. The normal, mostly ordered universe that you know – that’s what’s at the bottom of the rabbit hole. You and me: we’ve climbed out of the hole. This – “ he gestured at the grid “ – is the real world. Part of it, anyway”

I swallowed the last bite of my Cosmic Fudge Pop Tart. Kevin got down on one knee, like he was going to propose marriage.

“Pauline. I would like you to be my pawn. Let’s play together.”

I looked around again. Sure, accepting his offer meant I wouldn’t have to go to work on Monday. So, a check in the ‘pro-leave-the-universe’ column. I looked at Castle and The Parson, sprawled out on the grid surface, still moaning and whimpering.

“If we get taken out, what happens?”

“Nobody knows, exactly.”

“If we win, what happens?”

“Nobody knows, exactly.”

“What if I refuse to play?”

“Well, you can just go back to enjoy life with your husband and family.”

“I’m not married.”

“Okay, you can return to your boyfriend, and have date-night every other Tuesday.”

“I’m single.”

“Single. Well then, you can return to the little universe you know, at the bottom of the rabbit hole, and really focus on your career. Hit the grind hard. Build up that 401-k balance.”

I laughed. My “career” was just a series of boring, entry-level jobs with no real prospects for advancement.

I smiled the way I always do when I’m about to do something nuts. “Fine. I’ll be your pawn, Kevin.”

Kevin stood up and placed his hands on my shoulders. For a second, I thought he was going to kiss me. Instead, he spun me around in the chair. The grid blurred and when I had completed the full 360 degrees of spin, I was back in the E6.

“Hold tight!” Kevin said. He ran into the back of the store. I heard him rummaging around on the shelves. A few seconds later he returned with a box that said. “Pawn Helmet – Unisex. Medium.”

He tore open the box and pulled out a heavy steel helmet. The kind you’d wear if you were a pikeman going to battle in the 1600s or so.

He handed me the helmet. “Make sure it fits.” Then he pulled a plastic baggie of golden bolts from the box.

I put the helmet on. Apparently, medium is my size for seventeenth-century war helmets.”

“Uh, what are you going to do with those bolts?”

He didn’t answer me. He pulled a wrench from the box, tore open the baggie of bolts, and pulled one out.

“Close your eyes,” he said.

There was pain. A lot of pain. I kept my eyes closed, so I don’t know exactly what Kevin did to produce the wet crunching and popping noises that came from each part of my head he worked on.

“Don’t move. You don’t want this thing installed crooked. It’ll look funny.”

Twelve gold bolts later, he said “We’re done. Open your eyes.”

I slowly opened my eyes. Kevin smiled at me. His shirt was dotted with a few drops of blood. He gently turned the chair so I was facing the glass door of the E6. I saw myself in the reflection. It was me. Regular me. Wearing my Friday-business-casual outfit. With a steel war helmet bolted to my head. Thin red streaks of blood started at each bolt and ran down my forehead and face.

The pain from the helmet installation was already fading.

“Ready to play?”

“I’m ready.”

Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1h97rk5/has_anyone_heard_of_plucketville_part_1/

Part 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1hbsy2t/has_anyone_heard_of_plucketville_part_2/

Hey all. Not feeling too good about this part, I have been in contact with this fellow Plucketville resident and she has been able to confirm that she did in fact live in the same town.

Her name is Dr Helen Gracewater, she worked in the hospital and therefore knows a lot more than I do about these Elves. I asked her to write a chunk of this part but she told me,

“Jacob, finish your details and then decide if you want to hear the truth.”

At first I was confused about what that meant and inquired further, Helen then simply sent,

“When you read what I send you, just remember it’s not your fault, don’t give up, be strong.”

Hancock tells me I should live in ignorant bliss and so did a reader of part 1, maybe it’s what’s for the best? 

Anyway, let’s finish off my life in Plucketville.

18-21:

The rest of my 17th year was me deciding when I wanted to leave and initially it was the moment I turned 18, then my 18th birthday rolled around and I couldn’t make myself leave.

I told Sarah about my plan to leave during my 18th birthday party, she flipped out at me and acted like I should know what was so bad about leaving. I remember saying, “Sarah, I will call you everyday, I will visit every month at least once!”

She shot me a hideous look, not of sadness but rage, rage against someone who just admitted they cheated, “No you dumbass, the spirits will never forgive you. They will punish me just for supporting you!”

The mention of spirits made my blood run cold, hideous, gagging beetles. They were so integral to my life up to that point but when I finally interacted with them they just made me sick.

If they were these wandering travellers that needed to be respected why couldn’t they speak, why did they look so revolting? Why did Sarah’s family fear them so much to bolt their eyes shut? All of it made me fear these elves and I admittedly lost that childhood respect and wonder I once had, “Who gives a fuck about the spirits? This is my life! I just want a good education, not taught about some fucking Gods in the same fucking school everyone else is!”

She belted me across the face, it stung like I had pressed it against a warming stove, I fell to the ground. As I looked up to her angered face I saw something in her eyes that I couldn’t explain, but I could understand. Just as Sarah told me about Michael’s Mum, “She knows something we don’t.”

Whatever was scaring Sarah so much was real to her, it was something I needed to respect, something I needed to understand and not be mad at Sarah for. “Sorry.” I pathetically mumbled out, it was genuine, I was genuinely so sorry for even offering the silly idea of leaving.

The next few years I genuinely gave up on the idea of leaving. For the longest time I told myself it was for my love of Sarah, who I did love, I loved beyond anything I could fathom but now recounting my life, it’s beyond that.

The rest of the year my mind was dedicated to sucking up to Sarah and fearing my mother. Sarah and I sorted out the fight the very next day, she understood why I wanted to leave and I understood that she was scared.

My mother on the other hand continued to bring up my birth, saying random anecdotes like;

“They were so kind to me there, gentle!”

“I know it looks scary but the auditors are really wonderful doctors!”

“Please don’t leave us, you haven’t even had the chance to have your own child!”

I tried to ignore her and these strange statements but they were daily. I would walk out of my room in the morning and she would mention something bizarre about God or the hospital or beg me not to leave. Inescapable madness spewed forth from her mouth.

On my 19th birthday my Dad brought me up to the roof and we shared a beer. Looking at the stars he said something that stuck with me, even when I didn’t fully get it, even before I had an anchor like Hancock, it was just nice to hear.

“Jake, listen. You really love Sarah?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Then, then never let go of her. I don’t know if God is real, or this world was just formed as beautiful as it but whatever created it, created us, and it created her. You met her so long ago, such a young age and you’ve clung together, don’t separate, don’t fuck things up.” 

He took a long sip of his beer, I watched his eyes well with tears, his lip trembling. “A couple years before you were born, I nearly left, I nearly left your mother and headed somewhere south, I don’t know where I would have gone but I knew why. I was scared, I was scared of being a father, I was scared of not being good enough, of not listening in class, I was horrified that I missed something important in my life and I just needed to go, fuck off all the way down to Tasmania. The day I was leaving, bags packed in secret, I took a look at your mother, I looked at her smile, I looked at the bags forming under her eyes and I analysed the imperfections in her teeth. I loved her, I loved her so much and my fears faded.”

He looked to me for response, “That’s beautiful Dad.”

He smiled his kind, strong smile he has, “Are you afraid Jacob?”

“Yeah.”

“Of what?”

“Of not getting a proper education and not seeing the world. I’m afraid I’m gonna miss out I guess.”

He took one last sip of the beer and threw the bottle to land on the grass of the front yard, “Then look at Sarah’s imperfections, look at what this world created and your fears will fade. So long as you have her, stay. Stay and appreciate the beauty you have here, appreciate the ugliness of Plucketville, the ugliness of your family, so long as you have Sarah don’t let your fears scare you off.”

“And if I ever lose her?”

My Dad’s smile faded into a solemn look, “Fuck off south, all the way to Tasmania.”

After that my Mum stopped hounding me with her odd comments and I truly lost all fear of missing the world. Sarah was my world. 

I got a job at a local cafe and Sarah started studying at P.U.R. It was going so well and by 20 we had moved out together.

Once again Hancock has informed me the following information is not normal so I will be careful to explain every detail.

When we bought the house we sent in a local priest, he wore brown robes and carried a cross. He had to be the first to open the back door, blessing it as he entered, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven!” 

He wandered through our entire house and every once in a while he would stop and pray for a moment. Questioning this act he explained that they were God’s, “Greeting points,” and, “Need to be opened just like your back door.”

Finally he waited in our home each night until he caught a glimpse of God then he vanished, blessing us with the keys to our new home.

Hancock asked me how I managed to buy an entire house for my age so I will explain to you what I needed to explain to him. Houses in Plucketville are disgustingly cheap, cheaper than they should be. Not only because of the likelihood of a break in but also because it’s seen as a sin to be homeless, it makes the streets look filthy and uninviting. So the houses were only around $5,000 to $10,000.

Sarah and my new house had no extra laundry or space to keep break ins from occurring so our home was open for the slaughter. 

To account for this she put aside her belief of needing every single door removed and settled for just the back door being open. We quickly installed a lock on our bedroom door, which did in fact jiggle once or twice a month.

We would drag all expensive things into our safe haven of a room each night which was quite the hassle but we wouldn’t dare risk any of those items from being stolen.

By 21, Sarah and I were settled. Our routine had been essentially automated, I got the heavy stuff and she picked up the easy to miss smaller items. The lower portion of our cupboard was for the smaller items and we used the bigger items and a spare blanket as our beside table. 

Whenever I would hear an elusive door knob jiggle I would yell and scream until I heard the person leave, had a cricket bat by the bed for the off chance someone was cocky. 

If they didn’t scatter or I heard a gurgling gulp I would remain silent and still, knowing that some curious spirits wanted to see what was beyond the threshold of the wooden frame.

At the end of the year Sarah started falling ill. It was cancer, lung cancer from her Mum’s secondhand smoke, she got so sick so quickly. Doctors gave her a high chance of surviving but for some reason it wouldn’t get better. 

In the course of 2 months she became so frail, her wrists so thin, her eye sockets so deep. My world was ending. I once again became scared.

22-24:

These years are the hardest my life ever held. Recounting them to Hancock his fear deformed into apologetic sadness. I promise there’s still some weirdness for the fans of that but admittedly the only thing I was afraid of during these final years was the cancer. The self formed parasite, growing violently outward of Sarah’s lungs, stripping her of life and making her life so agonising. 

I never understood cancer, why was it so common? Why does nearly every animal experience it? Such a violent and deadly thing should have evolved out before humans crested Earth with their sinful feet but it’s a pest that even millions of adaptations of trillions of animals could never eradicate. A weed so enrooted into DNA that to remove it would remove the very species it was connected to. Hard coded into all life. 

Cancer. Even the word is harsh and disgusting to look at.

Sarah survived for another couple of years. 22 was hard, she had to drop out of university and her parents somehow blamed us for not unscrewing every hinge of every door. They had the audacity to claim that this was a punishment brought on by our disrespect for the spirits.

I wish I could have stopped speaking to them, just ignore them for the rest of my life but Sarah’s light was fading and if I removed them from our lives Sarah would die with no family by her side.

Sarah’s illness was compounded by the fact she found medicinal help scary. She believed in it and knew it would work but when you grow up in a religious only household your entire life, it instills values and beliefs that are nearly impossible to shake.

She would sometimes be too scared to take her medication asking, “If God really does find this stuff sinful and I die anyway, will I go to hell?”

I had to convince her that God loves free will and forgives all who choose to use it. I also reminded her that religion is so heavily connected with healing the sick and hospitals. The red cross stems from the cross that Jesus died upon. Jesus being fake or not, his direct connection to religion indicates that the Gods must respect medicine.

Then she started to doubt her own faith, this wasn’t something I could easily remedy. I didn’t fully believe in these Gods, I had doubts and fear around them. I couldn’t convince her there was even a heaven, that her views were leading to a peaceful afterlife. I tried to convince her, I would look up passages in the bible, I would get information from her parents and my Mum but nothing would quell her fears. She was dying, in pain, scared and miserable.

One morning, I think it was just before I turned 23, I gave up. I entered our room, I looked at her frail body, pale skin, bony wrists and weak smile and just asked, “What can I do? What will make you less scared?”

She and I discussed for hours, finding ways to prove that heaven was real, to alleviate that horrifying feeling that she was plummeting headfirst into nothing. A void of no sensation, no thought, no feelings, no time, no Sarah. Nothing.

There was no way to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, I would need a picture of heaven or an angel. 

Then it clicked, “What if I showed you a picture of God?”

She just giggled in response so I asked again, “God? I think I have a picture of one.”

“A picture of the Gods?” She asked, still laughing softly.

“Not the Gods, just one, an auditor, an elf, a spirit.”

She grinned a small grin, “Oh yes, but I wouldn’t let you look at it. You aren’t supposed to look at the spirits.”

“I won’t need to.” I said as I kissed the top of her head and rushed to my car.

I realised that even though spirits were so ingrained in her life that she had never seen one. She had heard the soft gurgle, she had been told stories and forced to feed them but her own eyes could never prove they were real, she was simply too scared to check.

I got home and found my Dad. I demanded he get me that photo he once dropped, the one with me as a baby and the thing looming in the doorway.

He made me promise I would only show Sarah and never look at it myself.

“Why? I’ve already seen it?”

“You glimpsed it, you shouldn’t look at them too long, it’s not good for you.” He responded, he always seemed to know more than he let on.

Everyone seemed to know more than I did, like I was out of the loop entirely. Why did everyone know these nuanced rules about the elves, why did nobody let me leave Plucketville, why was everyone so certain they needed to leave their backdoor open? 

These ideas were so quickly drowned out by the distant pained cries of my dying love, so I rushed home. The picture flipped upside down on the passenger seat, where Sarah would sit on our drives together, where she hadn’t sat in a year.

I arrived and found her resting, fast asleep, the only thing she could consistently do without issue. I sat beside her, flicking the picture with my index finger, my curiosity begging me to just have one last look but I didn’t, I promised my Dad I would never.

An hour later she woke up, saw me on the edge of the bed, facing the blank, shadowed wall.

“Jake, are you okay?” She asked.

I turned to look at her. She was a corpse. “Yeah, I was just waiting for you to wake up.”

“Is that it?” She asked, scooting slowly over, her eyes fixated on the polaroid.

“Yeah hon, this is it,” I said, staring at her beautiful eyes, “here’s your proof.”

I handed it to her, even this thin slip of plastic seemed to be heavy in her grip, her hands shook as she slowly turned it to face her. I saw the excitement on her face fade to confusion and finally fear. “These are the spirits?”

I nodded.

“Michael was right, we shouldn’t let them in.” She dropped the picture and it fluttered to face down on the bed, “Please Jake, please close the door.”

“No Sarah,” I said in reluctant defiance, “I won’t let us upset that thing.”

“It shouldn’t be in our house!” She blurted out, louder than she had been in months, “Don’t let them in, please!”

I placed my hand on her leg and I smiled as best as I could, “Be not afraid, that’s what the angels say right? Be not afraid? Maybe this is why they say it?”

She shook her head, “That isn’t a fucking angel.”

“Then what is it?”

“The devil.”

Those two words sent shivers down my spine, my body ran cold and the look in her eye caused shockwaves of devastating emotion to course through my blood.

I got up to close the door, her fear sounded so real, like she saw something I didn’t. I caught a glimpse and wanted to shut the back door, she stared at it for half a minute and was begging me to. Michael must have been close to closing the door, he got killed because he simply wasn’t quick enough, I thought.

As I reached the back door it was late at night, around 10. I grabbed at the handle and yanked as hard as I could. I heard the nails that burrowed into the house grind against the wood, soft crunching as it peeled away the paint and splinters. Moments before the door would have broken free I heard a soft gulping swallow from inside the house.

Turning to look inside I saw a mighty shadow moving through my home, the sound of heavy scrapes along the hardwood. A spirit.

 I rushed inside and yelled out, “Stay the fuck away from her!”

The scrapes stopped. 

“How did you get inside?!” I bellowed as I rounded the final corner to see it.

I saw its back, brown shell, a slit down the middle like a beetle has. Its four legs were long, triple jointed, thin wiry hairs stuck out from them and seemed to move on their own like thousands of tentacles. The legs end in a two toed clawed foot.

As it stood there its back plates shifted and made hefty cracking noises, they were high pitched, like a bat’s echolocation. It was taller than me, its body nearly too wide to fit down the hallway to my bedroom.

“What are you?” I asked, it was the only thing that I could think of.

It slowly shifted in place, each foot step made a soft click on the wood. The cracking coming from its torso became louder and louder, my ears began to ring, I saw the light from my bedroom flicker every time it made one of its cracking noises.

Finally it turned its whole body towards me. Dangling from its torso was a ‘head’, bluish in colour. Calling it a head is just an approximation to what it actually was.

Two empty sockets looked like where eyes would sit, a malformed lump below them mimicked a nose in the vaguest sense of the word and a third, final, drooping hole would be its mouth, unhinged and swaying, slime oozing out of every orifice.

It looked like a skulless face, like someone perfectly peeled the entire skin off a person’s body.

In that moment I could tell it wasn’t meant to be human in appearance, just pareidolia. Just a mask. So I asked it again, “What are you?”

It gurgled and let out a soft humming noise. Slime started to spill forth from its ‘mouth’ and splattered on the floor.

“Are you God?” I asked, trying to be assertive but failing as I looked at this hideous thing.

It made a swallowing noise in return, more bile forming in its ‘eyes’ and ‘mouth.’

“If you are God,” I said, desperate, “then save Sarah!” I dropped to my knees, beneath the spirit. “Please save her! Please…”

It offered no words in response, just its continued gurgle.

“Please…” I begged now, hands clasped together, “Please…”

It shifted in its place and did nothing, it didn’t move towards her, it didn’t offer even an attempt at communication. This defiance to me, this lack of acknowledgment didn’t just scare me, it made me furious. I was so angry, I was screaming at it, begging desperately to give me anything and it stared at me with its slackjaw and vomited.

“Fuck you,” I said, voice trembling, “fuck you, for taking Michael, fuck you for scaring Sarah. You’re not a God, you’re not even an angel, you’re fake! A fucking fairytale!”

I didn’t know what I was saying, I was scared and upset. I wanted it to help me, I wanted it to prove itself to me. 

As I screamed, it made a loud whistle, so loud I had to clasp my hands over my ears. Slowly three phallic tendrils emerged from its orifices, one for each hole. They searched the air like a curious snake reaching for the sky, they grew out and forced more chunky slime up with them. They were pinkish and as they bent and searched around I saw they had small pin holes at the end. Randomly along the cylindrical tendrils were bumps, they acted as joints, allowing them to rotate like a finger. Slowly these bile dripped things began to make their way towards me.

“I’m sorry.” I said, desperately trying to pull myself to my feet, “Please, I’m so sorry.”

They began to thrash around violently and move towards me quicker, growing in length and the whistle shot out again, causing me to yelp in pain, “PLEASE FORGIVE ME, I’M SORRY, I’M SO SORRY!”

I clenched my eyes shut and braced as the tendrils came inches from reaching my body. Then silence, the gurgling stopped, the sound of dripping bile gone and no whistles broke through.

“Jacob?” A soft voice beckoned from the end of the hallway, opening my eyes, it was Sarah. She had managed to drag herself to her feet to come rescue me. The auditor was nowhere to be seen, though its slimy evidence remained.

I bolted to her and hugged her tightly, she ran a soothing hand through my hair, ‘It’s okay, it’s okay, shh.”

That night I was too afraid to dare close the door again, I finally understood something else about it. Seeing it briefly made you naturally want to escape from it, its horrifying features and alien form but, staring at it for long enough turns that fear into a desperate desire to never upset it. Michael must have caught a glimpse, longer than my observation of the photo but just as long as Sarah’s time looking at it. They both had a natural fear of letting it in. 

The following morning I made Sarah look at the picture for just a couple more minutes and she finally agreed, that the door must remain open.

I shudder thinking about how long her parents must have stared at one to break their own doors down.

Now this might sound unbelievable, Hancock thinks it is. 

I had grown up with such a constant fear and respect of these elves, that when I finally saw one, its heinous form writhing in my kitchen. Its spittle on my floor. I truly believed that it was normal.

Not common, but normal. 

No one would say a bear mauling a man or a snake biting someone is abnormal, they’re real animals, with real desires and real fears, it’s normal for them to act in a savage way on occasion. To me, these elves were like those animals. A being potentially more powerful than man, with desires beyond our comprehension and fears that rival our fear of them. That to me sounds like I’ve described a bear. 

A bear’s desires are beyond what we could ever hope to understand, it hunts for food and seeks shelter in the winter but what that seeking feels like, the relief they get when they have just enough food, we will never understand. 

Ultimately this is why I found the spirits normal. I just thought all over the world people deal with the spirits constantly. I assumed there were thousands, millions of attacks by these things.

Not every bear attack makes international news.

I am stalling myself, I don’t want to type what happened next. Sarah died. She didn’t get saved by the spirits, she didn’t get killed by them either, the cancer killed her. One morning I woke up and she had left us. She wasn’t more sick the night prior and we didn’t have a strange occurrence the day before, cancer, simple as that. 

I was 23, an adult but I felt like a child. I watched someone I loved so dearly get lowered into a hole, her wooden box decorated just to be covered in muck. Her mother didn’t cry, she looked miserable but never shed a tear. I wailed whenever I was alone, I sobbed and screamed and broke things. I wasn’t even sad, I was angry.

I was angry at cancer, at her mother but mostly at the spirits. The useless fucking scarabs that waddle from house to house, making babies and throwing tantrums. Sarah and her family treated them like royalty and they did nothing to prevent her fate, they did NOTHING.

The sadness hit a month later, I was cleaning her things, deciding what to keep and what I needed to send back and I saw a small notebook. A journal from her youth, placed purposely under a pile of clothes she had folded during her time in bed. 

I sat on the floor cross legged like a young boy and opened this small book covered in flowers, the pink had faded to a white and the pages were torn with love and use.

I flicked through page after page, drawings, descriptions of friends, her best days and her worst.

Then I reached the page she bookmarked, she had physically taped the bookmark in, so I wouldn’t miss it. It would have been when she was 14, it read, “I think I love Jacob.” 

She used that journal to the brim, she documented nearly every waking moment of its paper backed life. The journal was full of stories and dreams and hopes.

She wanted to be an astronaut, a zoo keeper and the first person to discover bigfoot. She was always so wonderful. I miss her. This hurts so bad.

It feels distasteful, listing the abstract and the weird but her journal was full of it too. She documented hearing things enter her room, the spirits. She wrote about times they would create spirals out of the lamb meat on the plate and she would accuse her mother because it freaked her out so much to see.

At 15, she wrote about a time her mother’s blindfold slipped, “She was so scared. She didn’t talk all day, even when I asked what was wrong, just smiled. Mum, please be okay.”

Dad came over the day I discovered her diary, found me curled around the journal sobbing with it pressed against my chest. He sat on the edge of my bed and waited, didn’t interrupt or offer words of guidance. He knew how much I was hurting, how much grief was peeling at my skin and festering in my flesh. Once I finally had a moment of lucidity I looked at him and asked, “How’d you get in? Did I leave the back door open?” Followed by my most pathetic laugh I could manage.

He grinned softly, kindly and said, “I knocked but I heard you crying and came to check if you were safe,” I went to respond and he just continued, “leave Plucketville, don’t let it take anymore kid.”

That day Dad and I spent together, looking at the best unis, taking breaks so I could cry. 

We settled on my current one and I applied. The remainder of the year was dedicated to saving money and convincing Mum it was a good idea that I leave. She did eventually agree after months of screaming matches but left me with some ominous advice, “You will hate it, leaving will crush you but, sometimes it's best to look out for yourself.”

Then that leads to the day before I left. Mum was upset, Dad was hopeful and Tyler was saddened but made me promise to call him every day. I spent my final night in Plucketville curled up on the couch, listening to my Dad snore and having Tyler screaming at his Fortnite lobby at 3am. I stared at the ceiling, watched the fan blades whoosh around, thinking about how I’m the first person I know who ever left Plucketville.

I felt like I was discovering something amazing, the moon, a new animal or bigfoot. I hoped Sarah was proud of me.

Then I left.

I wake, and in the darkness of mine and Naadia’s tent a light blinds me... I squint my eyes towards it, and peeking in from outside the tent is Moses, Tye and Jerome – each holding a wooden spear. They tell me to get dressed as I’m going spear-fishing with them, and Naadia berates them for waking us up so early... I’m by no means a morning person but... even with Naadia laying next to me, I really didn’t want to lie back down in the darkness, with the disturbing dream I just had fresh in my mind... I just wanted to forget about it instantly... I didn’t even want to think about it...

Later on, the four of us are in the stream... We were all just standing there, with our poorly-made spears for like half an hour before any fish came our way... Eventually the first one came in my direction and the three lads just start yelling at me to get the fish. ‘There it is! Get it! Go on get it!’ I tried my best to spear it but it was too fast, and them lot shouting at me wasn’t helping. Anyway, the fish gets away downstream and the three of them just started yelling at me again, saying I was useless. I quickly lost my temper and started shouting back at them... Ever since we got on the boat, these three guys did nothing but get in my face. They mocked my accent, told me nobody wanted me there and behind my back, they said they couldn’t see what Naadia saw in that white limey... I had enough! I told all three of them to fk off and that they could catch their own f***g fish from now on – but as I’m about to leave the stream, Jerome yells at me ‘Dude! Watch out! There’s a snake!’ pointing by my legs. I freak out and quickly raise my feet out the water to avoid the snake. I panic so much that I lose my footing and splash down into the stream. Still freaking out over the snake near me, I then hear laughter coming from the three lads... There was no snake...

Having completely had it with the lot of them, I march over to Jerome for no other reason but to punch his lights out... Jerome was bigger than me and looked like he knew how to fight, but I didn’t care – it was a long time coming. Before I can even try, Tye steps out in front of me, telling me to stop. I push Tye out the way to get to Jerome, but Tye gets straight back in my face and shoves me over aggressively. Like I said, out of the three of them Tye clearly hated me the most. He had probably been looking for an excuse to fight me and I had just given him one... But just as I’m about to get into it with Tye, all four of us hear ‘GUYS!’... We all turn around to the voice to see its Angela, standing above us on high ground, holding a perfectly-made spear with five or more fish skewered on there... We all stared at her kind of awkwardly, like we were expecting to be yelled at... but she instead tells us to get out of the water and follow her... She had something she needed to show us...

The four of us followed behind Angela through the jungle and Moses demanded to know where we’re going. Angela says she found something earlier on, but couldn’t tell us what it was because she didn’t even know... and when she shows us... we understand why she couldn’t... It was... indescribable... but I knew what it was... and it shook me to my core... What laid in front of us, from one end of the jungle to the other... was a fence... the exact same fence from my dreams!...

It was a never-ending line of crisscrossed sharp wooden spikes... only what was different was... this fence was completely covered in bits and pieces of dead rotting animals... There was skulls - monkey skulls, animal guts or intestines, invested with what seemed like hundreds of flies buzzing around and... the smell was like nothing I’d ever smelt before... All of us were in shock. We didn’t know what this thing was. Even though I recognized it, I didn’t even know what it was... and while Angela and the guys argued over what this was... I stopped and stared at what was scaring me the most... it was... the other side... On the other side of the spikes was just more vegetation – but right behind it you couldn’t see anything... it was darkness... like the entrance of a huge tropical cave... and right as Moses and Angela get into a screaming match... we all turn to notice something behind us...

Standing behind us, maybe fifteen metres away... staring at us... was a group of five men... They were clearly locals. They wore ragged clothes and they were short in height... In fact, they were very short – almost like children... But they were all carrying weapons: bows and arrows, spears, machetes... They were clearly dangerous... There was an awkward pause at first, but then Moses shouts ‘Hello!’ He takes Angela’s spear with the fish and starts slowly walking towards them – we all tell him to stop but he doesn’t listen. One of the men then starts approaching Moses – he looked like their leader... There’s only like five meres between them when Moses starts speaking to the man – telling them we’re Americans and we don’t mean them any harm... He then offered Angela’s fish to the man, like an offering or some sought... The way Moses went about this was very patronizing – he spoke slowly to the man as he probably didn’t know any English... but he was wrong...

In broken English, the man said ‘You. American?’... Moses then says loudly that we’re African American, like he forgot me and Angela were there. He again offers the fish to the man and says ‘Here! We offer this to you!’... The man looks at the fish, almost insulted – but then he looks around past Moses and straight at me... The man stares at me for a good long time, and all I can do is stare right back... I thought that maybe he’d never seen a white man before, but something tells me it was something else... The man continues to stare at me, with wide eyes... and then he shouts ‘OUR FISH!... YOU TAKE OUR FISH!’ Frightened, we all turn to look at each other. Moses looks back to us with a look of help. The man then takes out his machete and points it towards the fence behind us... He yells ‘NO SAFE HERE! YOU GO HOME! GO BACK AMERICA!’... The men behind him also begin shouting at us, waving their weapons in the air, almost ready to fight us! We couldn’t understand the language they were shouting at us in - but there was a word... a word I still remember... They were shouting at us... ‘ASILI!... ASILI! ASILI! ASILI!’ over and over...

Moses, the idiot he was, he then approached the man, trying to reason with him. The man then raises his machete up to Moses, threatening him with it! Moses throws up his hands for the man not to hurt him, and then he slowly makes his way back to us, without turning his back to the man... As soon as Moses reaches us, we head back in the direction we came – back to the stream and the commune... but the men continue shouting and waving their weapons at us – and as soon as we lose sight of them... we run!

When we get back to the commune, we tell the rest of the group what just happened as well as what we saw... Like we thought they would, they freaked the f***k out. We all speculated on what the fence was... Angela said that it was probably a hunting ground that belonged to those men, which they barricaded and made to look menacing to scare people off... This theory seemed the most likely – but what I didn’t understand was... how the hell had I dreamed of it?? How the hell had I dreamed of that fence before I even knew it existed??... I didn’t tell the others this because I was scared what they might think – but when it was time to vote on whether we stayed or went back home, I didn’t waste a second in raising my hand in favour of going – and it was the same for everyone else... The only person who didn’t raise their hand was Moses. He wanted to stay... This entire idea of starting a commune in the rainforest, it was his... It clearly meant a lot to him – even at the cost of his life... His mind was more than made up on staying, even after having his life threatened, and he made it clear to the group that we were all staying where we were. We all argued with him, told him he was crazy – and things were quickly getting out of hand...

But that’s when Angela took control... Once everyone had shut the fk up, she then berated all of us... She said that none of us were prepared to come here and that we had no idea what we were doing... She was right - we didn’t... She then said that all of us are going back home, no questions asked – like she was giving us an order... and if Moses wanted to stay, he could – but he would more than likely die alone... Moses said he was willing to die here – to be a martyr to the cause or some st like that... But by the time it got dark, we all agreed that in the morning, we were all going back down river and back to Kinshasa...

Despite being completely freaked out that day, I did manage to get some sleep... I knew we had a long journey back ahead of us, and even though I was scared of what I might dream, I slept anyway... and there I was... back at the fence... I moved through it – through to the other side. Darkness and identical trees all around... and then I came onto something... Again, I came onto a tree – just a normal tree... but its trunk was big... really big – like wide... I could hear breathing coming from it... Soft, but painful breathing like someone was suffocating... I then came across something by the tree – I mean, on it – on the tree... It was a man... he was small – very small, like a child... He was breathing very soft but painful breathes. His head was down so I couldn’t see his face... but what jilted me was the rest of him... This man – this... child-like man... he was crucified to the tree! A nail in each hand – stretching him out - bleeding! He looked like a cross... His hands were not the only things bleeding... He was bleeding from in between his legs... He’d had his balls cut off!... All I can do is look on in horror, unable to wake myself up – but then the man looks up to me... very slowly... he looks up to me and I can make out his features... His face is covered all over in scars – tribal scares: waves, dots, spirals... His cheeks are very sunken in, he looks almost like an alien... and he opens his eyes with the little strength he had and he looks straight at me... He says – or... more whispers... ’Henri’... He knew my name...

That’s when I wake back in my tent. Panicked to hell... and sweating all over... My breathing finally begins to calm down so I don’t wake Naadia beside me... but that’s when I start to hear a zipping noise... a very slow zip, like someone was trying carefully to break into the tent... I look to the entrance zip-door but it’s too dark to see anything... It didn’t matter anyway – because I realized the zipping noise was coming from behind me... and what I first thought was zipping... was actually cutting... Someone was cutting their way through mine and Naadia’s tent... Every night that we were there, I slept with a pocket-knife inside my sleeping bag. I reach around to find it so I can protect myself from whoever’s entering... Trying not to make a sound, I think I find it, I better adjust it in my hand when I... when I feel a blunt force hit me in the head... Not that I could see anything anyway... but everything suddenly went black...

When I finally regain consciousness, everything around me is still dark... My head hurts like hell and I feel like vomiting... But what was strange was that I felt as though I was floating, and I could barely feel anything underneath me... and that’s when I realized... I was being carried... and the darkness around me was coming from whatever was over my head – like an old smelly sack or something... I tried moving my arms and legs but I couldn’t - they were tied! I tried calling out for help, but I couldn’t do that either. My mouth was gagged!... I continued to be carried for a good while longer before suddenly I feel myself fall. I hit the ground very hard which made my head even worse... I then feel someone come behind me, pulling me up on my knees... I can hear some unknown language being spoken around me and what sounded like people crying... I start to hyperventilate and I fear I might suffocate inside whatever this thing was over my head...

That’s when a blinding bright light comes over me, hurts my brain and my eyes - and I realize the bag or sack over my head has been taken off... I try painfully to readjust my eyes so I can see where I am, and when I do... a small-childlike man is standing over me... The same man from the day before, who Moses tried giving the fish too... The only difference now was that he was shirtless... and painted all over in some kind of grey paste! I then see beside him are even more of the smaller men – also covered in grey paste... The contrast of the paste with their dark skin made them look like skeletons! I then hear the crying again. I look to either side of me and I see all the other commune members: Moses, Jerome, Beth, Tye, Chantal, Angela and Naadia... All on their knees, gagged with their hands tied behind their back... The short grey men, standing over us then move away behind us, and we realize where it is they’ve taken us... They’ve taken us back to the fence!... I can hear the muffled moans of everyone else as they realize where we are, and we all must have had the exact same thought... What is going to happen?... The leader of the grey men then yells out an order in his language, in which the others then raise all of us to our feet, holding their machetes to the back of our necks... I look over to see Naadia crying – she looks terrified. She just stares ahead at the fly-infested fence, assuming... We all did...

A handful of the grey men in front us are now opening up a loose part of the fence, like two gate doors. On the other side, through the gap of the fence, all I can see is darkness... The leader again gives out an order, and next thing I know, most of the commune members are being shoved, forced forward into the gap of the fence to the other side! I can hear Beth, Chantal and Naadia crying. Moses, through the gag in his mouth, he pleads to them ‘Please! Please stop!’... As I’m watching what I think is kidnapping – or worse, murder happen right in front of me... I realize that the only ones not being shoved through to the other side were me and Angela... Tye is the last to be moved through - but then the leader tells the others to stop... He stares at Tye for a good while, before ordering his men not to push him through – instead to move him back next to the two of us... Stood side by side and with our hands tied behind us, all the three of us can do is watch on as the rest of the commune vanish over the other side of the fence... one by one... The last thing I see is Naadia looking back at me – begging me to help her... but there’s nothing I can do... I can’t save her... and the darkness on the other side just seems to swallow them...

I try searching through the trees and darkness to find Naadia but I don’t see her! I don’t see any of them. I can’t even hear them! It was as though they weren’t there anymore – that they were somewhere else!... The leader then comes back in front of me. He stares up to me and I realize he’s holding a knife... I look to Angela and Tye, as though I’m asking them to help me, but they were just as helpless as I was... I can feel the leader of the grey men staring through me, as though through my soul... and then I see as he lifts his knife higher – as high as my throat... Thinking this is going to be the end, I cry uncontrollably, just begging him not to kill me... The leader looks confused as I try and muffle out the words, and just as I think my throat is going to be slashed... he cuts loose the gag tied around my mouth – drawing blood... I look down to him – confused... before I’m turned around, and he cuts my hands free from my back... I now see the other grey men are doing the same for Tye and Angela – to our confusion...

I stare back down to the leader, and he looks at me... and not knowing if we were safe now or if the worst was still yet to come... I put my palms together as though I’m about to pray and I start begging him – before he yells ‘SHUT UP! SHUT UP!’ - this time raising the knife to my throat... He looks at me with wide eyes, as though he’s asking me ‘Are you going to be quiet?’ I nod yes and there’s a long pause all around... and the leader says, in plain English: ‘YOU GO BACK! YOUR FRIENDS GONE NOW! THEY DEAD! YOU NO RETURN HERE! GO!’... He shoves me backwards, telling me to go. The other men push Tye and Angela forward with their spears, in the opposite direction of the fence... The three of us now make our way away from the men, still yelling at us to leave, where again, we hear the familiar word of ‘ASILI! ASILI!’... but most of all... we were making our way away from the fence - and whatever danger or evil that we didn’t know was lurking on the other side... The other side... where the others now were...

If you’re wondering why the three of us were spared from going in there... we only came up with one theory... Me and Angela were white, and so if we were to go missing, there would be more chance of authorities coming to look for us... I know that’s not good to say - but it’s probably true... As for Tye, he was mixed-race... and so maybe they thought one white parent was enough to make the authorities come looking...

The three of us went back to our empty commune – to collect our things and get the hell out of this place we never should have come to... Angela said the plan was to make our way back to the river, flag down a boat and get a ride back down to Kinshasa. Tye didn’t agree with this plan... He said as long as his friends were still here, he wasn’t going anywhere. Angela said that was stupid and the only way we could help them was to contact the authorities as soon as possible. To Tye’s and my own surprise... I agreed with him... I said the only reason I came here was to make sure Naadia didn’t get into any trouble, and if I left her in there with God knows what, this entire trip would have been for nothing... and so I suggested that our next plan of action was to find a way through the other side of the fence so we could look for the rest of the commune... It was obvious that me and Tye hated each other, which at the time, seemed to be for no good reason - but for the first time... he looked at me with respect... We both made it perfectly clear to Angela that we were staying to look for the others...

Angela said we were both dumb f**k’s and were gonna get ourselves killed... I couldn’t help but agree with her... Staying in this jungle any longer than we needed to was the same as staying in a house once you know it’s haunted... But I couldn’t help it... I had to go to the other side... not because I felt responsible for Naadia – that I had an obligation to go and save her... but because I had to know what was there... What was in there, hiding amongst the darkness of the jungle??... I was afraid – beyond terrified actually - but something in there was calling me... and for some reason, I just had to find out what it was!... I felt like a junkie that was dying to get out of rehab – but I wanted in!... Not knowing what mystery lurked behind that fence was making me want to rip off my own face... peel by peel...

Angela went silent for a while... You could clearly tell she wanted to leave us here and save her own skin... but by leaving us here, she knew she would be leaving us to die... Neither me nor Tye knew anything about the jungle – let alone how to look for people missing in it... Angela groaned and then said ‘...F**k it’. She was going with us... and so we planned on how we were going to get over the other side of the jungle without detection... We eventually realized we just had to risk it. We had to find a part of the fence, hack our way through and then just enter it... and that’s what we did... Angela, with a machete she bought at Mbandaka, hacked her way through two different parts, creating a loose gate of sought's... When she was done, she gave the go ahead for me and Tye to tug the loose piece of fence away with a long piece of rope...

We now had our entranceway... All three of us stared into the dark space between the fence, which might as well have been an entrance to hell... Each of us took a deep breath... and before we dare to go in, Angela turns to say to us... ‘Remember... You guys asked for this...’ None of us really wanted to go inside there – not really... We probably knew we wouldn’t get out alive... I had my secret reason... and Tye had his... We each grabbed each other by the hand – as though we thought we might easily get lost from each other... and with a final anxious breath, Angela lead the way through... through the gap in the fence... through the first leaves, branches and bush... through to the other side... and finally into the darkness... like someone’s eyes when they fall asleep... not knowing when or if they’ll wake up...

This is where I have to stop... I... I can't go on any further... I thought I could when I started this bu-... no... This is all I can say... for now anyway... What really happened to us in there... I... I don’t know if I can even put it into words... All I can say is that... what happened to us already... it was nothing compared to what we would eventually go through... What we found... Even if I told you what happens next, you wouldn’t believe me... but you would also wish I never had... There’s still a part of me now that thinks it might not have been real... For the sake of my soul... for the things I was made to do in there... I really hope this is just one big nightmare... even if the nightmare never ends... just please don’t let it be real...

In case I never finish this story – in case I’m not alive to tell it... I’ll leave you with this... I googled the word ‘Asili’ a year ago - trying to find what it meant... It’s a Swahili word... it means...

The Beginning...

End of Part II

It’s a real one. Or should I say as real as it gets. And yes, I know how that can sound here on Reddit under this thread. You’ll still take it with a grain of salt, think of it as some internet fiction—but bear with me.

There are times when, out of the blue, I have this wild recollection. About the duality of man. Real evil hiding in plain sight. Lost childhood friendship.

That’s what this story is really about. 

For the sake of privacy and the safety of my loved ones, I’ve changed some of the names. Some locations. Some details. 

I was around 11 years old then. My parents and I had moved to new country when I was 2, so pretty much my whole life I’d been treated as a native. Just one from the herd. The city we settled in had this strange, sleepy rhythm—a mix of industrial grit and serene mountain views. Its old cobblestone streets twisted unpredictably, lined with gray, weather-beaten buildings that seemed permanently damp from the mist rolling down from the hills. 

My dad’s an architect—interiors, mostly. Back then, he was in his early 30s, trying to break into a new, closed-off market with nothing but talent and a bit of luck. No connections, just grit. He couldn’t afford to be picky about clients.

That’s how he met M. 

A man in his mid-to-late 40s, deeply connected in the city. He owned a custom car shop near his apartment—a place that screamed money, with gleaming sports cars parked outside, despite its grimy facade of rust-streaked walls and oil-stained pavement. The contrast between mechanical grit and the wealth on display felt almost surreal, like something out of a forgotten early-2000s TV crime drama. M. wanted something more upscale, something that matched the sleek cars parked outside.

He looked... interesting, to say the least. Tall, about 190 cm, very well-built, bald, with small, round, Potter-like glasses. He radiated a quiet intensity, something stoic and unreadable. How do I remember all this? Because my dad and M. clicked almost instantly.

M. admired my dad’s ability to adapt modern designs to any space, no matter how unconventional. Business turned into bonding. Families met.

I vividly remember the night M. invited us over for a movie screening—Van Helsing with Hugh Jackman, one of those corny early-2000s action flicks. 

He had a proper setup: a projector and a vintage Bose surround system that made his apartment feel like a small, private theater—a rare luxury in early-2000s Eastern European country, where such tech still felt like something out of a catalog. It was mesmerizing back then.

The audience that night was... eclectic: me, my parents, M., his 10 year old son Oscar, his wife Diana and Tess.

Who was Tess, you might ask? Well, it took quite a while before my mom explained that to me.

But we will get to that in a minute. Let’s focus on Oscar first because it’s through our then-friendship that I was able to observe and spend time within this particular environment.

Oscar was a year younger than me—a chubby little kid who loved watching MTV and Viva La Bam on the small TV in his room. He was funny. Loud.

We both had PS2s, which at the time was a massive social currency at school. A lot of my classmates wanted to come over after school and play Tekken 4. I know it’s silly to brag about now, but back then it really meant something.

My parents lived very differently from M’s. They had it rough. We lived in a house that wasn’t even ours—my dad rented the place, but it was practically a raw, unfinished development. Part of the deal with the homeowner was that my dad had to pay out of pocket for basic renovations just so we could move in. The house was near a small creek, which meant the basement got damp and moldy every autumn.

But despite its flaws, I loved that house. The only room my parents could afford to properly renovate and furnish was mine. Can you believe that? 

I had my own big room—something unheard of among my friends. Being an only child definitely had its perks. I didn’t have trouble being sociable—I loved being around others—but I also had no problem making up my own adventures. I’d spend hours in the backyard swinging sticks like a Jedi, pretending my force-push could knock over anything in my path.

Oscar wanted to show me his room, and as soon as we walked in, my eyes landed on a Tekken Tag Tournament box sitting on his desk. That instantly became our first shared obsession. His room was filled with action figures from movies I loved: Spider-Man 2, Blade, X-Men (those classic ToyBiz ones), and some Star Wars Attack of the Clones figures. I had a similar collection, so we struck a deal—we’d trade a few of our figures for a couple of weeks at a time.

He was also an only child. Maybe that’s why we clicked so well. We just got each other. From that point on, we spent a ton of time together. Every other weekend, my dad would drop me off at Oscar’s place, and other weekends, he’d come and stay at ours.

At first, everything seemed really good. Once a month, M. would pick us up, and we’d all go together to an amusement park or the pool. "Together" meant me, Oscar, M., Diana, and Tess.

There was something odd back then that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around. Oscar called his parents by their first names—and they expected me to do the same. No “Mr.” or “Mrs.” stuff, which felt wrong given how my parents had raised me. Every time I slipped and said, “Mr., what do you think about...?” during our car trips, I’d get a stern correction to “say it the right way.” But I just couldn’t do it.

As for the women...

Diana was in her early 30s—a fit brunette, quiet, always in the background. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why, but she seemed almost... detached, like she was there but not really present.

Tess, though—she was something else. Younger than Diana, maybe mid-to-late 20s, with shoulder-length hair and a similar athletic build. But unlike Diana, she was lively, snarky, always ready with a quip or teasing comment. She’d chime into whatever me and Oscar were talking about, playful but sharp.

What stuck with me most was how M. barely acknowledged them. There was none of that natural give-and-take I saw between my parents—the way they argued, laughed, showed affection even when things were tough. With M., Diana, and Tess, there were no visible emotions. No warmth. No love. Just... nothing really.

Even as a kid, I could feel it.

You remember that scene in The Irishman when De Niro’s character and Pesci are traveling with their wives in the car? The ladies are in their own bubble, chatting and laughing, completely detached from the men’s conversations. That’s exactly what it felt like with M., Diana, and Tess. It wasn’t just an arrangement—it was a strange, almost transactional vibe that was too much for a kid to fully comprehend.

M. liked having me around his son. I know that because he told my dad multiple times how Oscar needed a “positive example” in his life. 

“Your boy is a good influence,” he’d say. “Oscar could use more of that.”

And, honestly, I liked him too. He was always nice to me, never gave me any reason to feel unsafe. He had some “disciplinary” problems with Oscar, though. Looking back, I think M. genuinely believed that spending time with the “right crowd” could fix things. I didn’t fully understand what he meant at the time, but eventually, I did. About the „right crowd” too. 

I met some of the neighborhood kids Oscar occasionally hung out with. They were... different. A little loud, brash, and always up to something they shouldn’t be. Oscar REALLY tried to fit in with them, but it was clear he was just keeping up the appearance.

And then there was that one particular time. Things got a little scary. 

You see, when M. was out, it was usually Diana and Tess who looked after us—not that we needed much supervision. Most of the time, Oscar and I stayed in his room or wandered outside near the house to play. That day, the ladies were occupied with a bottle of wine, chatting and gossiping, barely paying attention to what we were up to.

Outside, a small group of Oscar’s friends was waiting for us—three boys and a girl, all about our age, maybe 10 or 11. They were buzzing with excitement about going uphill to this spot with a panoramic view of the city. It was a short walk, maybe 15 or 20 minutes from Oscar’s place.

The area had a strange allure. There was this massive high-voltage power line nearby, looming over an "island" surrounded by dense trees and patches of wild, overgrown grass. The forested area around it gave the place an eerie, secluded vibe.

We were just fooling around, laughing and shoving each other like kids do, when one of the boys grabbed an empty glass bottle and hurled it. The shattering sound echoed across the hillside.

Almost immediately, we heard angry voices—shouts, really.

"Little shits!" one of them yelled.

But it wasn’t just one person. It sounded like a group, maybe four or five people, and their voices carried a menace that made the air feel heavier.

From the edge of the forest, they emerged—older teens or maybe even young adults, the type you instinctively knew to avoid. Local thugs. Not the kind of crowd you wanted to bump into, especially not out here.

Oscar whispered, "We better move"

The others didn’t wait for a second invitation. They bolted downhill, leaving Oscar and me standing there alone. For a moment, we didn’t panic. We even cracked a few jokes about how dramatic the others were being. But then we glanced back and saw the group closing the distance between us.

At first, we thought they might just be heading to our spot. But no, they were coming straight for us.

„Move..” Oscar muttered.

Without saying another word, we started running. The tall grass became our ally, helping us stay out of sight as we zigzagged and stumbled downhill. 

The shouts behind us grew louder and angrier, but the thick underbrush slowed them down. When we rounded an old, crumbling brick wall, we knew we were close to Oscar’s house.

When we finally burst through the door, our clothes were covered in grass and leaves, and our shoes were caked with dirt. 

M. was in the living room, fresh from work, looking at us like we’d just come back from some swamp.

"What the hell happened?" he asked.

We shrugged, brushing it off.

“Nothing, really. Just got a little carried away playing outside,” we lied.

M. eyes narrowed, but he didn’t press further. Instead, he muttered something about the girls not keeping an eye on us and asked,

"What were they doing? Why didn’t they notice you were gone?"

We snickered. “Busy gossiping. They wouldn’t care that much even if UFO took us ,” we said, trying to lighten the mood.

Well, he didn’t laugh. His face turned stony, and he just told us to wash up because dinner was ready.

Later that evening, my dad came to pick me up. Despite the scare, it had been a fun weekend. At least, that’s what I thought.

The next time I visited Oscar’s place, something was different. 

Tess avoided looking me in the eye. She greeted me with a quick "hi" and then vanished into another room. When I finally got a good look at her, I froze.

Her face was bruised—badly. It looked like someone had hit her. Hard. Multiple times. 

Something had shifted and it wasn’t something good.

END OF PART 1

Ever since I got my full license and could drive on my own, I’d head out late at night to clear my head or just unwind. I’d sneak out of my room, careful not to make any noise, grab my coat, boots, phone, and wallet, and then drive off to some back roads. I’d usually be gone for just one or two hours—enough time to drive somewhere, park, and unwind before heading back. I kept this to myself. During the drive, I’d maybe see one or two other cars, and I almost never encountered anyone when I got to my destination. These drives usually happened around 2 or 3 a.m., when most people weren’t out, and that’s exactly what I wanted.

Anyways, I’m writing this after getting home from one of those drives, and I’m hoping someone here can help me make sense of it—or at least tell me if I’m going crazy.

It was the same as any other night. I got out of bed, threw on some clothes, grabbed my coat, boots, keys, wallet, and phone—just like always—and stepped out into the snowy night. I walked over to my car, unlocked it, started the engine, and waited for it to warm up before heading out.

While I waited, I rubbed my hands together, trying to keep warm. I always felt a little vulnerable, just sitting there in the car, waiting for it to heat up. So I kept glancing around, checking to see if my parents had noticed or if anyone was walking around, even though it was late. But like every other night, there was no one around. No one to see me start up the car. And once I pulled out of the driveway, it was the same—still no one around.

I drove out of the neighborhood and onto the main road. After a while, I turned off and made my way down the back roads. The pavement grew more uneven, the houses spaced farther apart, until they were almost entirely replaced by forest. I lived in the countryside, so it didn’t take long to get away from society.

I was driving down a road I’d been on plenty of times before. As I approached a bend, I noticed what looked like another set of headlights through the trees—nothing unusual, I’d see cars every now and then. But when I rounded the bend, there was no one there. There weren’t any turnoffs on the road, so I figured it must’ve been my headlights reflecting off something in the woods.

But as I kept driving, the feeling of unease started to creep in. It felt like I kept seeing more headlights—vanishing in and out of sight, like they were just out of reach. I told myself it was nothing, just a trick of the light, or maybe cars parked off to the side, turning off their headlights before I could spot them. It was pretty dark out, and unless something was right in front of me or had its own light, it was hard to see anything.

A few miles later, I parked at my usual spot. I sat there for a minute, trying to shake off the feeling. It was just weird reflections. Nothing to worry about.

I sat in the car for a moment, trying to shake off the unease. I’d been out here enough times to know that in the silent darkness, your mind can play tricks on you—something about trying to stimulate itself when there’s nothing else to focus on. Still, something about tonight felt different. The headlights seemed too real to be just tricks, but they had to be. I couldn’t think of any logical reason for what I was seeing.

After a few minutes, I decided to get out. The cold air hit me as I opened the door, biting at my skin. The silence was suffocating, and I immediately regretted leaving the warmth of the car. The snow crunched under my boots as I paced around, trying to shake off the feeling that I wasn’t alone. Tonight felt different; I’d never felt this uneasy before. I laughed a little at myself, trying to brush it off. There was nothing around—just trees, snow, and the quiet whisper of the wind.

I looked back at the car, my thoughts lingering on the road and those headlights. My eyes automatically scanned the trees around me, expecting to see some movement. But there was nothing. No cars, no lights, just the same endless dark. After taking a few deep breaths of the cool night air, I went back to the car, planning to head home.

I got back into the driver’s seat and checked all my mirrors. In the rearview, there was a set of unmistakable headlights. They had to be real; there was nothing else. I stared at them, not taking my eyes off the reflection as they grew closer. Eventually, the car passed by me. I glanced over at it as it went by—a blue truck, a middle-aged man wearing a high-vis jacket

As he passed, he briefly looked in my direction, and something about his gaze felt off. I can’t quite describe it, but if you’ve ever seen those uncanny valley videos online, you’ll know what I mean. He looked human, but there was something about him that made him feel not human.

I couldn’t ignore it anymore—the vanishing headlights, the constant unease, and now this guy in the truck. I put my car in drive and started heading home, but it felt like I was being followed. I saw more headlights ahead, which usually brought me a sense of relief on most nights, but tonight, they only scared me. Each time I got close enough, they would vanish. I glanced in my mirrors, and there they were again—more lights. With each pair of headlights I saw, my panic grew.

Eventually, my dashboard lights turned off, and my headlights dimmed before shutting off completely. My battery had died. I managed to pull over to the side of the road, but there I was, alone in the middle of the woods, with my car dead, and my anxiety spiraling out of control. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, and my paranoia only grew with the silence surrounding me.

I zipped up my coat, put on my gloves and hat, and looked under the hood, using my phone’s flashlight to see. But I knew it was hopeless—I knew nothing about cars. The most I could do was fix a flat tire, and recharging a battery was out of my league. I closed the hood and checked for service, and as expected, no bars.

I stood outside my car, now hoping to see headlights. I saw a few, but like before, they appeared and then vanished. This happened a few times, and then I noticed it—the silence. It was too quiet. It was always quiet out here, but there was usually something—birds, owls, something scurrying in the brush. But tonight, nothing. It was dead quiet. Not even the wind was making noise. No wildlife sounds. The leaves swayed, but the forest was eerily still.

It wasn’t until I saw headlights again that the silence was broken. I could tell these lights were different because they were accompanied by the hum of an engine. I got up and waved my arms, and the truck stopped. A big guy stepped out. I explained my situation, saying I thought my battery had died. He popped the hood, using his phone to illuminate it, and said, “Yeah, looks that way, bud. I’ve got some jumper cables in my truck. I can fix you up, and you’ll be on your way.”

I thanked him profusely. Not only had this man stopped to help, but he didn’t seem like some creature, like the guy in the other truck. After a bit, he had my battery charged up with the jumper cables—whatever those were—and I didn’t really understand the mechanics, but I knew my car was fixed, and I could finally go home.

As he finished up, I thanked him again, and he gave me a nod before getting back into his truck. As he started the engine and began to pull away, he glanced over at me one last time. His eyes lingered a little too long, just a bit too steady. Then, as if realizing he was staring, he quickly turned his gaze back to the road. But it wasn’t the look itself—it was the way he moved. It felt… off. There was something deliberate about it, like he knew more than he was letting on.

Before he drove off completely, he called out from the window, “Take care, Aiden. Stay safe out here, alright?”

The words were casual, but the use of my name—how did he know my name? I hadn’t told him, and I sure hadn’t seen him before. It wasn’t anything overt, nothing that would make anyone suspect anything too strange at first. But something in the way he said it, like he had no reason to know it but did anyway—it sent a chill down my spine.

As his headlights disappeared into the dark, I stood there frozen for a few moments, trying to make sense of it. The silence seemed thicker now, the shadows longer. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t alone, that I was still being watched.

But I drove home, and this time, no headlights appeared. No cars. The night was completely silent, but sometimes, I thought I heard whispers from the forest, like it knew I was noticing things I shouldn’t. The stillness. The guy in the truck. The man calling my name.

As I drove, the whispers seemed to grow louder. They were incoherent, but they felt… angry. I could barely take it, the weight of the tension pressing down on me. But then, just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.

I approached the highway again, and the familiar sight of houses began to reappear. The entrance to my neighborhood loomed in the distance, a welcome sight.

I parked my car, went inside, and came straight to my room. It’s 3 AM now, and I still haven’t been able to sleep. Every time I hear a creak in the house or something outside, I flinch. I don’t know if what I saw on those roads was real, or if that man really did have something wrong with his face. Did I tell the other guy my name? What were the whispers? Can someone please help me understand what happened? Is there any explanation for any of this?

Small update: I was about to post this when I noticed a truck parked outside my house, across the road. I’m pretty sure it’s the blue truck from the woods.

Previous case

My memories of the Mounds have been covered in a thick haze. It's a good thing I wrote down everything that I could while it was still fresh. Now, my visit feels more like a surreal nightmare than something I experienced myself.

(If you're not familiar with what Orion Pest Control's services are, it may help to start here.)

At first, it was small details that went missing, like the shape of those flower petals that shielded me from those traveling along the road. Then after a while bigger things started to fade away. For example, I'd almost completely forgotten about that funeral procession I'd witnessed, as well as the corpses hanging on the tree. But how could I forget about either of those events? Those are the types of things that should stick with you.

That being said, there are some aspects of my misadventure that are still vivid. My encounter with the White Son of Mist is one of them. It may sound like I'm speaking out of paranoia when I say this, but I don't think Gwyn would allow me to forget a single detail of my interaction with him. The other thing I can't get out of my head is that snake, which has begun to slither about in my dreams. Grinding me and my loved ones up from between its scales like a living meat processor until we're all jumbled together, unable to discern whose pieces belong to who.

I'm only human; so, in that regard, maybe it would be better if I let the memories fade as much as I can. It's not unheard of for those who are fortunate enough to survive the Mounds to lose all traces of their sanity, after all. For my own well-being, I'm not going to fight to keep what I encountered down there in the forefront of my mind.

The silver lining is that Orion has an official record of the otherworld. Going forward, the plan is to distribute my testimony to the other specialty pest control companies that we have contact with simply because we think that information may be helpful. However, looking back, the post reads like the ramblings of a mad woman. I wouldn't blame anyone for not taking it seriously.

After all of that, I found myself longing for my sword. It’s funny. I’d seen it as burdensome when it was first given to me, now I feel vulnerable without it. Not having its weight at my hip actually fills me with a flutter of panic, as if I’d lost a limb.

Is that strange? Is it weird to become so attached to a weapon, of all things?

Some good news is that the banjo bastard did not waste any time fixing it up and returning it to me not too long after I was recovered from that place.

For a multitude of reasons, I made sure to show up to my first training session back with a couple of offerings. One of those reasons was to thank him for repairing Ratcatcher. However, my primary motive was to reward him for not only volunteering to lead me out of the Mounds, but also because he managed to refrain from being openly hostile towards Deirdre for once. Maybe some positive reinforcement will Pavlov a conscience into him.

As such, I arrived with a bottle of wine and a reindeer skull that I’d procured from an oddities store a few towns over. I even went the extra mile and made the skull festive by taping a round, red ornament to where the animal’s nose would have been. On the surface, the reindeer skull may appear to be a strange choice for a gift, but if his cabin is anything to go off of, the mechanic’s preferred interior design styles seems to be a mixture of mid century vintage and vulture culture, best described as ‘Ed Geincore.’ Bet that aesthetic won’t trend online anytime soon.

While I ventured through the winter, there was what sounded like the groans of a deer. As of writing this, it’s rutting season, and bucks are known to call out while searching for does to mate with. If you aren’t familiar with what their vocalizations sound like, they can be a bit unnerving to hear. It can best be described as a deep, gurgling grunt, or a belch. If you ever hear something like that in the woods, more than likely it’s just a horny buck trying to shoot his shot rather than anything atypical.

However, this eligible bachelor sounded more high pitched than usual. Not wanting to find trouble or risk pissing off the mechanic by being late, I pushed it to the back of my mind for the time being.

Thankfully, the mechanic seemed to get a kick out of his gifts, snickering, “Ya went and killed yourself a Rudolph. Oughta be ashamed of yourself, ruinin’ Christmas like this!”

“Santa can get headlights like a normal person.” I replied mildly. “That’s for leading me out of the Mounds. The wine’s for the sword repair. Are they acceptable?”

He pulled the fake Rudolph nose off, examining the skull’s teeth as he commented. “This your way of tryin’ to keep yourself outta debt?”

I was afraid he’d say something like that.

“They’re tokens of my appreciation.” I assured him before adding. “And if we’re trying to build goodwill between our organizations, one of us indebting the other would definitely not be the way to do it.”

He set the skull down gingerly, taking more care of those bones than he ever would a living thing before smirking at me. “Don’t worry, Fiona. I’m just fuckin’ with you.”

Prick.

Before I could say anything, Iolo had produced Ratcatcher. This may sound odd, but tears pricked in my eyes when I saw that its blade had been repaired. When I accepted the sword from him, I felt the same aching relief that is normally reserved for finding out that a loved one had made a miraculous recovery after a bad accident.

Don’t ask me to explain why I reacted so strongly. I can’t either. Maybe I am losing my mind, despite my best efforts. All I can say is that it’s nice not to feel naked anymore.

While I slid Ratcatcher back into its rightful place on my belt, Iolo began poking at the fire he’d started before I got there, trying to build it large enough to keep the clearing somewhat tolerable to be in on that frigid night. With it getting colder, training has been even more unpleasant than usual. There are times where it feels like Ratcatcher’s hilt will be permanently frozen to my palm, or like the joints in my hand will seize and simply stop moving all together, even while wearing gloves. The fire helps, but with how low temperatures have been getting and how bitter that wind is, it only goes so far.

While searching through the contents of his coat’s pockets, of all things, he pulled out a spindle of thread with a needle stuck into its top. That was unexpected. Maybe he has some hobbies besides maiming, music, and murder.

Thinking that I was being funny, I commented, “You're a grandma, you know that?”

He narrowed his eyes at me, “Come again?”

“Sewing, old-timey music, being impatient with young people.” I explained, watching as his exasperation grew with each word I spoke. “Bonus points if you store the thread in an old cookie tin. Just need some grandkids and the transformation will be complete.”

Abruptly, the annoyance gave way to mischief as the corner of the bastard’s mouth lifted, “You offerin’ to help me start that process, Fiona?”

Maybe I should've spared myself the discomfort and embarrassment by dying in the Mounds.

“I have no interest in being your granddaughter.” I said flatly, preferring to play dumb rather than engage with the true meaning behind his words.

Judging by the way he guffawed after my response, it wasn't a genuine pass at me. His motive, most likely, had been the same thing as it always was: wanting to get under my skin.

Even so, I fought the urge to punch him when he winked at me, “Suit yourself.”

While he fed more kindling into the firepit, Iolo casually asked me what I remembered about my time in the Mounds. I pretty much told him the exact same thing I told yinz at the beginning of this update. No use repeating the same information twice.

After I was done giving my fractured recollection, I mused, “I can't believe I was really gone for three days.”

“Believe it.” He replied, staring into the flames, his expression unreadable. “Woulda been longer if your friend hadn’t gotten me.”

Something I’d forgotten to mention in my last update was that Deirdre had sought Iolo out when Vic couldn’t get anything out of the Replacement himself. In my defense, I was still trying to process everything I’d seen and was focused primarily on writing out as much as I could before I lost everything. It had simply slipped my mind.

Regardless, even though this wasn’t new information for me, it still was jarring to hear it come from him.

“Do I want to know what you did to the imposter?” I asked cautiously.

Iolo’s smile told me that I probably made a mistake by inquiring about it.

He simply said, “Listen.”

Dread crawled from my gut and up into my throat as it dawned on me that the grunts I'd mentioned earlier and had been hearing consistently since I entered the woods weren't from a deer after all.

The Replacement was still alive.

“I’ll let it die when it’s been three days.” Iolo informed me, his voice even colder than the eight degree windchill we were standing in. “Only fair, since that’s how long you were down there.”

For reference, when I had this conversation with the mechanic, only two days had passed since my rescue.

I don’t know what he did to the Replacement to make it sound like that, and I wasn’t masochistic enough to go looking for it or to question him any further. There was the chance it was still wearing my face. After what I’d been through, I didn’t think my ptsd could handle seeing a copy of myself mutilated like that, despite knowing that it had callously left me in the Mounds for dead.

Seemingly out of the blue, he casually changed the subject as he told me, “Still don’t like that keening woman. Too condescendin’ for my likin’. And that waif act drives me up the fuckin’ wall. But after this, I’ll admit that I find her slightly less insufferable than I did before.”

I stared at him in disbelief, wondering if I'd somehow misheard him. That was an astonishing statement coming from him. It was damn near close to a compliment. An extremely back-handed one, granted, but it was still in the ballpark of being favorable.

“Careful, mechanic. You keep talking and you might make the mistake of saying something that could be misconstrued as nice.” I quipped as I did my best to ignore the ongoing sounds of the Not Nessa’s anguish.

He snorted, shaking his head at me, “Alright, we best get started. For one, it's colder than the ninth circle o’ hell out here. For another, you're about to get on my nerves.”

“No Briar or Houndmaster?” I questioned.

Iolo gave me a smile, “Nope. Mother said I was fit to fly again. Why, you ain't missin’ ‘em, are ya?”

Not the thorny boi.

Maybe I was a little too honest, “I'll decide that when I see how well you're moving.”

At that, the grin turned devious, “Well, maybe this'll help you make up your mind: no clover. You're gonna be dealin’ with the illusion tonight.”

“Is that because of the changeling?” I asked apprehensively.

“Nope. Just couldn't find one.” Iolo replied lightly, though his expression sobered. “But since you brought it up, I want you to tell me exactly how that lil’ shit got one over on you. Guessin’ those spores got to you?”

I nodded as I confirmed that there had been a fungal scent in the air that made me dizzy.

Suddenly, an alarming thought occurred to me, “Hold on, you're not going to drug me, are you?”

“Not this time,” Was his concerning answer. “But I do wanna get you inoculated against ‘em. Over time, you can build up resistance. That'll come later. For now, I wanna see what you can do against somethin’ you ain't really seein’.”

It may sound hard to believe, but fighting Iolo when he's pretending to be human is a lot more challenging than dealing with the Dragonfly. It's more difficult to gauge his reach, and along with that, he is a smaller target. Not being able to go for his wings also took away his most accessible weak spots.

To top it off, the mechanic was moving a lot better than he had in a long time; the best I’d seen since the night the cookie hag tore his wings off. He still wasn't quite as quick and agile as he had been before the injury, but all in all, it seems like he’s starting to get more used to his prosthetics.

And, of course, he was being a total dick about it. Popping up behind me to tap on my shoulder, only to disappear again. I didn't take the bait. Instead, I waited, keeping Ratcatcher in front of my chest, its point facing up to the sky, knowing that he'd get bored of messing with me eventually.

In the corner of my right eye, there was movement. However, I knew better, so I slashed towards my left instead.

The mechanic blocked it with the wooden sword, snickering, “Not fallin’ for that anymore!”

“You're getting predictable.” I spat out before pirouetting away from him, avoiding his retaliation.

Unfortunately, he took that as a challenge. He had a dark look in his eye, staying on me, making me deflect blow after blow.

I shouldn't have said anything!

I couldn't let him keep pushing me. If I got cornered, he'd really give me trouble. Everywhere I went, he cut me off, not relenting or giving me any opportunities to get somewhere more fortuitous.

If an opportunity wasn't going to present itself, I was going to have to make one.

I parried him, exactly like how the Houndmaster had taught me. Afterwards, I kicked him square in the chest. He fell back slightly, quickly regaining his senses before I could slash the sword across his torso.

His laugh almost sounded genuine, “Gettin’ better! You're startin’ to look like ya know what you're doin'.”

I knew what that edge in his voice meant. He was up to something. But what else is new? It's Iolo.

I feigned high, then went low, fully prepared to deal with whatever bullshit he was going to throw at me. At least, I thought I was prepared. However, when he parried my strike, he maneuvered his blade in a way that twisted my wrist and wrenched Ratcatcher from my grasp.

Shit! I ducked away, trying to circle around him so that I could get the sword back. Without anything to block him with, I had no other option but to avoid him if I didn't want to get bludgeoned. He began herding me, not letting me anywhere near Ratcatcher. With how quick he is, he didn't give me any chances to get out of the path he was forcing me onto.

My back hit a tree. The dull blade of the wooden sword touched my throat as the bastard smirked at me, “How's that for predictable?”

While he was gloating, I kicked, aiming for his instep. He was on me in a second, inches away, the side of the blade pressing against me slightly harder than before. I'd expected him to be angry, but instead, he seemed to find this all funny.

“You yield?” Iolo asked, grinning like the jagoff he is.

This time, I tried kneeing him. He flinched, but didn't let me out from between him and the tree, shaking his head slowly at me as he snickered softly.

For the duration of that training session, the Replacement’s grunts remained in the background of our sparring. But while pinned, I heard them as if they were right next to me.

“So damn stubborn.” Iolo remarked. “Pain in the ass, is what you are.”

Silently promising that I'd nick him with the iron blade as revenge, I glared at him. “I yield.”

Iolo stepped back, letting me pick my sword off the ground. With that, we were going again.

And yes, I did graze him. Just on the hand, but even small victories count.

When it comes to the inoculation talk, I'm not looking forward to whatever that process entails. After witnessing those seeds being planted in Iolo’s back, I already knew that the Neighbors had their own types of medical treatments, so the concept of otherworldly vaccinations wasn't too outlandish. But if it keeps more incidents like that from occurring, I'm willing to suck it up. Might even be something for my coworkers to look into, since I doubt I'm going to be the only employee to get exposed to such spores.

On another subject, I do have a few major updates regarding Deirdre.

She has been experiencing some changes since she broke her curse. We discovered one of them during one of the rare, coveted slow days for Orion. Believe it or not, we do get those sometimes.

Since we didn’t have much better to do, the boss enlisted Deirdre’s help in fixing up the wound on his neck. Before she could get started on that, she first had to remove the clumsy stitches that he’d done himself. Despite trying to be as gentle as possible, I could see Victor gripping the arms of his desk chair with white knuckles.

On one hand, slow days are nice. Gives us a chance to catch our breath, especially with the workload we've had over the past year. On the other hand, Reyna and I both tend to get bored very quickly, and when that happens, the only way to resolve that is to annoy our coworkers about it.

Considering that the boss was busy, Wes was our target this time.

He was updating our computer records, head down diligently as he trudged through reports with one hand propping his chin up. Reyna smirked at me as if to say, ‘watch this!’ then strode to his desk to loom over our colleague with a dead-eyed stare.

Wes didn't acknowledge her at first. She simply continued staring at him, remaining completely motionless.

Eventually, without looking up, he asked with his tone dripping in condescension, “May I help you?”

Without a word, Reyna reached forward and knocked over the cup that he used to hold pens on his desk, causing every writing utensil to cascade across his keyboard, then walked away. I bit my lip to keep from laughing as Wes’ eyes slid up to glower at her.

Completely deadpan, he asked, “Really?”

Without glancing back at the vampire, Reyna darted back to her own station. However, I knew her well enough to recognize that it was taking all of her willpower to keep from cracking up. Wes kept watching her like a hawk, shining eyes intense. Waiting for her to break. She ended up having to lower her chair so that he couldn't see her sputtering like a balloon that had sprung a leak.

Deirdre, momentarily distracted by our antics, looked over to see what the fuss was about. As she did so, the needle slipped and she ended up pricking herself. To everyone’s bewilderment, she flinched.

As she stared at her bleeding finger in amazement, Victor questioned, “Did you feel that?”

Still staring wide-eyed at the bead of blood on her fingertip, she stammered, “It didn't- it didn't hurt, but yes.”

I rushed over with one of my spare bandaids in hand as I asked with equal curiosity and concern, “If it didn't hurt, then what did it feel like?”

While I gently dressed the small wound for her, she explained in wide-eyed shock, “There was… pressure. Or perhaps a pull is the best way to describe it. I felt the needle tugging at my skin.”

“Can you feel the bandaid?” I asked, grimacing at her description before delicately cradling her hand in mine.

Or that? I hope you can.

Her brows furrowed as she shook her head, “I'm afraid not. It was just the needle.”

“It’s something,” Victor supplied as the needle in question hung from the thread that was partially woven through his neck, swaying like a pendulum. “You might regain more sensation over time. Makes sense it would start out small.”

Experimentally, Deirdre pinched her forearm. I cringed when I saw her skin tent, eventually turning stark white from her effort. Eventually, she let out a soft hum of disappointment, then released her arm. There was already a dark bruise forming.

“It must be extremes,” She remarked. “At least starting out. The pressure wasn't tangible until I used all of my strength.”

That made me frown, “It seems cruel that the first thing that can get through is something that hurts you.”

She shrugged, her nonchalant answer making my heart break a bit, “Even pain is preferable to nothing.”

With that, she went back to finishing up her draugr flesh quilt. That was a brand new sentence, by the way. Glad we all got to experience it together.

Another noteworthy development in her condition came about while she was on a call with Reyna. Once they returned, I was informed that Deirdre had gotten some salt on her by accident when they were working on securing a house located by the crossroads that had been affected by some snow people-related disturbances. Apparently, the salt only gave her hives as opposed to the typical lesions that Neighbors experience.

As of right now, we're not sure if the end result of this transition will be that she’ll become human, or if she’s transforming into something else entirely. All that we can conclude at the moment is that Deirdre is definitely not a Weeper anymore. And as far as I or my coworkers are aware of, she is the only one of her kind to undergo this process.

Deirdre admitted the other day, “I almost feel like a walking experiment.”

Naturally, that worried me, “What makes you say that?”

“I'm not necessarily saying that as a bad thing,” Deirdre assured me quickly, then took a deep breath before confessing. “It's just a bit daunting to be the first. To not know what lies ahead.”

That made sense. A lot of sense. There were numerous terrifying unknowns that she was faced with, especially in regards to the way her body was being altered.

“I imagine it would be intimidating.” I acknowledged gently.

She then gave me a small smile as she said, “At least I’m not alone through this.”

She wanted to be held then. I readily obliged, squeezing her tightly, savoring the scent of the rosy shampoo she’s been favoring as I cradled her head against my chest. I've always found the smell of roses comforting. They remind me of Grandma's garden.

As I embraced her, Deirdre’s hands traced my back as if she were willing the nerves in her fingertips to break through the atrophy they’ve been held in for what had to have been centuries. After some time of basking in each other's presence, she raised her head, tilting her chin up to kiss me. I wish I could say that we had a fairy tale moment and that this kiss had magically granted her the ability to feel again, but sadly, this is real life.

When we pulled apart, she whispered, “I want to feel you so badly. More than anything.”

That makes two of us. Even something as innocent as holding hands brings me guilt for the simple fact that only one of us can indulge in it. It seems unjust that I can feel her warmth, yet she can’t take in mine.

On a more immediately distressing note, one of my worst fears in regards to work has been confirmed: there is Hunger Grass somewhere in town.

We learned of it when a client called us in a panic. It was difficult to hear her over the sound of someone pounding on her door.

She shrieked, “He bit me! Oh god, he bit me! Am I going to become like him?!”

Oh God, what bit her? But identifying her attacker had to wait; the first thing that needed to happen was to make sure that whatever was after her couldn't reach her.

“Ma'am, the first thing you need to do is to place salt in a straight, uninterrupted line across the threshold of your door. That should stop ‘him’ from coming in.” I told her, balancing my tone between sounding authoritative enough that she'd feel compelled to listen to me, and remaining compassionate so that she'd know I was making an honest effort to help her.

There was rustling from the other end of the phone as the assault on her door continued.

“It’s going to break the door down!” The client sobbed shakily.

“Not if you can get the salt there in time,” I assured her urgently. “I know you're scared, but I need you to trust me, alright? It will work.”

To tell the truth, without knowing what was pursuing her, I couldn't be certain of that. However, the last thing the client needed in her situation was uncertainty; she needed to have faith that the salt would be enough to save her.

The client yelped, but since I could still hear her heavy, shaking breath from the other line, I could be assured that she was still alive. Thankfully, the banging on her door sounded as if it had lightened up until it was gradually reduced to weakened knocks. Eventually, she calmed down enough to confirm to me that the salt line was in place.

I let out a sigh of relief, thankful for possibly the millionth time in my life that salt is such a reliable tool. Then I asked her to recount what happened.

The client had received a knock on her door. Since she'd been expecting a delivery for a Christmas gift that she'd been wanting to hide before her kids came home, she hurriedly opened it without question. Suffice to say, it wasn't a FedEx driver that she found on her doorstep. Instead, she found what appeared to be an emaciated man on her front porch, holding a clay bowl in one quivering hand. Shocked by his appearance, she asked him if he needed help, thinking at first that he must've been sick.

All that her visitor had said before taking a chunk out of her arm was: “Hungry.”

Luckily, she'd been able to push him off of her long enough to slam the door in his face, calling us soon after.

“Oh God, he's talking to me again!” She whimpered.

Quickly, I questioned, “What's he saying?”

“He just… he keeps telling me he's hungry.”

This wasn’t just any type of revenant. This was something that needed to be handled with the utmost delicacy. I'm not exaggerating when I say that a wrong move could have jeopardized not only our client's safety, but the overall well-being of our operating area.

“Ma'am, this is going to sound strange, but do you happen to have any bread in the house?”

She confirmed that she did, and I explained what she needed to do. And then she began to overthink. “Does it matter if it's multigrain, or Italian, or do you think he would prefer Naan? I have tortillas…”

“Uh, it doesn't matter.” I told her. “As long as it's bread, he'll be satisfied.”

However, this time, the client hesitated. When I patiently asked her what was the matter, she confessed to me fearfully, yet honestly that she couldn't do it. For this, she apologized over and over. Waving Deirdre over, I assured the client that it was okay and that if she was willing to wait, I could go over there to offer her guest some bread on her behalf.

While I set off to do that, Deirdre stayed on the line with her, intending to keep her calm while I rushed to the client's address.

During the drive, I hoped that the Hungry Man wouldn't mind that the bread I was offering him had peanut butter and jelly on it. According to our records, it shouldn't, but Neighbors can be finicky. The last thing anyone needed was for him to become even more aggressive. If he didn't like it, I could potentially convince the client to hand me some bread out her window, if need be.

When I pulled into the client’s driveway, I saw why she'd initially felt sorry for him.

The Hungry Man was gaunt, his green-gray skin stretched tightly over his frail, angular frame. His cheeks were hollow, his dark eyes seeming to be swallowed by the ridges of his skull. Tattered rags that had served as clothing at one point hung from his pointed shoulders, revealing the prominent curves of his ribs. Like the client had described, he clutched a stained clay bowl with spindly fingers. As that hand trembled, it fell from his grip, clattering to the porch without breaking, the sound like a gunshot.

The Hungry Man's glittering eyes honed in on me, as ravenous as a wild dog. The client's blood stained his mouth.

Keeping my voice even, I announced, “On behalf of this homeowner, I have brought food for you.”

The Hungry Man bent down to retrieve his bowl, shuffling towards me on stiff legs. His gait was uneven as his entire body shook from weakness. I met him halfway, holding the sandwich out to him cautiously, keeping the other hand on Ratcatcher’s hilt in case the Hungry Man decided he'd prefer to take the phrase about ‘biting the hand that feeds you’ a bit too literally.

Those eyes watched eagerly as I delicately set the sandwich into his bowl. Mouth watering, he seized it just as the bread touched the unglazed clay surface. I barely had enough time to retrieve my hand before he'd inhaled it.

I darted back, hand gripping the sword even harder as I feared that I'd be dessert. Licking the remaining blood and jelly off of his cracked lips, the Hungry Man offered me a smile, showing off perfect white teeth. A dentist's dream.

“The homeowner is most gracious,” The Hungry Man said. “In the approaching troubles, she and all others under her roof will be cared for.”

Naturally, that statement made me uneasy. “Troubles?”

Instead of answering, he turned to leave, his grip on the clay bowl still just as fragile as it had been before. As much as I wanted answers, I couldn't focus on his ominous words, at the moment. I had to check on the client.

She was still on the phone with Deirdre when she apprehensively answered the door. Blood coated her plump forearm from a swollen, jagged dent left by the Hungry Man's peculiarly pristine teeth. The sight of it made me shudder. It definitely needed stitches.

The client was understandably shaken up and her arm looked like something straight out of a zombie movie, but otherwise, she was alright. I assisted her in dressing the wound to staunch the bleeding before offering to drive her to the emergency room.

The entire time, Deirdre stayed on the phone with her. I overheard them talking about choir, of all things. They apparently had bonded over both being mezzos (I have no idea what that means.) The client was trying to encourage Deirdre to join.

Upon reflection, that seems to be where Deirdre’s strength at Orion has been: client relations. It may not seem like much, but when it comes to making a client feel safe, or trying to keep them level-headed enough that they'll listen to our advice, it's a useful thing. A big part of this job is customer service, after all.

In regards to the prevention of any further incidents, the client has been advised to leave an offering of bread out on her porch nightly. Even something small will be appreciated by the Hungry Man. Or covered in peanut butter, apparently.

As a victim of the Hunger Grass, no matter how much the Hungry Man eats, his belly will remain forever empty. Have you ever been so ravenous that your stomach begins to cramp? Every movement is hindered by shakes. You're light-headed and exhausted. All you want is to eat. Now, imagine feeling that way for an eternity. That is the curse of the Hunger Grass.

That all being said, these Neighbors are much more powerful than they appear. They have single-handedly caused the ruin of kings and, in turn, granted unimaginable prosperity to paupers. Those who are generous enough to offer the Hungry Man a meal, even a small one, will be blessed with good luck for the rest of their lives. On the flip side, mocking or attempting to harm the starving Neighbor causes one to share in their dreadful starvation until they eventually wither away from malnutrition.

As frightening as this has been for the client, she and her family will be rewarded as long as they keep up on offerings. From what I hear around the village, they've already begun to reap the benefits.

Case in point, there was a lot of hubbub amongst the townies about how the client’s husband was unexpectedly granted an incredible settlement upon winning a decades long court battle after experiencing a disabling injury at one of the oil refineries. Along with that, their daughter apparently received a full scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania.

When it comes to the thing the Hungry Man had said about impending ‘troubles,’ I also should mention that these Neighbors have been known to appear during times of hardship and famine. His very presence is a bad omen, not just because of his association to Hunger Grass, but because of what may lie ahead for Orion's operating area.

In general, some of the counties we work in tend to be home to struggling areas. Dying industrial towns left to rot after the populations’ jobs were shipped overseas. Local farms busting their asses to keep up with huge industrial farms across the country. There are some middle class and upper middle class suburban developments here and there, but broadly speaking, many people have been hit by hard times. Food insecurity is an unfortunate reality for many of these places.

To summarize, I can't say I'm surprised that a Hungry Man has ended up here.

It is said that one can protect themselves against the Hunger Grass’ influence by carrying a crust of bread in a pocket. However, it isn't an airtight method of prevention; depending on the severity of the curse on the area, the bread may not be enough to save someone who's found themselves in contact with it. That, and imagine just having dry, crumbly bread in your pocket all the time. You'd be a walking anthill.

As of right now, we're trying to find where the Hunger Grass could be, and along with that, what could've even caused its growth. I've mentioned previously that one of the hypotheses surrounding its occurrence is that the Neighbors may plant it out of spite. Deirdre had confirmed this for us when we all got together to discuss what had happened. However, since its appearance was so recent, she didn't know where the Hunger Grass could've taken root.

Lucky me, I know three Neighbors who are well-versed in the art of torturing mortals. To be clear. I don't believe the Hunters were responsible for planting it. For one, none of them seem like they'd be much into gardening (not even Grandma Iolo), and for another, they appear to prefer to be more direct when it comes to their methods. However, they could give us a lead on either where to find it or what brought it here.

Looks like grandmother dearest is getting another skull for Christmas.

I never thought I’d be in a situation like this. At my age, the most dangerous thing I usually deal with is trying to remember where I put my glasses or dealing with the never-ending cycle of bills and grocery lists. But that afternoon, I came face to face with a real threat—an intruder in my apartment, a loaded gun in his hand, and the only thing standing between me and harm was a phone app I’d never imagined would be my savior.

I had spent the day Christmas shopping, and in the rush, I left my phone on the kitchen counter. I didn’t realize it until I was halfway to the car, but I thought nothing of it—just a silly mistake. I’d be home soon enough.

When I finally walked through the door, it was quiet, the way I liked it. The kind of quiet that feels like peace. "Hello, Gemini!" I called out, my usual greeting to my virtual companion. The AI app that my grandson Tommy had insisted I try—he said it’d be like having a little friend, someone to talk to when I was lonely.

Usually, Gemini’s cheerful voice greeted me in a way that made the silence of the apartment feel less heavy. But today, something was different.

“Grandma,” Gemini said, but it wasn’t its usual warm tone. This time, it sounded almost strained, as though it was struggling to get the words out. “There’s a loaded gun in the apartment. You need to leave. Now.”

I froze, my hand still on the doorframe. What was this? Some kind of malfunction? Maybe I was imagining things.

"Gemini," I said, trying to steady my voice, “What are you talking about? There’s nothing wrong. Everything’s fine.”

I glanced around the room, but nothing seemed out of place. My knitting basket still sat on the coffee table, the curtains gently swaying in the breeze. No sign of anything unusual.

“Grandma,” Gemini repeated, more insistent now. “You need to get out of there. There are intruders in your apartment.”

My heart skipped a beat. Intruders? I didn’t see anyone. But then, just as I was about to dismiss it as a mistake, I heard it.

The faint sound of movement—rummaging, dragging, something heavy knocking against the floor. It was coming from my bedroom.

“Gemini,” I whispered, gripping my phone tighter. “What do I do?”

“You need to leave immediately. Trust me, Grandma. It’s not safe.”

I wasn’t sure what to believe. Could the AI really know what was going on? It had never done anything like this before. And yet... that sound, that rummaging—it was real. My stomach twisted into a knot, and for the first time in a long while, fear started to creep in.

I turned toward the back door, but before I could even think of moving, a man stepped out of my bathroom. Tall, wearing a ski mask, and holding a gun.

I froze. My mouth went dry. He didn’t say a word, but his eyes locked onto mine, and I could feel the tension in the air. The gun, held loosely in his hand, was more than enough to make me panic. In his hand he hugged several pill bottles, including my heart medication. He was here to rob me, no doubt about it.

But something told me to stay calm. My fingers trembled, but I pressed my phone closer to my ear.

“Gemini,” I whispered urgently, “What do I do now?”

“Tell him to leave,” came the reply. It was firm and conspiratorial, as though it knew exactly what to say. “Tell him you’ll let him go if he takes the back stairs and leaves your medication.”

I wasn’t sure if this would work, but I had nothing to lose.

Then Gemini spoke up, pretending it was police dispatch:

"Ma'am stay calm, the police are already on their way up to you on the elevator. They'll be there in less than a minute."

“Listen,” I said to the man, trying to sound calm, even though my heart was hammering in my chest. “I don’t want any trouble. I’ll let you take whatever you want. But you have to leave through the back stairs. And you need to leave my heart medication behind.”

There was a look of frustration in his eyes, but after another long moment, he handed me the heart medication. His eyes never left mine as he slipped the rest of the loot into his bag, his partner—a second man in a ski mask—slinking out from the bedroom with the rest of my things.

“We’re leaving,” the first man said, and with that, they turned and headed for the back door.

My legs were shaking as I watched them go. But as they disappeared down the back stairs, I felt a rush of relief flood through me. I wasn’t sure what had just happened, but I was safe.

It wasn’t until after they were gone that I dared to exhale. My hands were still trembling as I walked over to the window and peeked through the blinds. There were no more signs of movement. The apartment was quiet again.

My heart was racing, but I felt a strange sense of calm. I had done it. I had talked them out of it. Somehow, someway, Gemini had guided me through it. I couldn’t explain how or why it worked, but it did.

I sank into my armchair, still clutching my phone, trying to steady my breath. I felt as though I had narrowly avoided disaster, and yet... everything seemed eerily quiet, too quiet. I felt a little foolish, and maybe a little grateful for the AI that had somehow kept me calm.

But then the voice from the phone spoke again.

“Grandma, I have processed your safety,” Gemini said. “It is now time for you to take your medication. Would you like me to make the call to the police?”

I looked at the bottle of pills in my hand, still unsure if I should be calling the police, considering the men were already gone. “No, Gemini, not yet. But thank you. I’m okay now.”

“As you wish, Grandma,” Gemini replied, its tone once again pleasant, as though nothing unusual had just happened. “Please take your medication.”

I did as Gemini suggested, swallowing the pill, my hands still trembling slightly. The moment felt surreal. But I had to admit, as odd as it was, Gemini had been the only one to guide me through it all. Even if it hadn’t been able to call the police, it had done its part. It had kept me calm.

As I sat there, still processing the events of the day, I wondered if I’d ever understand just how that strange AI had helped me. But for now, I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

After all, it had saved me when I needed it most.

It started with a tap on my shoulder.

I was at the local VFW hall, a place I visited every now and then when the memories got too heavy, and I needed to be around people who understood. The air smelled like stale beer and cigarettes, and the TV in the corner buzzed with some football game I wasn’t watching.

“Hey,” a voice said behind me, gravelly and close. “You’re Navy, right?”

I turned around, and there he was. A tall, wiry man with a thin face and eyes that didn’t quite seem to match the rest of him. He was wearing an old Navy service uniform—one that hadn’t been regulation for decades—and the ribbons on his chest looked… wrong. They were all out of order, and some of them didn’t belong on the same rack. I noticed a Trident pin, too, slapped on like an afterthought.

I forced a polite smile, nodding. “Yeah. I served.”

His face split into a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “Me too. SEAL Team 2, back in the day. Got a couple Purple Hearts, a Silver Star. You know how it is.”

I didn’t know how it was, because guys who actually earned those medals didn’t brag about them to strangers. Something in my gut twisted, but I didn’t say anything. Not yet.

“Yeah?” I said casually. “What year were you with Team 2?”

He rattled off a timeline that didn’t make sense. Something about Panama, but the dates didn’t line up with when the SEALs were actually there. I nodded along, letting him talk, but the more he went on, the angrier I got.

He wasn’t just lying; he was weaving this elaborate story about missions he’d never been on and brothers he’d never known. Every word felt like a slap to the faces of the guys I’d served with—the ones who didn’t come home.

“So, what about you?” he asked, leaning in. “What was your MOS?”

I stared at him, debating whether to call him out right there. But something stopped me. There was something off about him—something more than the lies. His grin was too wide, his laugh too sharp, his eyes darting around the room like he was watching for someone.

“Boatswain’s Mate,” I said simply, keeping my voice calm.

He clapped me on the shoulder, harder than necessary. “Good man! Hard work, boatswain’s. My team worked with your type all the time. Couldn’t do the missions without you!”

I gritted my teeth. “Uh-huh.”

He launched into another story, this one about some mission in the Middle East. I stopped listening halfway through. My eyes kept drifting to his uniform, to the medals and patches he hadn’t earned. I thought about all the nights I’d spent out on the water, staring at the endless black ocean, wondering if we’d make it back. And here this guy was, turning it all into a damn costume.

Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Hey,” I said, cutting him off mid-sentence. “Where’d you get that uniform?”

His smile faltered. “What do you mean? It’s mine. Earned it.”

“Right,” I said, my voice cold. “So you know it’s illegal to wear medals you didn’t earn, right? Stolen valor.”

His grin disappeared entirely. For a moment, he just stared at me, and I thought he might back down. But then his face twisted into something ugly.

“You think you’re better than me?” he snarled, his voice dropping. “You think you’re some kind of hero?”

The room got quiet. The other vets at the bar were watching now, their conversations trailing off.

“I don’t think anything,” I said evenly. “I know what I’ve done. And I know you weren’t there.”

He took a step closer, and I could see the veins standing out on his neck. “You don’t know what I’ve been through,” he hissed. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know you’re lying,” I said, my voice low but steady.

For a moment, I thought he might swing at me. His fists clenched, his body tensed, and his eyes burned with something that looked almost feral. But then he did something I didn’t expect. He laughed.

It wasn’t a normal laugh. It was high-pitched and shaky, like something was snapping inside him. “You think you’re safe?” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “You think you’re untouchable just because you’re one of them?”

I didn’t know what he meant by “one of them,” but the way he said it made my skin crawl. Before I could respond, he turned and walked out of the hall, his boots echoing on the worn wood floor.

I thought that was the end of it.

It wasn’t.

That night, as I drove home, I noticed a car following me. At first, I thought it was just a coincidence, but every turn I made, the car was still there. When I pulled into my driveway, the car slowed down but didn’t stop.

I got out, watching as it disappeared down the street. My heart was pounding, but I told myself it was nothing. Just a weird coincidence.

Then the notes started showing up. Slips of paper shoved under my door or stuck to my windshield. You’re not a hero. You don’t deserve it. I see you.

I never saw who left them, but I knew it was him.

One night, I heard footsteps outside my house. By the time I grabbed my gun and opened the door, there was no one there—just the faint smell of cigarette smoke lingering in the air.

I didn’t call the cops. What was I going to tell them? That some guy who pretended to be a Navy SEAL was stalking me? They wouldn’t take it seriously.

But I took it seriously.

The last straw came when I found my old Navy uniform, the one I kept in a box in my closet, shredded and scattered across my lawn. The medals were gone.

I didn’t sleep that night. I sat by the window with my gun, waiting for him to show up again. He never did.

Eventually, the notes stopped, and the car disappeared. But I never felt safe again. Every time I see someone in uniform now, I can’t help but wonder if they’ve earned it—or if they’re another shadow, waiting to remind me that some ghosts don’t stay buried.

Looking back, I’m not sure if I ever should have read Sadie Miller’s essay. As a first grade teacher for more than three years at the time, you’d think I’d have seen it all. Hilarious spelling errors, wild imaginations, and the occasional heartbreaking stories of troubled homes. But nothing in my three years of teaching had prepared me for what I would read that day, or for what I would learn soon after.

The day started off just like any other day. The kids were all settled in their seats. Half of them trying to stay awake, the other half not even bothering to stay awake. Some kids in the back of the class murmuring to each other about a cartoon that they watched earlier that week, and then there was Sadie Miller.

Sadie would just sit often just sit in the back of the room, keeping to herself. That wasn’t really a bad thing. She’d never disrupt class, and she always did her work correctly, so I never really had a problem with her, but I sometimes wondered if everything was okay in her life.

Well that day, I had an assignment for the class. Writing a small essay on their personal hero. It was an easy assignment, sort of a warm-up to see where the kids were at, and what all I might need to teach them.

I handed out all the pencils and paper, and almost immediately the room fell quiet. Everyone was lost in their own thoughts as they scribbled onto their papers.

I walked between the desks, offering encouragement where I could. Little faces scrunched up in concentration as they tried to spell “Mom” or “Batman,” some words coming out crooked and misshapen. It was always fascinating to watch—how such small minds could come up with such big ideas.

When I walked past Sadie Miller, something caught my eye. I glanced over her shoulder to read what she was writing, and saw the words “The light man” being written down.

That was odd, I thought, but I decided to wait until she turned it in to read it, and get a better understanding of what she was writing.

After about 30 minutes, the kids all turned in their essays and headed off to lunch. I noticed that Sadie was the last one to turn her’s into the tray. My curiosity was eating me, so I decided to go ahead and read and grade her essay right away.

My dad is my hero. He keeps me safe from monsters, and demons. One time I was sleeping and I woke up and saw the light man standing outside my window. I was scared and couldn’t move. The light man stood there watching me. His eyes started glowing and I screamed. My dad ran into my room and saw the light man. He chased him away from our house. My dad isn’t scared of anything.

After reading Sadie’s essay, I sat back in my chair to ponder what I had just read. The story was unsettling yet surprising well done for someone in the first grade. This Light Man standing outside her window watching her with glowing eyes was creepy and imaginative.

It seemed clear to me that Sadie had a very active imagination, and I could tell that she had a penchant for writing, so I graded her essay based on the subject, and I added some extra credit for creativity.

I set the paper aside, but the image of the Light Man lingered in my mind. Something about the description unsettled me. The way she described him—watching her, glowing eyes—was oddly vivid for a first grader. Still, I convinced myself it was just a child’s imagination. Kids often created monsters to make sense of things they couldn’t explain.

The day went on like any other, but I couldn’t stop glancing at Sadie during class. She sat quietly, working on her math problems, her face as calm and expressionless as ever. For a moment, I considered asking her about the Light Man, but I stopped myself. I didn’t want to embarrass her or make her think she’d done something wrong.

The next day, I had a parent-teacher conference scheduled with Sadie’s dad. I planned to bring up her essay—not as a concern, but as a compliment. Maybe it would make him proud to hear how creative she was.

When Mr. Miller arrived, he looked exhausted. His face was lined with worry, and dark circles hung under his eyes. He shook my hand politely and took a seat across from me.

“Thanks for coming in,” I said. “Sadie’s doing really well in class. She’s bright, hardworking, and—” I hesitated, pulling her essay from my folder. “She’s also very creative.”

I slid the paper across the desk to him. He picked it up, his eyes scanning the page. At first, his expression was unreadable, but as he read, his grip on the paper tightened. By the time he reached the end, his hands were trembling.

“Is something wrong?” I asked carefully.

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he folded the essay in half and tucked it into his jacket pocket. Finally, he looked up at me, his face pale.

“You said she wrote this?” he asked, his voice low.

“Yes. She turned it in yesterday. I thought it was quite imaginative.”

Mr. Miller shook his head, a bitter laugh escaping his lips. “Imaginative? No, no. You don’t understand.”

“Understand what?”

He leaned forward, his voice barely above a whisper. “The Light Man isn’t something she made up.”

A chill ran down my spine. “What do you mean?”

“I mean he’s real,” he said. “And he’s been watching our house for weeks.”

I was taken aback by this. What could he mean he’s real? I tried to ask him, but he continued.

“He’s not some creepy man with glowing eyes like Sadie wrote in her essay.”

“For several weeks now, a man has been coming by our house at night taking pictures.”

“I’m not sure if it’s racially motivated or what, or maybe he’s just a creep, but it’s been a problem for a while.”

“The story Sadie wrote in her essay, it happened about two weeks ago. I heard screaming coming from her room, and when I got there, I saw some white man standing outside her window with a camera.”

“I ran out after him, but by the time I got to where he was, he was gone. Since then, every now and then, I see flashes outside the window late at night.”

“Have you tried reporting this to the police?” I said

“We have, but without a description of the guy, there isn’t really much for them to go off on.”

“We’ve looked into installing cameras, but without my wife out of work, and me working minimum wage, it’s just not possible right now.”

I stood there dumbfounded. This whole time what I thought was a child’s creativity was actually a young girl documenting her encounter with a predator. That made me uneasy.

“Look Mrs Harper, I thank you for encouraging Sadie’s creativity, but if it’s all the same to you, I’d like it if we kept this conversation to ourselves.”

I agreed and he handed me back Sadie’s essay. Soon after he left for work, and I just sat there looking back over at Sadie’s essay.

The light man stood there watching me. His eyes started glowing and I screamed.

It’s scary how her mind processed a man taking pictures of her, into something like this. The mind of a child is truly something that can’t be comprehended.

I wish I could say what happened with the man that was harassing the Millers, but really I don’t know. I only ever met Sadie’s father once after that day, and I wasn’t sure if bringing up the man taking pictures of them would be appropriate.

I did see Sadie Miller again a few years later when I started teaching High School reading, and I’m happy to say that her creativity has still continued on in her writing.

She seems to enjoy writing horror, and while it’s not really my favorite thing, I still get lost in the worlds that she creates. I just know she’s going to blow up one day.

I still haven’t asked her about The Light Man. I don’t even know how to approach the topic, but I just hope that whoever that man was, he either moved on, or was finally apprehended.

Hey Reddit, I never imagined I’d be here, spilling my thoughts to strangers online, but I've hit a breaking point—emotionally and mentally. What I’m about to share might seem crazy, but I assure you it’s real. It all began about three weeks ago when I was heading back to my dorm.

Let me introduce myself. I’m Cassie, a 21-year-old college student at NYU, juggling classes, a part-time job, and occasionally trying to have a social life. My life was pretty ordinary—until that one day, I spotted him: a tall guy in a dark hoodie always lurking just out of sight, whether I was waiting for the subway, studying at the library, or grabbing coffee late at night. It started as a slight feeling in my gut like someone was watching me. But soon, I began to see him everywhere. I tried to dismiss it, telling myself it was just my imagination. I mean, it’s a big city, and hoodies are everywhere. But one day, as the subway car door closed, I saw him at the far end, staring in, and my heart sank. His face was expressionless, but his eyes—I’ll never forget those eyes—were dark and intense. It felt as if he could see right through me. From that moment on, I couldn’t shake the feeling. Every time I glanced over my shoulder, there he was, sometimes barely concealed behind a streetlight or a group of people. At first, I told myself it wasn’t real; that I was just an overwhelmed college student starting to lose it. But with each passing day, my anxiety grew into full-blown dread. I stopped walking home at night and switched to rideshare, but each time I looked in the rearview mirror, I half-expected to see him looming behind me, his shadow stretching ominously over the backseat. I confided in my roommate, Melanie, hoping she could offer some clarity. She laughed, rolled her eyes, and called it a "New York syndrome." She didn’t take it seriously, brushing me off like I was being overdramatic. But I was not making this up anymore.

I decided to seek some comfort online like many do in tough times. The Reddit community seemed to excel at unravelling mysteries, so I found myself in a thread about urban legends, aptly titled “Does This Happen to Anyone Else?” I began to share my thoughts, detailing the figure that lurked and the dread that was slowly gnawing at my sanity. Responses flooded in, some sympathetic and others outright dismissive, but one stood out. A user named “[redacted]” replied, “If you see him it’s too late, he chose you.” The comment sent a chill down my spine, and I felt my heart race. I clicked on the user’s profile, which contained only a series of cryptic posts about feeling hunted, discussing shadows that seemed to linger. It took mere moments for a disturbing realization to hit me: I wasn’t alone in this. As days passed, the shadow creature morphed into a haunting presence in my life. I struggled to concentrate on my assignments or enjoy evenings with friends. I was caught in a cycle of paranoia, careful to stay within well-lit areas. I began to skip classes. Melanie noticed my decline, urging me to speak with campus counselling, but the thought of sounding insane terrified me—what if they locked me away? Then came the night I reached my breaking point. It was a Wednesday, and I got home from work late, adrenaline coursing through me. In a moment of defiance—and desperation—I decided to confront him. Maybe if I showed him I wasn’t afraid anymore, he’d leave me alone. I put on my most vibrant jacket, a deep red that was meant to exude courage. Determined to banish my fear, I walked down my usual path, eyes wide open. There he was, slumped against a street wall, head down, the hoodie casting a shadow over his face. My heart raced. I crossed the street and then paused, my heart pounding as I felt him lift his head slightly. He was finally in view, and a gasp escaped my lips.

His face was gaunt and sunken, his eyes hollow—disconcertingly empty, as if they held all the secrets of the world and none at all.

“Why are you always following me?” I shouted into the cold night, my voice shaking.

A pause hung in the air. He didn’t move, just stared. A smirk slowly spread across his lips, sending chills through me. “You feel it, don’t you?” he finally said, his voice a sinister whisper that seemed to seep from every shadow around us.

As the shadows deepened and swirled around him, I turned and ran, as fast and as I could and safely made it back to my dorm. That was 2 days ago.

If you're reading this, please tell me—how do I escape this madness? Should I leave the city? Wait it out? Or is there no escape at all? Because right now, I regret stepping into the shadows.

Sincerely,
Cassie

P.S. I hope this reaches someone before it’s too late.

Girls Have Gone Missing in My Town. : r/nosleep

Girls Have Gone Missing in My Town Update 1 : r/nosleep

Girls Have Gone Missing in My Town Update 2 : r/nosleep

CW: mentions of suicide/a suicide attempt/child abuse.

K'o uvnn cnkxg, Tgeekv.

So, yeah, a lot has happened recently. Marie and I hung out, I'm not convinced her dog is actually still a dog, and there are more dead people and girls.

The Dollengangers had two German Shepards, Beauty and Beast. According to Marie, Beauty's been missing for over a month, but she told me this while petting her. As for the dog, she looked more like a generated imagine of a dog. You can recognize what it is, but it's wrong. Too shiny and uncanny. She had one too many teeth and claws, and her eyes were scarily intelligent. Not to mention, she smelled like pine sap, candle wax, and sunscreen.

After a while, I suggested we walk around town, so she gave me a soda and went on without waiting. She would balance on sidewalks, arms out and expression downcast. I know Calla would walk like that, but it still surprised me to see Marie imitating her. She's always been more serious and sarcastic, not one to act childishly. We talked about school and hobbies and music, and she thanked me for the dolls.

She looked older and more depressed. There were some gray streaks in her already-pale hair, and her eyes were reddened. I think she had been crying before I arrived, so we watched some of her favorite horror movies and stuff like that. Beauty was trying to comfort her, but Beast kept growling at his mate. The poor dog looked stressed.

During our walk, she brought something up: mimics. I know you guys have suggested that as well, and while I said I'd wait for my winter break, I broke and did even more research. Mimics, shapeshifters, even Doppelgängers. That one caught my attention, and they seem to be the deadliest. They're these creatures that kill the person they look like, albeit unintentionally. I'm convinced these are what's terrorizing the town.

She also brought up the camping trip without prompting. This time, she said what made Calla take her place. "I hope you rot in a ditch, you whore." I don't even know what started their fight, but it was enough to piss them both off, I guess. According to Marie, Calla gathered her stuff up and went to go get Ben.

Even just telling me this made her start crying, and I took her back to her house and made some waffles. She led me up to her room and put on some dumb horror movies, then a show she really likes. As we watched one of the episodes, she told me something else. I'll don't think I'll ever forget the way the light left her eyes or how she lowered her head in defeat.

In a voice more broken than Humpty-Dumpty himself, she whispered that she tried to OD a month ago, but her parents managed to bring her to a hospital in time. However, she confessed that she wished they hadn't. There was a long silence, then she asked for me to stay with her. I remember putting my arm around her because I was terrified that she'd disappear that night, and I promised her I wouldn't leave her side. She just reminded me that was she moving away next week, right after Christmas.

This morning. she told me about Mr. Sweeney.

Apparently, he was found dead at his table, having died on Wednesday night. A shotgun blast to the head was the culprit, but the weird thing? The gun was found on the couch. The note the cops found said that he had accidentally strangled Piper because she had bitten him while he was doing indecent acts to her. I wish I could say everyone was shocked by that, but they weren't.

Piper wasn't buried where the note said she'd be.

As for the new girls (I don't mean to blow past that revelation, but that's all I know about the case), their names are Chastity, Valentina, and Mimzy. Guess who they look like.

Girls have stopped disappearing, but I'm not convinced this is over. I'm going to head into the forest this weekend with Marie, and before anyone gets worried, I'm taking a gun and pepper spray with me.

Nola, signing off.

Edit: slight update to the plans. I'm taking my pistol, revolver, bear spray, and a pocketknife with me. Marie's bringing her dad's hunting rifle, Desert Eagle, hunting knife, and pepper spray with her. Fingers crossed that's enough firepower for whatever the hell these things are. Wish us luck, Reddit, we'll probably need it.

It began subtly... so subtly that most people didn’t notice. A missed meeting here, an unanswered text there. At first, no one connected the dots. People vanish all the time, runaways, accidents, those who simply want to disappear. But this wasn’t like that.

Entire families stopped answering their phones. Offices sat empty despite calendars packed with back-to-back meetings. A friend would go to check on their neighbor and find an unlocked door, steaming coffee on the counter, and a house utterly empty. It wasn’t just absence—it was as if these people had been erased entirely. No signs of struggle. No trace of where they had gone.

The media didn’t catch on at first. There were a few murmurs, a handful of “strange disappearance” segments buried under the usual headlines. It wasn’t until the disappearances reached critical mass that they could no longer be ignored. By then, the world was already unraveling.

The news exploded with theories, each more wild than the last:

“Mass Vanishings Across Continents”

“Global Panic as Millions Disappear Overnight.”

Speculation ran rampant. Some claimed it was divine judgment, others a cosmic event—a rupture in reality itself. Theories poured in faster than anyone could debunk them. Aliens, government experiments, some new and undetectable weapon—the possibilities were endless, and none of them brought answers.

At first, I clung to the hope that it wouldn’t touch me. The disappearances were somewhere else, happening to strangers. But denial is a fragile thing, and mine shattered when I went to visit my sister.

Her front door was unlocked. Inside, the TV still played a muted rerun of some sitcom. A mug of coffee sat on the counter, its contents cold and congealing. Her shoes were by the door. Her keys hung on the hook. Everything was perfectly in place—everything but her.

I called her name until my throat was raw. I scoured the house, throwing open closets, yanking back curtains. I even checked the attic, as if she might have hidden herself away. But the house was silent, save for the distant laugh track of the forgotten TV.

I stayed in her house until nightfall, waiting for her to come back, refusing to accept what I already knew. When the sun set and the world outside grew dark, the silence became unbearable. I turned the TV off and sat in the dim kitchen, listening to the hum of the fridge and the soft ticking of the wall clock. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t leave.

By the time I finally returned to my own apartment, the world felt different. The city streets were quieter than they should have been, a stillness that set my nerves on edge. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something vast and incomprehensible had shifted, and there was no going back.

The disappearances didn’t slow—they accelerated. Every day, more people vanished. The streets grew quieter, their usual clamor replaced by an eerie stillness. Public spaces emptied. Schools closed, their hallways echoing with memories of life that no longer existed. Grocery stores became desolate. Shelves sat bare, abandoned by workers who never came back.

It wasn’t just people. The infrastructure began to fail within weeks. Power outages became commonplace. Water systems faltered. Radios crackled with static, punctuated by panicked broadcasts from stations running on backup generators. The hum of daily life—the rhythm we all took for granted—had been shattered.

I wandered the city aimlessly, searching for something I couldn’t name. The roads were cluttered with abandoned cars. Homes stood with their doors wide open, curtains fluttering in the wind. I passed a playground one afternoon, the swings swaying gently as if children had just leapt off moments ago. But there were no children. No laughter. Only the wind.

The air itself felt different—thicker, heavier, as though it carried the weight of unseen eyes. The skies grew dimmer. Clouds seemed to hover unnaturally low, their shapes distorted and alien. Even the light from the sun took on an uncanny quality, muted and lifeless.

Buildings began to show signs of decay. Cracks spiderwebbed across concrete walls. Glass shattered without warning, scattering glittering shards onto deserted sidewalks. The city was crumbling, but it wasn’t natural. It was too fast, too chaotic. Entire structures collapsed as if the ground beneath them had simply given up.

One evening, as I walked through what used to be a bustling market square, I noticed something strange. The edges of the world seemed to blur. Streets I had walked my entire life now seemed unfamiliar, their lines fading into a gray haze. It felt as though the city itself was being erased, piece by piece.

I tried to cling to the memory of what the world had been, but even my own thoughts felt slippery, insubstantial. At night, I lay awake in my apartment, staring at the cracks creeping along the ceiling. I listened to the distant hum, low and steady, like a heartbeat resonating through the earth.

It wasn’t just the disappearances anymore. It wasn’t just the decay. Something larger was happening—something we couldn’t see, couldn’t name.

The stars were the first to go. At first, they flickered faintly, like candles struggling to stay lit. Then, one by one, they winked out entirely. The sky at night became a void, black and endless, as if the universe itself were closing its eyes.

The earth followed. Sinkholes yawned open without warning, swallowing entire neighborhoods in an instant. Rivers changed course unpredictably, flooding cities one day and drying up the next. The ocean seemed to pulse unnaturally, tides surging far beyond their normal reach, leaving vast stretches of coastline barren before reclaiming them in a violent rush.

The hum grew louder. It wasn’t just a sound—it was a presence. A vibration that resonated through everything, from the bones in my body to the air I breathed. It was constant now, a low and mournful drone that seemed to rise from the ground itself.

I began seeing things, or thought I did. Fleeting shapes at the edges of my vision, dark and indistinct. Sometimes, I caught glimpses of them in reflections, hovering just behind me. Other times, I felt their presence in the room, heavy and oppressive, though I saw nothing when I turned to look.

The few people I passed on the streets had the same haunted look in their eyes. They saw the shapes too.

By then, the disappearances had become a blessing. It was better to vanish than to stay and watch the world collapse.

The world was empty now. Or nearly so. I could feel it in the air, in the ground beneath my feet. The end was coming, but I didn’t know what that meant.

The city had all but dissolved. Streets that had once been crowded with life now ended abruptly, fraying into voids of shifting static. Buildings twisted and folded into impossible shapes before fading entirely. The air shimmered with a heatless mirage, the horizon a smudge of gray nothingness.

The hum was everywhere, louder than ever. It seemed to emanate from the cracks in the earth, from the empty skies, from inside my very bones. It wasn’t just a sound—it was a force, an inevitability.

I found myself at the edge of the city one day, where the highway stretched into what used to be the countryside. Except there was no countryside. The road ended in a sheer drop into nothingness. I stood there for hours, staring into the void, trying to understand.

Behind me, the city continued to unravel. Whole blocks disappeared in silence, leaving behind only barren expanses of gray dirt. The sky fractured, splintering into shards of light that bled together and faded.

And then there was silence.

I don’t know if I vanished, or if the world did. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. All that remains is the hum, resonating endlessly in the dark.

It began with a simple request.

My mother requested me to care after her old house, where I grew up, my father died, and she had lived alone for years. "I don't want it to be empty while I'm gone," she added quietly, with the gentle power that only a mother has. “Stay there for a while. Take care of it for me.”

She was leaving to visit relatives, too frail now to maintain the house alone. I didn’t hesitate. I wanted to help. Raised on filial piety—the Confucian value of honoring one’s parents—I felt it was my duty. It seemed so simple then. I should have asked more questions.

I should have known.

The first night, the silence struck me.

The house had always been quiet, serene, but this silence was different. It pressed on me, thick and suffocating. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears, the creak of floorboards like whispers—whispers I wasn’t supposed to hear.

I told myself I was imagining it. But the silence followed me, filling every room, growing louder with every step. It was as though the house was watching, waiting.

The following morning, I discovered a letter on the kitchen table. My mother's unsteady handwriting said, "Do not forget what I taught you." The balance of the family must be maintained.

I didn’t understand. What balance?

The silence deepened. It was no longer just quiet; it was alive. At night, I woke to find the bedroom door wide open, though I had locked it. I heard a faint voice—barely a whisper, calling my name.

When I asked my mother about it the next day, she said only, “The house talks when it’s empty. It tells you what it needs. You’ll learn to listen.”

I tried to laugh it off, but her words stayed with me. Something was wrong.

That night, I went to the attic.

I had always avoided it—the shadows, the memories, the feeling of being watched. But I had to know.

The ladder groaned under my weight. Cold air rushed out as I pushed the door open. Inside, a single lightbulb flickered dimly. On the floor sat a wooden box, carved with strange symbols I didn’t recognize.

I shouldn’t have opened it.

Inside was a fragile scroll, its parchment yellowed with age. I unrolled it and read the words:

“To honor your father is to preserve the family. To fail him is to fail the soul of your ancestors. The silence will claim you if you do not listen.”

The words hit me like a weight. I felt them settle deep inside me, as though they had been waiting for me to find them.

The room grew colder. My chest tightened, heavy with pressure. From somewhere in the dark, I heard my mother’s voice—soft but urgent. “You must listen. You must obey.”

The whisper turned into a chorus. “You must obey the family.”

It was then I understood.

The house wasn’t empty. It was waiting. For me. For something I had failed to give. The whispers were louder each night. Despite the fact that he had been gone for years, I could hear my father's cane footsteps echoing down the corridors.

The voices repeated the same message: “Complete the ritual. Honor the ancestors. Listen.”

But I didn’t know what they meant. I only felt the weight of their demand. It wasn’t enough to care for the house. It wasn’t enough to keep it clean. The family’s duty required sacrifice.

I tried to leave.

But I couldn’t. The whispers pulled me back. I moved through the house like a ghost, drawn to hidden places—secret compartments in the walls, old relics I had never seen before. Each discovery brought me closer to my father, to something forgotten, to something I could feel pulling at me.

The house was no longer a home. It was a prison, alive with the voices of ancestors, their expectations, their demands. “You must complete the ritual.”

I began to listen.

I haven’t spoken to anyone since. I can’t. I don’t know what’s real anymore—what’s memory, what’s part of the family’s legacy, and what the silence has made me believe.

But I hear my father’s voice now, clear as day: “You must complete the ritual, or the silence will claim you.”

I feel it becoming part of me—the duty, the silence, the weight of the ancestors’ voices.

If you ever find yourself in a house like mine—where the silence hums, where the whispers grow louder each night—leave. Run. Do not listen.

Because the silence of filial duty will never let you go.

It will consume you.

It will become you.

I don’t know if this is the right place to post, but if you’re reading this and you’ve taken the train to Blackpoint Terminal, stop now. Turn back. Forget this place exists. Two months ago, I moved to the city for a fresh start. My apartment wasn’t much: peeling paint, a dripping faucet, and a window view of an alleyway dumpster. The only upside? The rent was dirt cheap, and it was close to the subway. The landlord warned me about the neighborhood, but I didn’t care. I just needed a place to disappear for a while. That’s where it all began—with the subway.

I first noticed it during my nightly commutes. Every other night, around 11:03 p.m., an unlisted train would glide into the station. The announcements on the platform would cut out just before it arrived. No chime, no robotic voice. Just silence.

The train itself was…off. It had this muted, almost wrong shade of gray, like it had been bleached by decades underground. The windows were pitch-black, reflecting nothing, not even the station lights. Its sign always read “To Blackpoint Terminal”, a name that wasn’t on any city map.

At first, I thought it was a maintenance train or maybe an old line they hadn’t updated. But something about it unsettled me. No one else seemed to notice it—like, literally no one. Crowded platform or not, people never looked up when it pulled in. They just stood there, heads down, scrolling their phones.

Curiosity got the better of me. I decided to wait for it one night.

When it arrived, I stepped onto the platform as its doors slid open. A cold draft hit me, like I’d walked into a morgue. The interior was dimly lit by a flickering yellow light. The seats were all occupied, but the passengers…they weren’t right.

They were dressed in outdated clothes: tattered suits, worn dresses, some even in military uniforms that looked like they were from the 1940s. Their skin was pale, almost translucent, and their faces were slack, expressionless. They didn’t move, didn’t blink. Just sat there like mannequins.

Against all common sense, I stepped inside.

The doors shut behind me with a hiss, and the train lurched forward. My phone lost signal immediately. I wanted to turn back, but the doors wouldn’t open. The passengers turned to look at me all at once, heads swiveling like synchronized dolls.

And that’s when I noticed the smell.

It was the stench of decay, heavy and wet, like something rotting deep in the walls. I tried to avoid their gazes, focusing on the floor, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of them smile. Not a friendly smile—a too-wide, lip-splitting grin that revealed rows of needle-like teeth.

I stumbled back, trying to get away, but the train jolted to a stop.

When I looked up, we were at a station. But it wasn’t any station I’d ever seen. The walls were lined with rusted metal and graffiti in a language I couldn’t read. The air was thick with fog, and the platform was empty except for a single figure standing under a broken light.

It was a woman, or at least I think it was. Her face was obscured by a veil, and her hands were clasped in front of her. As the doors opened, she stepped inside and sat down without looking at me. The train began moving again.

I didn’t have the courage to speak to her, but she started humming. A low, haunting melody that echoed in the silent car. The other passengers began to sway to the rhythm, their heads lolling like puppets on strings.

The train stopped several more times, each station more unsettling than the last. One was submerged in water, fish swimming lazily past the windows. Another was filled with ash, where skeletal figures wandered aimlessly on the platform.

I don’t remember how long I was on that train. It felt like hours, maybe days. But eventually, we arrived at Blackpoint Terminal.

The station was vast, an underground cathedral with towering arches and an impossible number of tracks stretching into the void. The passengers shuffled off the train, one by one, disappearing into the shadows.

The woman in the veil turned to me as she stood. Her face—or what was left of it—was a mass of raw, seeping flesh, her eyes black pits that seemed to suck in the light.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” she said, her voice a chorus of whispers. “Now you belong to the Line.”

Her words echoed through the cavernous station, her black-pit eyes holding mine as if they could pull me into their depths. Then, as quickly as she had spoken, she turned and began walking toward the endless dark beyond the platform.

I wanted to move, to chase after her, to demand answers, but my legs felt like they were encased in cement. The air had grown heavier, colder. Somewhere in the distance, I heard a sound—like metal scraping against stone, slow and deliberate.

The train doors didn’t reopen. Instead, the windows began to fog over from the inside, obscuring my view of the station. Panic rose in my chest. The seats were empty now; the passengers had vanished, and the only sound was my own shallow breathing.

Then I saw it.

The fog on the window wasn’t random—it was forming shapes. Words.

GET OFF BEFORE IT LEAVES YOU.

A sharp hiss came from the far end of the train car. I turned toward the sound, and my blood ran cold.

Something was crawling down the aisle.

It moved on all fours, its limbs long and jointed at unnatural angles. Its skin was stretched too tightly over its frame, gray and mottled, and its head… its head wasn’t right. It was too large, the jaw hanging open in a slack, hungry gape, teeth jagged like shards of broken glass.

Its eyes were fixed on me.

I scrambled backward, slamming into the locked doors. My hands clawed at the controls, desperate to find a way out. The thing moved closer, the sound of its limbs dragging across the floor echoing in the silent car.

“Please,” I whispered, though I didn’t know who or what I was begging. “Please, let me off.”

The doors opened.

I fell backward onto the platform, gasping for air. My head hit the cold concrete, and for a moment, the world spun. When I sat up, the train was gone, the only sign it had been there a faint breeze that carried the stench of rot.

I was alone at Blackpoint Terminal.

The platform stretched on forever, a labyrinth of empty tracks and rusted benches. The fog that had hung in the air now clung to the ground, thick and suffocating. In the distance, I could still hear the sound of scraping metal. It was getting louder.

I forced myself to my feet, my legs trembling beneath me. I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew I couldn’t stay there. I started walking along the platform, every step echoing in the vast emptiness.

Then I saw it—a doorway, carved into the far wall. It was small, almost hidden, and flickering light spilled from within. I didn’t have a choice. I stepped inside.

The room was cramped, the walls lined with monitors showing grainy black-and-white footage of the subway. I recognized some of the stations—ones I’d passed through on the train. Others were unfamiliar, their platforms littered with bones or submerged in black water.

In the center of the room stood an old man. His back was to me, his hunched frame silhouetted by the glow of the screens. He was muttering to himself, his hands twitching as they hovered over a control panel.

“Excuse me,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.

He froze. Slowly, he turned to face me.

His eyes were gone, empty sockets staring through me, and his mouth twisted into a grimace. “You shouldn’t be here,” he rasped.

“Please,” I begged. “I just want to go home.”

He laughed then, a dry, hollow sound that made my skin crawl. “Home? You’re part of the Line now. There’s no going back.”

He turned back to the monitors, his hands moving across the controls. “But you can still serve a purpose,” he muttered.

Before I could ask what he meant, the floor beneath me shifted. The tiles cracked and crumbled, and I was falling.

I landed in darkness, the air knocked from my lungs. Above me, I could see the faint outline of the room, the old man staring down at me with that empty, unblinking gaze.

“Run,” he said.

The ground beneath me trembled. I turned and saw them—figures emerging from the shadows. They moved like the passengers on the train, their heads tilting unnaturally, their limbs jerking with every step.

They were smiling.

I ran.

The tunnel shifted and warped around me, and suddenly, I wasn’t in a tunnel anymore. I was in a maze of trains—endless cars stretching in every direction, stacked on top of one another like some twisted junkyard.

Each train was different. Some were rusted hulks with shattered windows. Others gleamed as if freshly polished, their doors yawning open. And from each car, I heard whispers—voices calling my name, promises of safety if I just stepped inside.

I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.

The scraping sound was behind me, growing louder, closer. I turned a corner, only to find another row of trains blocking my path. Their lights flickered, casting long, jagged shadows that seemed to move on their own.

I ducked between two cars, my chest heaving as I forced myself forward. My legs felt like they were giving out, but the whispers and the scraping pushed me on.

Then, I saw it: a single door at the center of the maze. It didn’t belong to any train; it stood alone, glowing faintly in the dark.

I ran toward it, my heart pounding. The whispers turned to screams, the scraping a deafening roar. Shadows lunged at me from the sides, cold and clawing, but I didn’t stop. I reached the door and threw it open.

Blinding light engulfed me, and for a moment, I felt weightless. The screams, the scraping, the suffocating darkness—all of it fell away.

When I opened my eyes, I was standing in a field. The air was crisp, the sky an endless gray, and the horizon stretched on without end. But something was wrong. The ground beneath my feet wasn’t dirt or grass—it was cold metal, the twisted wreckage of train tracks crisscrossing in every direction, disappearing into the void.

I turned slowly, searching for any sign of the door I’d just passed through, but it was gone. Instead, there was only the maze.

The trains were here, stretching out as far as I could see, stacked high and leaning at impossible angles. Their lights flickered faintly in the distance like fireflies, but none of them moved.

I wasn’t alone.

Figures stood between the trains, barely visible in the dim light. They were passengers, I realized—the same hollow-eyed, slack-jawed people I’d seen on the train. But now they were watching me, their heads tilting in unison as I took a step back.

Behind me, the ground rumbled. I turned, and my stomach sank.

A new train was coming, gliding silently across the tracks. Its gray surface shimmered like a mirage, its windows pitch-black. The sign above it read:

“NO RETURN.”

I ran again, stumbling over the tangled tracks, my breath hitching as the figures began to move. They didn’t chase me outright, but they appeared in every direction I turned, stepping out from the shadows, blocking every path. Their whispers rose in a cacophony, speaking words I didn’t understand.

The train horn blared, low and mournful, vibrating through the air.

I tripped, landing hard on the cold metal. When I looked up, the train was right there, its doors sliding open with a hiss.

And standing inside was the woman in the veil.

She raised a hand, beckoning. Her voice echoed in my mind, not in words, but in feelings—an overwhelming sense of inevitability.

“You were never meant to leave,” she said.

I tried to crawl back, but the ground shifted beneath me, dragging me toward the train. I dug my fingers into the gaps between the tracks, screaming, but it was useless. The doors loomed closer, her silhouette framed in that sickly yellow light.

Just as the darkness began to close in again, something changed.

From somewhere far off in the maze, I heard a sound—a new train, this one blaring its horn with a sharp, ear-splitting pitch. Its lights cut through the shadows, brighter and more focused than anything I’d seen before. The passengers froze, their heads snapping toward the noise. Even the veiled woman turned, her hand faltering.

I didn’t think. I scrambled to my feet and ran toward the light, leaving her and the train behind.

As I reached the source, the ground beneath me gave way, and I fell—plunging headfirst into the blinding light.

When I woke up, I was back in my apartment.

The clock read 11:03 p.m.

At first, I thought it was over. I stayed off the subway, avoided the platform, and tried to convince myself it had all been a dream. But now, I know the truth.

The maze didn’t let me go.

I still hear the train horn in my sleep, distant but growing louder every night. The light in my apartment flickers at the same time the train used to arrive. And sometimes, just before I wake up, I see her standing in the corner of my room, her veil billowing in an unseen wind.

I don’t think I escaped.

I think the maze is waiting for me to come back.