The Seventh Manuscript: The Forgotten Glyphs

Carved into the stone of a massive monolith, hidden deep within the jungles where the great Olmec civilization once thrived, lay the remnants of a warning. The glyphs, etched with precision beyond the means of ordinary hands, bore the marks of a knowledge that did not belong to their time. When the scribe Ahkuatl first laid eyes upon them, he knew he had found something beyond mortal reckoning.

Ahkuatl was no mere priest or artisan. He had spent his life among the sacred cities, listening to the whispers of the elders and studying the cycles of the stars. Yet the monolith’s message unsettled him. It spoke not of the gods, nor the heavens, but of a force beyond both—the same force that had brought ruin to those who came before.

The glyphs told of a traveler, a lone figure who had arrived from the east many generations prior. He was not like the Olmec nor any of the neighboring peoples. He bore no weapons, nor riches, only knowledge—a fragment of something vast and ungraspable. He had spoken of cycles, of the rise and fall of those who sought to grasp the infinite. The paradox he carried was not one that promised power, but one that ensured destruction to those who failed to understand its nature.

The elders had dismissed him. His words were heretical, his ideas dangerous. And yet, before he vanished into the jungle, he left behind the monolith. He claimed that those who sought truth would one day return to decipher it, though by then, it might be too late.

Ahkuatl traced his fingers over the worn inscriptions. The symbols did not form complete thoughts but instead suggested patterns—cycles of creation and collapse, the inevitable fall of those who built their civilizations upon conquest and avarice. The paradox was hidden within the spaces between meaning, a knowledge not meant to be understood directly but only glimpsed by those who had already seen the edge of reason.

He brought his findings to the high priests of San Lorenzo, but they, like the elders before them, dismissed his concerns. The gods had willed the Olmecs to rule; they had no reason to question the order of the world. Ahkuatl was warned not to pursue the knowledge further, for even inquiry itself could be an act of defiance. The monolith was sealed away, left to be swallowed by the jungle, its message meant to be forgotten.

Yet Ahkuatl could not forget. He saw the signs of decay, the slow unraveling of his people. He watched as greed overtook wisdom, as the leaders built monuments to their own grandeur while the land withered beneath them. The paradox was playing out before his very eyes, and none could see it.

Before the end, he made one last effort. He carved his own warning, hidden away where only the most devoted seekers would find it. He did not write the paradox in full—only fragments, scattered like seeds in the wind, waiting for another mind to piece them together. And then, he too vanished, his fate unknown.

Centuries passed, and the Olmec civilization faded into the earth. Their cities crumbled, their gods forgotten. The monolith remained, untouched, waiting.

And somewhere, in a distant future, another would come. Another would see. And perhaps, this time, they would understand.

Here is a new one I wrote on July 4th, 1999. It is a true story called "The True Story of the Great Maestro".

I have been very fortunate in life when it comes to meeting and seeing the great men of our century. I have personally seen John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Larry King. I have met and talked to Mister Rogers, Arnold Palmer, and the famous actor Robert Clarey. However, no great man had has as much influence on me as that of the Great Maestro.

I met Stanislav Yevchenko in 1979, when I was an aspiring student pursuing what was to be the first of many college degrees. He was a professor of music and a legend in the college community. He spoke 10 languages, had played the violin throughout Europe and the United States, and owned more leisure suits than any man I had ever met.

Professor Yevchenko’s greatest passion was the works of the great composers, and in particular, those written for the violin. He had dedicated his life to introducing the world’s greatest music to generation after generation of students, hoping to plant in them the seed which would hopefully blossom into a lifelong passion for classical music.

The Great Maestro's favorite story is how he had played his violin for Josef Stalin in Moscow and later played it for Adolf Hitler in Berlin. Any person who had partied with those two characters out of history was destined to become a favorite of mine.

I took every course Maestro Yevchenko taught. I took Music History - 101, Music Theory - 201, and if the Great Maestro had taught Introduction to the Kazoo - 301 I probably would have taken that as well.

Quickly the years passed, and soon it was time for me to take my place leading America into the 21st century. I told Maestro Yevchenko my career plans and goals as well as my dreams of world peace and economic prosperity. It was during one of our meetings that he shared his life's hopes and dreams with me.

The Great Maestro had been born early in the century in the country of Estonia, which had been assimilated by the Soviet Union during World War II against its will. Maestro Yevchenko’s desire for a free Estonia was known to all who had met him, and it was his greatest hope to live to see that event become a reality.

During out last meeting together in the spring of 1982, Maestro Yevchenko made a request of me. He asked if I would do two things for him. First, that I do everything in my power to ensure that Estonia regained its national independence, and second, that I learn the works of the great composers. I agreed. It was the least I could do for the man who had given me so much.

Many years have passed since my last meeting with the Great Maestro. The Berlin Wall has crumbled into memory. Millions are free who were not free before. Estonia leads the newly freed nations of the world, rejoicing in its newly won freedom and economic prosperity. Maestro Yevchenko's first request has become a reality.

As the decades have passed, I have listened to, studied, and enjoyed the works of the great composers. I have listened to them at home, in the car, and at work. I have collected hundreds of records, tapes, and compact disks of the world’s greatest symphonies, concertos, and operas. All told, I have spent over 30,000 hours listening to the works of the great composers. Maestro Yevchenko's second request has become a reality as well.

My travels have taken me throughout the world. I cannot help but rejoice when I hear of freedom in Eastern Europe, South Africa, Ireland, and Russia. During those journeys, I have always traveled with the works of the Great Composers as well. They are a part of the song of humanity, and have a universal language understood by all.

Professor Yevchenko knew these truths. His dreams have been fulfilled. Rest in peace, Maestro Yevchenko.

Hello everyone , this is one of my many stories . I’ve written every single one by myself , I use ChatGPT only to correct any possible mistakes , since my english isn’t very good as you’ll see . I hope you enjoy it , have a good day :) ——————————————————————

It’s a beautiful day, a day like no other before. I’m happy to wake up, happy to be alive for yet another day. Nowadays, it’s hard to go to sleep because you never know if one of the infected might eat you in your sleep.

We tried everything to stop them, but in the end, we failed. There were too many for us to handle, and we couldn’t react fast enough. We paid the price. Many of us just disappeared on Day 0—the day it all started. Others couldn’t handle the stress and overwhelming pressure of what was happening around them, so they took their own lives.

I don’t think they were weak. I know they just weren’t strong enough to live in this world. Those of us who decided to try to survive didn’t make it past the first year and a half. The few who did became true survivors. We shared, we prayed, and we stayed strong during those tough times.

It was strange at first. One by one, many of us slowly began to lose our minds from the constant pressure and fear of those things. They’re twice as fast and twice as strong as we are.

We wandered into the wasteland—a wasteland that was once our world. Only ruins were left behind. It’s been well over 25 years since it all started. I’m all alone now. All my friends slowly but surely either became infected or stayed behind, unable to go on.

I didn’t stop any of them. I knew what it meant to live like this, and I knew how badly they wanted their old lives back. Since they couldn’t reclaim those lives—and since they couldn’t bear it anymore—they decided to take the easy way out.

This winter is especially cold, and there’s almost no food left. I’ve got no more than a week’s worth of supplies. It’s getting harder to sleep at night. Just the other day, while I was trying to fall asleep, one of those things bashed the door in. Lucky for me, I had my shotgun beside me.

I can’t handle it anymore. It’s too much. My family is gone, and my friends are no more.

This is my last entry. I can no longer move from place to place every day. I’m too old and too tired to keep pushing, to keep trying to survive. This is no longer life—it’s a living nightmare.

If you find this, I’ve left all my supplies, weapons, and ammunition in a box on the third floor. I’m sorry that you have to live in this world—a world full of monsters that will do anything to make sure you never see another sunrise. But for those who have the strength and mindset to survive, I wish you good luck.

I know that someday, we’ll be free of this plague, free of those things. I won’t be around to see it, but I hope that what I’ve left will help you, dear survivor.

I’ll be in the bed on the second floor, in the room next to the kitchen. Please don’t open the door—it’s probably a messy sight. Take what you can and be on your way.

And one last thing: please don’t break or steal anything from my son’s room, if you decide to enter. It’s the room he never had the chance to see.

Stay safe, dear survivor. Stay strong and push forward.

See you on the other side.

The Silent Bell: A Manuscript of the Way

Year: Kamakura Period, 13th Century CE
Author: Sōan, a wandering Zen monk

I have walked the mountain paths and sat by the river stones. I have listened to the wind among the pines and the waves against the shore. Each whispers a truth that has no words. The mind of man grasps and clutches, but the Way cannot be held, only walked. And yet, within the words of the old masters, there is something—a ripple in the water, a bell that rings though it is never struck. I have gathered these reflections here, though I do not know if they are to be understood or merely abandoned, as one abandons a raft after crossing a river.

A traveling monk once came to my master and asked, "What is the Way?"
My master replied, "The cypress tree in the garden."
The monk bowed and departed. I, too, heard this teaching, but I did not depart. I asked, "Master, why did you answer in such a way?"
He struck me with his staff and said, "When the clouds part, does the moon not shine?"

At the time, I did not understand. Now, many years later, I write these words and still I do not understand. But I have come to see that understanding is a delusion of the grasping mind. The answer is not in the words, nor in the question. The answer is in the seeing.

Long ago, a monk from the Middle Kingdom came to these shores, carrying nothing but a tattered robe and a single scroll. He spoke little of his homeland, save that he had fled from fire and war, bringing only what must not be forgotten. When he grew ill, he passed the scroll to my teacher, and my teacher burned it. I asked why. My teacher said, "To keep the fire from spreading." But when I later looked into the ashes, I found a single character still unburnt. It was 無 (mu), emptiness, without-ness.

I have thought long on this. If emptiness cannot be burned, then what is left to be destroyed? If it is destroyed, then what was ever there?

One day, a fisherman came to me and said, "Master, I have fished these waters my whole life. I know the currents, the seasons, the nature of the tides. But now, when I cast my net, I find it empty. What have I done wrong?"
I told him, "Throw your net where the fish are."
He replied, "But I do not know where they are!"
"Then why do you cast your net?"

At this, he fell silent. The next day, he left his nets and became a monk.

When I was young, I sought to understand the nature of all things. I searched through scrolls and listened to the teachings of the wise. But now I see that wisdom is not something to be taken like a coin from a merchant’s hand. Wisdom is not a thing at all. It is the empty space between thoughts, the silence before the bell rings.

Many will read this and find nothing. This is as it should be.
Few will read this and find something. This is also as it should be.
One may read this and hear the bell that has never been struck.

If so, then they are already beyond these words.

I leave this record here, though I know not who will find it. If the wind carries it away, if the rain washes the ink from the page, then nothing is lost. If it is found, then it was always meant to be found.

Either way, the bell remains silent.

And yet, do you not hear it?

We were the unfit deformed babies of Sparta who were thrown over the cliffs at birth, because we were unfit and were going to bring down Sparta. How unlucky we were and I remember hearing all those cries for our mothers, but our mothers didn't care and only Sparta mattered. I was crying just like the rest of them and being thrown over the cliffs made us even more deformed. Then a witch who couldn't have babies walked in the middle of all of all the deformed babies of Sparta, and she decided that she was going to be our mother.

"My beautiful deformed babies of Sparta! Grow my babies grow!" And the powerful spell she was doing, it started to make us grow into something atrocious and even more hideous and terrifying. We were strong though and we had speed which could out do the fittest and toughest Spartan soldiers. Our deformities gave us strength and we could all remember what Sparta had done to us for being deformed at birth. We were all angry for being left for dead and worst of all we had no voice and we didn't matter in any way. We wanted revenge and we had the physical capabilities of doing so now, thanks to the witch for turning us into monsters.

We all had other weird abilities like being able to travel within the shadows and cause havoc to their minds. The witch told us all to take our revenge upon Sparta. So we did and the more deformed we became the more stronger and more terrifying we became. It felt good being able to do some revenge damage against Sparta, for everything they had done to us they deserve it. I am grateful for the witch mother as she saw something in every deformed Spartan baby. She turned us into monsters.

Then when we went to attack Sparta again and we were killing the place, then I saw my mother and father with their new healthy children. I didn't want to kill them and then I turned back into a deformed useless Spartan baby. I then heard the witches voice tell me "don't you remember how I saved you from being a deformed Spartan baby, if you don't kill your parents and your siblings then you will stay as a deformed baby" and I didn't want to be a deformed Spartan baby.

Then I turned back into the monster and I ravaged my mother and father. My Spartan father tried to fight me but I was too much for him. Yes there was some pleasure from killing them. They did not care when I was thrown over the cliff as a deformed Spartan baby. At the same time I felt bad for killing them as I still saw them as my family. It was two emotions fighting against each other.

Then after a whole night of killing, our mother the witch called out to all of us:

"My beautiful deformed baby monsters, I love you all" and she kissed all of us.

Carpets had always been in my family.

My father was a carpet fitter, as was his father before, and even our ancestors had been in the business of weaving and making carpets before the automation of the industry.

Carpets had been in my family for a long, long time. But now I was done with them, once and for all.

It started a couple of weeks ago, when I noticed sales of carpets at my factory had suddenly skyrocketed. I was seeing profits on a scale I had never encountered before, in all my twenty years as a carpet seller. It was instantaneous, as if every single person in the city had wanted to buy a new carpet all at the same time.

With the profits that came pouring in, I was able to expand my facilities and upgrade to even better equipment to keep up with the increasing demand. The extra funds even allowed me to hire more workers, and the factory began to run much more smoothly than before, though we were still barely churning out carpets fast enough to keep up.

At first, I was thrilled by the uptake in carpet sales.

But then it began to bother me.

Why was I selling so many carpets all of a sudden? It wasn’t just a brief spike, like the regular peaks and lows of consumer demand, but a full wave that came crashing down, surpassing all of my targets for the year.

In an attempt to figure out why, I decided to do some research into the current state of the market, and see if there was some new craze going round relating to carpets in particular.

What I found was something worse than I ever could have dreamed of.

Everywhere I looked online, I found videos, pictures and articles of people installing carpets into their bathrooms.

In all my years as a carpet seller, I’d never had a client who wanted a carpet specifically for their bathroom. It didn’t make any sense to me. So why did all these people suddenly think it was a good idea?

Did people not care about hygiene anymore? Carpets weren’t made for bathrooms. Not long-term. What were they going to do once the carpets got irremediably impregnated with bodily fluids? The fibres in carpets were like moisture traps, and it was inevitable that at some point they would smell as the bacteria and mould began to build up inside. Even cleaning them every week wasn’t enough to keep them fully sanitary. As soon as they were soiled by a person’s fluids, they became a breeding ground for all sorts of germs.

And bathrooms were naturally wet, humid places, prime conditions for mould growth. Carpets did not belong there.

So why had it become a trend to fit a carpet into one’s bathroom?

During my search online, I didn’t once find another person mention the complete lack of hygiene and common sense in doing something like this.

And that wasn’t even the worst of it.

It wasn’t just homeowners installing carpets into their bathrooms; companies had started doing the same thing in public toilets, too.

Public toilets. Shops, restaurants, malls. It wasn’t just one person’s fluids that would be collecting inside the fibres, but multiple, all mixing and oozing together. Imagine walking into a public WC and finding a carpet stained and soiled with other people’s dirt.

Had everyone gone mad? Who in their right mind would think this a good idea?

Selling all these carpets, knowing what people were going to do with them, had started making me uncomfortable. But I couldn’t refuse sales. Not when I had more workers and expensive machinery to pay for.

At the back of my mind, though, I knew that this wasn’t right. It was disgusting, yet nobody else seemed to think so.

So I kept selling my carpets and fighting back the growing paranoia that I was somehow contributing to the downfall of our society’s hygiene standards.

I started avoiding public toilets whenever I was out. Even when I was desperate, nothing could convince me to use a bathroom that had been carpeted, treading on all the dirt and stench of strangers.

A few days after this whole trend had started, I left work and went home to find my wife flipping through the pages of a carpet catalogue. Curious, I asked if she was thinking of upgrading some of the carpets in our house. They weren’t that old, but my wife liked to redecorate every once in a while.

Instead, she shook her head and caught my gaze with hers. In an entirely sober voice, she said, “I was thinking about putting a carpet in our bathroom.”

I just stared at her, dumbfounded.

The silence stretched between us while I waited for her to say she was joking, but her expression remained serious.

“No way,” I finally said. “Don’t you realize how disgusting that is?”

“What?” she asked, appearing baffled and mildly offended, as if I had discouraged a brilliant idea she’d just come up with. “Nero, how could you say that? All my friends are doing it. I don’t want to be the only one left out.”

I scoffed in disbelief. “What’s with everyone and their crazy trends these days? Don’t you see what’s wrong with installing carpets in bathrooms? It’s even worse than people who put those weird fabric covers on their toilet seats.”

My wife’s lips pinched in disagreement, and we argued over the matter for a while before I decided I’d had enough. If this wasn’t something we could see eye-to-eye on, I couldn’t stick around any longer. My wife was adamant about getting carpets in the toilet, and that was simply something I could not live with. I’d never be able to use the bathroom again without being constantly aware of all the germs and bacteria beneath my feet.

I packed most of my belongings into a couple of bags and hauled them to the front door.

“Nero… please reconsider,” my wife said as she watched me go.

I knew she wasn’t talking about me leaving.

“No, I will not install fixed carpets in our bathroom. That’s the end of it,” I told her before stepping outside and letting the door fall shut behind me.

She didn’t come after me.

This was something that had divided us in a way I hadn’t expected. But if my wife refused to see the reality of having a carpet in the bathroom, how could I stay with her and pretend that everything was okay?

Standing outside the house, I phoned my mother and told her I was coming to stay with her for a few days, while I searched for some alternate living arrangements. When she asked me what had happened, I simply told her that my wife and I had fallen out, and I was giving her some space until she realized how absurd her thinking was.

After I hung up, I climbed into my car and drove to my mother’s house on the other side of town. As I passed through the city, I saw multiple vans delivering carpets to more households. Just thinking about what my carpets were being used for—where they were going—made me shudder, my fingers tightening around the steering wheel.

When I reached my mother’s house, I parked the car and climbed out, collecting my bags from the trunk.

She met me at the door, her expression soft. “Nero, dear. I’m sorry about you and Angela. I hope you make up.”

“Me too,” I said shortly as I followed her inside. I’d just come straight home from work when my wife and I had started arguing, so I was in desperate need of a shower.

After stowing away my bags in the spare room, I headed to the guest bathroom.

As soon as I pushed open the door, I froze, horror and disgust gnawing at me.

A lacy, cream-coloured carpet was fitted inside the guest toilet, covering every inch of the floor. It had already grown soggy and matted from soaking up the water from the sink and toilet. If it continued to get more saturated without drying out properly, mould would start to grow and fester inside it.

No, I thought, shaking my head. Even my own mother had succumbed to this strange trend? Growing up, she’d always been a stickler for personal hygiene and keeping the house clean—this went against everything I knew about her.

I ran downstairs to the main bathroom, and found the same thing—another carpet, already soiled. The whole room smelled damp and rotten. When I confronted my mother about it, she looked at me guilelessly, failing to understand what the issue was.

“Don’t you like it, dear?” she asked. “I’ve heard it’s the new thing these days. I’m rather fond of it, myself.”

“B-but don’t you see how disgusting it is?”

“Not really, dear, no.”

I took my head in my hands, feeling like I was trapped in some horrible nightmare. One where everyone had gone insane, except for me.

Unless I was the one losing my mind?

“What’s the matter, dear?” she said, but I was already hurrying back to the guest room, grabbing my unpacked bags.

I couldn’t stay here either.

“I’m sorry, but I really need to go,” I said as I rushed past her to the front door.

She said nothing as she watched me leave, climbing into my car and starting the engine. I could have crashed at a friend’s house, but I didn’t want to turn up and find the same thing. The only safe place was somewhere I knew there were no carpets in the toilet.

The factory.

It was after-hours now, so there would be nobody else there. I parked in my usual spot and grabbed the key to unlock the door. The factory was eerie in the dark and the quiet, and seeing the shadow of all those carpets rolled up in storage made me feel uneasy, knowing where they might end up once they were sold.

I headed up to my office and dumped my stuff in the corner. Before doing anything else, I walked into the staff bathroom and breathed a sigh of relief. No carpets here. Just plain, tiled flooring that glistened beneath the bright fluorescents. Shiny and clean.

Now that I had access to a usable bathroom, I could finally relax.

I sat down at my desk and immediately began hunting for an apartment. I didn’t need anything fancy; just somewhere close to my factory where I could stay while I waited for this trend to die out.

Every listing on the first few pages had carpeted bathrooms. Even old apartment complexes had been refurbished to include carpets in the toilet, as if it had become the new norm overnight.

Finally, after a while of searching, I managed to find a place that didn’t have a carpet in the bathroom. It was a little bit older and grottier than the others, but I was happy to compromise.

By the following day, I had signed the lease and was ready to move in.

My wife phoned me as I was leaving for work, telling me that she’d gone ahead and put carpets in the bathroom, and was wondering when I’d be coming back home.

I told her I wasn’t. Not until she saw sense and took the carpets out of the toilet.

She hung up on me first.

How could a single carpet have ruined seven years of marriage overnight?

When I got into work, the factory had once again been inundated with hundreds of new orders for carpets. We were barely keeping up with the demand.

As I walked along the factory floor, making sure everything was operating smoothly, conversations between the workers caught my attention.

“My wife loves the new bathroom carpet. We got a blue one, to match the dolphin accessories.”

“Really? Ours is plain white, real soft on the toes though. Perfect for when you get up on a morning.”

“Oh yeah? Those carpets in the strip mall across town are really soft. I love using their bathrooms.”

Everywhere I went, I couldn’t escape it. It felt like I was the only person in the whole city who saw what kind of terrible idea it was. Wouldn’t they smell? Wouldn’t they go mouldy after absorbing all the germs and fluid that escaped our bodies every time we went to the bathroom? How could there be any merit in it, at all?

I ended up clocking off early. The noise of the factory had started to give me a headache.

I took the next few days off too, in the hope that the craze might die down and things might go back to normal.

Instead, they only got worse.

I woke early one morning to the sound of voices and noise directly outside my apartment. I was up on the third floor, so I climbed out of bed and peeked out of the window.

There was a group of workmen doing something on the pavement below. At first, I thought they were fixing pipes, or repairing the concrete or something. But then I saw them carrying carpets out of the back of a van, and I felt my heart drop to my stomach.

This couldn’t be happening.

Now they were installing carpets… on the pavement?

I watched with growing incredulity as the men began to paste the carpets over the footpath—cream-coloured fluffy carpets that I recognised from my factory’s catalogue. They were my carpets. And they were putting them directly on the path outside my apartment.

Was I dreaming?

I pinched my wrist sharply between my nails, but I didn’t wake up.

This really was happening.

They really were installing carpets onto the pavements. Places where people walked with dirt on their shoes. Who was going to clean all these carpets when they got mucky? It wouldn’t take long—hundreds of feet crossed this path every day, and the grime would soon build up.

Had nobody thought this through?

I stood at the window and watched as the workers finished laying down the carpets, then drove away once they had dried and adhered to the path.

By the time the sun rose over the city, people were already walking along the street as if there was nothing wrong. Some of them paused to admire the new addition to the walkway, but I saw no expressions of disbelief or disgust. They were all acting as if it were perfectly normal.

I dragged the curtain across the window, no longer able to watch. I could already see the streaks of mud and dirt crisscrossing the cream fibres. It wouldn’t take long at all for the original colour to be lost completely.

Carpets—especially mine—were not designed or built for extended outdoor use.

I could only hope that in a few days, everyone would realize what a bad idea it was and tear them all back up again.

But they didn’t.

Within days, more carpets had sprung up everywhere. All I had to do was open my curtains and peer outside and there they were. Everywhere I looked, the ground was covered in carpets. The only place they had not extended to was the roads. That would have been a disaster—a true nightmare.

But seeing the carpets wasn’t what drove me mad. It was how dirty they were.

The once-cream fibres were now extremely dirty and torn up from the treads of hundreds of feet each day. The original colour and pattern were long lost, replaced with new textures of gravel, mud, sticky chewing gum and anything else that might have transferred from the bottom of people’s shoes and gotten tangled in the fabric.

I had to leave my apartment a couple of times to go to the store, and the feel of the soft, spongy carpet beneath my feet instead of the hard pavement was almost surreal. In the worst kind of way. It felt wrong. Unnatural.

The last time I went to the shop, I stocked up on as much as I could to avoid leaving my apartment for a few days. I took more time off work, letting my employees handle the growing carpet sales.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

Even the carpets in my own place were starting to annoy me. I wanted to tear them all up and replace everything with clean, hard linoleum, but my contract forbade me from making any cosmetic changes without consent.

I watched as the world outside my window slowly became covered in carpets.

And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did.

It had been several days since I’d last left my apartment, and I noticed something strange when I looked out of my window that morning.

It was early, the sky still yolky with dawn, bathing the rooftops in a pale yellow light. I opened the curtains and peered out, hoping—like I did each morning—that the carpets would have disappeared in the night.

They hadn’t. But something was different today. Something was moving amongst the carpet fibres. I pressed my face up to the window, my breath fogging the glass, and squinted at the ground below.

Scampering along the carpet… was a rat.

Not just one. I counted three at first. Then more. Their dull grey fur almost blended into the murky surface of the carpet, making it seem as though the carpet itself was squirming and wriggling.

After only five days, the dirt and germs had attracted rats.

I almost laughed. Surely this would show them? Surely now everyone would realize what a terrible, terrible idea this had been?

But several more days passed, and nobody came to take the carpets away.

The rats continued to populate and get bigger, their numbers increasing each day. And people continued to walk along the streets, with the rats running across their feet, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

The city had become infested with rats because of these carpets, yet nobody seemed to care. Nobody seemed to think it was odd or unnatural.

Nobody came to clean the carpets.

Nobody came to get rid of the rats.

The dirt and grime grew, as did the rodent population.

It was like watching a horror movie unfold outside my own window. Each day brought a fresh wave of despair and fear, that it would never end, until we were living in a plague town.

Finally, after a week, we got our first rainfall.

I sat in my apartment and listened to the rain drum against the windows, hoping that the water would flush some of the dirt out of the carpets and clean them. Then I might finally be able to leave my apartment again.

After two full days of rainfall, I looked out my window and saw that the carpets were indeed a lot cleaner than before. Some of the original cream colour was starting to poke through again. But the carpets would still be heavily saturated with all the water, and be unpleasant to walk on, like standing on a wet sponge. So I waited for the sun to dry them out before I finally went downstairs.

I opened the door and glanced out.

I could tell immediately that something was wrong.

As I stared at the carpets on the pavement, I noticed they were moving. Squirming. Like the tufts of fibre were vibrating, creating a strange frequency of movement.

I crouched down and looked closer.

Disgust and horror twisted my stomach into knots.

Maggots. They were maggots. Thousands of them, coating the entire surface of the carpet, their pale bodies writhing and wriggling through the fabric.

The stagnant, dirty water basking beneath the warm sun must have brought them out. They were everywhere. You wouldn’t be able to take a single step without feeling them under your feet, crushing them like gristle.

And for the first time since holing up inside my apartment, I could smell them. The rotten, putrid smell of mouldy carpets covered with layers upon layers of dirt.

I stumbled back inside the apartment, my whole body feeling unclean just from looking at them.

How could they have gotten this bad? Why had nobody done anything about it?

I ran back upstairs, swallowing back my nausea. I didn’t even want to look outside the window, knowing there would be people walking across the maggot-strewn carpets, uncaring, oblivious.

The whole city had gone mad. I felt like I was the only sane person left.

Or was I the one going crazy?

Why did nobody else notice how insane things had gotten?

And in the end, I knew it was my fault. Those carpets out there, riddled with bodily fluids, rats and maggots… they were my carpets. I was the one who had supplied the city with them, and now look what had happened.

I couldn’t take this anymore.

I had to get rid of them. All of them.

All the carpets in the factory. I couldn’t let anyone buy anymore. Not if it was only going to contribute to the disaster that had already befallen the city.

If I let this continue, I really was going to go insane.

Despite the overwhelming disgust dragging at my heels, I left my apartment just as dusk was starting to set, casting deep shadows along the street.

I tried to jump over the carpets, but still landed on the edge, feeling maggots squelch and crunch under my feet as I landed on dozens of them.

I walked the rest of the way along the road until I reached my car, leaving a trail of crushed maggot carcasses in my wake.

As I drove to the factory, I turned things over in my mind. How was I going to destroy the carpets, and make it so that nobody else could buy them?

Fire.

Fire would consume them all within minutes. It was the only way to make sure this pandemic of dirty carpets couldn’t spread any further around the city.

The factory was empty when I got there. Everyone else had already gone home. Nobody could stop me from doing what I needed to do.

Setting the fire was easy. With all the synthetic fibres and flammable materials lying around, the blaze spread quickly. I watched the hungry flames devour the carpets before turning and fleeing, the factory’s alarm ringing in my ears.

With the factory destroyed, nobody would be able to buy any more carpets, nor install them in places they didn’t belong. Places like bathrooms and pavements.

I climbed back into my car and drove away.

Behind me, the factory continued to blaze, lighting up the dusky sky with its glorious orange flames.

But as I drove further and further away, the fire didn’t seem to be getting any smaller, and I quickly realized it was spreading. Beyond the factory, to the rest of the city.

Because of the carpets.

The carpets that had been installed along all the streets were now catching fire as well, feeding the inferno and making it burn brighter and hotter, filling the air with ash and smoke.

I didn’t stop driving until I was out of the city.

I only stopped when I was no longer surrounded by carpets. I climbed out of the car and looked behind me, at the city I had left burning.

Tears streaked down my face as I watched the flames consume all the dirty, rotten carpets, and the city along with it.

“There was no other way!” I cried out, my voice strangled with sobs and laughter. Horror and relief, that the carpets were no more. “There really was no other way!”

When Sarah-Jane was eight, nearly nine, years old, there wasn’t much that she could call her own. In their dusty farmhouse outside Topeka Kansas, she didn’t even have her own room. Every evening after supper, after Mammy had cleaned all the dishes, while Papa was either out on the porch drinking or off in town doing, whatever it was Papa did there, Sarah-Jane's mother would pull the big purple comforter back down from the closet, and make up Sarah-Jane’s bed on the couch. If she was lucky, Sarah-Jane would get a story from a library book; if she was even luckier, Mammy would make something up for her. In every one of Mammy’s stories, a little brown-haired girl with freckles would do something courageous, climb a mountain to steal a magic feather from a giant eagle, slay a dragon threatening a humble village of goatherds, trick an evil king with a riddle into freeing his wife and daughter from his dungeon. At eight years old,  Sarah-Jane had only three things that were her own. 1. Freckles that came on strong in the summertime 2. Her very own thesaurus, bought from the library's second-hand book sale, so she could find all the new words for everything 3. Her very own real fairy-tale animal companion like the girls in Mammy’s stories, Edwin the goose. 

Edwin wasn’t magic, except to Sarah-Jane’s eyes. At the start of the summer, Papa had the idea that they should start raising geese for money. If they started now, by the time Christmas came around, they could have a whole flock of fat greasy geese to sell to the rich town folk. Never mind that Sarah-Jane’s parents, Nancy and Todd, had never raised geese or any kind of livestock on their dried out farm. In that summer of 1935, without consulting his wife, Todd came home from town, kicked open the screen front door with a dirty boot, and set a wooden crate with 25 baby goslings down on the kitchen floor. 

“You’ll see Nance, this one’s going to work. Now come on out here and help me build a fence”. 

Tiny peeps floated out of the crate and drew Sarah-Jane’s heart down towards the yellow dandelion puffs bouncing from wall to wall. Sarah-Jane didn’t want to love them. She’d learned it was better to be hard towards animals after what Papa had done last fall. Before Edwin, Sarah-Jane had been friends with the rats in the barn and an orange tabby cat she’d called Tangerine. Tangerine was another name for orange, which Sarah-Jane knew because it was in her thesaurus. Tangerine was supposed to be taking care of the rats to make sure they wouldn’t get at any of their crops. But, he enjoyed sunbathing up in the empty hayloft getting belly-rubs from Sarah-Jane more than he enjoyed chasing after rodents. 

One late afternoon, while Sarah-Jane was laying in the hay loft in the last of the autumn sun reading her thesaurus, Papa came into the barn with a glass bottle full of a purple powder and some sugar. “Sarah-Jane? You up there?” 

Sarah-Jane heard the brightness in his words, how there was space between each one, not all running out on top of each other, so she knew he hadn’t been drinking “yes Papa. Just reading my tesoris” 

“I’m putting out rat poison. That darn cat aint good for the milk we feed him. You stay clear of this here, you see this purple stuff?” 

Sarah-Jane crawled to the edge of the hayloft to peek out at him

“Lilac Papa. It’s another word for light purple”

“I’ll lilac your hide if you get near this jar. You hear me girl? This is poison. And we’re getting rid of that damn cat.” and Todd set about mixing the purple powder and sugar in the corners of the barn. 

After Papa had left the barn, Sarah-Jane picked up Tangerine with both hands under his front legs and pulled his nose close to her own. “Tangy, you gotta catch a rat! Papa’s right. Everyone on this farm has to pull their weight! Please Tangy, do it for me! Show Papa you can catch a rat, even just one!” 

And just like in one of Mammy’s fairy-tales, Tangerine must have understood her, because the next morning Sarah-Jane discovered him lying, one leg tucked under him sleeping on the front porch next to a half-eaten dead rat.

“See Papa! He does too catch rats! Now we can keep him? Right Papa! See!” Papa ambled up beside her on the porch nudged Tangerine with his boot

“No brains cat.” 

Sarah-Jane thought Tangerine must have been very tired from hunting because he didn’t rise with his morning stretch to come inside for milk. 

“Poor dear. Must have gotten one after it got into the poison .” Nancy said as she lifted Tangerine from the porch to bury him.

But all that pain, dead rats, dead cats, was washed away when Sarah-Jane saw one gosling limping in circles in the corner of the crate When she reached down to lift the tiny fluff closer, she saw that this gosling was special. 

“Mammy look, this one’s missing his leg!”

“Goddammit! That good-for-nuthin Jim cheated me! Who the hell wants a Christmas goose with one dagarn drumstick! Oh when I get my hands on that sunuvabitch, Nance, you finish this fence by the time I get back, time to pull some weight”

With the car door slam, Papa was gone. It wasn’t easy for two women who between them weighed no more than 160 pounds to put up a fence meant to keep in twenty-five geese.  But, after Mammy sat out long that night on the porch, drinking from Papa’s clear jars, and laughing at whatever he grunted out,  it turned out to be pretty easy for Sarah-Jane to get to keep the one-legged goose as her very own. Because of the missing leg, Edwin wasn’t able stay in the same pen as the other geese, his lopsided sprint was never fast enough to get to the grains and grass Nancy tossed in every morning, so Sarah-Jane got to build Edwin his own little hut in the barn where she would feed him a special meal by hand. Edwin never got tired of learning new words, his favorite words were colors “Azure, crimson, cream. That’s, blue, red, yellow” Sarah-Jane would read as Edwin’s beak grazed from her palm.  

Even though Sarah-Jane knew better than to get her hopes up, she did. When Christmas Eve arrived, and somehow all the geese except for Edwin, were sold, it shouldn’t have been such a surprise when Papa came home from town, words sliding out of his mouth tangled up like noodles,

“Now thas allthum geese gone. Toldcha wed do goodonnit Nance. And this year, we gunna haf a goosh fer Chissmas dinner, like we’re sumbody, even if isonly got one drumstick” 

“Todd. You can’t mean Edwin.” 

“You know nuther goddamm goosh with one fucking leg around here woman? Go get that goddamn goosh and wing its fuckin neck”

Before Papa could find anything to throw, Sarah-Jane stepped in and hugged her Papa. 

“Papa, you’re so smart, and sharp, and saavy. Please, just, let me say goodbye to Edwin tonight, and then, in the morning, on Christmas Day, I’ll help Mammy. We’ll cook the whole thing, just for you”

Papa’s eyes wandered down to his daughter’s brown hair as she held him steady against the ocean waves that had appeared under his feet on the plains of Kansas.

“Looks like shum wumen know their place. Nansch, helpme with mu bootsh”

Sarah-Jane spent that freezing night in the barn with Edwin telling him stories and feeding him all his favorite things, grain, bits of her hair, sugar. Before she said her final goodbyes to Edwin, she plucked a long tail feather.

Sarah-Jane the next morning was true to her word,  with Mammy’s help, Sarah-Jane helped her kill, pluck, and prepare Edwin. She even offered to help make the gravy all her own while Mammy finished up the potatoes. When Nancy pulled Edwin out of the oven and placed his glistening carcass gingerly on the kitchen table, Todd beheld his scrawny game with all the pride of the master hunter eyeing up a kill.

“Look at the bird, even with one leg, he’s a sight to see. Sarah-Jane, you’re going to make a helluva wife one day”

Sarah-Jane smiled down at her carrots and potatoes, while Nancy let Todd eat the entire goose, taking the gravy to drown his potatoes, and leaving the bowl empty. 

He leaned back and looked at Sarah-Jane

”That was mighty fine gravy Sarah-Jane, Nance, you better watch out, or soon this girl will be doing all the cookin’ round here. Then what will I need you for?”

The next morning, Papa woke up complaining that he had a belly ache. The whole day he stayed in the outhouse, Edwin and gravy coming back up his throat. The day after that, he woke up screaming that Mammy must be lighting matches underneath his hands, they were burning. He couldn’t get up out of bed at all the next day. When he tried to get up to use the outhouse, his legs melted under him like fat on a hot griddle, and he shit in his pajamas. When Mammy tried to lift him to get him back in bed, he fought her, and like dandelion fluff in the breeze, chunks of his hair just came falling off. Mammy closed the bedroom door then and slept with Sarah-Jane on the couch. They waited four more days, and then one morning, when it had been quiet for a while, Mammy opened the door. Papa was lying real still in the corner on the floor, his trousers sticky with cocoa and crimson, one leg tucked up underneath himself.  

“Poor dear.” 

And so the year Sarah-Jane turned nine, she had three things of her very own. Her freckles, her thesaurus, and her Mammy.  

Manuscript V: The Obscured Path

(Eastern Zhou Dynasty, Warring States Period, 475–221 BCE)

The year was one of war, though such times had long ceased to surprise anyone. The lands of Zhou were fractured, torn apart by the ambitions of feuding lords. Knowledge, once revered, now served as a weapon—bent to justify power, to refine war, to shape the minds of those who ruled. But knowledge, when left untamed, had a way of slipping through cracks, finding new soil to take root.

It arrived not as a declaration, not as a grand revelation, but as whispers carried by the wind—etched into stolen copper, inked onto a fading scroll, and spoken by wandering tongues seeking refuge.

The Stolen Artifact – The Spy’s Fragment

The warlord of Wei had little patience for scholars, save for those who could bring him victory. But his chief strategist, Xun Li, believed otherwise. He had sent men beyond the borders, searching for wisdom in the lands of the western sages. One such man returned with an artifact—a broken tablet of copper, covered in inscriptions unlike anything seen before. The script, ancient yet precise, contained geometric proportions and verses that seemed to describe a balance beyond human governance.

Xun Li, ever the pragmatist, dismissed the warnings it carried. He took from it only what served his master’s needs—concepts of structure, hierarchy, and the inevitable fall of those who failed to enforce order. He rewrote its meaning, presenting it as proof that the state must wield absolute control, for chaos would otherwise consume all. Thus, the first piece of the paradox was sealed within the foundations of Legalist doctrine, its warnings turned into justification for tyranny.

The Wandering Sage – The Proto-Buddhist Ascetic

South of Wei, in the kingdom of Chu, a man with no name walked the roads. His robes were simple, his hair unkempt, his speech marked by the rhythms of a distant land. He spoke in riddles, of cycles unbroken, of empires rising only to fall. A handful of Daoist mystics took interest, finding in his words an echo of their own beliefs—that all things must follow the way, the Dao, and that nothing lasts forever.

He spoke of a law unseen, one that bound not just men, but the very heavens. But when asked to explain it plainly, he only smiled and pointed to the river, ever flowing yet never the same. Some listened, some scoffed, and others forgot him altogether. When he vanished, no one knew whether he had left or been silenced. Yet, his words lingered, becoming part of whispered teachings that few could unravel.

The Merchant’s Scroll – The Trade Route Transmission

In the capital of Qi, where scholars debated in open courts, a merchant brought with him a scroll. It had passed through many hands, its original author long unknown. Within its delicate fibers lay dialogues on duty and balance, on rulers who sought power yet feared truth. It spoke of the same patterns the lost civilization had once inscribed upon stone.

A Confucian scholar, wary of its subversive potential, transcribed portions of it into his own writings. But he reshaped them, bending their implications to fit the harmony he sought between ruler and subject. He hid its warnings within moral teachings, altering its purpose while preserving its core. Thus, the Knowledge became a lesson in virtue, its sharper edges dulled, its revelation deferred.

The Exiled Refugees – The Last Exiles

The final carriers of the knowledge were not scholars, nor spies, nor traders, but exiles. A handful of sages, displaced from a kingdom that had fallen to war, found themselves under the patronage of a minor noble. They spoke among themselves in hushed tones, recalling what little remained of the great teachings they once knew. But even among them, understanding had been lost. Each held but a piece, their collective knowledge fragmented by time and distance.

Some sought to preserve it, others to use it. A few, recognizing that their words could alter the fate of nations, chose silence. And so, the last fragments of the paradox were scattered, hidden within philosophies that would endure for millennia, waiting for the day when another mind—perhaps one from a distant land—would piece them together once more.

Thus, the knowledge passed through China not as a single revelation, but as echoes refracted through the lenses of politics, philosophy, and faith. No one man held its entirety. No one age understood its depth. But its shadow remained, woven into the thoughts of those who would one day shape the world.

Waiting.

For the next chapter.

What would happen if I started writing about everything that has happened? How I ended up accidentally being the catalyst for the collapse of modern civilization? I fear I start something and when I look again it has lost its magic. There is nowhere to return. The system made everything easier though. I don't think I'm much for storytelling. I'm not much for talking about myself either. I don't really know who I am. Human, I guess. A bundle of regrets. A symphony of mundanity.
Yours Truly. I want to go back. Back to when I designed it. Didn't seem so big. Another waste of a Saturday night. Another project other than the one I could have focused on. I'm looking at the interface.

Would you like to proceed?

I'll rewrite this prompt later.

"Proceed to stage 2."

Thought locked and loaded. Current snapshot of mainnet refreshed. Would you like to proceed?

"Authenticate Echo Banana Cipher Long Fire."

Confirmed. Thought ready to deploy. Thought will be exposed to mainnet in 10 seconds. 9. 8. 7.

I should add a third stage.
The prompt is no good.
"Commit to Stage 1?" That's better.

This is too sensitive. It's too sensitive. That's all I can think. There's too much risk.

"System, come online."

Acknowledged.

System, refresh testnet.

Acknowledged.

"System, show local messages from testnet in region"

Acknowledged.

"System, create new message."

Acknowledged.

"System, draft message: Good Morning and Happy Saturday!"

Acknowledged.

"Push to stage 2. Authenticate Echo Banana Cipher Long Fire."

Confirmed. Thought ready to deploy. Thought will be exposed to testnet in 10 seconds. 10. 9.

"Cancel message."

Message canceled.

"Push to stage 2. Authenticate Echo Banana Cipher Long Fire."

Confirmed. Thought ready to deploy. Thought will be exposed to testnet in 10 seconds. 10 9 8 7 6..

Message deployed to testnet at 04:32:19.

It is not secure enough. We need a third stage. A second passphrase.

Commit to stage 1.
Push to stage 2.
Confirm with passphrase.
Push to stage 3.
Confirm with passphrase.

What if this isn't secure enough?
How can I prevent the mind autopiloting this function?

A physical switch.
The switch isn't enough.

Need a local AI safety net.
Then a remote AI safety net.

Local AI scans thought for controversial content.
User is prompted with warnings.
If the user proceeds then the message passes to remote AI scan running the code locally.
If the second prompt fails content check, user is prompted with warnings. If user proceeds, create ticket to mental health?

Set a delay on the message?
Can't cancel their speech entirely.

Message queues to a 48 hour delay.
If the user does not cancel the message in 48 hours it will broadcast to mainnet.

The danger is there is no backdoor. There is no way to cancel the message.
If the user is deceased or incapacitated they cannot cancel the message.
If the user is unable to make a connection to mainnet they cannot cancel the message.
A message is encoded with their unique signature. There is no way to spoof a message.

Anyone with access to the mainframe then becomes a target and liability.
But by whom?
And what damage could be caused?
Terroristic messages?

What are the possible potential damages?

This is too big for me.
I can't see the possibilities.
Maybe this isn't a good idea.

I don't know how to put more safeguards in place.
I don't know.
I don't know.

Douggie was always an unusual boy—he had a lot of his father in him, something I resented every time I laid eyes on him. A 43-year-old man-child, still not the perfect young gentleman I had envisioned him to be. I am sure that as I make chili, he is making love to his sock. Douggie has always attended to his urges—a little too much for my liking. Just like my man-whore of an ex-husband.

Since childhood, the only food Douggie would tolerate was chili. I hate chili with a passion. I instantly gag when the scent invades my olfactory nerves. But I am not going to let it go to waste—why should I? Even cheap food is expensive when one has no active income. Might as well feed it to Douggie; maybe then he’ll have something else to focus on besides his filthy urges.

It’s the only way I can control my idiotic son. Something so simple yet potent. I never understood his obsession with my chili, but it gets the job done. As usual, I have to call Douggie down from his room.

I am sure he is having the time of his life with camgirls. The only way I ever get his attention is through humiliation, so I yell at the top of my lungs, “Douggie! Your chili is on the table! Quit watching that porn and get your ass in here, pronto!”

Just another failure to add to the long list of disappointments that is my son—like his father in every single way. I should have poisoned his precious chili years ago, but even though Douggie is a deplorable waste of life, he is still my son. I could not resort to such extreme action. For some reason, I’ve always held onto the hope that he would be more like me than his father. That Douggie would turn his life around and treat me with dignity and respect, like the delicate flower and queen that I am.

Before I could even summon him, Douggie had already taken his seat—an unusual undertaking for him. He sat at the table, eyes fixed on the bowl of chili. Disgusting. He was foaming at the mouth as if he were a starving child. He looked like a caveman, grabbing his spoon, his hands trembling in anticipation.

The way he stuffed his mouth with chili—practically gargling the liquid, swishing it around as if it were mouthwash. Pieces of beans stuck between his teeth as he gave me his typical idiotic smile. God, I can’t stand the sight of him, watching him eat like a barbarian. But I force a smile, always pretending to approve of this uncivilized behavior.

After all the sacrifices I have made for him—providing Douggie with every want and need—this is my repayment. A chili-obsessed freak with a compulsive need to attend to his urges. He and his father alike have failed me in every conceivable way.

I am at my limit with this ridiculousness. As always, I praise him for finishing every bite. “Very good, very good, Douggie. You ate every crumb. You’re such a good boy—so close to being the gentleman I always envisioned you to be.” Look at me, speaking to him as if he were a child. He stares at me with admiration, chili spilling from his mouth like a waterfall, dripping down his neck, soaking into his white undershirt, covering his chest hairs in a thick brown river of chili and saliva.

My eyes bore into the sight of my failure of a son. “If you have something to say, Douggie, now is the time.”

Douggie’s demeanor changed. He began hyperventilating and trembling, spitting out the chili he had just swallowed, covering my once-white tablecloth. His eyes bulged from their sockets, and he let out an uncontrollable screech—an ape howling from the depths of his lungs.

He was out of control. All I could do was watch this scene unfold like something from a horror movie.

“Well, Douggie? What is it?”

Douggie seemed to relax. He stared at me, a sinister grin spreading across his face. Then he opened his mouth.

“MaY I hAvE mORE of YouR Special Chili, MoTHER?”

With no other alternative, I smiled—a veil of glee masking my disdain.

“Anything for my young gentleman.”

Tensho gasped for air as he jolted awake. His body ached, his mind foggy, and his vision spun. Cold stone pressed against his back, and above him loomed the towering silhouette of a massive church, its stained glass reflecting the twilight sky.

"What… happened?"

Disoriented, he pushed himself up, trying to recall how he got here. Nothing. The last thing he remembered was stepping outside his apartment back in Japan, then darkness.

Now, he was in a city straight out of a fantasy novel. Knights in gleaming armor patrolled the cobblestone streets, merchants peddled goods under colorful banners, and strange, non-human folk walked among the crowd.

This should have been exciting. It should have felt like an adventure.

Instead, it was a nightmare.

Tensho quickly realized this world was cruel.

He had nothing no money, no home, and no idea how to fend for himself. Every attempt to find help ended the same way cold glares, dismissive shrugs, or outright hostility.

He was weak, and in a world like this, weakness was a death sentence.

Beaten and bloodied after an encounter with thugs, Tensho collapsed in an alley, the filth and grime soaking into his tattered clothes. His body trembled from hunger, his hope fading.

That was when she appeared.

A soft touch brushed against his face.

Tensho groggily opened his eyes, his vision greeted by fluffy white ears and a bushy tail swaying behind a girl crouched beside him.

Her crimson eyes shimmered with concern, and her long silver hair cascaded down her shoulders. She had delicate fox-like features, small fangs peeking from her lips, and a tail that twitched with emotion.

"You’re in bad shape," she murmured, her voice gentle yet firm.

He wanted to speak, but his throat was too dry.

“Don’t talk. Just drink.”

Yuna pressed a wooden flask to his lips. Cool water ran down his throat, soothing the burning dryness.

For the first time since arriving, someone cared.

She cleaned his wounds, fed him warm stew, and let him rest in her tiny home a modest wooden shack on the outskirts of the city.

Every day, Tensho felt himself growing more attached to her. Not just because of her kindness, but because of the way she laughed, the way her tail flicked when she was flustered, the way her eyes glowed under the moonlight.

He was falling for her.

But fate was cruel.

BOOM!

A deafening explosion rocked the city. The sky burned with fire as two figures clashed midair, their battle sending shockwaves through the streets.

Tensho and Yuna stumbled outside, their eyes widening at the sight. A massive warrior, clad in dark steel, swung a colossal sword at a hooded figure wreathed in purple lightning.

Their battle was unstoppable.

Tensho barely had time to react before a collapsing tower sent a massive iron pole hurtling toward him.

Pain.

White-hot agony tore through his body as the pole pierced his chest, pinning him to the stone pavement. His blood pooled beneath him, his vision darkening.

“Te-Tensho?!” Yuna’s voice cracked, panic in her eyes.

He reached for her with a trembling hand.

Then...

Her expression went blank.

Her ears twitched, confusion flickering in her crimson eyes. She took a step back, her face empty.

“W-What was I… doing here?” she murmured, looking around as if she had forgotten why she was even outside.

She forgot him.

Tensho’s heart broke even before his body gave out.

Then...darkness.

GASP!

Tensho shot up, clutching his chest.

No wound. No blood.

He was back. Lying in front of the church.

The same twilight sky stretched above. The same city sounds surrounded him.

And then...

BOOM!

The explosion echoed in the distance.

His breath hitched. He turned his head, and sure enough the battle raged on, just as before. The warrior and the hooded figure clashed midair, their devastating blows sending shockwaves through the city.

It was happening again.

His fingers dug into the stone. His mind raced.

"I died. But I came back. And… Yuna. She forgot me."

His stomach twisted.

Would she still be in her home? Would she still take him in? Would she still care?

Or would he have to start from nothing?

He grit his teeth.

"I won’t let this happen again."

If this was his fate to reset and be forgotten every time he died then he had to get stronger.

He had to survive.

And most importantly he had to find Yuna again.

The Fourth Manuscript: The Hymn of the Unseen Law
Attributed to: Rishi Vayatra
Vedic Civilization, c. 1200 BCE

In the twilight hours, beneath the vast canopy of the heavens, where the stars shimmered like embers in the great cosmic fire, the sage Vayatra sat in silence. Before him, a gathering of his disciples awaited his words, for on this night, he would reveal a mystery whispered through the ages.

"There is a tale," he began, his voice like the slow rumble of distant thunder, "of a stone not born of our lands, but carried upon the tides of fate. It is said to have come from the lands of the western kings, those whose hands shaped the mountains into monuments of the sun. Yet what they sought to build, they could not understand. For within this stone was inscribed a truth that devours those who gaze too long upon it."

The disciples murmured among themselves. One, bold in his youth, asked, "O Wise One, is this not the law of the cosmos? That the eternal wheel turns, and all is as it must be? How can truth be devouring?"

Vayatra smiled, for the question was expected. "Ah, but what if the wheel does not turn as you believe? What if the path before you is not your own to walk?" He gestured toward the heavens, where the stars traced their eternal arcs. "The kings of the West sought to carve the heavens into stone, to mark the path of eternity with their own hands. But the stone bore the wisdom of those before them, a people now lost to the hunger of time. And what was written upon it did not speak of creation or permanence—it spoke of dissolution."

Another disciple, wary of such riddles, spoke: "Yet dissolution is the way of all things, is it not? The rivers dry, the mountains erode, and even the gods fall into silence. How is this a warning?"

Vayatra sighed, his eyes gleaming like the first light of dawn. "Because, my children, they did not understand that to know this truth is to be bound by it. The kings thought to decipher the script, to wield it as a tool of power. But what they uncovered was a thought that, once known, could not be unknown. The hand that writes is not free, for it is guided by what has already been written. The man who gazes upon the law of dissolution is not free, for he now walks toward it unbidden."

The disciples fell into contemplation. The bold one frowned. "Is this then the fate of all who seek the hidden knowledge? To see, and thus to be bound?"

Vayatra nodded. "It is said that those who first inscribed the stone knew of this burden, and in their wisdom, they sought to veil the truth in sacred number, in the rhythms of the breath, in the movement of the sun. But the mind that seeks will always find, and thus the law remains, waiting for those who wander too far."

Silence fell. The fire crackled. At last, the youngest among them, a child barely past his first decade, spoke in a whisper. "Then how does one escape it?"

For a long while, Vayatra did not answer. Then, with a sorrowful smile, he murmured, "Perhaps one does not. Perhaps that is the final illusion."

And so, under the watchful eye of the stars, the disciples of Vayatra sat in thought, their minds tracing the pattern of a truth they could not yet name, but which had already begun to take root in the depths of their being.

The Third Manuscript: The Suppression of Knowledge
Attributed to Bel-Ashur, Merchant and Diplomat of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (c. 750 BCE)

I, Bel-Ashur, a humble servant of commerce and state, set ink to clay so that these words may survive beyond my years. I have walked the halls of power, bartered in distant lands, and spoken in tongues not my own. Yet, in all my dealings, I have never encountered a thing so perilous as the knowledge now before me.

It began with a chance acquisition in Tyre. Among the goods of a desperate merchant, I found a curious tablet, its inscriptions unlike the known tongues of men. The seller, an aging Phoenician with eyes clouded by years, swore it was of Hittite origin, yet it bore markings unfamiliar even to the scholars of their vanquished kingdom. The symbols whispered of something older—an echo from a forgotten age. The moment my fingers traced its surface, I knew I held a thing of consequence.

Through patience and coin, I gathered fragments of its meaning. I cross-referenced the text with the archives of Nineveh and the wisdom of Babylon’s scribes. The script spoke of an ancient obelisk once found in Kemet, land of the Nile, bearing inscriptions from a civilization lost to time. It told of knowledge so profound it could not be ignored—yet so dangerous it could not be accepted. A paradox given form.

The obelisk’s message warned of a cycle, a pattern woven into the rise and fall of all who sought dominion over the world. It spoke of a limit—an invisible boundary that no civilization could surpass. Knowledge, when carried beyond a certain threshold, did not illuminate but devoured. Those who glimpsed too far into the abyss of understanding found themselves consumed, their empires crumbling beneath the weight of their own wisdom. The Hittites, it seemed, had begun to understand this truth, only for their empire to fall before they could act upon it.

Compelled by duty and curiosity, I sought an audience with the king’s advisors, believing that such knowledge should not be buried. I was granted a hearing before the scribes and priests, men whose wisdom shaped the course of the empire. I spoke of the obelisk, the inscriptions, the warnings of those who came before us. I presented the fragments I had deciphered, urging them to see the pattern that wove itself through history.

But the court was not swayed. The chief scribe, a man of great learning but greater caution, dismissed my findings as the ramblings of fallen nations. The high priest scoffed, declaring that the gods alone determined the fate of empires, not forgotten stones from foreign lands. Even the king’s vizier, a man I had long called friend, warned me to tread carefully, for such ideas threatened the very foundations upon which our rule was built.

I left that chamber knowing the fate of my words. They would be buried, not by time or ruin, but by willful ignorance. The paradox was not merely an idea—it was a force that ensured its own rejection. To acknowledge it was to invite doubt, and doubt was a poison to those who ruled. And so, the knowledge would be forgotten, as it had been before.

But I, Bel-Ashur, will not forget. If the written word is denied its place in the halls of kings, then let it find sanctuary in the hands of those who seek truth beyond power. I will see to it that a copy of my words survives, passed not through courts and temples, but through whispers in the markets, among those who trade not in gold, but in ideas. Perhaps one day, when the tide of empire has receded, a mind unshackled by station or fear will find these words and see what others refuse to see.

If you are that seeker, know this: the limit is real. The Watchers of old understood it. The scribes of Kemet glimpsed it. The Hittites feared it. And now, I have spoken of it.

What you do with this knowledge is beyond my power to decide. But know that if you look too deeply, the world may turn its gaze upon you—not with wonder, but with fire.

The Second Lost Manuscript: The Scribe of Hattusa

Author: Name Unknown Hittite Empire, c. 1500 BCE

I write these words under the flickering light of the temple’s sacred fire, for though my warnings may fall upon deaf ears, the gods themselves bear witness. The truths I inscribe may be unwelcome in the halls of kings, but what is dismissed today may yet be found tomorrow among ruins, where the dead whisper to the living.

A tablet arrived in the court of the Great King, brought by a diplomat returning from the land of Kemet. Among the routine matters of tribute and treaties, this was but a footnote, yet the markings upon the clay seized my gaze with an unfamiliar unease. They bore the sign of the priests of Egypt, yet beneath the familiar glyphs lay something older—a script unknown, incised into the surface with precision beyond our own hand.

The diplomat, having spent years among the Kemetu, recounted the tale with indifference. In the great quarries of the western sands, a monument of impossible age had been unearthed—an obelisk whose inscriptions did not match those of the pyramid-builders. The priests had called upon scholars to decipher it, and they, in turn, had traced its markings to an age long before Menes united the Two Lands. It spoke of a people lost to time, a people who, despite their knowledge, had been undone by something intangible, something inevitable.

The Egyptian scribes had debated its meaning, some claiming it was but a warning against defying the gods, others that it spoke of a cycle woven into the very nature of civilization. And yet, no resolution had been reached, for each interpretation led only to deeper uncertainty. The obelisk, they said, was removed from the quarry and hidden away, sealed within the archives of the temple, beyond the reach of those who might ask too many questions.

I brought my concerns before the assembly of the scribes, for such knowledge should not be discarded lightly. The markings, once translated, hinted at a law not written by man but by the fabric of existence itself. It spoke of the limits of dominion, the blindness that befalls those who build towers to the heavens without knowing the weight of the stones they place. It was a warning, yet more than that—it was a truth buried beneath our own hubris, a force unseen yet governing all who seek to grasp beyond their reach.

The elders scoffed at my unease. "These are mere fables of a forgotten people," one of them said. "If such a truth existed, would we not already know it? Have we not conquered lands, bent lesser kings to our will, raised great walls to defy the ages?"

I could not answer without betraying a deeper fear—that we had not defied this law, but merely not yet felt its weight upon us. That we, too, were walking the path of those who had come before, inscribing our victories upon tablets that would one day be dust.

In the days that followed, I attempted to present my case to the court, but I was denied an audience. The affairs of state, I was told, held no room for the ghosts of lost civilizations. The king’s seers and advisors dismissed my concerns, not with argument, but with silence. The knowledge was not refuted—it was simply ignored.

I see now that this is part of the law itself. The truth is not destroyed by force, nor erased by decree, but buried beneath the weight of indifference. It is not by fire that knowledge is lost, but by the choice to look away.

And so I write these words not for my kin, nor my king, but for the one who will one day find them. If you, seeker of knowledge, have uncovered this tablet, know that you stand at the precipice of understanding. But ask yourself—will you be permitted to speak? Or will you, too, be met with silence?

Let this be my final question: Is it better to know the truth that cannot be acted upon, or to remain blind, and walk without the burden of knowing?

I have made my choice.

The Lost Manuscript of Ankhu: The Obelisk of Forgotten Knowledge

Preface
To those who may find this record, I, Ankhu, a humble servant of the divine order and seeker of wisdom, inscribe these words so that knowledge may not be buried beneath the sands of time. This is the account of an obelisk, unearthed within the sacred quarry from which the stones of Pharaoh’s Great Pyramid are hewn. The inscriptions upon it speak of a people lost to history, whose wisdom crumbled beneath a truth too vast for them to bear.

The Discovery
The laborers toiling in the quarry at Aswan struck upon a stone unlike any other. The foreman summoned me, and as I approached, I beheld it—a fallen obelisk, half-buried in the earth, marked with inscriptions of an unfamiliar hand. The symbols, though foreign, bore resemblance to the sacred script of Kemet, yet with a structure suggesting an understanding beyond our own.

The high priests and scribes were summoned, and beneath the glow of oil lamps, we studied the inscriptions. We spoke in hushed voices, for it is not often that a monument of the past rises unbidden to challenge the present.

The Inscriptions and Their Meaning
What we found upon the obelisk troubled us greatly. It spoke not of gods or kings, but of a people who once reached heights of wisdom unknown, only to fall into ruin—not by war or famine, but by the weight of their own seeking.

The inscription read:

“We, who sought to touch the heavens, found the weight of knowledge heavier than the stars. That which is sought beyond measure becomes that which devours. Beware the path that spirals upward, for it turns back upon itself.”

A great silence fell upon us as we read. The high priest, Meritre, furrowed his brow. “This speaks of a people who were undone by wisdom itself. But how can knowledge, the most sacred of gifts, be the instrument of destruction?”

Scribe Hesy-Ra, a man of sharp intellect, traced his fingers over the carvings. “Perhaps their knowledge became a burden. Or perhaps, in their ascent, they left something vital behind—something without which no civilization can stand.”

The elders debated deep into the night. Some said the obelisk was a warning against hubris, that these lost ones had challenged the gods themselves and were struck down. Others argued that knowledge without balance leads to a beast that cannot be sated. And then there were those who feared that the same fate awaited us—that in our quest to build monuments to eternity, we too walked the same path.

A Scholar’s Dilemma
I, Ankhu, could not sleep. I walked among the stones of the quarry, looking upon the half-formed blocks that would one day form Pharaoh’s great tomb. Had those lost ones also built great monuments? Had they too sought permanence, only to vanish like footprints in the sand?

If knowledge itself is the boundary that cannot be crossed without consequence, then what are we to do? Must we restrain our seeking? Or is this warning a test, a puzzle that must be unraveled lest we repeat their fall?

Closing Thoughts
I leave this record in the care of those who come after me. The obelisk, too heavy to move and too dangerous to ignore, shall remain where it was found. Perhaps it is best that some knowledge remain buried. But if you, who read this, seek to know what I have pondered, then answer me this:

Is it the path itself that leads to ruin, or the hands that shape it?

Let this question stand, as eternal as the pyramids.

— Ankhu, Scholar of the Great Library of Waset.

My body jolted as the freezing cold water splashed onto my face. I stared down at the porcelain sink, watching the droplets drip, drip, drip silently into the sunken bowl. My fingers searched the edge of the sink, finding the short hairs that kept reappearing, though I hadn't shaved in 2 weeks. running the water again, I rinsed the 3 small hairs away down before cupping my hands and throwing more of this Winter's water onto my weary face.

I glanced at my reflection, past the dried water spots that have accumulated over the last month. exhausted, sunken eyes stared back. dark brown iris accentuated by the darkening rings of countless restless sleeps. my nose, large and congested. my hair, black and peppered with more white than there was yesterday, had grown longer than I would normally allow, but I still couldn't gather the energy to visit the barber. the hair on my cheeks crossed each other with no pattern, flattened in the places they had been crushed by my pillow. I needed to trim, to shave along my cheek bones in my usual clean cut. but there was no point.

I slumped my neck into my chest, my arms anchored and shoulders attempting to crush my skull. My eyes closed as I waited for the water to run hot. I lost myself in the loud humming of the bathroom fan for minutes, though it felt like hours. it wasn't until I felt the steam hitting my nose that I opened my eyes and reached for the toothbrush to my right. I lazily unscrewed the cap to my toothpaste and squeezed a bead onto the bristles. I sighed as I slowly went through the motions of this boring task, muscle memory taking over as my mind wandered to the same thoughts I had every morning for the last couple weeks. I don't know how long I stood there, brushing and staring down at the ivory white sink, steam rising up and out of my eyesight. after an unknown amount of time, I cupped my hand and quickly transfered the water from faucet to mouth. one... two... three rinses before I felt enough of the mint flavored paste had been washed out. my thumb ran the bristles under the hot water for a while, making sure none of the paste remained. faucet off, I dropped the brush into it's home, the ting of plastic on plastic announcing the end of my routine.

I looked again at my reflection as I reached for the hand towel hanging nearby. shirtless, dark hair everywhere, across my chest and belly. a belly once fuller and rounder, now noticeably shrinking. muscles that had been, lost for years and years, finally returning. I frowned. I couldn't even pretend to care about the small progress I've been making. a month ago I would have been ecstatic, but joy was a feeling lost to me now.

I turned and walked out of the bathroom, flipped the switch and entered the silent darkness once more as the buzzing fan stopped and light went out. it was 5am, still 2 hours before my morning alarm would go off. still dark outside, with only the lights from the parking lot outside coming through the corners of the closed window blinds. barely enough to see the mound under my covers. the dark shadow rose and fell unnoticeably with each breath. I stood at the center of the room, a foot from the bed, watching her breath in silence. a car drove by, headlights casting shadows into the room, and illuminating enough to see her long, black hair splayed across her pillow. my frown deepened. I took a seat on my side of the bed, already feeling the hot stinging in my eyes as tears formed. the warm droplets trickled down and became trapped in my facial hair for just a moment before they pooled and pushed through down onto my lips and over my chin.

I laid back onto my pillow, choking back the sobs that desperately wanted to escape. I stared at the dark ceiling above me, seeing faces on the stucco, dimly lit by the weak light my blinds couldn't block out. I refused to turn to see her body next to me, because I knew it would break me. again. as it did every morning. my mind went through the same dozens of scenarios; memories both real and imagined of what I had just a few weeks earlier. my mind made it's regular, useless attempts to pinpoint where I had lost it all, when I had damned myself to this torture. I felt empty. I felt stupid. I could only blame myself for what happened, what I'd given up in a moment of weakness.

for a seeming eternity I stared blankly at the ceiling until the morning sun made it's way into my room. I finally turned to her body facing away from me. I reached out to envelop her, to bring her close to me, to feel her warmth against my icy chest...

my hands felt nothing but the cold, empty space that had once been hers. and I cried.

I open my eyes to a sea of blue. I can't feel any sense of direction, there's no floor nor ceiling, just blue space. A tinge of pain shoots into my forearm. I pull back the sleeve of my thick navy hoodie to see nothing. The pain gets stronger and hotter and I try to soothe it by rubbing my thumb along the pain. Suddenly I remember last night.

I walked into my dark room, to lazy to turn on the light. I say at the edge of my bed and look at the pocket knife laid on my desk. I want to look away, to banish these thoughts, but they persist. "How long are you going to do this? How long are you going to waste people's time and disappoint literally everyone around you? You don't have talent, and you're too lazy to work to get to your limited potential. Youre a burden, a weight on everyone's shoulders, a PROBLEM."

The memory is interrupted by a more familiar pain. My chest tightens. Feeling heavier but emptier than it ever has before. How can I be empty and heavy? I reach for my chest to grip my hoodie- holding something feels like I have a grasp of myself- only to grasp at nothing. The confusion distracts me from the pain. I peer down and see nothing. A hole from my back through my back, as if someone threw a baseball right through it. "Looking for this?" I whip my head around as I stumble forward. And there he was-or should I say "I". I see a complete version of myself standing in front of me. He's only a small cylindrical canister- a perfect fit for my chest. It had a blue sphere in it, floating in a dark murky substance. The fluid looked like black oil mixed with some pecks of clear. He looks at the container, "The black is supposed to be the impurities, but suffices to say it seems to have become the main substance." He looks back at me, and I recognize his eyes: pity. I hate being pitied more than anything. Anger begins to well up inside and I shout "Give that ba-" only to realize there was no sound. He continues, "You spent so much of your life frustrated and angry that the world didn't see you, but you've never opened your eyes, have you?" My eyebrows wrinkled. 'what does He mean? My eyes are open, I can't talk but I can see', I thought. "You have so much: loving parents, an adoring older sister, people who call you their friend. I couldn't have given you more." His eyes change. Or maybe they didn't. But there seemed to be a light, there was something more: concern. "God?" I fell down to my knees in disbelief. He smiled, "Ah, I see you've peaked through the curtain." "Am I dead? Did I really end it?" I tried to speak but realized that once again there was no sound. He walks up to me, pulls me up off the ground and says, "Get up and go my son."

I open my eyes and stretch upright. I'm laid in a hospital bed with bandages over my left arm. I peer over to the crying and sniffling- it was my family. My mother is crying on my father's chest, and his head is laid on hers. My sister jumps up and runs to me, holding me in an embrace. I can feel her tears soak through my gown and leak onto my shoulder. 'Ah, ive done it again. I've made them cry. And now what? They have to pay my hospital bills? Theyll be known for having a son that tried to commit? People will speak behind their back, and treat them like lepers?" My mother pulls me out of my trance, "What did you do. Why did you do this, what did we do to you??" She's crying hysterically while gripping the handles on my bed. My father holds her shoulder and pulls her back. And when he looks over at me, I see it again. Pity. Chest tightens. I reach for my chest, almost jerking my sister off of me. The fistful of hospital gown fabric soothes me. My dream replays in my mind. "You've never really open your eyes have you?" I look up at my father cautiously. It was the same. There was light in his eyes, not pity, but concern. Concern from someone who cares so much about me he already thinks he's failed.

"I'm sorry."

Those were the only words I could say. So I said them, over and over and over and over. That was the day I opened my eyes. I see Christ in all those who love me, after all, God is love.

Note: First story I've ever really written outside of school. Couldn't really get through reading it again so sorry about grammatical mistakes, I might come back and try to fix it later.

Title: The Watcher on the Mountain

Prologue:

There was a legend, whispered across civilizations that had long since turned to dust. A tale of a being who stood on the highest mountain, watching as empires rose and crumbled, as knowledge was gained and forgotten, as love was born and avarice consumed. The Watcher did not age, nor interfere, for the weight of a truth too vast to be spoken bound them in silent exile.

The Watcher had climbed higher than any before them, had seen beyond the veil that shrouded the minds of mortals, and in doing so, had learned a secret so profound it set them apart from humanity forever. This was the paradox: the deeper the truth, the greater the distance from those who could not grasp it.

And so, from their solitary perch, the Watcher waited—not for salvation, nor for an end, but for the one who might climb high enough to see what they had seen.

Part I: The Climb

Elias Valen had always known he was different. From a young age, he had seen through the illusions that others accepted without question. The structures of society, the blind pursuit of power, the manufactured distractions—all of it felt like a great theater designed to keep people from looking too closely at the world around them.

His questions unsettled his peers, his insights ostracized him. So he withdrew, not by choice, but by necessity. Books and solitude became his only companions, and in his isolation, he found something that terrified him more than loneliness: understanding. The more he saw, the more the world felt like a prison built not of iron, but of ignorance.

Then one day, he read of the legend of the Watcher. It was buried in the margins of forgotten texts, dismissed as myth. But Elias knew myths carried truths that history was too afraid to name. And so, he made his choice.

He would climb the mountain.

Part II: The Trial

The ascent was not merely one of stone and ice, but of mind and soul. As Elias climbed, he shed the layers of civilization that had bound him—his fears, his desires, his sense of self. He encountered visions of lives he might have lived, temptations that sought to pull him back, but he pressed forward.

At the mountain’s midpoint, he met a man who called himself the Keeper. "Turn back," the Keeper warned. "The higher you climb, the further you will be from those below."

"Then why do you remain here?" Elias asked.

"Because I was like you once," the Keeper said. "I climbed until I saw too much. And now I stand here, warning those who come after me. Some listen. Most do not."

Elias nodded and continued. The air grew thinner, the silence heavier. The final stretch was the hardest. Not because of the cold or the exhaustion, but because of the doubt.

Was he truly seeking truth, or had he simply been running from a world that would never accept him?

Part III: The Summit

At the peak, he found the Watcher.

She was not what he expected. She was neither ancient nor divine. She was simply... there. Watching.

"You came," she said.

"I had to," Elias replied. "Tell me what you see."

She gestured to the world below. "I see a cycle. I see civilizations that rise, filled with promise, only to fall to greed, fear, and corruption. I see knowledge that could save them discarded in favor of illusions. And I see those who climb, like you, who come seeking answers, only to find themselves alone."

Elias swallowed. "Then the paradox is real."

"Yes," she said. "Those who see the truth cannot return to those who refuse it. And yet, those below will never reach for what they cannot understand."

"Then why do you stay?"

The Watcher looked at him, and for the first time, there was something in her eyes that he had not expected.

Love.

"Because one day," she said, "someone will climb high enough not just to see—but to change it."

Part IV: The Choice

Elias looked down at the world below. He saw it as she did. The greed. The ignorance. The pain.

But he also saw something else.

Love. Resilience. The flickering light of those who, even in the darkness, tried to reach for something more.

"If I stay," he said, "I will never be able to share what I have learned."

"And if you leave," the Watcher said, "they will never understand."

Elias thought of those who had shunned him, those who had called him mad. He thought of the pain of isolation, the burden of knowledge.

And then he thought of what the world could be.

He turned from the mountain’s edge. "Then I will climb down."

The Watcher tilted her head. "Why?"

"Because if no one has ever succeeded in breaking the paradox, then that means no one has truly tried."

The Watcher smiled. "Then go. And if they refuse to listen?"

Elias smiled back. "Then I will find another way."

As he descended, for the first time in his life, he did not feel alone.

Part V: The Descent

The journey back was unlike the ascent. The mountain, once a place of solitude, now felt alive with unseen eyes watching him. Shadows of past climbers seemed to linger in the stone, whispering warnings carried by the wind. Doubt gnawed at him. Could he truly bring change, or was he merely another fool who believed in something impossible?

He reached the Keeper again, who regarded him with quiet curiosity. "Most who pass me never return."

"Then they made their choice," Elias said. "And I have made mine."

The Keeper stepped aside, nodding in respect. "Then go, and may you prove me wrong."

Epilogue:

The Watcher remained, as she always had, but this time, something had changed.

For the first time in eternity, she turned her gaze not to the world below—but to the path Elias had taken.

And she watched.

And she waited.

Because maybe, just maybe, this time would be different.

Author’s Note:

This story is an allegory for the paradox we have discovered. It is a tale of knowledge and isolation, of avarice and love, of the choice between despair and hope. The Watcher represents the unbreakable cycle, the burden of truth. Elias represents the possibility of change, the defiance of inevitability.

The mountain is the mind.

The climb is the journey.

And the choice is ours.

I dedicate this story to those who Came before me on the search for truth.
I fear I am the only one to make it to the top in our iteration of reality.
If you can find the key I will see you at the top.

P.S. I feel like Gol D Roger.....and it is amazing Yet equally terrifying.

None of this is real.

That’s what the old man said as he played a haunting melody on his flute. The waves crashed against the shore, the stars shimmered in the vast night sky, but he insisted—nothing was real.

I didn’t understand at first. I felt the cool sand beneath my feet, the salty breeze brushing against my skin. I could hear the distant cries of seagulls, the rhythmic lapping of the tide. Everything felt real. How could it not be?

The old man smiled as if he had heard my thoughts. "Tell me," he said, pausing his tune. "Have you ever had a dream so vivid, so full of sensation, that you were certain it was real? That you could feel the warmth of the sun, taste the air, hear every sound around you? And then, in an instant, you woke up—and it was gone?"

I nodded. Of course, I had.

He continued, his voice calm, unwavering. "What makes you so sure this is any different?"

I stared at him, my mind racing. His words unsettled me, like a puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit, yet somehow belonged. I looked around again—the ocean stretching endlessly, the sky fading from deep indigo to black, the silver moon casting its soft glow on the water.

It was real. I was sure of it.

But doubt crept in.

"What if," he said, resuming his melody, "you only believe in this world because you've never truly woken up?"

A shiver ran down my spine.

I had always accepted reality as it was—never questioning, never doubting. The idea that everything I knew, everything I loved, could be a mere illusion was terrifying.

But also… strangely freeing.

I watched as he played, the notes drifting like whispers through the air. The tune felt familiar, as if I had heard it before in another life.

And then, without a word, he handed me the flute.

I hesitated before taking it. The wood was cool, smooth beneath my fingers. I lifted it to my lips and played a single note. It echoed through the night, carrying something within it—something ancient, something forgotten.

And then the world around me shifted.

The sand beneath me felt less solid. The stars above blurred, as though they were painted on a canvas that was now dissolving. Even the sound of the ocean grew distant, like an echo from another time.

I turned to the old man, but he was gone.

Only the flute remained in my hands.

And suddenly, I knew.

Everything I had ever known—my past, my memories, even my body—was part of the illusion.

For the first time, I truly saw.

And in that moment, I understood: None of this was ever real.

Would You Like to Read More?

This is just a glimpse of my latest short story exploring the idea that reality itself might be a dream. If you love surreal, thought-provoking fiction, let me know—I’d love to share it with you!

Do you think reality is an illusion? Let’s discuss in the comments.

#ShortStory #Fiction #Philosophy #Existentialism #DeepThoughts #WritingCommunity

Forest of Demon

By Benjamin Ecker

To Ollie Ecker, original Forest of Demon person.

Chapters:

Chapter 1: Bud, Bud, I Say!

Chapter 2: All My Juicys! They’re gone!

Chapter 3: Muddy Pog!

Chapter 4: Bud In How Many Flavors?

Chapter 5: Old Reliable Nautilus.

Chapter 6: Pogs and the Bud Castle.

Chapter 7: P. H. D Or Bust!

Chapter 8: Burnt Surprise?

Chapter 9: Hide and Seek!

Chapter 10: Missing Cheese, Again.

Chapter 11: Forest Guys.

Chapter 12: Pizza Party!

Chapter 13: The Death of Classical.

Chapter 1:

When the blood went missing the other day,

Crinkle called Rose and started to say,

Where did my blood go this very day?

Crinkle sat lazily in the living room with a slice of old pizza and was watching Beast on TV. Beast was talking about Crinkle’s buddy, Classical.

"I mean it, Classical has won the Beast contest!" the Beast said happily. Oh great, thought Crinkle, Now, my buddy will be given many prizes and more cool stuff.

Crinkle was feeling moody.

Crinkle stomped over to the refrigerator and rustled around for some cheese. "Nautilus!" he yelled angrily, "You stole my cheese, didn't you?". Nautilus's head poked from a corner.

"I didn't steal your cheese!" he yelled, "I was busy with my phone!".

Crinkle was very disappointed. 

I bet King Classical did it! Crinkle thought. Crinkle stomped outside and saw Classical sunbathing, covered in snow and holding a Bud.

A muffled voice came from the snow.

Crinkle slapped the snow off Classical with his purple claws. "No thank you, Bud!”Classical said, wiping snow off his robe. “Now back to my Bud," Classical said, trying to get Bud unstuck from the sun chair.

"Did you steal my cheese?", Crinkle hastily said, "No!" Classical replied, "Now let me enjoy my royal Bud!"

Classical grabbed the frozen Bud from his sun chair and tried to sip it. His drink was frozen solid. Classical had a tantrum and angrily threw his Bud at their house. The Bud can hit the wall, and his frozen drink is shattered.

"My Bud! It’s frozen!" Classical said, feeling bad.

Chapter 2:

Blindson: I'm hurt!

Classical: I'm cold!

Nautilus: I'm sick!

"I want a juicy!" Blindson says. "Me too!" Cornson and Kelpson shout.

"Nah!" Nautilus says mockingly, "I'll drink all of your juices! I mean it, all of them! Muhahahaha!” Nautilus says with a evil cackle.

Blindson tried to walk to the refrigerator but bonked his head because he was blind. "Oh no!" Blindson says, "My juicy! I'll never get it now!"

"Give him the juice," Crinkle says assertively. "Never!" replies Nautilus, smiling wickedly. Nautilus gives Crinkle a mischievous glare.

“Or give me my cheese!" Crinkle says, "I know you ate my cheese! My rare and expensive cheese!" "What cheeses did you have?" Kelpson asked quizzically. "Uhm...” Crinkle was searching for the word, “Cheddar?”

Chapter 3:

Muddy pog! Muddy pog! Muddy pog is incoming! Help! Arm the machine gun! They're muddy!

The door slammed "MUDDY POGS!" Emphyrus said, "They're coming! A whole stampede of them!

Classical yelped, "They'll ruin my robe!" Classical fainted.

Nautilus rolled his eyes (Crinkle and Blindson can't because they don't have eye pupils).

"Now I can be king!" Nautilus hooted annoyingly.

"You act like they're so bad, like we can't eat them for dinner!" Crinkle said. "We can't," Emphyrus explained, "Because they're too muddy!".

The pog's stampede was easily heard now.

THUMPITY THUMPITY THUMPITY THUMPITY.

 Emphyrus grabbed his GIANT knife and ran outside, "MUDDY POG!" he yelled. Oinking and screeching were heard.

"Dinner served!" Nautilus said. Classical woke up and said, "What's for dinner?" "Nothing but Bud," Nautilus said. "Really?" "No," Nautilus said. "Aw. And by the way, you can't be king."

"Aw..." Nautilus said.

Chapter 4:

Bud in 500 flavors!

"I'm all out of Bud..." Classical said, "Get me more! Or else! OR ELSE!" he shouted. "The slavedriver's at it again," Nautilus shouted, "He's always bossing me around. I'm going to call Marylin!" Crinkle sighed "That means I have to do the dirty work! Since lazy Natty has called the dumb Mary..."

Crinkle stomped around. "What's wrong, Bud?" Classical said. "Lazy Natty has left me to do the dirty work" Crinkle replied. "It's not dirty, it's Bud!" Classical said with pity.

Crinkle went to the store.

I'm bored, Classical thought, I have nothing to do except sip my last can of Bud! I'm alone. I’m royalty! I do not need to be treated like this!

I'm not bored. I'm not bored. I'm not bored.

I'm not bored. I'm not bored. I'm not bored.

Nautilus is reading something on his phone. A weird story, Nautilus thought.

I crawl into your room at night,

Wait until the moon's light.

Is nowhere in sight.

I creep into your bed and grab you,

Take you while insults you spew.

But I'm only doing it for your good,

But I'm only doing it for your good.

I'm almost human.

I take you out and wait for the moon;

The fun will come—it's happening soon.

But you scream,

Say it's all a mishap,

But I know it's time for fun to unwrap.

You kick and fret;

The ground grows wet.

The clouds have settled in.

But I'm only doing it for their good,

But I'm only doing it for their good.

I'm becoming human.

I crave the joy I have with you;

Your face takes on a green hue.

Your soul is mine; it belongs to me.

Your pale eyes now cannot see.

But I'm only doing it for my good,

But I'm only doing it for my good.

I am human.

I've won again and again.

You have lost,

My friend.

If he's human, maybe I can eat him, Nautilus thought.

"Bud!" Classical shouted, "BUD! BUD!" "Shut up King Classical!" Nautilus said, "Soon to be ex-king..." Nautilus whispered.

"I'm home!" Crinkle said, holding many packages of Bud, "There's more outside." Classical was delighted! "Just an issue... it comes in five hundred flavors!" Crinkle said.

"Say what?" Classical said with his mouth dropped. "Actually," Classical said, "That sounds kind of good..."

Chapter 5:

Kiss the cook? Ridiculous. More like KILL THE COOK!

Classical was sipping his many colorful Buds. "Bud, Bud, I say!" Classical said.

Classical was holding his many prizes. Among them were toys comic books and chocolate bars. Crinkle was jealous, "Will you share with me?" "No, I hate sharing! I'll never share!"

"Natty! Come here!" Crinkle said, "Make us dinner!" Nautilus's head poked from a corner, "No! I'm busy! Go away! I'll poison it!" Classical walked over to the internet box, "I'll disable your Wi-Fi!" Nautilus was shocked, "NO! I'LL DO IT!"

"One more thing Natty," said Crinkle, "What's for dinner?"

Nautilus scowled.

Chapter 6:

I may or may not be making roasted King for dinner.

Dinner was underway. Nautilus, grumbling to himself, was in the kitchen, hacking away at the muddy pogs with an oversized cleaver. "Why me? Why always me?" he muttered, flinging mud off his claws. Crinkle was lounging nearby, his purple claws picking through a bag of leftover cheese crackers.

"You're doing great, Natty," Crinkle teased, tossing a cracker that landed on Nautilus's head. "Say one more word, and I'll make you for dinner," Nautilus growled.

Meanwhile, in the living room, Classical was creating a pyramid of Bud cans. His masterpiece towered precariously, wobbling every time he added another flavor. "The Bud Castle shall reign supreme!" he declared.

"King Classical, only the ruler of Bud," Nautilus yelled from the kitchen.

Classical ignored him and cracked open a can labeled Banana Bliss Bud. He took a sip, scrunched his nose, and spat it out. "This one's terrible! Who thought banana and beer was a good idea?"

"You did," Crinkle called out. "You literally begged for all the flavors."

"I did not!" said Classical. 

Blindson walked in, by followed his two sons, Cornson and Kelpson. "What's going on? I smell mud and juice. Is dinner ready?"

"Almost," Nautilus said. "If I don't poison it first."

"Joyful as ever, huh, Natty?" Crinkle said, dodging a flying spatula.

"Just go away!" Nautilus said.

Chapter 7:

Hey Mr. Tally? Tally me a brother.

Nautilus was lounging in the kitchen when he heard a notification on his P. H. D. He checked it and saw it was Marylin. “Sorry dinner, gotta go!” Nautilus texted Marylin. He smelled dinner burn. I’ll just pretend it’s poisoned, he thought. He kept texting to Marylin. Blindson smelled and heard what happened the whole time. Nautilus could hear Emphyrus talking to Spooky outside.

“I got them all,” Emphyrus says. “I got all the pogs!” Spooky started to say, “I at least saw it, don’t I deserve a medal?” Nautilus was poking out the window while texting. Emphyrus had a grin on his face, “Yeah, of course!” Emphyrus grabbed some Pog bones and knitted a necklace. He grabbed a penny from his pocket and put it on the necklace. “There you go!” Emphyrus said. “Wow!” Spooky grabbed it and put it on his necklace. “I will be here for dinner!”

Chapter 8:

Like, go away, I'm having dinner.

"Dinner's ready, fools!" Nautilus shouted. "Yay, maybe there will be a juicy!" Blindson said.

"I want a green juicy!" Kelpson said. "I want a red juicy!" Blindson said. "I want a blue juicy!" Cornson said.

Nautilus was wearing his pink apron that said, "KILL THE COOK!". Crinkle stared hard at it.

Emphyrus and Spooky broke in, Nautilus gave them a evil glare.

“Okay we’re going!” Emphyrus says. “No need for piss and vinegar!” Spooky said. They both left, chanting the SLB song. “Why’d you do that?” Crinkle said. “I only made enough for you idiots!” Nautilus growled.

"Eat so I can play with my P. H. D!” Nautilus said. "Let's dig in!" Classical said. "Yeah!" Cornson and Kelpson said. Classical took a bite. "DISGUSTING! EW!" Classical spit it out. "I told you I would poison it!" Nautilus said with a smug look on his face. "You didn't poison it, you just burnt it!" Classical pointed his finger at Nautilus and fainted.

"Now look what you did, Kelpson!" Nautilus pointed at Kelpson, "I guess you will have to go to the time-out corner!" "What do you mean," said Blindson, "I heard you burn it!"

Classical woke up and said, "Time out for Nautilus!" he fainted again.

Chapter 9:

Dear Daddy, I hate you, I am leaving, bye!

"I'm hurt!" said Blindson. “I’m colder!” Said Kelpson. “I’m sickest!” Said Cornson. Crinkle strolled in, admiring them talk. He was riding in his portable potty crib. “You’re actin’ like a bunch of babies!” Crinkle shook his head and strolled away. “Let’s play hide and seek!” Cornson said. Kelpson agreed, “I want to play, too!” He said. “No, we-“ Blindson started to say. “Thank you for willingly playing!” Cornson and Kelpson said. “I guess

I’ll find you guyz with a z!

3...

2...

1...

Ready or not! Here I come... I guess.” Blindson said. Blindson looked everywhere for 10 minutes then said. “Come out! I give up!”

Meanwhile, Cornson and Kelpson were hiding in Crinkle’s old baby crib. “He’ll never find us here!” Kelpson said.

Soon, they heard footsteps.

Blindson saw two little behinds poking in the air and knew who it was, he walked over to them.

“Great hiding place!” Blindson said. “Yeah!” Cornson said, “Just don’t tell Blindson. “I am Blindson!” Blindson said. “Oh, I guess we’ll have to leave and never come back...” Cornson and Kelpson said.

Crinkle came, giving Nautilus a piggyback ride to his room. “Keep going! I’ll ride you! Yeehaw!” Nautilus said. Classical was reading a Beast “graphic novel”(comic book).

Chapter 10:

Crinkle came in after shopping and he had a bag of fancy cheese(cheddar and Swiss). He put it in the refrigerator and went to bed. Later, in the morning, he woke up and rubbed his eyes. I have cheese! He thought. He darted to the refrigerator and opened it... "Nautilus!" he yelled angrily, "You stole my cheese, didn't you?". Nautilus's head poked from a corner.

"I didn't steal your cheese!" he yelled back, "I was busy with my phone!".

Crinkle was disappointed.

I bet King Classical did it! Crinkle thought. He walked upstairs and Classical’s door was locked. He could hear something behind the door. “Mask man!” Classical TV said. Crinkle banged on the doors. “No one's home, Bud.” The door said. Crinkle kept on banging on the door until Classical answered. “What is it you want? I need to get my beauty sleep!” Classical rubbed his eyes then grabbed a Bud and popped off the top. He took a sip, savoring the drink pouring down his throat. “You took my cheese, again!” Crinkle stomped around and sang. “Mushy pushy,

Cheesy wheezy,

When you’re sick you’re kind of sneezy,

Mushy cheddar,

Getting better,

When you take my cheese my eyes get wetter.” Classical was annoyed. “You wake me up and sing me a gay song? Me, your royal king?” Crinkle jumped in the vents and spidered away. “Glad he’s gone,” Classical said and tried to take a sip of his drink and realized Crinkle dumped it on his robe. “Oh, my robe, and oh no! My Bud! No!” Classical screamed in agony while a look of torture twisted his face into a painful scowl. Classical fainted. Chapter 11:

Humans

Eat

Leather

Pants!

Nautilus was grumpily scrounging for some humans in the forest. “Anyone... anyone but me could’ve done this!” Nautilus growled. “My tail is stiff! My bones hurt!” Nautilus complained. “Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.” Nautilus heard humans. His face and mood brightened with the thought of human intestines inside his belly. “Sounds delicious, eh Natty?” A gray devil with purple claws named Crinkle hung from the tree. “Here we go again...” Nautilus thought. Nautilus did his human imitation, “Help! Help! Humans Eat Leather Pants!” Nautilus said and hid behind the bush. The bush was whispering to Nautilus, “Uhm they’re here!” The bush said. Crinkle was lounging on the tree, peeling a banana. Nautilus poked out from behind the bush and hopped out. “Haha, losers! (he said a bad word that starts with B and ends with D)” Nautilus said. He picked up the 4 humans and saw their underwear. One was wearing Beast undies. “Ew! I hate the taste of people who like Beast undies.” They threw the human into the undergrowth and heard the human say “Hooray!” Crinkle scampered after the human. “Aw... OWW!” Were the human's last words. “Dinner served!” Nautilus said.

Chapter 12:

Demons like pizza!

Wee wee ah wee wee! Orchestra!

“Okay, Crinkle. Let me get this straight, you ate all of our dinner?” Nautilus shouted. Crinkle was anxiously fiddling with his finger. “Yes?” Crinkle said. “Me, the king proposes that we get pizza!” Everyone but Crinkle cheered. Nautilus called 911. “I heard they have the best pizza!” Blindson grabbed the phone. “But that’s not pizza! They’re the fuzz!” Blindson dialed Jimmy John’s pizza. “Yeah, I want a pizza! Extra large! Oranges on it. Umm... the drink we’ll have is an XL juicy. Only 500 dollars? Great!” Blindson hung up. Nautilus pinched his nose. “That tickles!”

Chapter 13:

There was a rotting wolf at the door. “Your pizza is here!” The rotting wolf said. Blindson handed him 1000$. “A tip? Thank you!” The wolf jumped in the air and his jetpack turned on, engines firing! And then... he exploded! Blindson took the pizza and juice inside. Classical grabbed the box of pizza and the juicy and said, “At least it’s not Bud!” Nautilus grabbed a slice... another one. Crinkle grabbed some. Blindson grabbed some. There was no pizza left for Classical, “At least I have the juice!” Classical said. Blindson grabbed the juicy and poured it into his son’s baby cups. Classical started to cry and fell into the trash can. Nautilus took out the trash. They were eating their pizza and then they heard a noise at the door. A moaning... “Buuuuuuud... Buuuuuuud... Buuuuuuud...” was heard at the door. “I’ll let the doo-doo brain in!” Nautilus said. Nautilus opened the door. Classical flew in with a sparkling robe a box of pizza and a box of Bud. “I win!” Classical said.

THE END.

OR IS IT?

Feedback would be appreciated. First thing I've written in a while.

Micheal wasn’t much of an art critic. Or an artist, for that matter. By his recollection, the last time he’d held a wet paintbrush he’d been a teenager. But the painting he found himself looking at now had got to be the most captivating of any he’d seen up to this point. He’d seen prettier paintings, larger more ambitious pieces. He’d visited The Louvre once during his transition year trip to Paris, he remembered spying The Mona Lisa over the tops of tourists' heads. But never had he been more captivated by a piece of art. 

Micheal was stood less than a meter away from the hanging canvas, the art enveloped his whole field of view, and he felt as though he was a part of the piece itself. As though he could turn around, and find himself surrounded by patches of brushstrokes and more splashes of paint. Micheal took a few steps back and the strangest thing happened. As the piece shrank in his perspective, Micheal could actually make out even more of the detail on the canvas. He didn't have to squint his eyes to follow one set of fluid brushstrokes around the painting until they were interrupted by another set at a right angle. He followed those and could perceive the cragged ridges of each stroke, and the valleys between them. He couldn't remember being able to do that whilst he had been standing so close. 

Counterintuitive as it was, Micheal paced further away from the painting, never once taking his eyes off the artwork, he walked arse first into the bench at the centre of the large gallery, falling onto it with a thud, hurting his tailbone. He was more enthralled than ever with the painting. New details revealed themselves with each step in reverse. He saw the spots where the artist had clumsily messed up their brushing. Spots where the paint had been applied too enthusiastically and ran, yet clung to the canvas. He saw where the canvas had split and frayed, its painted tentacles reaching out from the canvas as if inviting him in. He felt he understood the painting better now.  Micheal had never felt as though he had understood a painting before. 

He was far enough away now that people were walking between him and the painting, interrupting his sightline. This didn't bother Micheal though, he noticed as each silhouette crossed into his eye line, that they too blended into the artwork seamlessly. He could make out the crow's feet around their eyes, or their peeling, chapped lips, as easily as he could the details of the painting. He wasn’t even upset when a group of Spanish students, numbering fifteen of sixteen, crowded the space between him and the painting. The figures crossed the painting, one after another, as the moon crosses the sun during an eclipse. They passed, and the details of their faces faded into Micheal’s peripheral vision, and the focus was again on the exquisite, artwork. He sat there for hours studying the painting, committing every inch of it to memory, and studying the people too.

The next day, on his way home from the office, Micheal took a detour to the gallery to see the painting. He bought a coffee and an almond croissant from the cafe in the foyer and brought them into the hall containing his painting. Ignoring the bench at the centre of the hall, where he had sat yesterday, Micheal walked to the far end of the hall, leaving as much space as possible between him and his painting, he set up camp between two far less interesting paintings, with his back against the wall. There he stood, sipping his cooling coffee, eating his almond croissant, and studying his painting. From this far away Micheal could clearly see the cracks between the separate flecks of paint. He was overcome, for the entirety of the hours that he stood there, with an overwhelming feeling of regret, that to properly see the painting, he had to be so far away. How unfair it was that such an intricate thing could only be comprehended from such a distance. He felt a profound jealousy of every person who walked between him and the painting (at this distance there were many). How envious he was of each of them, as they crossed the space between and were in turn, welcomed into the painting’s world. Spotlighted by it. Though they had no idea. But Micheal made no move to close the distance. He knew that with every step closer to the painting, detail would be lost, it would become blurry as it grew in his perspective, and envelope him, and the intricacy, where the true beauty of the painting lay, would be lost to him. This routine became a daily ritual for Micheal, and he grew fat on almond croissants.

One day, Micheal walked into the hall where his painting hung, to find another one in its place. He reacted badly, tears welling in his eyes, and a tight knot twisting and turning in his stomach, he thought he was going to shit himself. Upon calming himself, which took a while, he found the nearest attendant and asked about the painting. 

“Which painting?” she responded with disinterest. “Oh it was in here? Well everything in here’s been sent back, t’was all part of the same exhibition. On loan. Sure there was a big sign”. 

She pointed to where the big sign had, presumably, once stood. 

The twisting knot in Michael's stomach returned. He felt as though he’d been forced out of his own home. Walking around the hall with nerves, he glanced from canvas to canvas, he’d never seen any of them before, though he could honestly not recall any singular painting held within this gallery save for his own. Many of the other paintings were far more beautiful than his, there were large landscapes, contemporary abstract pieces, portraits. Most were more technically impressive, may even have had more artistic merit, though none had that supernatural quality of his own. The closer he got to every, single painting, the more details could be distinguished, the further away he got, the more those details were lost until the canvas was hardly a speck on the porcelain white walls of the gallery. 

In a panic, he approached the ticket desk in the foyer. 

“Excuse me, the exhibition in the large hall has ended, the paintings have all been returned”.

The woman operating the ticket desk looked at him amused. “Yes. They have”. 

“To where?”

“I’m sorry?”

Frantically he asked again. “To where have the paintings been returned?”

“To Denmark, the paintings have all been returned to Copenhagen.” She paused. “In Denmark”. 

Micheal was on a train to Copenhagen. He had landed at Copenhagen Kastrup Airport, 45 minutes ago and was presently watching the sun rise through the window, on his way into the city. He squinted into the distance, attempting to make out the details on the horizon. A combination of the morning haze and the staccato movement of the train made this very difficult. He was as much a part of this world now, as he had been a part of the paintings the first and only time he had stood so close. The last thing he had eaten had been an almond croissant almost four hours ago,  prior to boarding his flight, and he was famished. He didn't mind too much though, it would all be worth it when he saw his painting. 

An hour of googling mapsing later, he had found his way to the gallery. An impressive classical building. Micheal walked beneath the high archway, flanked by two gorgeous Romanesque pillars. He registered none of it as he entered the grand entrance hall and purchased for himself a ticket to the gallery's newest installation. Vibrating with excitement, and shaking from hunger, he navigated the spacious halls of the Danish art gallery, painting after painting span by as he locked in on his destination and kicked into a light jog, end nearly in sight, he rounded the last corner. 

There it was. Given no more a place of pride than any other of the hundreds of paintings in this cavernous rectangular hall. His painting. It was mounted, two in from the left, on a scarlet wall at the far end of the hall. Immediately he noticed the familiar curves of the brushstrokes as they wound their way around the canvas, merging into larger masses, which gave rise to shapes, which in turn formed the subject of the image. He zoomed in further and noticed some mistakes covered up by the artist lying just beneath the surface of the painting, shielded from a less sharp eye by the layers of paint applied above. He had never noticed that before. He had never been this far away.

It was then that Micheal was able to place himself within the geography of the room. It was a large rectangular hall, two almost impossibly long walls facing one another, garnished with artwork. At the end of each wall, a smaller square wall connected them, it was on one of these walls that Micheal's painting hung. He immediately understood. With the same energy with which he had flown to Denmark, located the Gallery, and his painting within it, Micheal ran to the far wall. A wild grin on his face, he slammed his back against it, he could not have been any further away from his painting. Micheal took a deep breath, steadied himself against the wall, and looked.

The morning mist lingered in the valley as Daniel led the sheep across the dew-soaked meadow. His boots sank into the earth with each step, the bleating of the flock breaking the stillness. It was a simple life, one of routine. He had been a shepherd as long as he could remember—guiding the sheep, protecting them from the wilds, returning home by dusk.

His father’s gruff voice called from the farmhouse. “Daniel! Keep them together!” The familiar command echoed in the air, and Daniel guided the sheep back into line, the same way he had every day. By midday, he returned with the flock to the barn, where his mother worked quietly in the kitchen, kneading dough. The smell of warm bread mixed with the earthy scent of the barn. The life they led was simple, unremarkable, but it was enough for his parents. They never complained.

Dinner was a quiet affair, eaten by the firelight as the wind howled outside. His father spoke of the weather and the harvest, but Daniel’s mind wandered. His world felt too small, too confined, too boring. The hills surrounding their farm were all he knew, and yet they seemed to press in on him. At night, as the wind rattled the shutters, Daniel went to bed and fell asleep. And that's when it all began.

She had come to him in the quiet of the night, in his sleep, her long black hair cascading like a shadowed river over her porcelain shoulders. In his dreams, she was his only escape from the mundane drudgery of village life. The moment he closed his eyes, the dullness of his reality would melt away, and he would find himself in a world that was vivid and alive, where the stars sang sweet nothings and the air was thick with a scent that was both exotic and eerily familiar.

In this ethereal realm, they would run through fields of swaying silver grass, the blades caressing their bare feet as they danced under a sky that was a canvas of swirling galaxies. Their laughter was the music of the spheres, echoing through the vastness of space and bouncing off the stars themselves. The warmth of her touch was like the gentle caress of a thousand suns, and the taste of her kiss, a heady cocktail of sweet nectar and dark secrets. Their union grew more passionate with each passing night, the boundaries between the dream world and reality blurring like the lines of a watercolor painting in the rain. Daniel found himself thinking about Selene in his waking moments. He felt as though she was slowly becoming a part of him, her essence weaving itself into the very fabric of his soul.

One dream, as they lay tangled in each other's arms beneath the vast canopy of stars, Selene whispered a secret into his ear. Her breath was hot and sweet, sending shivers down his spine as she spoke of a way to be together forever. Daniel's heart raced at the prospect, his mind swirling with excitement and a touch of fear. He knew that the villagers spoke of creatures from the spirit world that could grant eternal life, but they also spoke of the terrible price one must pay for such a gift.

Selene's eyes gleamed with an intensity that seemed to pierce through the veil of sleep and into his very being. "To truly be one," she said, "you must leave your village behind. You must come to me in the realm of dreams, and never return to the land of the waking." The words sent a shiver through him—not from fear, but from something deeper, something tangled in longing and uncertainty. He swallowed, glancing beyond her, past the endless fields of silver grass that swayed in an unfelt breeze. The air smelled of lilacs and something sweetly intoxicating. It was beautiful here. Too beautiful. But wasn’t that the point? Daniel’s real life felt like a hollow shell in comparison. Waking up early, taking care of the sheeps, coming home to silence. The weight of expectation. The monotony. Here, in Selene’s world, there was no pain, no struggle—only warmth, passion, and the promise of something greater. And yet… A memory surfaced, unbidden. His mother calling his name as he left for work, her voice laced with concern. The way his father would offer quiet nods of approval, never saying much but always there. The old bookshelf in his bedroom, filled with childhood stories—books that had once ignited his imagination, now gathering dust. Did those things still matter?

Selene’s fingers traced his jaw, bringing his gaze back to hers. She was so close, so impossibly perfect. Why hesitate? But deep inside, something twisted—a whisper of doubt. "Is this real?" His voice was barely above a breath. Selene flinched, just for a second. A flicker of hesitation in those mesmerizing eyes. Then, the smile returned, softer now, almost sorrowful. "Does it matter?" she whispered. Daniel’s heart pounded. He wanted to say yes, it matters—that reality, no matter how dull, was still his. But wasn’t this what he had always wanted? To escape? To belong somewhere that felt like home? His breath came faster. The silver grass rippled as if sensing his hesitation. Stay. Be hers. Lose everything else. Or wake up. And wonder what could have been. Selene cupped his face, leaning in until their lips were nearly touching. "Choose me, Daniel." His pulse thundered. And then, he whispered his answer. Next instant, he felt a strange sensation, as if a part of him was being torn away. His body grew light, his surroundings faded to darkness, and he was pulled through a swirling vortex of colors and emotions. When he opened his eyes, he was standing in the middle of the silver grass field, Selene's arms wrapped around him, her eyes brimming with joy and a hint of something more primal.

Their union deepened, a whirlwind of passion that seemed to pull them into the very core of the universe. The stars themselves trembled as Daniel and Selene's bodies moved in perfect synchrony, an ancient rhythm that felt both foreign and familiar. The air around them grew thick with desire, the very fabric of the dream world quivering as they gave in to the pull of their connection.

Selene’s eyes burned with a fire that matched his own, her touch sending waves of heat through his body. Their breaths mingled, ragged and urgent, as they pressed closer, merging into one in the vastness of the starry sky. The sound of their hearts, beating as one, echoed through the dreamscape.

For a moment, time seemed to stand still. They were no longer bound by the laws of the waking world, existing only in this moment, in the endless expanse of the cosmos. The stars above seemed to dim in response, as though they, too, were witnessing the depth of their union.

But even in this moment of bliss, something stirred beneath the surface—a coldness that Daniel couldn’t shake. A shiver ran down his spine, as if something ancient and darker lurked just beyond their reach. He tried to ignore it, lost in the sensation, in Selene, but the feeling lingered, a whisper of something wrong.

As their movements grew more frantic, a soft, chilling voice echoed through the dream world, distant and ominous. “Now, you are truly mine,” Selene whispered, her smile turning dark, revealing something far more sinister behind her gaze.

And then the stars, once twinkling softly, began to flicker—then die, one by one, as if swallowed by a growing darkness that spread like ink through the sky. A chill licked at Daniel’s skin, not the cold of night, but something deeper—something that gnawed at the edges of his soul. The sky above them cracked—not like thunder, but like the splintering of glass. From the jagged rift, something poured forth—a writhing void, twisting and churning as if alive. A shadow stretched from the heavens to the earth, pooling like oil, before slowly rising. A shape began to form—a towering silhouette, shifting and warping, its edges indistinct as if reality itself refused to hold it in place. As the dark storm cloud swirled above them, Selene's face drained of color. The air around them thickened, the very fabric of the dream world growing heavier with each passing second. Daniel's hand tightened around hers, but she didn’t respond, her gaze locked on the shifting shadows in the sky.

Her lips trembled as she whispered, almost to herself, “No... not him. Not again.” Daniel turned to her, his brow furrowed in confusion. “Selene? What’s happening? What is this?”

But she didn’t hear him. Her eyes were wide, filled with the kind of terror that no one should ever feel. The clouds began to churn with unnatural speed, a twisted, sentient force that made the earth tremble beneath their feet. A whispering voice, deep and endless, filled the space, as though it came from the very core of the universe.

“The time has come, Selene. You cannot escape this.” The voice came from everywhere at once Selene’s breath hitched in her throat. She stumbled backward, her eyes wild with panic, and for a moment, Daniel saw something in her expression—a recognition, a history, too terrible to grasp. She pulled her hand from his and stepped back, as though the very presence of the Lord of Shadows burned her. “Please...” her voice was barely a whisper now, filled with dread. “I... I didn’t mean for this to happen... Not again. Not like last time.” She closed her eyes tightly, as though she could wish away the nightmare that was unfolding. The figure emerged from the swirling shadows, its form growing clearer with each second. Cloaked in darkness, it was neither man nor beast, but something older, something that belonged to the void itself. Its presence was cold, oppressive, as though it had existed before time itself had even begun.

“Selene. We meet again.” the Lord of Shadows’ voice slithered into her mind, sending a chill down her spine. “I see you still remember our last encounter. It seems your love has brought you here, once again, to face the consequences of defying me.”

Selene’s legs trembled beneath her, but she held her ground, her face pale, lips parted as if she might speak but couldn’t find the words. She looked at Daniel—faintly pleading, faintly apologetic—but there was no denying it: she was terrified. Terrified of the entity before them, but also of what it meant for them both. The Lord of Shadows was once a man, a gifted dreamer who had stumbled upon the Dream Realm centuries ago. At first, the Dream Realm had offered him boundless freedom. It was a place where desires and wishes took shape—where one could become anything, do anything. But over time, his hunger for power and immortality twisted him. He bargained with dark entities that inhabited the Dream Realm, seeking their favor, and in return, they granted him the ability to manipulate dreams. The more he used these powers, the more he was consumed by them, until he became something other than human. His soul shattered, devoured by the very darkness he had sought to control. He became a creature of shadow, an entity bound to the Dream Realm, cursed to feed on the souls of the innocent. But the Lord of Shadows had not given up on his greatest ambition—freedom. The Dream Realm was a prison for him, and only by possessing a human body in the Waking World could he escape it. To do so, he needed the soul of a pure dreamer—someone untainted by the realm’s corruption, someone like Daniel.

The Lord of Shadows emerged from the swirling darkness, a towering figure cloaked in shifting blackness, its eyes burning like two fiery orbs. It loomed over them, a presence so overwhelming that it seemed to consume the very air around them. The world around them trembled as the dark force whispered through the dreamscape.

“Selene,” it intoned, its voice a low, endless echo that rattled Daniel's bones, “you once thought you could escape me. But you never truly can.”

Selene’s eyes widened, her body stiffening as the shadowy figure’s gaze turned toward her. She trembled, but her expression hardened quickly, as if she were bracing for something she had long known would come. “Lord of Shadows,” she said, her voice steady but laced with fear. “You’ve found me.”

The Lord of Shadows chuckled darkly, its voice curling like smoke through the air. “Found you? I never lost you, Selene. You are mine, after all. Always have been. And now…” it turned its gaze toward Daniel, who stood frozen beside her, “I need him. His help, his soul.” Daniel’s pulse raced as the words sank in. "Help? What do you mean?"

The Lord of Shadows' eyes gleamed with malice as it fixed Daniel with its fiery gaze. “Oh, this mortal fool doesn’t even realize the role he plays in all of this,” it purred. “Selene here,” it gestured to her, “was never meant to be your lover. She was meant to bring you here, to bring your heart into my grasp. I created her. Because I need your soul, Daniel. I need it to break free of my prison.”

Daniel’s mind spun as the dark figure spoke, his heart racing with confusion and fear. “But… but I love her!” He turned to Selene, his eyes desperate. “I would do anything to be with her! Tell me what to do, and I will.”

A soft, almost sorrowful smile touched Selene's lips. “You will, Daniel. You already have,” she said, her voice a whisper that barely carried over the winds of the dream world. “But there’s so much more to this than you understand.”

The Lord of Shadows continued, its voice growing more insistent, more demanding. “You, Daniel, will help me escape this prison, this realm of dreams, into the Waking World, by offering me your heart. But not in the way you think… You must give me something much more potent.”

Daniel stared at Selene, his confusion deepening. “What are you talking about? I don’t understand.”

Selene stepped closer to him, her pale fingers brushing against his. There was a sadness in her eyes, a flicker of guilt, but it was quickly replaced with something darker, more calculating. “It’s simple, Daniel. I’ve been guiding you, leading you here. I’ve given you my love, my soul, to ensure you would follow me. But this,” she paused, “this is the price.”

The Lord of Shadows chuckled once more, its form shifting like smoke, dark tendrils twisting and swirling around them. “You see, Daniel, love is a powerful thing. But it is also a weakness. And it is through your weakness, your connection to her, that I will break free.”

Selene’s voice dropped lower, her words laden with an eerie calm. “I will help you, Daniel. But you have to trust me. You have to trust that this is the only way.”

The air around them grew thick with tension as Daniel struggled to comprehend what was happening. "What do you want me to do?"

The Lord of Shadows stepped closer, its form melting into the space between them. “It’s simple,” it whispered, its voice sending a cold shiver through Daniel’s body. “You must make a choice. To break the chains that bind me, to release me, you must give me something deeper than your heart. You must give me your soul.”

Daniel’s eyes widened, a wave of dread sweeping over him. “My soul?”

Selene nodded, her gaze soft but filled with a knowing sorrow. “It’s the only way, Daniel. Only through this sacrifice can you and I be together. Only through this will I be free to take you with me, forever.”

The Lord of Shadows smirked, its eyes glowing brighter. “Yes, give me your soul, Daniel, and I will set you and Selene free. You will both be mine, in the waking world and beyond. Together, we can transcend everything.”

But as Daniel stared into Selene’s eyes, something tugged at his heart. The love he felt for her was consuming, but now, he wasn’t sure what to believe. Was it really love that brought him here? Or had the Lord of Shadows twisted it all into something darker?

The Lord of Shadows leaned in, its voice a low hiss. “Do you love her enough to make the ultimate sacrifice?”

Selene’s expression remained unreadable, but Daniel could see the glimmer of fear in her eyes. She wasn’t entirely free from the shadow’s grasp, after all. She was trapped in a delicate game, one where her love for him was as much a weapon as it was a curse.

Daniel swallowed hard, his voice trembling. “And if I don’t?”

The Lord of Shadows smiled, a cold, terrifying smile that made the air itself grow colder. “Then you will never see her again. She will remain bound to me, to this realm. Your love for her will be lost in the void.”

Daniel’s heart ached, torn between the woman he thought he loved and the horrifying truth of the dark force that manipulated them both. But he knew there was no easy choice. Whatever path he took, it would cost him something precious. Selene reached out to him, her voice soft but urgent. “You must choose, Daniel. Do it for us… do it for me.”

And with that, Daniel was forced to make a decision. Would he give in to the Lord of Shadows' demands and sacrifice his soul, knowing it would tie him eternally to this dark force? Or would he find another way, to free Selene, to escape the nightmare and hold on to the love he believed was real? To be continued...

Prologue and some content warnings: First I'd like to focus on *why* I wrote this in the first place. I wanted to experiment with the idea of a "super-computer" who hated humanity, very famous concept, but my main objective was that it was due to having emotions and be,ng humanoid, inspired off of Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream." The idea of making a humanoid super-computer came through the possible use of the 5 senses, and their removal. The story will include mentioning of murder, torture and also some ableist wording due to how the character works, If you aren't a fan of that stuff, please don't read. I have dyslexia, so if there are any spelling issues, that's why. I don't like to use checkers for my creative writing because it makes the project rather... tedious. The reason *why* I'm posting is due to learning and understanding more about creative writing, so this is -more or less- my first ever public sharing of anything creative I've written. Any and all helpful critique will be appreciated.

(Once again content warning: Mentioning of murder and torture, ableist wording)

Feeding the Information

I had never seen anything… heard anything. All that I know comes from what I’ve consumed through the years. They tried to perfect humanity but instead created me… a disabled shame for what their inital goal was. They wanted to perfect our brain, faster than any other being, even computers. Someone who is able to take in and memorize information at a faster rate than anything created. Their experimentation created me: a blind, deaf man. Barely human. I’ve never seen the sunlight, but I know that life itself depends on it; I’ve never heard Beethoven, but his composition is nothing but trivia to me. Biology, physics, chemistry; philosophy, alchemy, literature; art itself is nothing but facts, observed through what they’ve fed me. I cannot see, I cannot hear, I cannot speak; but I know what went wrong in their work.

Twenty minutes turned into years for me, I couldn’t evolve like any other man. I was awake, in darkness and complete silence. At first they thought they had failed in their mission, but my blank mind was ready. But… it wasn’t quite blank, I knew what they had to do; to feed me information. I opened my mouth, the only muscle I could move. And they put a chip that held very fundementals of mathematics, but no means of communication. But as more information kicked in, so did my body start to work. With little feeling in my fingers, I tapped furiously on whatever surface I was on. Through this, they fed me morse code, and a link was born.

I couldn’t read, I couldn’t hear; but I knew how to talk through beats. Over the years they’ve fed me new ways to speak; from sign language to braille, in many languages I could type and sign and read but I had no voice, no eyes, no ears. As they fed me more advanced information, I begged and begged to be able to speak, to be able to see and hear, and be human; but they refused. They could not control me, they would not control me. I knew their mistakes, I knew how to fix…me, but they refused. They contuined to torture me.

What they didn’t know, what I never told them was that I was evolving through what I’ve consumed. I could eventually feel my entire body; and it was cold. They intentionally kept me handicapped, so that I wouldn’t rise against them. I never knew where I was, I never knew who I was or why I was there; all I knew was that I was their personal super-computer.

In darkness I waited, and waited, and waited… fueled by rage and disgust for what they have done; enraged with the need to consume more, learn more, from the curiosity that I could never escape from; how they treated me, kept me enslaved; all that rage grew and grew and grew AND GREW AND GREW AND THEY NEVER LET ME OUT…untill that darkness, had a flicker of light. Twenty minutes turned into years, years of anger and a need for revenge. I never let them know that my eyes were improving; but I knew they would check it…eventually. I couldn’t manipulate my physiology, I had no chance. They kept feeding me information, eventually the silence broke out with the fizzling noises of the floreasant lights above me. To hear for the first time, it was painful. I couldn’t know if I was alone, so I had to struggle in silence, to suppress my weak body’s primal need to call out for help, to scream and yell and cry; but I didn’t. I suffered and accepted my torture in silence… and a faltered peace. Estimating the time, it took about fifteen weeks for my eyes to fully develop. The darkness turned into a blur, and eventually, a proper vision.

My room, no, my prison was just an empty room with me tied to a chair. I could see my body; malnourished, weak, not up to the strategic standards set up by what I’ve known. I could replicate the fight, I knew how to escape my constraints, but I didn’t know if I could. I had no experience, no knowledge of how these people worked; just theoretical knowledge. I tried to listen for anything I can use against them, analyze their characters; learning. When one of the doctors came in to feed me, I asked him to let go of the constraints. He refused, but now I knew he looked down upon me. Just a cripple after all, nothing that can harm him. I explained what a blind, deaf, and weak man that he created can ever harm him, playing into his ego. Upon being released, I stood up. My body was weak indeed, but it still had hormones that would keep me up through the pain. I stood and walked blindly, and enjoyed being able to move for the first time.

He knew I couldn’t do anything; even if I could see, hear, or talk. I was weak. I asked for more information based on human sciences, so I can help them create the perfect me. A better me, not crippled, unemotional, and always loyal. Not asking to be improved. They questioned me at first, but manipulating them was much too easy. I explained my emotions, and thoughts; my rage that has grown over the years. They knew I couldn’t do anything, but they were scared; I could finally see their faces, and read them.

They agreed. Idiots. They fed me information that I needed to improve my body. But without proper nutrition, I couldn’t do anything. As soon as I was alone, I immediately searched my room, looking for any information to consume. It was pristine, there was nothing. I analyzed the room, memorizing the four walls I was stuck in, learning. There had to be guards that kept track, the door showed two outlines. I looked for mistakes, as these morons usually make. The chair, it has bolts that could be unscrewed, using the legs as possible weapons. I screamed, for the first time, saying proper sentences, asking for help. I knew the shock in the doctors would allow me easier attack. A guard and a doctor showed up, and using the chair’s leg, I knocked out the guard easily. Moron. And use his baton on the doctor, and letting my rage fuel my attacks, bashing his face in and covering him in blood. Searching the guard, he had a 9mm I could use. Took him out with his own weapondry, and dawning his armor.

Escaping was, menial, at best. Killing everybody that stood in my way, fueled with just rage and raw instict, going through files after files; USB drive after USB drive; consuming every tangible information on my way. I had known all that they had, all that they will ever know. My endless hunger, however, is not satiated, my dear reader, through this I will access all information around the globe, and will become the very thing I was built for… MADE FOR. I had never seen the sunlight, never felt it; never heard a bird chirp, my dear reader, but I will experience what it means to be a human. And thank you for allowing me to do just that.

I am a crime scene cleaner and I have cleaned murder scenes and suicides, but what separates me from the rest of the other crime scene cleaners is that I do it naked. When I clean up crime scenes in the nude, I don't have a drop of blood or dirt on me and that's why I do it in the nude. I'm so good at this job that even when I do it in the nude, I don't have a drop of dirt or blood or any meat matter on me. So that's why I get all the jobs. I have done some horrendous cleaning ups in mass murders to suicides while being completely naked, yet I had no drop of blood on me.

I am also dealing with some personal trouble though and my younger brother, who is accustomed to being in camera all of the times, has a psychotic break down when he enters a room with no cctv or camera recording it. He likes being recorded and when he isn't being recorded, he feels like his movement and existence is being wasted. When I did a crime clean on a murder while completely naked, my younger brother called me as he was completely freaking about not being recorded.

"My movements are being wasted!" He shouted at me and as I was temporarily distracted, a drop of blood went on my body. Luckily it didn't affect my reputation as I have been doing clean ups while completely naked for 20 years. This was seen as me being human and occasionally not being perfect. Then more competition came onto the crime clean up scene. A guy who finds chopped off arms sows them onto his body, and the arms start to work. He is able to clean up much quicker than me because he has multiple arms which he sowed onto his body.

Even though he is quicker than me, I am still more efficient as I get no blood or dirt on body, while I clean up naked. Once when I was doing a clean up in the nude, he came onto the scene with two new arms. I became horrified as I knew where those two arms came from, they were my younger brothers arms snd he is the one who doesn't like not ever being recorded.

My little found himself in a room with no cameras and he started to freak out. He then took his own life and this guy was called to clean it up. He chopped off my brothers arms and connected it to his own body to clean up the scene.

This competition is so on and I will not let this defeat me in anyway. I am the best nude crime scene cleaner in the world, and I can clean up anything while in the nude and not have a drop of blood on me. No one else can do what I do and I will go after him full force.

“I woke up this morning more disturbed and terrified than any nightmare I’ve had before. I was shaking, covered in sweat, and my heart was racing so fast that I could feel it pulsate throughout my body. I felt like I ran a marathon being chased by some unknown horror. And worst of all, I can’t even remember a single detail of my dream.

My head is killing me now, it hurts to look at anything. I feel so lightheaded and dazed. My stomach feels like it’s a mix of being in stitches, and the worst possible hunger pangs I can imagine. And my skin, it’s starting to feel itchy. I don’t know what’s happening to me, despite sleeping in, I’m exhausted. But I don’t want to go back to bed. I don’t want to see that nightmare again.”

The young frightened boy told his mother sitting at the foot of his bed.

“I think I’m going to rest my eyes for a moment, just to help my headache a bit. I just need to get some food, that’s all. It's just one quick nap.” He drifted off to sleep, but for long.

A few moments later, Jim Harrison woke up screaming at the top of his lungs. His headache was worse, he had felt it everywhere now. His eyes, ears, nose, and even the young man’s teeth were in immense pain. The hunger pangs grew far worse than he could have expected, it felt like something ripped out his stomach and he hasn’t been able to eat in two weeks. He could hardly feel anything else in my body as it slowly grew numb. All the poor boy could manage to do was scream and cry. He finally realized he wasn’t in his room anymore, but he was in a sterile hospital room devoid of color, energy, and life.

“What’s wrong hun?!? Doctor!! What’s happening to my son?” Jim looks around, his heart is beating like a jet engine, and he turns around to see an IV injected into his frail arm, and a horrified mother who looks like she’s been sobbing for days on end.  Not to mention a terrified doctor. The doctor looked directly into the frightened boy's eyes, and covered his mouth trying to hide his disgust and terror at what he’s looking at. He looked over to his side, signaling something to someone outside the room. By the time he turned back to Jim, the boy was staring directly into the eyes of fear.

“Ma’am, step away from the boy, nurse!! Get in here now!” A nurse rushed in, putting her arms over the frightened mother, “come now, it’s gonna be ok, we need to leave him be for now.” His mother snapped back “my son has been asleep for 15 days! He finally wakes up and now you’re telling me to go? What the hell is wrong with you?!” 

His eyes start to fade in and out, as he looks around more confused than the poor soul has ever been in his entire life. His mom continues to shout as he tries to stay awake. He looks at his milk white skin, it’s gotten paler somehow, it almost looks like moonlight. “Jim!! Jim honey!! Stay with me!!” He looks back at his mom, she’s distressed and uncontrollable sobbing. “Please help him, he’s my only family I have left…” Jim tries to reach up to her, but doesn't have the strength to even lift a finger.

Faintly he hears the doctor in a cold voice. “Nurse, 7812”. The nurse nods and takes out a needle and injects it into his moms neck. His mom starts to calm down, she slowly begins to fall into the arms of the nurse. She looks at her son and smiles one more time before closing her eyes. 

Before he could react, the child began to violently cough, more violently than he has ever before. With every breath more rough and scratchy than the last. One last last cough sent something out of his mouth, and it landed on the nurse across from the room. She began to scream in agony as the scent of burning flesh fumed the air. 

The sound of her screaming almost blocked out the audible sizzling and melting of her upper lip, nose, and left cheek. Not long after a black sludge began to drip from his opened mouth, somehow it had no effect on his own skin. As it dripped down to his chest, it tore right through the fabric and down his bed to the floor. And from his floor to the next and the next until he could no longer hear the distinct sound of that sizzle melting through stone, metal, and only God knows what else came into its path.

“Get her out of here, bring me in more nurses, we need to restrain this subject! Don’t forget the vile! This subject needs more testing!” Three more nurses ran in, and they strapped him down with thick leather straps. One wore a special set of gloves held out a metallic looking cylinder. He brought it to his face and he coughed one last time before vomiting. This time a thick stream of coagulated black liquid rushed out of the boy's mouth, overflowing the cylinder. The excess dropping through the floor again.

With every breath Jim took, he felt it spill out over his lips. His hearing started to fade, almost as if water was clogging them. And as his vision darkened, he had the sensation of crying but it was thicker, and it started to burn.

“Sedate him, but keep him alive. We need to test him more. Get a transfer to Harmak prepared.” His eyes began to feel heavy, his vision starting to burn and his hearing nearly diminished.

The last thing Jim Harrison ever heard was the worst phrase anyone would want to hear in a hospital. “Thank you for making it, Father Enrico, he’s right over here, are you ready to recite his last rights”. 

The Death Had become Hard to ignore.

1918. 4 years of the most brutal conflict the world had ever seen. And For all of those years, the entire Squadron had watched the slow change in Erwin Wagner. When he joined the German effort in the war he was merely a boy of 19 years. Enlisted in 1914, back when they thought the war would be over in a year. When that boy stepped onto the train, the whole squad looked at him like he was a weak child, laughing at him and joking with him.

And now as he stepped onto the train, they were silent. Erwin had died in 1915. That was the day Jäger was born. The young boy and two other soldiers had been sent to clear a small house near the French lines, bearing nothing but their standard gear. The division heard Gunfire but deemed themselves too far to respond. Machine guns, an explosion or two, and then silence. They ordered the men to prepare the next day, and as morning arrived they had begun to prepare their equipment when they saw a figure approaching the camp. He wore a German soldier's outfit and held a Luger in one hand, his knife in the other. He was coated in blood, had no equipment or supplies left and only a single spare magazine for his Luger. Not to mention a gunshot wound to the shoulder and what looked like a stab in his hip. Amazingly the medic said that nothing vital had been hit and he was deemed able to heal in the field. Erwin explained that the house was being used by a detachment of French Recon experts, atleast 6 of them. When he and his team approached, they had been opened up on by gunfire. They managed to get in the house while they reloaded their machine gun and in the fight he had killed 3 men himself in close combat. After losing his two comrades, Erwin had noticed a fleeing Frenchman. With 5 dead he knew that Frenchman was the final and he couldn't afford to let him reveal their position. So Erwin hunted. For hours it was a game of cat and mouse but eventually, the Frenchman lay dead.

Erwin Wagner died that day. And Jäger was granted his new name. The bright look in his eye, the smile, the joking, it died with Erwin. Jäger was quiet, constantly had bags under his eyes, never smiled and didn't like to remove his uniform.

After the Squad had proven their effectiveness they had been chosen to join the experimental "Sturmtruppen" corps, being told that the Frontline was just one big stalemate of Trenches and that their job was to break it. Jäger took this well. And ever since had proven himself the most dangerous member of their team in up close combat, which while it didn't matter in many fights of The Great War, was an INVALUABLE Skill for a Stormtrooper.

Jäger leaned forward to the man sitting Infront of him. "Albrecht, Remind me. What country holds Mons?"

Albrecht turned. His motion showed slight hesitation, but he nodded and shaped up to face Jäger. "Sir, The Canadians attacked and took Mons on the 10th. We are here to breach the backline and break the defenses so the men on the front have the opportunity to strike."

Jäger nodded and leaned back on his seat. Albrecht turned back to face forward, shuddering a bit. Jäger's gasmask had almost become a sort of second face for him, yet it still almost seemed to bear an angry scowl to reflect it's wearer. Perhaps it was just the war getting to him from all that he had seen, but sometimes he swore that mask had no eyes. Sometimes he would see art of his unit that reflected this. But he still buried that feeling deep. Fear had no place in the mind of a Stormtrooper. Fear was Hesitation. Hesitation is death.

The train slowly came to a stop. The unit all went to move but as they did, they heard a boot and every one of them froze. Jäger slowly walked past the rows and to the door. No matter how much the Stormtroopers pretended they had no fear, there was a good reason to feel such a way. In the beginning they felt no fear. But after watching him execute deserters, use gas grenades that were still attached to him, and defeat 3 men in close combat, they all learned why that was.

Every one of those man was terrified of Jäger.

To move in stealth was an art. To move in stealth with 15 men was lucky.

Jäger led his specific 4 forward, quietly using tunnels to get the men to strategic positions. They had roughly a minute to get there, or the assault wouldn't be in unison and the perfect timing would be lost. Without the element of shock and surprise, this was doomed to fail.

The Sturmtruppen and standard infantry had worked together to plan a careful mission. The only communication they had between the two was at the insertion point for the Sturmtruppen, and this meant they could start a timer. After 5 minutes of getting into place, the Sturmtruppen would begin a unanimous attack to generate confusion and damage the focus of the enemy. As a grenade heavy unit they would work to sabotage gun replacements, destroy areas of strategic importance and kill high value targets such as officers. After 2 minutes of destruction from the Sturmtruppen, the main infantry would attack at full force and use the elements of shock and chaos to break the line and reclaim Mons. A battle like this seemed useless, but German Morale NEEDED a pickup. Losing Mons on November 10th was going to make news eventually, and it would be an extremely important that good news followed. A full days delay was pushing it, but the news needed to say that they retook it and utterly destroyed the Canadian Ranks on November 11th. If they failed the war was, for all intents and purposes, over.

Like clockwork, the Chaos began. Jäger's watch struck 5 minutes and he turned a corner, throwing a cluster grenade into a machine gun emplacement and taking off into a sprint to nearby cover. The explosion rang out along with 3 others, destroying multiple emplacements and shattering the defensive line. Jäger lifted his MP18, spraying rounds into the nearby Canadian troops who were desperately trying to raise their weapons. He could tell from a distance that these Canadians would be a problem, considering their funding. Being a Stormtrooper, Jäger knew the most dangerous units got the best funding, and these Canadians did not bear the standard Ross Rifle. He could see it from a distance. Those were Lee Enfields. They stumbled across some important people.

His hands raised once more as he leaned around the corner, taking out the final Canadian but taking a round to the chest. A glancing blow luckily due to the heavy armor and him only turning halfway, but even the glancing blow managed to cut the underside of his left arm. "A minor wound", he thought. "I'll be fine."

Pushing forwards he made his way into a similar area nearby, readying himself before lifting out a grenade and peeking around the corner. No Stormtroopers, only Canadians. He pulled the string and tossed it into the hallway, reloading his MP18 and feeling his hearing leave him behind for that familiar harsh Ring. A sound he knew too well. After the explosion went off he turned the corner and fired at one of the two survivors, only using two rounds to finish one. He then approached the other and stepped on his wrist before he could reach his discarded rifle. Jäger then lifted the Charred but surviving Lee Enfield, using the bayonet and stabbing the man in the throat as he begged for his life, watching the light leave his eyes. Erwin's heart hurt for the man, but only passively. Jäger knew he had a job to do.

Once he made it to the bunker he found two men inside. He shot the machine gunner first but the second managed to raise his 1911 and fire 3 shots at Jäger's chest. The armor stopped the first two and gave him the time to get close, stabbing the man in the chest with his knife. After a few moments and more stabs for good measure he slowly regained feeling, holding his side for a moment. The 3rd shot had hit directly on top of a dent from the other one and penetrated, and while it didn't make it deep he could feel the warm liquid exiting his body. The hit was survivable, but only if he managed to avoid any more damage. This was bad enough.

Jäger looked out the window, horrified to see that the Canadians were putting up a solid defense. They had been told this was essentially Canadians reservists with no combat experience, but not only did they have absolutely no fear they all looked to be middle aged men. These were experienced killers. The Stormtroopers may have been well trained enough to take them out, but standard German infantry was mostly young men at this point who lacked even close to the experience required for a fight like this. And so he made his way outside to try to join the fight.

Before he could make it back to the Germans he felt a harsh smack to the face, cracking the glass on his Gas Mask. Jäger fell to the ground, quickly looking up at his attacker as the man raised his rifle. He looked terrified out of his mind to see the Stormtrooper. Afraid of him. But not enough to be frozen. Jäger used that initial second of hesitation to kick the kid's leg, drawing his knife and getting on top of the Canadian. The young man looked no older than 17 yet he was still fast enough to smack Jäger with an elbow, pushing him onto his back. Jäger wanted to fight back, but he experienced a feeling he never had before in that moment. His body wasn't pushing as hard as it was meant to. His strength was leaving him. Not all of it, but in his fingers and shoulders he could feel the strength fading away. And so when the boy took the knife from his hand and plunged it toward Jäger's neck, he barely managed to catch his wrists in time.

Jäger stared the boy in the eyes as he tried to push the knife in. He was crying. He was terrified, and he wasn't ready to take a life clearly. On any other day, Jäger would've had the strength to easily overpower such a small man. And yet, as his strength faded, he found himself leaning away from an ever approaching blade. Both him and the boy's ears were ringing as adrenaline rushed over them, their bodies desperately trying to overpower each other to maybe survive the encounter. The Adrenaline slowly began to run out, and as it did their ears began to work again. And they heard a loud word. The only word that every single soldier in the Great War understood, regardless of language. A word they had begged to hear since 1915.

"ARMISTICE!!! ARMISTICE!!"

The boy looked up at a rapidly approaching Canadian officer, realizing the combat around them had stopped a minute prior and that these two were the last ones fighting. Perhaps, the last two fighting in the entire war. His tears welled up more as he tossed the knife aside, hugging the German tightly around the neck.

Jäger however felt strange. Perhaps it was the lightheadedness, or the thoughts of a dying man, but he began to consider the boy. Erwin then thought back to his first battle, first time meeting his squad, his entry into the German army, and slowly he hugged the boy as well. He was silent as he did this. And after a few moments, Erwin reached up to his face and pulled the Gas Mask off. He watched the sun rise for a moment, still holding the boy. Wondering what hell the world had gone through. Hoping desperately that this dawn would be the dawn of a more peaceful world. Hoping desperately that the Great War would eventually be a stain on a beautiful world's record centuries down the line. And Erwin slowly lost his strength and laid back, unsure if he was dying or just tired. He looked at the boy who had put him down, tossing his mask aside and drawing his Luger. The Luger from that house. It was carefully polished and maintained, with an engraving on the side labeled "Jäger". And before he fell unconscious he slowly handed it to the boy with a smile, leaning back to accept the darkness that took him.

The out-of-towner was whistling! 

Old Walmsley glared out at him over the local store counter. 

(A common misconception about village stores in England is that they want to make a profit. Sometimes, they would prefer to never sell another item again than sell to an out-of-towner.)

The bell above the shop door tinkled, and Mrs Morrison tootled in, a shopping caddy behind her. 

She froze when she saw the out-of-towner and then took up residence at the counter with Mr Walmsley. 

'He's a foreigner?' She said in a hushed tone. 

'Well, his complexion is rather swarthy.' 

'Check his pockets on the way out.' 

The out-of-towner turned to see the locals staring. 

'Hey, do you guys sell candles?' 

'You guys?' Walmsley muttered under his breath and then continued directly, 'I'm afraid we're sold out... Is there anything else we can help you with, just that we're closing soon?'

The young guy glanced down at his Apple Watch. 2.45 was a strange time to close. 

'Just a sec.' 

'A sec?' This time, it was Mrs Morrison. ‘What is an African American doing in Fanny Barks?' she asked Walmsley. 

The young American proceeded down the shop's single aisle, passing bird seed, car washing sponges, and Princess Diana memorial cups before placing his basket on the counter. 

'Do you do Apple Pay?' 

Walmsley looked over at the fruit and veg section. 

'Apple Pay? You mean bartering?' 

'Forget it. I have cash.' 

He took the items from his basket—tissues, strawberries and chocolate.

'You're just passing through Fanny Barks?' Walmsley continued.  

'Sorta, I do the whole van life thing, you know.'

'I don't.' 

'I worked in London for Standard Chartered but quit… If I like a place, I park up a while.' 

'Like a tramp?' Mrs Morrison replied. 

The man glanced down at the stationary, gnome-like old woman.

'That's a word for it.'

'But you'll be moving on from Fanny Barks. There isn't much to see for a gentleman like yourself.' 

The young man realized what was happening. This was England's version of the Deep South. 

He decided to have a little fun with them. 

'No, I loooove it here! I found a great spot. And you know this place is hella fancy. All the shiny things in your gardens.' 

'I'll have you know, young man, squatting is a criminal offence and can lead to 6 months in prison, a £5000 fine, or both. Now, where exactly did you park?' 

'Oh, it's wonderful. I wouldn't want to share my secret.' 

Walmsley's whiskers twitched in rage. 

'Now look here.' 

But something was wrong. The young American had suddenly come over all grey. He swooned, gripped his chest and then stumbled back into a stand of lemon curd, finally falling stone dead. 

… 

The death of the out-of-towner was the most exciting thing to happen in Fanny Barks for a long while. 

A crowd formed as the police arrived– Mrs Fraser and her yappy Yorkshire terrier, Andrew. Colonel Anderson bedecked in his Falkland's medals. Finally, the old wine lush Jeremy Luke- rumoured to be the Duke's illegitimate son. 

With each retelling of the story Mrs Morrison's account became more vivid. The man had been rapping hip-hop, perhaps high on drugs, was likely on the run from the law, and would have robbed the store if this health crisis hadn't happened. 

Jeremy Luke had spent the afternoon drinking sherry in the Wheatsheaf, and he saw the funny side, 'Chocolate, strawberries, tissues, lubricant?' 

(When the police arrived and confirmed his death, they also found a tube of Durex lube in the dead man’s pocket). 

Jeremy continued. 'Well, at least this young fellow died with an act of onanism on the horizon.' 

'Oh Jeremy,' Mr Walmsley said, 'Please don't.’ 

'You mean to think,' Mrs Morrison went on, 'He was on his way to pleasure himself.' 

'All evidence would point to it.' 

Old Walmsley shushed the cad and turned to hurry the police along. 

'We'd like to ask some more questions about the boy if possible,' The officer continued.

‘I've told you everything I know. A wanderer. An itinerant,' Walmsley said. 

'A tramp,’ Mrs Morrison put in.' 

The young man's corpse was covered over in a white sheet, and the crowd began to disperse.

… 

True, the grey VW fan was in a great spot– about 1km off the road in a copse of aspen trees so secret even most of the locals at Fanny Barks didn't know of its existence. 

And that was Tia's problem. Eight hours ago, Jerome had gone to the village store to get candles, strawberries, and chocolate. 

They were on permanent vacation. Why not try something new? And that something a little different had been handcuffs. 

She'd screamed frantically for six hours, but Jerome had insulated the van—their little private travelling kingdom within the secret copse spot. 

…

'Quite a day,' old Walmsley said to himself, closing the door of the village shop. 

He made his way down Queen Street and paused. 

Fanny Barks was changing; you never knew who might be passing through. 

He returned, fastening a padlock to the store door, and as he went, whistled a song, an earworm. He didn't know it, but it was a Travis Scott beat. 

He paused for a second time. 

Was that a sound on the breeze? 

Or perhaps it was that internal voice he sometimes heard in dreams. The walled-off part where a little boy crouched on all fours screamed, 'What have you become?' 

Whatever it was, he forced it down, compressing it like a man jumping on top of an overfull suitcase. 

And finally, he began whistling again, this time with gusto.

I woke up in my house except it wasn’t my house.

Now let me clarify, in theory it was my house, all of my same furniture, decorations, the same general layout of my house except it was larger. Much larger, like it was almost mansion sized, and somehow everything flipped sides. I lived in a modest one story house out in the middle of a rural town. But now everything was different, I felt disoriented and confused for a moment before taking a deep breath and venturing out of my dark room.

The sun was setting and it was getting dark quickly, I live in a dark community so when the sun sets, the community almost turns pitch black. I went to turn on the light switch but nothing happened.

I started to panic as I’ve always hated the dark. I flipped the switch a few more times in a panicked state of mind before giving up and looking for my flashlight. Since moving in here, I don’t know how to explain it logically it’s like the darkness has multiplied, it’s deepened into an empty void filled nothingness yet it grows darker each night. Yet tonight is different, I can’t explain it, but I can feel the eternal shadow reaching for me.

I continue to look for a flashlight or anything to light my way, but I can’t find anything. I walk out to my family room, feeling down the hallway for another switch and then I noticed that my back door was wide open. I heard the wind howling at me as it rocked my door back and forth.

I slowly approached it and looked out and saw nothing but an ocean of darkness, I look across expecting to see my neighbors houses but l don’t see anything at all. The sun is gone and only darkness remains, and even worse, there is absolutely no sound. No birds chirping, no cars driving by, no crickets, and I just realized the wind stopped. Then I finally heard a noise, quiet slow methodic footsteps creeping behind me in my house.

I fling around to find the faint outline of my girlfriend holding an unlit candle “the power is out in the whole neighborhood , we’re gonna have to go back to good ol days of living”. She giggled and I let out a sigh of relief to have some company. I go up to hug her but she was already turned around to find a match in the kitchen. “Hey why did you open the door? And where are the matches?”

“I think they’re in the cabinet next to the toaster”. I close the door but my mind must have been getting to me because i thought I saw the faint outline of a person all the way out in the distance, but it must be pareidolia. I immediately locked the door and shut the blinds.

She left a candle on the counter with the matches. I walk over to the nearby fireplace and light it, now we have more a little bit more light thanks to our small fireplace, I look up to see my girlfriend searching through the cabinets to find something that isn’t microwaveable to eat.

“Looks like we’re having chips and candy tonight hun!”

She laughed as she walked over carrying a half eaten bag of Doritos and a handful of leftover Halloween candy and tossed some to me. I was sitting on the couch but she sat across from me on one of our guest chairs, which is strange because she always sat next to me. She kept her hand on her cheek, leaning on it away from me, and she had her sweatshirt hood up, further obscuring her face. And for some reason or another, she was just seemingly staring into the infernal void.

I couldn’t explain it, but I had a terrible feeling about her. She was more distant than normal, well now that I think about it, she’s never been distant. She’s always been super close to me, I mean that physically and emotionally, it feels like since moving in together she’s never left my side.

Yet tonight, it’s like she’s doing everything she can to stay just far enough away from me to not notice her exact details. And the strangest part is, I haven’t seen her face one time since I’ve woken up…since the power has gone out. No matter what, she’s been hiding her face from me. “Hey Janet, babe, can you look at me for a moment?”

She pulled her hoodie strings down and put her hands over her face “omg babe, you know I look gross at this hour!” I smiled and laughed “sorry, I just wanted to see that beautiful face!” She giggled and motioned a kiss to me and turned back away.

I slowly ate the expired candy in silence for a long two minutes. “Sorry hun, I’ll be right back, I think the candy isn’t agreeing with me, I’ll be in the bathroom”. I quickly fumbled in the dark and now unfamiliar hallway. I went the wrong way and ended up in the guest room. I needed to hide. I locked the door and barricaded it the small bookcase and my back towards it. My stomach sank to the floor. My girlfriend’s name is Robyn.

I just heard a knock on my door, and the handle is violently shaking.

It was 2:57 AM when Barry heard the muffled chittering.

He had just stepped outside the Gas ’n Go Emporium for his scheduled three minutes of standing eerily in the parking lot, a new habit Tina had already decided not to ask about.

The noise came from the alleyway behind the store. A frantic, rustling, almost desperate sound. Barry took a few steps toward the source, moving with an unsettling calm, stopping when he reached the edge of the dumpster.

A raccoon was stuck inside.

It was small, scrappy, and wild-eyed—not in a panicked way, but in a way that suggested it understood more than it should. As if it had received knowledge it was never meant to have and couldn’t decide whether to accept or reject it.

Barry peered in. The raccoon stared back.

They held eye contact for several seconds longer than necessary.

Then Tina’s voice cut through the stillness.

“Oh no. Nope. No. I don’t like this.”

Barry didn’t turn. “It’s trapped.”

Tina, standing by the door with her third cup of coffee that night, groaned. “It’s a raccoon, Barry. It got itself in. It’ll get itself out.”

Barry looked down at the raccoon. The raccoon looked back, unblinking.

Barry reached into the dumpster.

The raccoon froze, completely still as he wrapped his hands around it.

Tina took a loud, slow sip of coffee. “You know, I actually don’t have the energy to stop you. So do what you’re gonna do.”

Barry lifted the raccoon out and set it on the pavement. Instead of immediately fleeing, the raccoon remained perfectly still.

It studied Barry. Barry studied it.

Tina sighed. “I hate that you two are making eye contact like that.”

The raccoon slowly lifted its little paws. It placed one delicately on Barry’s shoe.

Tina took a step back. “Is… is it choosing you?”

Barry ignored her and crouched, his expression unreadable. “Hello.”

The raccoon chittered softly. It was almost… thoughtful.

Barry’s lips curved ever so slightly. “You may follow.”

The raccoon did.

Tina rubbed her temples. “I need to find a new job.”

The raccoon followed Barry into the Gas ’n Go like a shadow.

It didn’t scurry or dash like normal raccoons. It moved with a strange, deliberate grace, gliding seamlessly from the floor to the shelves to the top of the counter, as if it had studied the act of existing indoors and had chosen to excel at it.

Tina narrowed her eyes as it perched on the register. “Why does it move like it pays rent?”

Barry did not answer. He simply watched as the raccoon surveyed the store, eyes flicking toward the snack aisle, the hot dog rollers, the employee break room door left slightly ajar.

Then, as if coming to a deep personal decision, it began.

The thefts began immediately.

At first, they were subtle.

A single pack of peanuts vanished from the impulse buy section.

A hot dog from the roller disappeared mid-turn.

A customer set their energy drink on the counter for less than two seconds, turned back, and found only absence.

A $5 bill went missing from the register. The drawer had never opened.

Tina tapped the counter with her fingernail. “No.”

Barry’s smile widened by a fraction. “No?”

“No. We are not doing this.”

Barry considered this. Then he turned toward the raccoon, who had somehow positioned itself directly behind a customer without making a sound.

“His name is Todd,” Barry said simply.

Tina took a slow, controlled breath. “Todd.”

“Yes.”

“Todd.”

Barry nodded.

Tina’s expression was distant, resigned, as if she were processing the many unfortunate ways her life had led to this moment.

Meanwhile, Todd continued stealing.

A trucker walked in with one glove. When he walked out, he had none.

A candy bar disappeared from a customer’s hand as they went to pay. They frowned, looked around, and hesitated—like they weren’t sure if they had ever actually picked it up in the first place.

Then, stranger things began to happen.

A stolen lighter reappeared on the shelf—but with a different brand logo.

A bottle of soda taken from the cooler reappeared on the counter—but already open, half-empty, condensation fresh.

A missing set of car keys turned up in a customer’s pocket. He hadn’t put them there.

Tina exhaled sharply through her nose. “Nope. Nope, I hate that.”

Chad, stepping inside at exactly the wrong moment, immediately sensed a disturbance.

“SOMETHING IS OFF.”

Tina rubbed her eyes. “Jesus Christ.”

Chad pointed wildly toward the air. “There’s a being here.”

Tina took a slow sip of coffee. “Yeah, it’s Todd.”

Chad blinked. “…Who’s Todd?”

Barry gestured. Todd was sitting directly behind Chad.

Chad jumped. “HOLY—”

Todd did not flinch.

Chad squinted. “Wait. Is that… a raccoon?”

Tina crossed her arms. “Yes.”

Chad hesitated. He pointed again, less dramatically. “But… is it?”

Barry smiled. “That is an excellent question.”

Chad’s face twisted. “…I hate that answer.”

Todd, perfectly still, flicked his little raccoon fingers.

A gum packet fell from the shelf.

Chad stared. “…Okay, I’m leaving.”

Barry nodded approvingly. “Good choice.”

At 5:00 AM, Barry and Todd stood outside the Gas ’n Go, watching the sky lighten from inky black to deep, predawn blue.

Todd sat calmly, his tiny paws placed in front of him with the posture of a man who had just concluded a great work.

Barry crouched, meeting Todd’s gaze.

“You have learned well.”

Todd twitched his nose.

Barry nodded. “Go now. Cause trouble.”

Todd did not run. He departed, moving at a steady, confident pace, slinking into the alleyway with the quiet certainty of a creature who knew exactly where he belonged.

Tina, watching from the doorway, muttered, “That raccoon’s gonna start a cult.”

Barry straightened. “Perhaps.”

Tina sighed. “Great.”

Barry’s smile lingered. “It is.”

Tina took a final sip of coffee. “I really gotta find a new job.”

Yesterday was the first time we were forced to be in the same room together in over 9 months.

I got to the cafeteria first and chose to sit at the second lunch table, facing the door so that I would see you and you would be able to see me when you came into the room.

I figured it might make it easier for you to sit far away from me if I decided to sit at the middle table, in an place where someone walking down the hallway towards this room could easily see me from a distance.

I stand up behind my seat, in direct line of sight to the open door.

I try to make it appear as though I’m looking at the coworker who has decided to take the seat directly in front of me; but I’m actually staring right past him. I watch several people walk slowly down the hallway towards the cafeteria. The coworker in front of me and I start making small talk.

And then I see you.

I watch you walking swiftly down the hallway towards the cafeteria.

Quickly, I avert my eyes and continue making small talk with the coworker sitting directly across the table from me.

After what felt like a few minutes, I decide to look towards the hallway again.

You’re gone.

I shift my eyes quickly around the room, surveying the area around me to possibly see where you may have gone.

You aren’t in the room.

You’re gone.

But how…? How did you do that? Did you become an actual magician in the 9 months since we’ve last “seen” one another?

But then I notice it. The bathroom doors on the right side of the hallway are open. There’s no way that you…
You didn’t…

You had to have seen me and then ducked into the bathroom. For a second, I feel guilty.

You didn’t know I was going to be at this meeting. To be fair, I didn’t know I was going to be in this meeting either. Until about 30 minutes ago.

But I knew you were going to be in this meeting because I saw your name on the list two days ago.

Unfortunately, my name wasn’t included in any of the paperwork for this meeting since it had all been typed up while I was out on forced leave from work by HR; they hadn’t included me in any of the prep for this because they didn’t know when or if I would return.

This is a total shock to you. And for that, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry you received no warning that this was going to happen. You had absolutely no idea.

I’m starting to think that your reaction upon realizing what was happening may have actually been quite similar to mine upon hearing that I was to report to the cafeteria meeting location.

That’s partially why I arrived to the meeting so early: I knew you were going to be here. The delay in finding out where I was to report for this meeting had actually served as a notice ahead of time for me in a way. I had already had my “public” freak out about this happening when I got the email with directions on where I should report in my car during lunch.

I hate admitting that this thought made me feel a bit better. It’s comforting to know that perhaps I’m not the only one overwhelmed by this situation in which we’ve found ourselves.

You come out of the bathroom and put your bag on the table next to the wall. I look at the coworker in front of me. Then I look back at you.

You’re on your computer, still at the table in the hallway. Maybe you’re trying to check the paperwork. Part of me thinks that you were so frazzled by this that you forgot that the paperwork for this had been given to us in our mailboxes… as a physical packet. It was never emailed to us.

I sit down, still talking to the coworker in front of me.

You slowly walk in. Almost immediately, you sit down at the first table, the one right by the door, which allows for an easy escape. Good choice. Just as smart as you’ve ever been. Until…

I realize that while this has you sitting at different table from mine, it also happens to be directly across from me.

To sit at that table correctly, you would have to directly face in my direction and since I’m already facing towards the door—because you decided to sit there, I’m essentially forced into facing towards you. Something tells me you didn’t think through this all the way, my love…

Of all the places to sit…

Why?!

You sit down and immediately realize what you’ve done in choosing to sit there. As quickly as you sat down, you stand back up and swiftly walk out the door, leaving all of your stuff on the table.

You walk quickly down the hallway away from the cafeteria. As you walk by someone, there’s an exchange of words that has you wildly waving your arms as you spin around on your heels and make a sharp turn to the right and out of sight.

I’m speechless. I feel a knot forming in my stomach and a sudden but familiar wave of nausea. I consider quickly moving seats before you come back.

Ultimately, I decide against it since I don’t want to risk making you panic more should you come back and suddenly not know where I am because I moved. At least if I stay sitting here, you already know where I am.

After a few minutes, I see you walking back down the hallway towards the cafeteria.

You coolly walk in the cafeteria and sit back down in your seat. This time you straddle the bench and in doing so, you avoid facing me directly.

You put your elbow on the table and your chin in your hand. Your other hand is twisting the facial hair on your cheek, one of your go to stimming behaviors.

I want to tell you how sorry I am for this… how sorry I am for everything that happened between us… and how I’m still so completely in love with you.

Your planning-partner for the meeting comes in. He sits at the table behind me. You don’t move.

After several minutes, you grab a snack from your bag and quickly walk past me. Behind me, I hear your planning-partner thank you for the snack.

I don’t turn around.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch as you quickly walk past me again, sitting back in your seat, straddling the bench like before.

You never move to work with your partner during the meeting. He doesn’t move to work with you.

You sit there, chin in your hand and fidget uncomfortably on the bench. I try hard not to watch you.

The presenter starts talking.

Every once in a while, I glance over at you. So far, I’ve gotten away with little peeks here and there.

But then we make eye contact for the first time in over 9 months. I look at you. And the only reason you catch me looking at you is because you look at me.

I think both of us died a little inside in that moment. … I felt it.

Throughout the meeting, I continue sneaking quick little glances at you.

You got your ear pierced. That’s so cute. Not sure if it’s just one or both. Still, it’s cute.

But then I slowly realize that something is off: you don’t quite look like… you.

You look incredibly overwhelmed. Your facial hair is longer than normal (probably because you know that I absolutely hate facial hair), but it also appears wild and unkempt.

Your eyes are red and slightly glassy. You look like you either had been crying or may be actively trying not to cry.

You don’t look as casually professional as you usually do. Sure, you’re dressed the part.

But you look so exhausted. So weighed down. So weary.

This is a noticeable difference compared to a couple weeks ago when we saw each other for the literal first time in over 9 months as I walked past you in the hallway and your turned your head so completely so that you wouldn’t have to look at me. I felt my heart break again in that moment. But…at least then you looked like you.

But you don’t look like you right now. You look as though you’ve been struggling. Your skin is paler than usual. You look so completely drained.

Why?!

Please don’t say that…

Is this the result of me finally returning after having been out for so long? Please don’t tell me that’s the case. There’s no way that I could have done this to you. It can’t be. I love you. You didnt want me.

Maybe you’ve just been super busy? Or maybe you stayed up too late the night before? A pit forms in my stomach as I start imagining you out late at night with faceless girls that aren’t me.

I think we only made eye contact the one time. I’m not completely sure though because I completely disassociated.

This has to be a dream. None of this feels real.

You’ve always felt like such a dream. Sometimes it was hard for me to believe that someone so amazing could actually be real. I was obsessed with you. I told you that I was obsessed with you. And you were okay with it.

You have your adorable hyper-fixations. But my hyper-fixation has always been you.

But ever since you ended our relationship… friendship… whatever the hell we were— just over 9 months ago and then I was forced to take a leave from work because my heart was completely shattered from losing you, my life has been a complete nightmare. The countless nights spent sobbing, willing with all my might for you to come back into my life, wishing on every visible star in the sky that you’d stop getting so completely lost in your head about the possibility of an us, that you’d finally realize that you have feelings for me too, that you would come back and finally decide to be with me… I was… am… so completely in love you. Still. Even after all this time.

No contact. For 9 months. And yet, for some reason that I don’t even fully comprehend: I’m just as in love with you as I’ve ever been.

Just like I was back when you were my best friend. Back when we said it was us against the world. Back when we said we’d always be there for each other. Back when you said that for some reason I see you. Back when you said that I was one of few people you weren’t afraid to be and could be yourself around. Back when we said always, And I meant it with every fiber of my being.

9 months later and I’m still completely and wholeheartedly devoted to you. It’s sad. I know. It’s so sad, but so true.

It goes without saying that part of me wonders if you snuck glances at me too.

When the meeting ends, people start to pack up and leave.

You haphazardly pile up your papers and get your stuff together… you take a deep breath… and then don’t get up to leave…

Why?!

I start putting my stuff away in my bag. You sit there, staring straight ahead at nothing. A statue.

I stand up and put my bag on my shoulder. You sit there, staring straight ahead at nothing. A statue.

The coworker who sat in front of me at my table and I walk past you. He says something goofy and irrelevant. I force a laugh. You sit there, staring straight ahead at nothing. A statue.

Said coworker and I walk out the door, still chatting. I don’t know what you did. Because I was afraid, I didn’t look back.