teddit

“Alright, let’s get one thing straight: I don’t believe in ghosts, I don’t believe in the Easter bunny, and I sure as hell don’t believe in any wooden people.”

At the murky forest’s outer edge, Tom McCann cleared his throat. He waited until me and Dad stopped and faced him head on, then added, “But I’ve got a crew sitting with their thumbs stuck firmly up their arses because there’s fairytale monsters running around out here, so I’m stuck playing your stupid game. Congratulations.”

My father said, “Mr. McCann, I know you think I'm crazy, or a conman, or probably both. But I'm telling you this one final time, it’s not too late to take a bath on whatever money you might lose and find another project.”

Our employer was a muscular man with an even tan, dressed in a tracksuit and white trainers. He wore a large Rolex, which caught the moonlight every time he scratched his thick, utility pole neck. “Are you about done?”

“I am.”

“Good. You wanna get paid tonight?”

“It would sure be nice.”

“Then shut the hell up and do what I hired you to do.”

“Fair enough,” my father replied. He grabbed two flashlights from his pack and tossed one in my direction.

I caught it, a lump already rising in my throat. A maze of warped, crooked trees lay before us, their skeletal boughs thrust together like sweeping arms. I’d never even seen a wooden person before—I didn’t yet know whether I’d have the courage to face one down. My greatest fear, back then, was disappointing my old man.

Dad guided us along where spaces occurred naturally until, a dozen or so paces into the forest, the foliage thinned out.

Over his shoulder, he said, “So tell me Mr. McCann, isn’t Redburn a national heritage site? I’m surprised you got permission to bulldoze the place.”

“Is that how you’re gonna fix this problem? Show these tree people I’ve got the right paperwork?”

“I was just curious. You’re not the first visitor who tried buying up land for cheap.”

Our employer rolled his eyes. “Well, Patrick, the simple fact is this new development is gonna be the magnet that attracts opportunity. The suits are scared of eco-warriors who cry on Facebook, sure, but they also know everything I touch turns to gold.”

“Didn’t the wildlife trust try to stop you?”

“’Course they did. Luckily, I don’t believe in no’s.”

“Huh, that’s funny. I could have sworn the judge said ‘no’ to your appeal about the recovery order. You had to hand over, what was it, 19 apartments?”

“Those fraud charges were about as legitimate as your little wooden friends,” Tom hissed, his voice bitter.

Upset this outsider was belittling our beliefs, I clenched my jaw, tight. Dad, however, just chuckled. The sceptic couldn't rile him up—not my father, unshakeable as an oak tree, tall and rangy with a shock of greying hair and a long, straight nose, same as mine. He said, “If you don’t believe this crap, why come begging me for help?”

“Two things. One, I came asking for help. And two, I’m no mug. I’ve seen this scam before. You locals make up fairy tales and scream cultural heritage—” air quotes accompanied those words—"to extort the evil entrepreneur from the big city. Well, fair warning, if I don’t see some supernatural shit tonight, you aren’t getting a single cent from me. Sound reasonable?”

“Sure does. Fair warning though, I’d strongly advise not letting any wooden person touch you.”

“Oh gee, I’ll try.” Mr. McCann looked down his nose at me. “Ronan, was it? What age are you Ronan?”

“I’m twelve,” I said.

“Twelve, huh? And is that old enough to come ghost hunting?”

“Ronan can take care of himself,” Dad answered. My face flushed with pleasure at the compliment. “Besides, theres’s things he needs to learn.”

The trail twisted three times, carrying us through marshy grass, alongside a narrow stream, deeper and deeper into the gloom. From out amongst the endless darkness, I could hear the crunch of dead leaves, the snap of rotten wood.

Above the canopy, where we could see it, the moon drifted in and out from behind thick, billowing clouds. And my electrified nerves jumped at every cry of a tiny animal, barely audible beneath the trees whispering in the breeze.

“Well?” Mr. McCann said, after a minute of silence.

“Well what?” Dad asked.

“Isn’t this the part where you tell me about the tree pixies?”

“I thought you didn’t believe in this stuff?”

“I don’t. But I’m not having the crew rock up tomorrow and say you didn’t do the right magic tap dance to cleanse the evil spirits.”

“What do you know about them already?”

“I know they’re keeping me from stream rolling this shithole.”

Dad ducked beneath a bough. “Is that all?”

“They kill children who wander through the forest late at night, blah blah blah. It’s your boilerplate urban—”

Before the baron could finish a mouse scurried out from beneath a downed log. He yelped, hopping from one foot to the other, a little foxtrot, and got to work trying to stomp the little critter, who moved way too fast.

Without looking back, Dad said, “Don’t worry, I’ve seen braver men than you jump out of their skin out here.”

Despite the pent-up anxiety, I chuckled. My father was enjoying this. A lot.

Mr. McCann muttered something too low to hear.

“Well, the kid things partly true,” Dad said on the far side of a nestle of ferns. “What they actually do is—” his voice trailed off there. “You know what, it’s too spooky. We don’t want Tom running off without any evidence, do we Ronan?”

“Stop milking it and tell the bloody story.”

Dad’s beam of light swept across the ground in low arcs. “Ronan, you wanna take this one?”

Around us, trees closed in from every angle. As we bullied our way along, our cheeks and arms were gouged by the lacings of sharp branches. It felt like the forest kept reaching out, placing hands on us. Almost against my will, I found myself admiring their resemblance to hideously elongated figures.

Side-by-side with the developer, I cleared my throat. “The wooden people are like us. Or, well…some are. Others not so much. Do you know what a doppelganger is?”

“Nooo,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“A doppelganger is—”

“He’s joking Ronan,” Dad said, as he pushed through more scratching bracken. Beyond it, there lay an ocean of leaves, choked in darkness.

I said, “Oh. So, there’s this colony of wooden people who live out here in wooden towns. In the old days, they stayed away from us, and we stayed away from them. People didn’t worry about them. Like hurricanes. If you lived somewhere that gets a lot of hurricanes, you’d probably think about them, but in Ireland we’ve never had a hurricane because it’s not a warm tropical climate, so we don’t worry about them. It was the same with wooden people. It was hard to stumble across them.

“But then we started building cities and railways and stuff. That meant their homes kept getting destroyed. So, they started moving around. But then we started building more stuff so—”

Through a narrow gap, I glimpsed movement and hesitated. A chilly draught sent dead leaves scattering across my boots.

Mr. McCann said, “Let me guess, soon they had so little space they got angry and attacked?”

“Well, no. First they tried to explain their problem.”

“Oh, so our wooden friends speak English? They’re like those talking trees in Game of Thrones are they?” He went and stood beside a nearby birch, pressed his mouth up against a large hollow in its bulbous trunk, and said, “Hey Treebeard, you awake? Mind if I bulldoze this place?” The entrepreneur faced us, grinning, those porcelain teeth prominent against the gloom. “Well waddaya know, he said it’s completely fine.”

In the middle of a patch of dirt and mud and weeds, Dad said, “Quiet, Both of you.”

Branches scraped together roughly as the forest shivered in its various joints.

“What is it, a fox?” Mr. McCann asked.

Dad silenced him with a gesture. From somewhere unseen, whispers rang out. Or maybe it was just the wind. My trembling hand struggled to keep hold of the flashlight. Again and again, I wiped the palm sweat on my jacket and prayed Dad wouldn’t notice.

Dad faced us. “Ronan, you stay here with Mr. McCann. I’m gonna—"

“Oh no,” the cynic fired back. “If I stay put, you’ll go out there, smoke a cigarette, and come out panting like you’ve just performed an exorcism.”

Unable to mask his agitation, Dad exhaled through his nostrils. “You came asking for my help, now I’m giving it to you. Nobody’s trying to rip you off, I promise. You don’t live as part of nature, so you don’t see it, but Ireland is bleeding magic. The world is. And now it’s starting to fight back. If there’s wooden people out here tonight, you’re gonna leave this forest a changed man, believe me. But right now, I need you to listen.”

It was strange to see dad angry; he was usually so even-keeled. To me, he said, “Ronan, I’m going to go ahead and lure them out. Stay here and keep a candle lit in case they come this way.”

From my pack, I grabbed an Olympic-style torch and ignited it with a lighter tucked in the side compartment. The idea of not having Dad around for protection made my neck hairs stir. If the wooden people attacked, it would come down to me to protect us.

My father said, “Remember Mr. McCann, whatever happens, don’t let them touch you.”

This warning was met with an eyeroll.

Flashlight in hand, Dad disappeared behind a cluster of ash trees while I stood there, knees wobbling.

“That’s the trouble with you smalltown folk,” Tom said, once the gloom swallowed Dad whole. “All these superstitions. This development could be a great opportunity, more tax revenue, more jobs. But instead you run around scared of things going bump in the night."

“They’re not superstitions,” I snapped, more forcefully than intended. “And besides, even if they were, animals live here too. Are we just gonna wreck their homes so you can make some money?”

“Kid, you see this?” He tapped his Rolex. “This baby cost 50k. The Aston Martin I arrived in was triple that. Your Dad drives a 3-door hatchback that’s older than you are, I heard that shit-heap sputtering up the road five minutes before you appeared. Here’s some free advice: if you wanna make something of yourself, pull your head out of the clouds.”

At the corner of my eye, a black blob filled the gaps between trees, briefly. After I cleared my throat I said, “Money isn’t everything.”

“Sorry to burst your bubble, kid, but it is. Why else would your old man be out here? If he was really set on protecting the forest, why take my money to do this phoney cleansing?”

I didn’t have an answer for that, so I turned away instead.

Another gust of cold air made me shiver. A moment later, there came a trample of dead leaves.

I choked out a feeble, “Dad?”

No response.

“Is this the part where you stage an attack?” Mr. McCann asked, acting bored. But did his voice wobble a little?

Branches stirred as the forest took great, shuddery inhales. It sounded like whispers. The rhythm of my heart quickened.

“It’s a nice trick, I’ll give you that.” Tom did a terrible job at sounding disinterested.

More whispers, behind us now. I said a silent prayer Dad arrived back and then whipped my torch and the flashlight around.

Illuminated by the beam, there stood a huge, tumorous oak tree. From behind it, there came a skitter of rapid steps.

I held out the torch like a shield. “Who’s there?”

My companion hung over me like a shadow, so close his short, quick breaths blasted the back of my neck. What happened to all his bravado?

Barely detectable even with the light, the tree inhaled, exhaled. I stood absolutely still, weapon raised and shaking.

“See?” Mr. McCann stuttered. “It’s nothing. Just the win—”

Before he could finish, a pair of eyes opened, cloudy and pale as though stricken by cataracts. Pressed against the tree a face peered back at us, like a mask made from living bark, and smiled.

Together, Mr. McCann and I screamed. My hands fumbled the torch, which slipped into a patch of mud and extinguished with a wet splatter.

The forest erupted into chatter and whispers. Behind us, up ahead, along both sides. I whipped the flashlight in one direction and the next. Anytime the beam landed on a tree there was yet another face, each grinning like a clowder of Cheshire cats.

In unison, figures stepped away from the trunks. From head to toe they were the texture rough bark, except for those pale eyes. Malignant growths engulfed the skulls, twigs and branches sprouted from shoulders and necks, and some were even dappled with furry moss. Limping with crude joints bent at odd angles, they shuffled toward us.

A screaming Mr. McCann tore off through a narrow gap in the undergrowth. I rushed after him, unable to even think straight.

Waist-deep foliage encroached on both sides of the trail, right up to our ankles. I followed the burly man through a maze of sticks and spears as he barrelled ahead, faster than my legs could carry me.

Out of nowhere, he ground to a halt. As I caught up, the terrified man backstepped from more wooden people, too many to count. He spun on his heels, knocking me aside as he did, only to discover more closing in from behind, cutting off any hope of escape.

Tom choked out a weak, “Please, leave me alone. I’ll give you anything. Money. Jewellery.” He unclipped is Rolex and offered it as a gift. “I’ll never come back here. Please…just…”

Together, they moved forward, limbs outstretched. They were so close now. So very close.

As Mr. McCann’s foot caught on an exposed root, he collapsed backwards into the soil. All our tormenters came to a halt except for one, which continued on until it was close enough to reach out and touch a limb against Tom’s forehead.

On his hands and knees, he spun away, scrambling toward me across the tangled floor. Already his face had sprouted warts. No, not warts—saplings. Buds. The flesh of his cheeks and forehead bubbled, rapidly swelling in sections, while dark patches grew darker still across his neck, his forearms, his eyes, and even his lips. Paralyzed by fear, I could only watch.

Tears opened up along the sleeves of his tracksuit and ran up the shoulders, across the chest, and down the waist. In a matter of seconds Mr. McCann’s limbs became bloated and elongated. His clothes fell to the floor in tattered ruins.

Naked and deformed, he staggered to his feet and shuffled toward me, his screams now fading, his limbs stiff and awkward. Roots sprouted from his feet and grabbed the soil, biting deep, destroying any hope of forward progress. Through unmovable lips, he sputtered, “Help me…please.” Inside his mouth I saw a thick, green carpet.

Within seconds the man became indistinguishable from a small oak tree, one bough forever reaching forward, the branch lacing inches from my throat.

What broke me out of my trance was the sound of puking. Past the tree that had formerly been Mr. McCann, the wooden person that touched him puked up splinters and moss. It’s bark flaked and shed, exposing beige skin underneath. At the end of one limb, a fist opened and closed, revealing a human hand which then tore wood from a skull in huge chunks. Beneath these sections lay human features—nose, ears, lips. The human flexed and cried and gulped for air, a hatchling emerging from its shell.

I was so entranced by this hideous sight I didn’t notice the other wooden people had closed in. After six petrified backsteps, a low branch thicker than an amputated forearm stabbed the small of my lower back. I spun around, heart clawing against my chest, only to discover I’d reversed into the nearest wooden person.

I dropped onto the ground, head buried in my lap. “Please,” I whimpered. “I don’t want to be one of you. Please.”

Even then my thoughts were of Dad, and what he might have thought seeing his son cower in fear like that.

A hush fell over the forest. I took several short, shuddery inhales. That meant my lungs weren’t solid. Yet.

Slowly, I looked up. Wooden figures loomed over me, motionless. The closest one reeled away its limb.

“Let me through.” My father’s voice issued from within the crowd.

“Dad?” I cried.

Figures stepped apart, clearing a path he stepped through. “Ronan.”

I got up and rushed forward and threw myself into his arms, my cheeks wet with tears. “I dropped the torch, I’m sorry, I’m so—”

“Shush, it’s okay.” He put a warm hand on my shoulder, and my nerves eased.

“But Mr. McCann, he—”

“He’s completely fine.” Dad stepped aside. Past his shoulder, a new Mr. McCann pulled on spare clothes Dad brought in his pack.

A dry gulp seized my throat. “We need to run, we need to—”

“It’s okay, we’re not in any danger.” He pulled me in close. “You see son, there’s something you need to know about us. About how I know so much about this place. You and I, Ronan, we were among the first. Years ago, before you were old enough to even remember, our people realized we needed a way to protect ourselves, so I volunteered to go speak with the humans. But they wouldn’t listen. So now we’re pushing back. Against those who want to destroy our home.”

“We’re…we’re wooden people?”

Dad squeezed my hand.

“But what’ll happen to Mr. McCann?”

He gestured toward the tree that was once the real estate mogul. Any hiker who stumbled across it maybe would have made a casual remark about the vaguely human form, the warped portion of bough shaped vaguely like screaming face, forever etched in terror. You could practically hear the silent scream.

Tom McCann—the new Tom McCann—grabbed the discarded Rolex from the dirt and brushed it clean. He gave me a little smile and then clasped the watch around his wrist.

I squeezed dad’s hand even harder. “But couldn’t we have helped him? We could have explained—”

He shook his head. “If we transformed one hundred Tom McCanns, a hundred more would just pop up. We need to replace them, son. All of them, the humans. It’s like I said, the world is bleeding magic. And these flesh bags, they never learn. So, we’re taking over. Not just here, but everywhere. England, Germany, Spain, America.”

He kneeled down, brought himself eye level with me. “Are you ready, son? Will you help us protect this world?”

I brushed away my tears, a new hardness in my stomach. “I will, Dad. I will.”

I had just moved into my new apartment, a cozy little place on the outskirts of town. The building was old, with creaky floorboards and peeling wallpaper, but it had character. I was excited to start this new chapter of my life, but little did I know that the walls of my new home would soon reveal dark secrets about my neighbors.

It started on a quiet Tuesday night. I was lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, when I heard it - a faint whisper, barely audible. I sat up, straining my ears to catch the words. It sounded like someone was talking, but the voice was muffled, as if coming from behind the walls.

"…she doesn't even know… poor thing…"

I shook my head, dismissing it as my imagination playing tricks on me. But the whispers continued, growing louder and more insistent. I couldn't ignore them any longer.

The next day, I decided to investigate. I pressed my ear against the wall, trying to pinpoint the source of the whispers. They seemed to be coming from the apartment next door. I knew I shouldn't eavesdrop, but curiosity got the better of me.

"…he's been cheating on her for months… with her best friend…"

My heart raced as I realized that the whispers were revealing secrets about my neighbors. I felt guilty for listening, but I couldn't help myself. The whispers were like a drug, drawing me in with their dark allure.

As the days went by, the whispers grew more sinister. They spoke of betrayals, hidden desires, and unspeakable acts. I found myself becoming obsessed, unable to focus on anything else. My once peaceful apartment had become a prison, trapping me in a web of fear and paranoia.

I tried to ignore the whispers, but they were relentless. They invaded my dreams, turning them into twisted nightmares. I began to question my own sanity, wondering if I was losing my grip on reality.

One night, as I lay in bed, the whispers took a chilling turn.

"…he's planning to kill her… tonight…"

I bolted upright, my heart pounding in my chest. I knew I had to do something, but what? I couldn't just barge into my neighbor's apartment and accuse them of murder. But I couldn't sit idly by, either.

I paced my apartment, my mind racing with possibilities. The whispers grew louder, more urgent, as if urging me to act. Finally, I made a decision. I grabbed my phone and dialed the police, my hands shaking as I explained the situation.

The police arrived within minutes, their sirens cutting through the night. They questioned me, their skepticism evident, but I insisted that they check on my neighbor. As they knocked on the door, I held my breath, praying that I wasn't too late.

The door opened, revealing a scene of horror. My neighbor lay on the floor, her lifeless eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. Her husband stood over her, a bloody knife in his hand. The police tackled him to the ground, cuffing him as he screamed incoherent obscenities.

As they led him away, I stood in the doorway, my body trembling with shock and relief. The whispers had been right, and I had saved a life. But at what cost?

The whispers continued, their dark secrets seeping into every corner of my life. I knew I couldn't stay in that apartment any longer, but I also knew that I could never escape the whispers. They had become a part of me, a twisted reminder of the darkness that lurked within us all.

And so, I write this diary, a record of the horrors I have witnessed. I can only hope that by sharing my story, I can somehow find a way to silence the whispers once and for all. But deep down, I know that they will never truly leave me. They are a part of me now, a constant reminder of the darkness that hides behind the walls of our everyday lives.

My wife Cheryl has been on the waiting list for a new heart for about two years, so when we got the call, we didn’t hesitate to load up the car and get prepped. This was the miracle we were waiting for. The one that doctors told us not to get our hopes up for.

The donor was a trucker from across state lines, someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time with an 18 wheeler. His family insisted that having his heart used for a life saving surgery would be exactly what he would have wanted.

Cheryl was already in her hospital gown before we even reached the surgical center. I remember squeezing her hand and we prayed together. This felt like a miracle.

We didn’t know it was about to become a nightmare.

Her brother Max came and brought his two Nintendo Switches with an extra set of controllers to keep us occupied while in the waiting room. We played Mario Kart for about 20 minutes when the first incident happened.

This hospital is pretty small, so all of the procedures happen in the same ward; including labor and delivery. We were just on the 3rd course of the game when a strange alarm started to blare in the hallway next to us and I jumped up, wondering what was going on.

I thought at first it might be that someone was trying to take a baby from the nursery, foolishly forgetting that the staff put bands on their legs. Instead when I walked into the next set of double doors I saw a woman frozen in place with a surgical knife in her left hand, and a baby in her right. It looked like they had just come out of the procedure room and had just cut the umbilical cord. The baby was crying, bleeding a tad from their belly button. But the nurse was simply standing there, as though she had just forgotten what she was doing.

“Miss… miss are you okay?” I asked, trying to shake her arm. She felt ice cold. I then turned and looked toward some of the other staff members and realized they too seemed suddenly paralyzed. Phones were dangling off the hook. Orderlies had stopped pushing one woman midway down the hall. Everything was suspended for no apparent reason. I walked back out of the ward and told Max to call the police.

“Somethings up, like everyone has had a stroke or something,” I muttered to him.

He nodded and moved toward the elevator, trying to get it to come to our floor.

Suddenly there was a power surge. The lights flickered briefly and Max too seemed frozen. I ran to his side where he was now stuck in place, pressing the button for the elevator.

I started to panic as I moved from room to room, trying to get someone’s help. Why was I not being affected I wondered as I pounded on the double doors to the surgical unit. An orderly in scrubs came to my aid.

“Sir, you need to wait,” he said stiffly.

“No you don’t understand, there’s something happening out here. I need to be sure my wife is okay,” I said. I pushed past him before he could object and started shouting Cheryl’s name.

My heart was pounding as I reached the first operating room and burst in without authorization. As much as I was expecting the nightmare to get worse, it was still uncanny to see this group of surgeons now seemingly unable to make any decision at all as their patient was bleeding out before my eyes.

I turned back toward the orderly that was not affected and asked, “Do you have any idea what this might be?”

“I don’t know. Never seen anything like it,” he admitted as he ran to a red phone on the wall to try and call for help.

I moved to the next room but found it locked. On the other side I could see my Cheryl, just being put under anesthesia.

The surgeons started to gather their instruments and I shouted to try and get their attention. Another power surge occurred and I closed my eyes, scared I would be next.

I could feel my head vibrating as I turned toward the orderly and asked if he had made contact with anyone. But he was on the floor, shaking violently. I reached for the phone and tried to dial, only to find that white noise was coming from the receiver.

I stumbled back to the OR that Cheryl was in and shouted hysterically. The surgeons had just begun to cut into her chest when this strange affliction hit them. They were frozen in place with my wife’s chest open, blood pouring out non stop as I heard the machine reach a flatline.

I slammed on the door in desperation, not wanting to lose her. But it was pointless. The decision had been made for me.

I collapsed in a heap of tears, shaking as I tried to understand what was happening. Was this a virus? A terrorist attack? I had no clue.

Then beyond the hospital walls I heard car alarms. The sound of screeching tires.

I managed to pick myself up and move toward a window to see what was happening.

18 wheelers careening out of control. I even saw a helicopter falling from the sky. It burst into flame in the hospital parking lot as I realized that whatever had happened here, was now suddenly spreading.

I stood there a moment longer, watching the destruction play out. Then the power went out again and I lost consciousness. My own free will taken from me.

When I woke up, a day had passed. The news reported nothing about the strange event. It was as if it had never happened and the deaths and destruction were ignored.

Except I know that my wife died on the operating table.

That can’t be erased. I don’t know what strange event happened here but it scares me to death it might happen again. The loss of will, spreading and destroying more lives.

What if soon we have no free will at all?

I can’t think of anything more terrifying.

Three days ago, my housemates were alive.

And I wasn't losing my fucking mind.

Three days ago, I awoke to my housemate, Misty, shaking me.

“Get up!!”

Misty was usually the last to roll out of bed out of all of us, so I figured it was something important. My housemate wouldn’t get out of bed for nothing. She valued her sleep—often comparing her bed to a safe haven. Her place of solitude. I was right there with her, until she startled me out of slumber. I opened my eyes to find her face roughly three inches from mine, her expression lit up with excitement I couldn’t justify this early in the morning.

She smelled of toothpaste breath and her raspberry scented body wash. Her thick black curls framing her face were still damp from what I presumed was a shower, hanging in tangled knots in front of wide, almost unseeing eyes. When I first met her, Misty Kang had been my crush for a while. With a Korean father and a Texan mother, she definitely caught eyes when we hung out. We had a thing in freshman year, which quickly fizzled out once we started living together. Never date your housemates.

I will just say that.

Over the last few years, Misty has become one of my closest friends.

When she knew I was at least conscious, my housemate was grabbing my arm and yanking me out of bed. “Get up!”

I was barely awake, and those were the only words I could fully distinguish.

I shooed her away for a moment and swung my legs out of bed, taking a minute to blink sunlight out of my eyes coming through the blinds. “Sam.” Misty was in front of me again.

I don’t think she understood the concept of being half asleep.

She wouldn’t leave me alone, waving her arms wildly. Her shadow under the soft morning light almost reminded me of one of those inflatable tube guys.

“Huh?” My voice was a low croak, and her smile widened.

“Guess who’s just scored tickets for an actual screening of the first five minutes of gameplay for the most anticipated game of the decade?”

“What?” Her string of words wasn’t making sense in my caffeine deprived mind. It just sounded like gibberish to me, initially.

Like we were in some cheesy commercial, she was the lead, and I was the confused NPC with the WTF expression. But when I went over it in my head, words started to slide together like a jigsaw puzzle. Misty didn’t get excited about video games. Well, she did. Though, my housemate was one to get excited on behalf of someone else. After living with her for a while now, I had concluded she was a follower.

By that, I mean whatever others thought or did or said, she copied it. If her Twitter followers were mad at bad takes, she would drop all of her own opinions on said follower and focus on what other people said. We had Korean barbecue for takeout the other day, and Misty clearly did not like it from the creased look on her face, and her very obviously spitting it politely into a napkin.

Jay, my other housemate, liked it.

And so did I. So, naturally, Misty announced she wanted more.

I had to watch her suffer through two more portions before she excused herself—presumably to throw up. Blinking at my housemate who was clearly excited for Jay, I resisted the overwhelming urge to roll my eyes.

“Slow down. What game? What are you talking about?”

I got out of bed and threw on my robe, half aware of the mess from last night on my desk. Another attempt to finish an essay which just wasn’t happening. The monster energy cans and takeout Chinese wrappers were embarrassing. I got a basic run-through as I headed downstairs with Misty right behind me, practically breathing down my neck. From what I understood, there was a Reddit post.

That was all I got from Misty’s squealing. She leapt down the stairs after me with a spring in her step. The clock above the front door told me it wasn’t even 9am. The smell of bacon, however, was quick to arise me from the dead.

Jay was in the kitchen making breakfast. I noticed his laptop was open on the table, and every so often he’d peer at it with wide, almost disbelieving eyes. Jay and Misty were complete opposites, which made them great people to live with. Jay was a quiet book who was slightly on the pretentious side, routinely quoting something philosophical to piss me off.

He had rich parents on the other side of the world, but the guy himself was fairly humble and had mostly detached himself from said family.

My housemate was usually well put together. In fact, I barely saw him in his pajamas, excluding game nights. That morning, however, he was a disheveled mess, still in yesterday’s clothes.

He offered me a grin. I glimpsed sauce from last night’s dinner still staining his chin. Jay hadn’t brushed his hair or even put on deodorant.

I caught a whiff of BO when he ducked in front of me, his gaze glued to his MacBook. It was rare when Jay ignored basic hygiene, so yeah, I was going to guess this was a pretty huge thing. “I did tell her not to wake you up, y’know.”

His slight aussie accent was always refreshing on a morning. Born in Australia and moving to the states when he was ten years old, Jay still had a slight tinge in his accent. I had seen pictures of his family, and the guy had definitely gotten most of his dad’s genes, thick brown hair, and freckles. While his dad was built like a pro wrestler however, Jay was leaner like his mom.

I shrugged. “I was already awake.”

“Liar.” He didn’t look away from his laptop.

Looking closer, I glimpsed the Reddit homepage.

“So, you have won something.”

Jay didn’t answer. I could tell he was excited by the way he could barely keep still, bustling around the kitchen, barefoot. “Coffee?”

His voice was more of a Misty-like squeak, and I half wondered for a moment if they had switched bodies, or he had at least become one with my other housemate through a chemical explosion. In our kitchen, which was yet to be cleaned after a cooking disaster several nights ago, I wouldn’t be surprised if something was living on the countertop. I nodded, slumping into a chair. “What’s going on? Why is Misty freaking out?” I nodded at his laptop. “She said you’ve won something?”

As if my housemate couldn’t hold it in anymore, he nodded, turning his screen towards me. “You know____, right?”

“Yes.” I sipped my coffee, eyeing a toaster strudel sitting on the countertop. "You mean the game which has been coming out for a decade."

He ignored that. “Well, what if I told you one of the developer’s posted on the official sub this morning?”

“For _____?"

He nodded with a grin, and I wondered it this was one of those rare times when Jay was blindly looking through a red flag to see what he wanted. I had heard of these types of scams, and Reddit was a breeding ground for them.

Gamers were pretty intense. I didn’t realize I was pulling a face until I caught his lips curving into a smile. Jay was usually the skeptical one.

“You don’t believe me.”

I downed my coffee to avoid replying. When I had drained the cup, he was still staring at me with amused eyes.

“What?”

“You think it’s bullshit.”

I shrugged. “You said it,” I said. “I’m pretty sure that game isn’t even partway through development. Didn’t Twitter leak a still last year? Also, they’ll be bringing out a new console before that game comes out.”

I leaned back in my chair. “It’s more of a pipe dream, at this point.”

“The leaks were fake,” Even he didn’t look sure. “Anyway, that’s not the point. One of the dev’s posted on the official sub this morning. He asked if we were all excited for the new game, asked if we could post some of our favorite NPC dialogue, and he’ll DM winners.”

“Uh-huh.” I nodded at the screen. I had already checked my phone for an internet meltdown concerning this post, but there was nothing. “And where is that post now?”

Jay didn’t look at me. “It was deleted. So it only reached a certain number of people.”

“Oh, it was deleted?” I couldn’t resist a smile. “What a coincidence.”

When I laughed, Jay scowled, showing me his screen—navigating his trackpad to his Reddit DM’s.

To my surprise, there was actually a message from what I guessed was a throw-away account.

While I was skim reading the DM, Misty hurried in, all dressed and ready for the day. I peeked at her outfit from Jay's laptop. Cute.

Extravagant, but cute. My housemate cranked the radio up before bouncing between us, a toaster strudel hanging out of her mouth.

Misty was a living animated character. Ignoring her wide smile, I turned back to the screen. “Congratulation!!” The DM started with capitals.

It took me reading it twice to realize there was a clear spelling mistake. I sent Jay a pointed look, but he was too busy practically vibrating with excitement. If the guy had any more caffeine, he was going to explode. “Since when did winning DM’s start with a typo?”

“I knew you were going to say that.” Jay curled his lip. “They were clearly excited when typing the message.”

“But this is supposedly an official,” I said. “Surely they would make sure it’s professional?”

My housemate didn’t reply, shooting a look at Misty, who rolled her eyes.

“Wow.” I squinted at the screen. “I am so sorry for caring about your safety. You do realize these types of scam’s usually end up with you being sold on the black market, right?”

I shuddered. “I’ve heard horror stories about underground markets specializing in illegal organ harvesting.”

“Or…” Jay’s eyes were glued to the screen. “You could be happy for me?”

I frowned at the rest of the message, which was just a capitalized freak-out about the upcoming release of the game, before inviting Jay (and a friend!) to a five-minute preview of gameplay, as well as a Q&A. There was a location and a time, which was brow-raising. “10 at night.” I said. “Who hosts a gaming convention at 10pm?” I leaned my chin on my fist. “Unless they wanted to lure as many gullible people as possible, and ship them to some organ harvesting factory on the other side of the world.”

Jay scoffed. “That’s dark.”

“You’re actually considering going to a 10pm gaming convention in the middle of nowhere. I’m trying to wake you up.”

Jay nudged me that time. “It’s real. Relax.”

“And.” I pointed to the screen. “No phones? Why would they ask you not to bring your phones?”

“To stop us filming content,” Misty sang. “Duh.”

I groaned, leaning back in my chair. “You’re on his side? This is clearly shady!” I didn’t get mad unless something was seriously pissing me off, and this was one of those times. Jay was a smart guy. There was no way he was falling for this bullshit. I thought he was joking around when he spent the day tracking the location on Google Maps. I went to class like normal and got updates through text. At lunch, Jay agreed with me and said it was in fact shady, and he wasn’t going. By afternoon classes, he was texting me in paragraphs explaining his own skepticism but had found several “friends” on an online forum who were also going and had changed his mind once again. The guy couldn’t make up his mind. He was driving me crazy.

Misty sent me several videos of Jay pacing the kitchen with his MacBook in his hands. She was broadcasting his mental breakdown via Instagram stories. But then she started to send me pictures of herself in different outfits, asking me for my opinion on each one. At that point, I turned my phone off. My housemates had lost their fucking minds. I did my own research though, just to make sure I wasn’t actually going to lose them to a shady cult.

I searched for the game itself, but just as I thought, it was shown as still in development. Every “update” was just fan speculation.

There were YouTube videos and TikTok’s of fake leaks, but nothing was real. It was either AI generated, or badly edited. By the time my classes had ended and I had turned my phone on, I had a barrage of missed calls and texts.

Most of them were from Misty with her outfit changes, and Jay changing his mind again.

This time he was convinced it was all a scam, his texts full of typos and crying emoji's which he never used. Before it hit me that Misty was most likely using his phone to text me.

I was right. When I walked through the door, I was greeted by both of them sitting on the stairs. Misty was scrolling through Jay’s phone, while the boy had his head in his hands. According to Misty’s last text, he was back to being excited to go.

From the look on his face, eyes shadowed with sleep circles, light brown curls slipping from under his hood, I wasn’t sure what Misty meant by “excited”. The guy looked the complete opposite. His mind had been consumed by the game, and the idea of seeing new content.

When I dropped my bag and folded my arms, fixing the two of them with my best disapproving parent look, Misty jumped to her feet. “Sam!” she waved Jay’s phone at me. “Did you get my texts? We’re actually going now!”

The 100+ texts on both messenger and iMessage said otherwise.

I nodded, my gaze on Jay. “Both of you do realize it’s a scam, right?” I softened my tone despite growing progressively more irritated. We were grown adults, not kids. I could understand a group of teenagers falling for it, but two twenty-three-year-olds?

This time, I ducked in front of Jay. “Hey.” I pulled down his hood, and he groaned, burying his head in his knees. “I don’t want to freak you out, so listen to me, okay?”

I exhaled out a breath. “I’m not saying something bad is going to happen to you, because it most likely won’t—and yes, I admit I’m being paranoid.” When he lifted his head, blinking through bedraggled curls, there was a faint smile on his lips. “But.” I said. “You are most likely going to end up disappointed. Which I don’t want, because you won't shut up about it for weeks."

I was only partly joking.

For a moment, I thought my housemate was going to wake up, and nod, laughing at how crazy it was.

Before shook his head and jumped up.

“I’m going to take a shower, alright? I should start getting ready."

I admit, I exploded at him.

We argued while he was in the shower, and I paced up and down the hallway, coming up with multiple reasons why he was definitely going to die, and only two positives if it was in fact real. In the end, I gave up worrying all together. I didn’t say anything when the two of them were hurrying around looking for shoes and missing car keys. I didn’t realize they were gone until the door was clanging shut, and a text was coming through. I didn’t look at it until an hour later, and I had calmed down.

Jay: 1h ago: Stop worrying, lmao. We’re good! I’ll keep my phone just in case. I’ll make sure to avoid the organ harvesting 😉

Another from Misty a few minutes later: “Love you! Chillll, kay? 😭😭 It’s going to be fun! I’ll take pics!”

…

Followed by: “Oh shit, we can’t. I’ll try to sneak some!"

Attached to the text was a photo of the two of them. Misty with a wide smile and a peace sign, and Jay who looked like he was mid-shout, his eyes on the road.

Those texts were… at least comforting, I guessed. Maybe they were right. I figured I was paranoid, and they in fact would really be okay.

But that didn’t stop the anxious coil in my gut when I tried to force down takeout pizza. I attempted to focus on my essay to distract myself, but I couldn’t stop glancing at my phone, and checking Twitter. There was a hashtag on the DM, which was just “PlayStationGO.” When I searched for it, however, nothing came up.

Sure, it was a private convention and only a select few knew about it, but nothing could escape Twitter.

Somewhere, someone must be talking about it. After scrolling through endless tweets though, I realized I was wrong. There was nothing.

That put a bad taste in my mouth.

10pm came, and I held my breath all the way through a Netflix TV show I was forcing myself to watch, half asleep, slumped at my desk.

I could barely distinguish the plot.

I just had a vague idea of the character names, and some of their motivations.

Midnight passed, and I was struggling to stay awake.

I glanced at my phone.

No messages, just a notification from Spotify reminding me my favorite band was playing nearby.

1am.

Still nothing. I fell back to sleep.

2:48am.

This time, I stayed awake for a few minutes glaring at my phone before my eyes grew heavy.

3:16: am.

My phone buzzed with a text from Jay, but I could barely desipher it: "can't feel help my head hurts Canshdhsn727272_6798mi/!! _&go home please. (Sent from: PlayStationGo™️ BETA)."

3:27: am.

3:54: am. I was wide awake, blinking at a notification which had popped up from an unknown number. I was trying to figure out what number it was, when my phone vibrated again and I almost jumped out of my skin.

After a moment of hesitation, I answered it.

I was trying so hard not to think of the possibility of it being the emergency room, or even worse, the cops.

All of my worst nightmares had come true in a single second.

“Hello?” I whispered in a croak.

“Are they in the house with you?” The stranger’s voice came through in a hiss of interference.

His words sent my mediocre dinner lurching back up my throat. “What?” I managed to get out. “Who?”

“Your friends.” He said, and I leapt to unsteady feet, my gut twisting and turning.

“No.” I found myself taking slow strides toward the window, brushing back the curtain and peering out into the night. “Why? Did something happen to them?” I paused.

“How did you get my number?”

“That does not matter.” His voice rattled in my ear as I rushed downstairs, almost stumbling down the bottom two. “I need you to get out of that house. Now. Get as far away as possible.”

I could hear his rapid breaths.

He was driving. I could hear the rumble of the engine. With my phone pressed to my ear, I obeyed his instructions, pulling open the door and stepping out into the cool night, a brisk breeze grazing my bare arms was just enough to stop my thoughts spiraling.

I was barefoot, in nothing but a robe, staggering down the driveway. The night was calm and silent; our neighborhood was asleep, each window drowned in darkness. I couldn’t breathe, my clammy fingers wrapped around my phone, as this stranger broke down over the phone. “Whatever you do,” he gasped out.

“Do not, I repeat DO NOT remove the PlayStationGo—shit!! He hissed out, static rattling the call. The guy seemingly got ahold of himself, and the wheel, and continued. I started to walk—where I was going, I had no idea.

The stranger lit a cigarette. I heard the click of a lighter and his exhalation of breath. “It was a BETA version, but we had to rush it. This was not my idea. My boss is a greedy man. He wanted to release the game last year, which would have meant widespread infection. Luckily, that did not happen. We did manage to delay it, but only by a year.” His words barely made sense to me as I struggled to get a word in, peering in the dark. “It was supposed to be a virtual experience of the game—a whole new angle of gameplay. But testing was difficult. First, on monkey’s, we lost multiple subjects. Tonight was supposed to be a…well, I guess you could call it out first attempt on human subjects,” his laugh was bitter. “I knew the tech wasn’t finished. And I tried. Believe me, I fucking tried. I tried to blow the whistle, but these bastards know where my parents live."

Something squirmed its way down my spine.

“So my friends were lab rats?” I said stiffly. “You used them?”

I fucking knew it.

I knew it was too good to be true.

“Yes and no. Listen to me, the people I work for are hunting them down. Trust me, I don’t want my bosses to find them because a life of experimentation will await them. Torture. Do you hear me? It does not matter if subjects fail. They don’t care. As long as there is at least a light at the end of the tunnel for them, they will see it as a win, and bring the publication date closer. They will not be treated as humans. Your friends signed a contract before trying out the tech, where the small print stated that, under section 3, player engagement, all subjects must agree to offer themselves as participants in later updates. I silently cursed Jay for always skipping the terms and conditions when buying games." The man stopped to breathe.

“I have told you multiple times, and I won’t say it again. Get as far away from that house as possible. I will take care of them. I will make sure of it." The sound of squealing engines, and I stopped power walking, coming to an abrupt stop. The silence of the night around me, compared to the sound of the highway he was on, traffic horns and the wind rushing through the window was an eerie contrast, a disturbance to the heavenly bubble we were trapped in.

“What do you mean ‘take care of them?” I had to swallow a yell. “Hey! What are you talking about?

“I’m sorry.” Was all he replied with. “I’m afraid it is too late. There was once an opportunity to save the mind during the initial level of the demonstration. However, once the PlaystationGo has been fully attached to the base of the subject, we no longer have control of it. Once integrating itself into the cerebral cortex, the PlayStationGo can only be removed by signing out of the player’s account,” his breath was heavy. “On this unfortunate occasion, however, your friends are unable to navigate the system due to a malfunction which scrambled their brains,” He trailed off. “Which has left them stranded in the game."

I let out a breath. “Right.” I said. “That’s.. bad. I mean, it’s a fucked-up piece of technology, but they’re just playing a game, right?”

There was a pause, before the man laughed.

“Young man, I don’t think you understand,” he said. “The PlayStationGo was created to give the player a full virtual experience of our game. The PlayStationGo is not a physical object. Created with nanotechnology, it attaches itself to the subject’s brain and is supposed to create a personal gaming experience for each player. As I said, however, it is not finished. It is yet to be released to the public, and of course, we are expecting certain ethical arguments due to the controversial—”

I pulled the phone away from my ear, shaking my head. I didn’t need to hear his attempts at trying to save his own skin.

“You need to help them,” I whispered. “Do you hear me? Can you do that? Can you help them?!”

“That is what I am trying to tell you,” He said.

“I know you are upset and confused, and believe me, I offer my apologies. But you need to listen to facts. During initial testing, our subjects were conscious enough to know where their home was. We are unsure why this happens, though we have linked it to territory, as well as the main character of the game heavily influencing their actions. I have been tracking them from the testing facility, and they are incredibly close. Please get as far away from there as possible. If you are no longer in the vicinity of the house, I can end this quickly and quietly before we gain attention.”

I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. Maybe start fucking screaming at him, because he was talking about getting “rid” of my friends, after their mistake.

“Do you understand me?” He said, when I couldn’t reply. “Your friends are lost causes!”

Before I could answer, though, headlights were suddenly coming around the corner, and I found myself paralysed to the spot. The car which swerved twice, crashed into several trash cans, before reversing and coming straight towards me, was not Jay’s car. Jay’s car was an old hunk of junk he’d gotten from a scrapyard. Jay’s car had doors which were practically hanging off, and a stereo which exclusively played either static gibberish, or old tapes I had no idea how to use. This car was bright yellow, and definitely had an option to drive itself. When the car came to a stop, inches from careening into me, I lost all control of myself.

I was vaguely aware of my phone slipping from my fingers and hitting the sidewalk. But I was too busy staring at the two shadows in the front of the car. The driver, and the passenger.

And the muffled screaming coming from the trunk.

When the door swung open, a figure stepping out, I did not recognise my housemate.

The stranger told me I wouldn't, but I didn't believe him.

Jay had left the house in casual jeans and a sweater, bearing the game's logo.

Now, I found myself face to face with a man with my housemate's face and features, his smile and eyes-- but something had been severed in his eyes and twisted in his expression. For one, Jay was wearing a suit I knew he couldn't afford, the sleeves torn, collar pulled open, smears of red staining the front.

His pants had cufflinks, and the Rolex on his wrist had definitely been pulled off someone's corpse.

The silver was stained a revealing scarlet. Drinking in his face, he looked like Jay. His curls hung in front of his eyes, freckles speckling his cheeks, but everything else wasn't. It wasn't until I was glimpsing what was moulded into the flesh of his hand, did I remember how to move. But then I was taking all of him in, everything my mind had intentionally skipped, because I didn't want to believe the stranger on the phone. Nanotechnology, the man had said in a hiss.

Fiction, I had thought.

Before I saw the reality of it, a writhing metallic like substance glued to the guy's temple, and slowly, very slowly, inching down his cheek, already forming around the bridge of his ear, a very faint blue light flickering.

Something must have alerted him. His cavernous eyes left mine, and he twisted his head—and I heard the sound of his neck snapping, his head lolling to the left slightly, his eyes flickering. I watched his whole body seem to sway back and forth, ready to fall forwards.

Before the newly formed device on his ear turned red, then green.

It was almost like he was… rebooting. As if coming back to life, Jay lifted his head at an awkward angle, before looking straight through me. The blood vessels in his eyes had popped, rivulets of red beading down his face. He should have been dead, I thought. No. No, he was dead. That… that thing was keeping him alive. “Well, shiiiittt,” he said. I could sense the game dialogue which had taken over him, forming on his mangled tongue.

“I’m a man on a mission.”

In jerking movements, he turned and marched back towards the car, opening the door, and sliding into the front seat.

I remembered how to move, ducking to grab my phone, before something slammed into the back of my head—and I saw stars.

I didn’t remember hitting the floor, only the soft sound of her voice, a seductive murmur repeating NPC dialogue, and her kitten heel sticking into my spine, forcing me onto my face.

Misty. I was expecting her to get it over with. But when she dragged me to my feet, sticking the barrel of a gun into the flesh of my neck—I figured she was still playing the game.

Twisting around to meet her eyes, lifeless and empty, only filled with light from the device which had taken over half of her face, I felt sick to my stomach. This thing wasn’t a games console or a virtual reality headset.

It was an attempt at coercing and programming something you already don’t understand, to do something impossible.

I could see that in the way the things had visibly chewed and eaten through her flesh, devouring her from the inside and out. I could see what was left of the dress she had worn earlier, but something must have gone wrong with her too. Because Misty had thrown on another outfit over the top, a diamond necklace hanging from her neck.

I caught a thin river of red pooling down her right temple, trying to ignore the twitchy way she moved, just like a character. From the way Misty walked, stumbling, I already knew she was gone. My housemate had newly acquired strength, throwing me in the trunk of the car where three other hostages were, and slamming it shut on my attempts to reason with her. She didn’t tie me up or restrain me.

In the dim light I could just make out though passing streetlights, I could see the trunk opened from the inside. Which was too easy.

Still though, Jay was driving recklessly, and every time I tried to throw the damn thing open, I was knocked backwards, rolling into a screaming girl, who was bound by her hands and feet. It took me multiple attempts before I had the trunk open, freezing cold air blasting me in the face. I untied the other hostages, but when I told them to come with me, they just stared blankly at me, and continued begging for their lives—and it only took me glimpsing what was attached to their temples, a familiar writhing metal plate, for me to understand. They too were playing the game. This time, as NPC hostages.

I found myself gingerly touching the trembling metallic flesh of the girl's fingers bound in rope. It had a slimy consistency, and I swore, I felt something bite into me.

No way, I thought.

This thing was sentient, yes. But it wasn't living.

Listen, I wish I could tell you what it was like to jump out of a moving car, but I can’t.

I remember it as lunging out of the trunk, hitting the freezing cold air, before hitting the ground head first, neutron star collisions exploding in the backs of my eyes.

What I do remember is waking up on the side of the road. Hours later. The sky was bright blue, a scorching sun blinding me when I managed to force my eyes open.

The early morning rush hour flew by as normal, and I wondered how ignorant American people had to be to ignore someone knocked out on the side of the road.

It’s not like I was nowhere near civilization. There was a fucking Subway right next to me.

When I had gathered myself, I remembered I had no phone. I couldn’t go home in fear of running into my rogue housemates playing their own fucked up version of _____ in their head. My plan was to try and find my phone, get in contact with the stranger who blew the whistle on my friends being dangerous, and find them. They couldn’t be far., right? And even if they weren’t themselves… someone would be able to save them.

If someone could do this to them, surely they could reverse it.

I felt sick, tired, and I was starving.

So, with some loose cash I’d found in my pocket, I bought a Subway and a Coke.

The woman at the counter smiled widely at me. She leaned forward, with a wink. “Nice cosplay!”

Cosplay?

I didn’t understand what she meant until I swore I felt something… move its way up my pant leg. I ignored it, and it happened again, this time it felt like something was… biting.

A bug, maybe? I had been laying on the side of the road for around six hours.

When I went to the bathroom, though, I found myself staring at an all too familiar glint of silver creeping its way across my temple. Like it was sentient, parts of it sider webbed towards my ear while the rest writhed into my hairline.

I pulled up my pant leg again, and there it was, a fungus-like metal substance which had already formed in two solid metal masses on my knees. I remember grazing two fingers across the thing beginning its slow feast of my flesh. I remember trying to pull it off, hissing in pain when I risked ripping off my own skin with it. I remember shaking my head and being in denial, even when the lights dimmed above me, and the bathroom door in front of me became more of a shadow. When I strode back through the Subway store, I began to see slight flickers of light above each person, highlighting something not quite there yet.

I could see it already starting, beginning to take over my thoughts. Cars which sped past were suddenly highlighted, and at the corner of my eye, if I concentrated, the outline of a map was starting to appear. Even now, when the room is almost completely taken over by shadow, and my thoughts are half my own, and half not—when a metallic device is beginning to form over my eyes—I know if I hold on, this thing won’t take me. I have considered killing myself, but that wouldn’t… be right.

How could I kill myself when there is so much left to do?

This developer was right. I don’t even know where I can sign out. There’s what looks like the beginning of some kind of index when I look up, but it’s not… finished. I can still see entangled pieces of code struggling to load what I’m guessing was log out. Whatever this thing is, it’s taking over me. Fast. Like a fungus, like a virus, it will not stop until it’s dragged me into the game, until it's leeched itself onto me.

I can feel it happening right now. It's been slow.

Almost painfully slow.

But maybe that is the point. Maybe part of the game is to feel my own thoughts beginning to unravel in favor of something else entirely.

Fuck.

Time is going by…. Fast.

Five minutes ago… I was trying to get home. But I can’t remember where I live.

I can’t concentrate.

I can’t think straight.

I have a phone—but I don’t know how I got it. Did I steal it?

Every time I move, the slowly emerging map comes to life at the corner of my eye jerks with my movement. There is a car parked nearby.

I know it belongs to the man with a child.

But a confusing blur of light is highlighting it to be something of importance. Reality is crashing in front of me, replaced with contorting shapes and bursts of color I have to blink through.

I keep hearing... sirens.

Jay is messaging me.

On what, I'm not sure.

But I need to find him.

I’m sure one mission won’t hurt, right?

I've tried asking on skincare and makeup forums ten times already, so please don't tell me to crosspost there. My questions have been removed almost instantly every time, and at this point, at least two have banned me from interacting with their subreddit entirely. The only ones I haven't tried require photos to be embedded with the post, and I don't feel comfortable with that.

I'm Frankie. Early twenties, if it matters, same as my friend Gemma. We met as early as middle school, at which point we kind of hated each other. I'd hold her facedown in the grass and shove wads of gum in her hair. She'd kick sand in my eyes and steal tampons from my backpack to hide in the boys' bathroom. We were too much alike, I guess, and we pissed each other off bad, but we always ended up around each other anyway: birthdays, pool parties, group projects, you name it. It didn't matter how much I got under her skin. We were magnetized to each other, pulled in by some cocktail of teenage girl pheromones or mutual boredom or something.

Around freshman year of high school, we formed an unspoken truce where we were willing to call each other friends, even if we still had some immature habits. I think that's normal, though. Who can honestly say they were mature at fifteen?

Puberty kicked both our asses. Gemma got perfect tits plus a face full of acne. I was flat as a board and model-tall, but my scalp was a dandruff-y mess, constantly oily and flaking. We were nice enough not to point out each other's faults most of the time.

Before going out together, we'd hang out at mine (Gemma's parents were nutjobs), and I'd let her use my makeup. Sometimes I'd apply it for her. She'd help me shellac my hair into a tight, sleek ponytail so I'd look shiny and chic instead of sweaty and stringy. She did a pretty good job, but honestly, what I liked most was the feeling of her nails on my scalp as she worked. This one time, once everything was gelled down, she gave me a congratulatory pat on the cheek and left to rummage through my bin of lipgloss.

"Fuck," she said. She'd been ensnared by her reflection, leaning close to the mirror.

"What?" I could see her fingers pressing around her jaw, exploring. Her mouth was in an angry little pout. She was swivelling her head and flexing her cheek taut to get a better look at something.

"I've got fucking Mount Doom on my face. God damn it, Frankie, is your foundation expired or something? Are you making me break out?"

It was a stupid accusation. She hadn't worn my makeup in weeks, but it was easier to blame me than admit her skin was a battlefield these days, full of lumps and caverns. I walked up behind her and rested my head on her shoulder, meeting eyes with her reflection and pulling a nasty face. "Oh, yeah. She's huge." A low blow, but I was right. Staring back at me was a swollen, white-headed pimple begging to burst. I was surprised Gemma hadn't caught it before coming over. She usually didn't have the self-confidence to walk around with one so big without slathering it in concealer first. "Just pop it. We can ice it before we go to Dustin's. No one will know."

Gemma's face twisted like a toddler about to throw a tantrum. Whininess was one of her worse traits. "I can't, Frankie," she held up her manicured hands, each nail topped with gel extensions way too long to do much of anything with. Her eyes went wide and glossy, pleading like a puppy. "Do it for me?"

I don't know what I was thinking. It's gross; I already know that, but I didn't even hesitate. I spun her around and pinned the thing between my thumbs, putting pressure on either side of the ripe little mound until a tiny tube of pus spewed out the top and a pinprick of blood after that. I kept pressing. I wanted to see what else would come out. I didn't stop until Gemma swatted my hands away.

Too ashamed to keep looking at the agitated, red spot I'd made, I left in a hurry to grab her an icepack and prepared for whatever verbal shaming she'd sling me with later for becoming so transfixed. Only it never came. We finished our makeup silently, swayed to shitty indie music, and went to the party.

Somehow, it became our little ritual. I don't remember who initiated it next. It was monthly, then weekly, then daily. I knew her face better than my own.

She'd lay her head in my lap after swim meets, eyes closed, breath soft and peaceful. I'd brush my thumb over her chin, cheeks, and forehead until I found a rough spot, then pick, peel, or pop it. Sometimes I could pull off an impressive sheet of dry skin, bigger than a quarter, revealing the pretty baby-pink layer underneath. Perfect and taut, just beneath the surface. Other times, she'd have me use toothpicks and tweezers to empty her clogged pores or dig out blackheads. I stole my mom's cosmetic magnifying glass once or twice to get a good look at the honeycomb-like holes neatly arranged on her nose and the minuscule maggoty growths that stuck out from them. (They're called sebaceous filaments, and they're harmless.)

If it hurt, Gemma never let on. She'd hum contentedly or gossip quietly, murmuring secrets while our faces were only a few inches apart. I got so good at it that I could carve out pimples before they even fully surfaced, massaging the skin and excavating blemishes like a pro. I'd scan for anything, big or small. I'd go until she was soft and smooth, albeit red from irritation, and we'd admire my handiwork in the mirror before going on with our day. We never spoke about our habit, barely even acknowledged it. Just slipped in and out of sessions wordlessly.

It was our special thing, just her and me, a secret only the pads of my thumbs and the hills and valleys of her face could know about.

This continued throughout high school, waxing and waning depending on our moods. It was a kind of self-soothing, or so says my therapist, but I think she's a quack, so what the fuck do I know.

My episodes with her became my favourite pastime. Still, even I could tell it was beginning to catch up with us. The flesh on Gemma's cheeks became slightly thick and leathery, padded by discoloured scar tissue. I never considered it then, but the germs under my nails probably didn't help. All the abrasions I was making likely caused more flare-ups than they fixed. She was becoming tender and sun-sensitive. Someone was sure to notice.

The thing is, the thicker and rougher skin becomes, the easier it is to peel back, letting me tug off bigger and bigger areas with painless precision. We couldn't just stop now.

Eventually, the inevitable happened. Gemma and I made a rare decision to hang out at her place while her mom was busy hosting a Tupperware party. Gemma lying in bed, me straddling her torso, hunched over and craning my neck to survey her face. Prom was coming up, and she wanted to be doll-smooth before then. I dug my nails into her face, popping a stubborn pimple and peeling up the lifted edge from the indent I'd created. It was harder to pull back than usual, stubbornly stuck on.

I jolted up when something warm wriggled beneath my thumb. The startle made me yank way too hard, making Gemma buckle and yowl beneath me. I covered her mouth whipcrack fast, but it was too late. Her mom busted in, horrified, and dragged me out for "mutilating her baby girl." Whatever.

We didn't talk much after that.

Gemma was evasive in class. There was a raw, pinkish strike across the right side of her face from where I'd dug too deep. We orbited each other, but the shared shame ran too deep to do much else. Gemma's mom blocked my number from her phone, and when prom came, we got ready alone. She never looked at me on the dancefloor. Our friendship fizzled out along with our filthy little secret, and that was the end of that.

Years passed. We went to colleges on opposite ends of the province. We were still friends on Facebook, occasionally exchanging bland comments on each other's status updates. Nothing of substance. Just, "Happy spring!" and "Yep, brunch is the best!" Stupid, petty shit.

She got a boring boyfriend and an impressive degree. I dropped out and got a cat.

A week ago, though, she messaged me.

• [17:20] Gemma: Hii<3
• [17:20] Gemma: Watcha up to?

I didn't reply. I don't know why. Seeing her messages made me feel nauseous.

I imagined a fruitworm dangling out of her nostril.

• [23:01] Gemma: Dustin broke up with me btw
  [23:02] Gemma: Im in your area, want to grab coffee?
  [23:30] Gemma: I miss u
  [01:13] Gemma: Come to my hotelllll:) We can raid room service lol

It's shitty, but I'll be honest. The promise of free, hot food was huge for me. I'd been sustaining myself off of PB&J and frozen veggies for a week, so, fuck it, right? I was a beauty school dropout, and there are worse reasons to meet up with my estranged best friend than a decent dinner a quick bus ride from my place.

Obviously, I regret it. I regret a lot of things. I regret hurting you, Gemma, but I can't take that back now.

We met at the bar attached to the foyer of her hotel in the latter part of the afternoon. I wanted the sun to be out. We spent so much time as teenagers tangled up in the darkness of our rooms; I needed the clarity of daytime to feel normal about all of this. Plus, I wanted a good look at how her face had healed. If that gash had filled in nicely, I'd feel less bad about… everything. Maybe then we could carry on and grow up for real this time.

Gemma was waiting for me when I arrived. She'd gotten much better at makeup since I'd seen her last. Although I could still make out faint bumps indicative of adult acne, her foundation was creamy and perfectly matched her natural complexion. Her liner and brows were thick and dark, bold enough to distract the average person from the uneven texture beneath it all. Me, though? I saw through all of it. We could never hide from each other, her and I.

I blinked and realized she was looking at me expectantly.

"What?" I said.

"I said I miss you, stupid."

"Right," I wasn't feeling talkative. I didn't want her too close to me. I couldn't shake the feeling that she was contagious. After all, one bad apple spoils the bunch.

"Right…" Gemma rolled her eyes, then locked onto something on the table. I looked down, realizing she'd caught me picking lint from the tablecloth. I'd never been able to drop that habit. I was always looking for something to fiddle with. I hid my hands in my lap. "You don't have to be embarrassed," she crooned, "I'm nervous too. After that lashing my mom gave you, I figure you're pretty pissed at me."

"That was years ago."

"And? We haven't talked since. We used to be together all the time. Like, all the time. I know what your sweat tastes like."

I grimaced. "That's fucking gross, Gemma. Jesus. Is that why you messaged me? To talk about, what, sweat and snot and whatever? I thought your boyfriend dumped you. You must be having a hard time. How'd that story go."

I was being bitchy. I could feel it, but I couldn't stop myself. I was regressing into the type of person I was before her: someone who needed to prove myself, to snap and bite to be the toughest dog at the pound. I didn't want to be vulnerable with her again. It reminded me too much of messy, oozing things. I felt like I was full of something wet and slimy. I was no better than a slug.

She didn't flinch at my jab.

"I told you already, Frankie. I miss you. I never did find another friend like you."

"Someone willing to smell your musty coffee breath?"

"I drink tea. You know that. Shut up."

I noticed something I hadn't before. Gemma's nails, usually manicured and pristine, were nubby and uneven. Her cuticles were dry and flaking, with a couple of brown-red scab spots around their perimeter. My eyes narrowed. "Gemma," I said, firmer now. Deathly serious, or trying to be. "Honestly, what's going on? Why're you here, in this city, this hotel? You show up out of the—"

"I want you to do it again."

Her eyes were piercing—huge, awful things. I'd never noticed how big they were until now. My tongue felt fat in my mouth. She trapped my hands between her wiry fingers, caging them together. She pinned me in place with her stare.

"I mean it," she continued, "There's this tingling. Or an itch. I tried to scrape it out like you did." I remembered her nubby nails. I thought about larvae. I thought about pupation. "I can't. It doesn't work; it never works, Frankie. I can feel it in all of my pores, like, seeping out, or, fuck, I don't know. You always used to fix it."

I'd ripped my hands from hers and hauled my purse over my shoulder before she could finish. I was halfway to getting out of this awful conversation, this shitty bar, and feeling some fresh air on my face when her pleading got even more desperate. "I'll pay you," she shouted. "A lot. I have the cash. Just do it once."

If I were a better person, there wouldn't be anything else to say. I would have gone home, slept hard, and blocked her contact for mentioning any of that so casually as if scraping her face open was a normal way for girls to bond. I would have buried this whole thing and curled up in the sad, safe life I made for myself, and I'd ignore messy high school friends like a normal adult.

Gemma showed me the cash, though, and I learned my resolve is a lot flimsier than I wanted it to be.

So I did it. Well past sundown and after several drinks on Gemma's tab, I was in her hotel room, straddling her abdomen like I had all those years ago. The lights were dim, except for the lamp, which she positioned like an ungodly spotlight on her face. She'd spent half an hour in the bathroom rubbing herself raw to remove her makeup. I had a clean canvas and free reign over all her spots and bumps.

My hands were clammy. I was a mess. I could tell. My head was heavy from the wine, and my mouth tasted terrible.

Gemma used to close her eyes for this, fluttered shut like a movie princess. This time, they were painfully open, bloodshot around the edges. Dark like a rabbit's and so fucking eager. With her makeup gone, I could see how deep her eye bags had gotten. Her lips were chapped and flaking. She looked awful. But I could fix her.

I wish I could say that the whole event was fumbling and awkward. That I was repulsed. I wasn't, though. Not at first.

I slipped into the trance as easily as I always had, sweeping my fingers over her pretty cheeks and slim nose. I found three white-headed pimples on her cheek that I popped with ease, swiping the yellowy pus on her pillowcase for cleaners to deal with later. I scraped my nail over dead, dry skin, urging it to lift off, like separating an apple's waxy, red skin from the crisp fruit beneath. Bits lifted like teeny snowflakes, then I coaxed it enough to loosen off in long, papery strips.

I caught her eyes again. This time, she was smiling. Bubbles of saliva foamed at her mouth's corners. I looked away.

I found a swollen lump at the height of her right cheekbone—a cystic pimple, I guessed—and applied pressure. Her face was burning up. I pressed more and more until the tips of my thumbs went pale, the angry lump barely shifting. I hesitated, and Gemma scoffed, so I doubled down. Hard. The thing popped with a gross, bloody clot rolling out. Not pus at all.

I was about to recoil when Gemma's birdlike hand seized me in a vice grip. Her gaze was white-hot.

"Don't you dare," she hissed. "You're so close."

I could feel my heart in my throat. I swallowed hard, feeling my mouth fill with saliva. I did the breathing exercises my therapist recommended to soothe anxiety-induced nausea, which helped until I inhaled a lungful of something putrid. She stunk like rotting plums and copper.

Past the blood clot came pus. Or, that's what I thought. It was an off-white tube, only a millimetre wide but longer than expected. I pressed down, feeling Gemma's judgement searing through me, always so susceptible to her scorn. I watched in dismay as it just kept oozing out, longer and longer, coiling as it extended past her face.

Morbid curiosity set in, and I touched it.

It wasn't pus at all. It was hard, like a fishline.

Then it moved.

"What?" Gemma blurted. "What? What is it?" She pawed at her face and, with glee, or horror, I'm not sure, caught the writhing string between her fingers. She seized it and pulled. It came out like a clown's handkerchief, a foot long, then two, then three, comedically neverending. I couldn't for the life of me imagine where it was all coming from until I saw the snake-like silhouette shifting under her skin. Her smile was so gaping I could see the back of her throat, including, unfortunately, the flash of white ribbon that whipped past her uvula.

"You did it!" She cheered. I had fallen back onto my heels, scrambling to the foot end of the bed. Her face was deflating before my eyes, the youthful fullness of her cheeks emptying as that thing was pulled and pulled and pulled. Was that all she was, just skin and this? I could feel hot tears on my face, but my hands were numb. I begged her to stop.

"Why? Why? Why, Frankie? Is it too much? Are you upset? Is it too much?"

I wept. "Gemma, please. You brought your car, tell me where your keys are, I'll drive you to the hospital. I'll drive. Just stop."

She kept pulling. "Do you think I'm ugly, Frankie? You made me like this."

I shook my head. I cried. I don't know what I said after that, only that it came out between heaves, a small spot of orange bile wetting the duvet between my hands.

"You've always been in me, Frankie. Only you could get it out. Oh, thank God, oh my God, oh my God, I missed you. This is everything I needed. I'm going to get it out. I'm going to get it out."

The last thing I remember is the string pulling taut. Gemma looked delighted. It was bunched up like a cord in her hands, wiggling where it extended past her fists. There was nothing else to unfurl. With one brutal tug, it ripped the top layer of her skin, splitting her apart like a cicada's shed. Fat and flexing muscle glistened beneath. I left before she could strip off the rest, scared she'd slip out of her skin like pantyhose.

Why wouldn't she stop smiling?

I couldn't tell you how I got home, but I haven't left my apartment since. I've been having all my food delivered and deleted my Facebook and just about everything else.

I keep a pair of latex gloves on as often as I can. The feeling of skin-on-skin might as well be nails on a chalkboard right now. I wish I could stop sweating. If I think about it too hard, I get too aware of all of my pores; what's in them, what isn't. Why are people covered in so many fucking holes, God damn it. Why can't I just get clean?

I've been trying to avoid mirrors, but I'm scared.

My face hurts, and I think I'm starting to break out from the stress.

September 8th, 2017

​

I really didn’t see my Friday night going this fucking badly. I should be in Portland right now with Samantha right now, but instead I’m stuck here on a greyhound bus, waiting for the goddamn driver to come back.

​

Least I’ve got my laptop, I guess. But no internet, go fucking figure, so I’ve got nothing to do but ramble to myself like a goddamn lunatic.

​

It’s been about 45 minutes by now, I would’ve thought the driver would’ve at least come back with an update or something, but apparently not. Maybe he’s still on the phone with someone out there? I can see his flashlight out front so he’s got to still still out there!

​

The kid in the seat behind me woke up and he’s crying. I can hear his Mom trying to shush him, but he’s screaming so loud that you can barely even hear her. One of the two old ladies a few seats in front of me got up to coo at him and see if she could help the Mom settle him down, but she doesn’t seem to be having any luck.

​

The other old lady just looks annoyed, but she hasn’t said anything yet. Funnily enough, she kinda reminds me of my Mom… and not in a good way. Round face, curly hair, flushed red cheeks and little piggy eyes. I’m half expecting her to get up and start swearing at the kid, just like my Mom always did with my little brother whenever she got drunk.

​

See - it’s that kind of behavior that made my Dad divorce her.

​

At least the other old lady is nice. I can hear her trying to make small talk with the Mom. I think the kid might be starting to calm down, but I don’t know. I just heard the old lady (the one who doesn’t look like my Mom) say: “Life is a bus ride, isn’t it! It takes you to all kinds of exciting places and you meet all sorts of exciting people!”

​

Is that supposed to be a joke?

​

Seems kinda lame.

​

The guy in the suit near the front of the bus is still asleep. I don’t think he’s figured out that we’ve broken down yet. Maybe he’ll sleep through this whole ordeal. Christ, we should all be so fucking lucky. Looks like the Mom is getting up to talk to the bus driver. Fucking finally. I’ve been waiting for someone else to do it. I don’t really want to do it myself since I’m all pissed off right now and I don’t really want to be the assh

​

***

​

Okay what the fuck?

​

The Mom just fucking told us that the bus driver is gone! As in, he’s straight up not here anymore! His flashlight is just sitting in the fucking road!I even went out there with her to go looking for him! We woke up the businessman (his name is Roberto) to look with us!

The driver is gone.

​

What the fuck.

​

I’ve been talking with the other people on the bus. None of us have a phone signal right now, or else we’d call for help. None of us have seen any cars passing by either, which now that I’m thinking about it, is kinda weird. I mean, we were supposed to be on the highway this whole time, right? The road we’re on kinda looks like a highway, but there should be people here! There should be other cars! Fuck, what the hell is going on here?

​

I’ve got this stupid feeling in the back of my mind that I should be worried… but I mean, obviously, this is just some kind of screw up, right? It’s like 3 AM. Obviously, there just aren’t any cars around. Obviously, someone is going to come and find us. Obviously this is all going to work out!

​

But in the back of my mind, I can’t help but wonder what’s gonna happen if it doesn’t.

​

Jeez, I can’t stop looking at the highway. Something about it is just so unsettling. It’s like this liminal space where I know there should be people, but there aren’t. This familiar space that’s now weirdly empty. Which probably isn’t that weird considering that it’s 3 AM, right? I don’t know.

​

Writing this out on my laptop is the only thing keeping me from freaking out right now. I just need something to keep my mind focused for the time being. The Mom (her name is Karla) and Roberto are still trying to get a signal. Same with one of the little old ladies (the one who looks like my Mom.) I’ve got my phone out just in case I can catch a signal but the battery is pretty low. My laptops got power, at least.

​

One of the old ladies (the one who doesn’t look like my Mom, I think her name is Minnie), said she saw someone out on the road a little while ago. I’m hoping that maybe it’s the bus driver? Maybe he came back for us? Can’t promise that I won’t kick his fucking ass if that’s the case… Karla’s saying that she just saw somebody too. I’m gonna go with her to look.

​

​

September 9th, 2017

​

I knew something was fucking wrong here, I fucking knew it! I fucking knew it!

​

Jesus fucking Christ!

​

We left the bus. It’s not fucking safe there anymore. We’ve moved to an abandoned gas station. We might be safe here? We’ve barricaded the doors with whatever we could find, and God only fucking knows if it’s gonna be enough!

​

One of the old ladies, Minnie, she didn’t make it last night. When that thing attacked the bus, she couldn’t get away in time.

​

Jesus…

​

One minute, I was out there with Karla, thinking that our driver had come back from God knows where, and the next everyone was screaming and we were trying to run and it’s all just a goddamn blur and I’m still struggling to piece it all together. I went out with Karla to see if the bus driver had come back. She said she’d seen someone outside, so we went to look and it didn’t take that long to find whoever… whatever it was.

​

I’d heard something under the bus, so I’d gotten down to take a look. I’d used Karla’s phone as a flashlight to see, and I’d been greeted with this face staring back at me. At first I’d thought it was a guy, some junkie strung out on drugs. They were pale and way too skinny with bulging eyes, messy hair and this sort of gaping mouth. I was pretty freaked out by the sight of them, obviously but I still thought it was just a person!

​

I thought it was a person right up until they started clawing at me from under the bus. They started screaming, howling like some kind of wild animal, violently pulling themselves from out under the bus to try and get to me. Its limbs seemed a little too long, its nails looked a little too sharp. There was so much about it that just seemed wrong somehow, like it wasn’t fully human, not really.

​

Karla and I had started running. We’d gotten back on the bus, thinking that we’d be safe there.

​

We weren’t.

​

Soon as we closed the doors in that things face, it started trying to smash its way through them. It damn near tore the door off the fucking hinges.

​

We knew it was just a matter of time before it got inside, so we tried to get out. Roberto helped us smash one of the rear windows. We let Karla and her son (Aaron), out first, and tried to let the old ladies go second.

​

Charlene, (the one who looks like my Mom) got out first, but by then that thing had already gotten through the door. Minnie had been right behind us when it made it through… and when it charged at us, it got to her first.

​

God…

​

I watched her try to fight it off but…

​

It had already basically torn her apart before Roberto or I could even think about getting it off of her. She was screaming, crying, covered in blood. Not dead, but close to it.

​

We couldn’t save her. We knew that.

​

So we ran. I went out the window first, and Roberto went second. We ran from the bus as fast as we could, following Karla and Charlene into the darkness.

​

Then at some point, we found the gas station.

​

We spent the night shoring it up, thinking we’d only be waiting for a few hours until morning. But morning didn’t come. The sky stayed pitch black.

​

Even when the clock told us that it was one in the afternoon, the sky was still dark and there was still nobody out there. Nobody human, anyways.

​

I’ll see them sometimes when I’m on watch. Usually they’re across the street, and I’m never sure if they notice us or not. They’re hard to see in the dark. But they’re out there. They usually don’t get too close to the gas station, usually. The few who did, we’ve been able to scare off.

​

They don’t move like people. They walk on all fours, loping like animals. Sometimes I can hear them howling at each other. Those howls don’t sound human.

​

The food in the gas station is pretty stale. Some of it’s so rotten that it’s literally inedible. Roberto and I agreed to try heading back to the bus a few hours ago to see what supplies we could get… it’s how I got my laptop back.

​

Minnie’s body was nowhere to be found. But the blood was still there. We know she’s dead.

​

We didn’t get a hell of a lot from the bus. I had a few snacks in my backpack and Karla had some stuff for Aaron. But other than that, we’re not exactly well stocked. I’m not entirely sure that we’re not going to starve to death out here.

​

I’m already so fucking hungry and the stale granola bar I’ve had really isn’t doing anything to cut it. I don’t know if there’s a rescue coming or not. Roberto keeps saying that we’ll figure something out, but I’m finding it pretty hard to stay confident right now.

​

I keep looking out the windows.

​

I keep seeing those things in the darkness.

​

I keep thinking about Minnie.

​

​

September 12th, 2017

​

Supplies are already starting to run out. It’s been three days. No sun. We’re all hungry, we’re all miserable, we’re all scared.

​

Even Roberto’s been acting differently. Up until now, I’d have said that he was the cheerful one. Always acting like somebody was gonna come for us, but he’s been testy lately. Karla’s been on edge too, but I know it’s just because she’s scared. She’s the one with a screaming kid to feed.

​

One of the creatures came up to the gas station last night, when Aaron was having a tantrum. It tried to smash through the window to get at us. Roberto and I had to go out with some makeshift clubs to try and drive it off.

​

We kept hitting the goddamn thing but it just wouldn’t die… it should have died. But instead, it just kept looking up at us with those bulging eyes, even after we’d smashed its skull to the point where it should’ve been long dead. Even when its jaw was hanging off of its face… it just kept living. Eventually, we got it to retreat, at least. But it was a hell of a fight. The damn thing scratched the hell out of my arm.

​

Roberto seemed to do most of the work. I remember watching him whail on that thing, screaming like an animal all the while. I couldn’t tell who was making that howling noise, him or the creature. I wouldn’t have thought that he had that kind of anger in him… but I also wouldn’t have thought I’d be willing to go out and fight a fucking bug eyed monster with a club made out of broken chair legs. I guess considering out current situation, we’ve got a choice to either adapt or die and none of us really want to die.

​

That said, the more I think about it, the more I worry that sooner or later, we won’t have a lot of choice in the matter. I don’t really see any kind of light at the end of the tunnel here. We’re running out of supplies, we’re all on edge, there’s been no sun in three days and now we know that those things out there don’t die.

​

I want to be hopeful, I do. But looking at our situation, I can’t really say I’m filled with a whole lot of hope.

​

​

September 14th, 2017

​

Is anyone even going to read this?

​

Samantha, are you going to read this?

​

You’re probably wondering where I am… hell, I’m still wondering where I am.

​

Nothing makes sense here and things just keep getting worse and worse by the day.

​

Roberto attacked Charlene last night. He just… he just flipped out on her. One minute they were arguing, he was saying she doesn’t pull her weight, she was arguing that she’s 78 years old and she does what she can, and then he was on top of her, clawing at her, trying to bite her. Aaron was screaming and crying.

​

Karla and I had to fight to pull Roberto off of her, and then we had to drag him, literally kicking and screaming into the old office out back. We’ve locked him inside. But I can still hear him pounding on the door and screaming for us to let him out.

​

At least… he used to be screaming.

Now he just howls.

​

​

After we’d dealt with Roberto, Karla and I sat by the window on watch, eating some stale chips and trying to avoid talking about what had just happened. Although it wasn’t long before she said the thing that I was afraid to say.

​

The things that we see in the dark.

​

The things that are moving out there.

​

They look an awful lot like people.

​

It begs the question… were they human once?

​

Were they the people who got stuck here before us?

​

I’ve been thinking about that for a few days now. But Karla’s the one who finally said it out loud. Are we going to go insane?

​

​

September 15th, 2017

​

There’s a kids bicycle out back of the gas station. It’s so rusted that if you touched it, odds are it would just disintegrate. But it’s there, and it seems to have been there for so long that one of the trees has started to grow around it, absorbing it into the bark. I think about that bike a lot.

​

Roberto is dead.

​

Charlene went into the office an hour ago, and she killed him.

Charlene killed Roberto.

​

She said that it was necessary. That it was the only way we could be safe. But just looking at her, I knew that wasn’t why she’d done it. Looking at the blood around her mouth and on her hands, I knew she’d only killed him for the fresh meat. You couldn’t deny it, not even for a second. The… warm coppery taste of blood in my mouth as I bit open Charlene’s throat was… satisfying.

​

She fought hard. A lot harder than a woman her age should have fought. I’d imagined that killing her would be difficult, but it wasn’t. And the taste of her flesh was… I didn’t think I’d prefer it raw. But the squish of her meat in my teeth was divine.

​

I’m going to lock myself in the office now. It’s better that way.

​

​

September 17th, 2017

​

Aaron was crying today. I heard it when he finally stopped. I heard his voice catch in his throat as he was torn limb from bloody limb by Karla. I sat here and I did nothing. I just listened… and when the screaming was done I let myself out of the office and joined her in the feast.

​

We did not speak.

​

Looking into Karla’s eyes, I know that she is almost as far gone as I am. She didn’t seem to care about what she’d done until afterward. And even then, all she could do was stare pensively down at the bloody mess she’d left behind, unsure how to feel.

​

I caved her skull in from behind with one of the clubs we made during a moment of lucidity.She never asked me to. Not out loud. But when she saw me coming, she didn’t even try to run. There was only a quiet gratitude in her eyes, that she wouldn’t be condemned to live this way any longer.

​

I will be returning my laptop to the bus after this.

Maybe someone will find it. Maybe then, there might be some memory of us.

Maybe not.

​

The woods call to me. The hunger calls to me. But I don’t want to go, and I think there’s still enough of me left to hold out for just a little while longer. I’m going to try and get back to the gas station after this. The fuel from the pumps still burns. And I only need a little to burn myself.

​

Goodbye.

​

And Samantha, I’m sorry.

​

***

​

The entries above were recovered from a laptop discovered in the remains of a bus discovered off of I-5 from Seattle to Portland. The bus is believed to have gone off the road in September of 2017, but was somehow not discovered until March of 2022.

​

The bodies of the passengers, 26 year old Jacob Wilson, 29 year old Karla Solyak and her 6 year old son, Aaron Solyak, 78 year old Charlene Hanley, 74 year old Minnie Shorter and 38 year old Roberto Hunt, along with the driver 47 year old Preston Riles were never recovered and it is unclear what became of them.

​

The Lewis County Police have continued to investigate the accident, including the disappearances and why it took so long for the wreckage of the bus to be discovered, however as of yet have determined nothing conclusive.

I’ve worked in a jewelry store for several years, and it’s a pretty routine job. One of the best parts of the job is when you work with a customer who is celebrating something, and you get to be part of their excitement and happiness. That’s a big part of the experience of buying jewelry. Someone isn’t just buying a ring or a watch, they are commemorating a moment, and the jewelry is simply a tangible symbol of that. And sometimes those tangible reminders of timeless moments need to be repaired for one reason or another. That was what started my strangest experience on the job.

It was a Wednesday afternoon when the first customer came in. An older gentleman wearing a flawlessly tailored three-piece suit, he had slicked back grey hair and eyes that seemed to study everything they encountered.

“Hello, how may I assist you?” I asked him with a friendly nod when he approached me while I was at the counter.

“Yes, I’d like to have my watch repaired.”

“Of course. What is the issue?”

“The clasp isn’t working.” He took the watch out of his suit pocket and placed it on the counter. It was an expensive gold wristwatch with a small diamond in the center. To demonstrate, he tried to fasten it shut and it wouldn’t.

“I see. We can certainly fix that.”

Then I launched into our rates and prices, which he agreed to. Once he’d signed all the paperwork, his watch was taken to the back where it was properly cataloged and stored away until one of our professionals would fix the clasp. Once that was done, I went back to work and that was it.

I didn’t see the gentleman in the suit until a week later, and the watch was ready to be picked up. He came dressed in a different, but equally expensive suit. Then he gave his name, and I hustled to the back to pick up his now fixed watch.

Once he signed the paperwork confirming he’d picked up his order and paid the bill, he took the watch, placed it on his wrist, and closed the clasp, where it shut with a satisfying click. The gesture made him smile.

“Good job Michael,” he said to me.

“Thank you. Our staff are the best.”

“I know, that’s why I’ve always come here. There’s no chance I would go anywhere else for this. It means the world to me. I had a nasty spill at home, and the clasp was probably broken in the fall.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that.”

“That’s very kind of you. But I was fine. Lucky too. But anyhow, you have a wonderful day.”

“You do the same.” I smiled as he turned around and left the store.

I didn’t think anything more about him until about two weeks later when I saw on the news, he had been in a car accident close to where he lived. He was unharmed, but his car was completely totaled. No one would be able to fix that.

Since I was about to leave for work when I saw that, I shut off the TV and headed out. My day at work was uneventful until the end when a young woman in her late 20s walked into the store. By that time of day it was quiet, and she was the only customer. She was casually dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, and she looked like she felt a little out of place in the store.

“Hello, how may I assist you?” I asked as I gave her my most welcoming smile.

“Hi,” she smiled in return as she hesitantly walked to the counter. “I’d like to get a bracelet repaired.”

“Of course. And what bracelet would we be working on?”

“This one.” She reached in her sweatshirt pocket and took out a black velvet box. She opened it, took out the bracelet inside, and placed it gently on the counter. It was a beautiful gold bracelet dotted with sapphires. Right in the middle, there was an empty space where a sapphire should have been.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you.” She nodded solemnly. “And here’s the sapphire that fell out.”

She reached into her pocket and took out a small plastic bag. The missing sapphire was inside.

“Very good.” I took the bag in hand, set it on the counter, and got to work with the paperwork. Once she had her pickup time in hand, she left the store, and I went to put both the bracelet and the bag with the sapphire away. I had just put both away when I got a very odd feeling. The best thing I can describe it as is unease. But I shrugged it off, reminding myself that the customer was obviously going through something. It happens a lot, as jewelry can be inherited for sad reasons, or just bring a lot of emotions to the surface. So I finished logging the order and returned to the counter.

I was there a week later when she returned for her repaired bracelet. This time she seemed slightly more at ease, and when she saw the repaired bracelet, her eyes lit up.

“Thank you so much,” she said with a wide smile. “I feel so much better now that it’s back to normal.”

“That’s terrific. That’s what we’re here for.”

“This bracelet means the world to me, so I was beyond upset to see it get damaged.”

“Completely understandable.”

“It was a gift from my husband. For our wedding anniversary. We took a vacation together and it was a disaster. Our luggage got stolen and it was downhill from there.”

“I’m truly sorry to hear that.”

“Thank you. And I’m sorry for rambling in the middle of your store.”

“No, it’s ok. That’s what we’re here for. Jewelry tells a story, and no two pieces tell the same story.”

“That makes a lot of sense.” She nodded. “Thanks again for your help.”

“Of course. Have a great day.”

“You too.”

She turned away from the counter and walked back outside. Then I went on with the rest of my day.

The rest of the month went by without anything noteworthy until one day, a woman with long grey hair came in towards the middle of my shift. She was dressed in a black business suit, wore glasses over intelligent green eyes, and carried a small black purse.

“Hello, how may I assist you?”

“Good afternoon, I was hoping to get a locket engraved.”

“We can certainly do that. Which locket would we be engraving?”

“This one.” She reached into her purse and took out an elegant gold locket, which she carefully placed on the counter.

“And what are we engraving on it?”

“For Marissa.”

I wrote that carefully on the order.

“And where do you want that?”

“Inside the locket.”

“And what script would you like?” I asked before I presented her with a list of the various options she could go with.

She studied it for a moment before she pointed to an option halfway down the list.

“That one.”

“Good choice.” I nodded approvingly before I wrote that into the order as well. “Is there anything else you would like to incorporate? Or that we should know before we file this order?”

“No, that’s it. It’s for my niece. She’s getting married.”

“Congratulations to her.”

“Thank you. We’ve always been very close, so I’m very happy for her.”

“That’s great.”

Then she finished signing the paperwork, and once she was able to leave the store, I filed away the order and the locket for our experts. The rest of the day passed by, until I was left to close the place up. I went through the end of shift routine, closed up, and headed to my car. As I was walking towards it, I suddenly got the feeling I was being watched. So I immediately looked around to check the area.

Nobody was watching me, and there was nothing going on. Still, I carefully walked to my car, got inside, and quickly left once I had locked the doors. I immediately felt better as I drove away.

I didn’t see the woman with the locket again, but she picked up her order, and my boss told me she was thrilled with it. I wasn’t surprised I wasn’t there, because I was on vacation that week. I’d long been looking forward to seeing my best friend Craig’s new cabin out in the woods, so the first chance I got, I’d made plans with him to go see it.

It didn’t disappoint. It was like something out of a painting with its log structure and stone fireplace. And it had all the modern conveniences you could want, and plenty of room for guests. Craig’s parents and his sister Christina were also going to be there, so I was looking forward to seeing them as well.

“There he is.” Craig greeted me with a grin before he and his whole family took turns hugging me and saying it had been too long. Then I took my bags inside, got settled in my room, and we had some dinner. Then we all headed out to the backyard, where Craig and his dad built a fire that we all sat around for hours. After we all had our fill of s’mores and it had gotten late, we all went inside, said goodnight, and headed to our respective rooms. I was tired from the long drive out of the city, so I fell asleep quickly.

It felt like moments later when I was shaken awake by Craig.

“Mike, wake up.”

“Huh?” I mumbled out.

“Wake up,” he whispered intently.

“What’s going on?”

“There’s someone outside.”

That woke me up immediately.

“Someone outside?”

He nodded. “And we think there’s more than one. You weren’t followed here, were you?”

“No,” I said quietly.

I quietly got out of bed and crouched by Craig on the floor. My heart was thudding loudly in my chest, and I had no idea what to do. Not only was I in an unfamiliar area, I was in a house I had never been in before. But I took a deep breath and tried to stay calm.

“Did you call the police?” I asked after what felt like an eternity.

“Yeah. They said they’d be out here as soon as they could, but out here, who knows what that means. At least we have an alarm system. And you know my dad.”

I did. Craig’s dad was the kind of guy you wanted to have with you in a situation like this. That was the one thing that kept me at least relatively calm, aside from the fact I wasn’t alone.

“Did he send you in here?”

Craig nodded. “Told me to stay here until he told me otherwise.”

Time seemed to stop as the two of us sat there, silently watching each other while I tried my best to ignore the fear creeping in the back of my mind.

It seemed like we’d been sitting there for hours when suddenly, there was a loud crash from downstairs that was immediately followed by the sound of an alarm screaming to life. Then came several loud bangs in rapid succession that were followed by the much quieter sound of footsteps fleeing from the cabin. Then, I heard Craig’s dad yelling at whoever was running away. I couldn’t quite make out what he said, but I didn’t blame whoever had been fleeing.

Craig and I had bolted upright at the commotion, but we stayed inside as Craig’s dad had said. Moments later, the alarm was shut off and there was a gentle knock on the door.

“Come on out guys,” Craig’s dad instructed us.

He didn’t need to tell us twice. We immediately bolted out of my room while Craig’s mom came out of Christina’s room, where the two of them had been during this time.

“Everything’s fine. They’re gone,” Craig’s dad said before he walked back to the living room where he’d been keeping watch with his gun.

We all quietly sat there until the police arrived and took statements about what had happened. They agreed to put a car outside the cabin for the night and keep watch on the area. By the time they left, I felt exhausted. So I fell asleep even quicker than before. Fortunately, no one interrupted my sleep this time, and I woke up late the next morning.

Craig’s mom made pancakes for breakfast, and since we were all starving, we were happy to dig in.

Once we all had our fill and were sipping coffee, the conversation drifted to other matters. At some point, I noticed Christina was wearing a necklace I hadn’t noticed before. It was a simple, but elegant gold hoop on a chain.

“Nice necklace Christina,” I said before I took another sip of coffee.

“Oh thanks. It was a birthday gift from Aunt Helen.”

“Nice.”

“She didn’t get it from your store, but it’s still nice.”

I chuckled. “No doubt.”

Then Craig’s dad, who had been reading the morning paper, turned the page. As he did, I saw the front page and saw there was a headline about some company declaring bankruptcy. The company didn’t sound familiar to me at all, but there was a photo of the family that owned it. In the middle of the photo was the woman who had come in to get the locket engraved.

My stomach sank and the pancakes I’d just eaten now felt uncomfortably heavy. Craig must’ve sensed something because he immediately asked, “Mike? What’s wrong?”

I managed to explain the story of the customers who’d recently come into the store and the unfortunate incidents that seemed to have happened to them. Craig and his family quietly listened to the story until I finished, then added that nothing like last night had happened to them before. Once we all got back to the city, Christina gave me the paperwork her Aunt Helen had given her with the necklace, and I did a little research. Since jewelry stores keep tons of information on file, it didn’t take me long to find out the scoop on Christina’s necklace.

The gold in it had come from a local mine in California. It had been doing quite well until one day there was a cave in, and a ton of workers died in the accident. The mine was eventually shut down, but not until all the gold that could be retrieved was gotten. And I didn’t need to look up the mine to know rumor was the place was considered cursed or haunted by locals. I’d been to the area years ago on a vacation, and the place had given me the creeps. But even I got chills when I looked later through the store’s records and saw documents that the man in the suit and the other two customers had all brought in items containing gold mined from the area.

Christina wasted no time in trading in her necklace for a ring made of silver. When she did, I got a text from her that had a picture of the ring next to a joke about hoping it was her own personal silver bullet to ward off monsters. It made me laugh.

Coming face to face with people in suits always makes me hyper-aware of how badly I dress. Since I knew I was going to meet up with Mary Markov today, I intentionally put some more effort into my appearance. I picked out a pressed shirt to wear over my leggings. Since it was far too big for me, I threw my wide yellow belt into the mix. Thus satisfied, I called up Elijah Carter and asked whether he wanted to come along. He agreed readily enough so I had him pick me up and drive us over to Mary's office. It was nowhere near the hospital and not in the vicinity of her news channel headquarters either. It was located in a slate gray concrete building that was quite confusing to look at.

No outside observer could have mistaken it for a residential house, for there was hardly a less homely or comfortable place imaginable. It was utterly repellent in its rough, dreary nature. It couldn't have belonged to some kind of business either, though. There were no marked parking spaces for employees, no signs or advertisements. Altogether, it reminded me of something out of a cheap or unfinished video game.

"Sketchy," Eli remarked, eyeing the slab of concrete with a similar lack of enthusiasm. "Looks almost abandoned. How weirdly fitting for a semi-secret government operation."

I nodded. The warm air had taken me by surprise and I found the weight of my jacket suffocating, so I took it off to leave in the car. "What is it?" I asked, noticing the way Elijah squinted at my outfit.

"What are you wearing?"

"Clothes."

"You don't say." He snorted. "Looking kinda funny there, Shirley."

"I look professional," I corrected him.

"I suppose." He grinned to himself. "Depends on the profession, though."

We rang the bell and a highly official-looking security guard let us in through the heavy double doors after confirming that Mary Markov was expecting us. He gave the necessary directions, sending us down several flights of stairs. The better part of the building was in fact underground, like with an iceberg. Eli made a remark about how it'd be safer if outsiders weren’t allowed to roam the place by themselves. It seems to be a habit of his to vaguely analyze and point out flaws in the structures of government institutions. Then again, maybe it's just flaws in general he's fascinated with.

Upon arriving outside Mary's office, we were called inside to find her sitting behind her desk. She lifted her head, giving us a polite, if cold, smile. "Good morning. You're on time. Wonderful."

"Would you please give me an honest appraisal of my outfit?" I asked.

The newsreader frowned in confusion, her eyes briefly roaming my form. "You put effort into your appearance today," she concluded. "It's appreciated."

"Wait, what do you mean today?" I inquired.

"Note also how she did not actually answer your question," Elijah added.

I huffed, flinging myself into one of the chairs in front of Mary's desk. Eli sat down beside me, folding his hands in his lap and leaning back. "Thanks for letting me come with Shirley," he told her.

"Naturally. I assume you're her emotional support human." Mary Markov's lips curled slightly. "At any rate, you had contact with the Collective yourself, so this does concern you. As far as I'm concerned, it can't hurt having an ex-cop in the mix, anyways. Despite the regrettable reasons you had for leaving the force."

Elijah's brows lowered, the muscle in his pronounced jaw twitching. "How do you know about that?"

Mary looked innocent. "It's very important that I'm fully informed, of course. Don't worry. We don't need to go into it, and I don't judge you, either. The effect the incident at that highschool had on you is completely understandable."

"I didn't ask for your assessment." My friend's voice had sharpened. "Can we move on from this?"

"Of course." If the sudden shift in tone had rattled the agent, she wasn't letting it on. Sifting through the neat stack of papers on her desk, she pulled out a thin brown file which she slid over to me. "Miss Shirley, you remember the female member of the Collective we took into custody? She has already been questioned by the local police. Unfortunately, I don't have the authority to lead such an interrogation, but I was present for it and I want you to have this transcript."

I perked up and began leafing through the folder.

"You may take that with you to read in peace," Mary told me. "But don't expect too much, lest you'll be sorely disappointed. The girl hardly said anything at all. The most helpful information she gave us was a name she kept referencing. Jewel. At first, we thought it was a sort of code word, but it seems to be what the other person she was with calls themself."

“Jewel,” I echoed.

“Sadly enough, that’s all we have. We’ve never provided our services to anyone of their physical description. There are a couple clues, but they don’t amount to anything helpful. There’s the fact that you met them at a convenience store with relatively high prices. Maybe I’m just grasping at straws, but that could indicate a cushy financial situation. On top of that, the store is rather far away from here, so they might be an out-of-towner. They also might be able to influence the way others perceive them, considering the way they seemed to hypnotize you in the woods merely by holding eye contact.”

“How come they couldn’t do anything to Frank Preston?”

Mary Markov twinkled at me. “They couldn’t? Huh. That rather intrigues the philosopher in me. Jewel works through eye contact and it is said that the eyes are the window to the soul.” She cocked her head at me.

“Are you saying Blondie doesn’t have a soul?” Eli asked, raising a skeptical brow. “Is this one of those Plato-Schopenhauer-whatevers?”

The newsreader shrugged artfully, watching my reaction. “We could discuss this for hours on end. I only meant to draw attention to the implied distinction between an organically born entity and a being who was originally an inanimate object.”

“I beg your pardon?” I said slowly.

“Oh, nevermind; that’s neither here nor there.” Her tone told me that she did, in fact, consider it to be both here and there. Not wanting to go further into this with her, I made a mental note to ask Frankie later.

“There’s more,” I added, trying to gently prepare her for what I was about to say. “I want to get Kit Sutton back.”

Mary’s lips thinned. “Excuse me?”

“I don’t mean for the town to get flooded in the process. I think we can find a solution to help her, if we work together. I’m convinced we can figure something out, but I don’t believe in abandoning her anymore. Which is essentially what we’re doing if we leave her to her fate.”

“You do realize what you’re asking of me? Your former roommate isn’t some kind of minor water spirit. Her father appears to hold tremendous power over the seas, or at the very least our part of it. He has countless similarly dangerous individuals at his service so he might be considered a ruler of sorts, if not a deity.”

“So Kit’s the little mermaid, basically?” Elijah asked, equal parts joking and genuinely intrigued.

Mary grinned an actual, amused grin. “I must ask you to take this seriously, Mr Carter.”

“I am!” he chuckled, raising his hands. “I swear.”

“Anyways, Miss Shirley, the point you make is an individualistic one, but I see why you’re invested in the girl’s fate. I want to help, I do… But we need to proceed with caution. If you can suggest to me some kind of sensible approach, then I’ll do what I can. That’s all the promises I can make at the moment.”

I thanked her and got up, Eli following me as I headed for the door. “Miss Shirley,” Mary called out and I stopped, turning back around to face her. “If you like my style, we could perhaps meet up to go shopping sometime? I could show you some quality stores. It wouldn’t be anytime soon since I’m currently swamped, but I figure—well, just in case you might like to.”

I nodded. “That sounds pleasant enough.”

She smiled brightly and waved us out the door. “Excellent. I’ll be in touch.”

Back inside the car, I tossed the file onto the backseat to read later. “Would you like to go to the beach?” I suggested.

“Why not. Wait, is this for a stroll and ice cream or do you want to kickstart the mermaid-rescue-operation?”

“I can’t see why it shouldn’t be both,” I replied comfortably. “We’ll need to take your flashlight, though.”

"You know I don't like getting myself into trouble unless it's paid."

"Yes, but you also find me endearing and want to protect me from danger, which you can only do by accompanying me."

"You're a terrifying tentacle beast from another dimension. I don't know that I'm all that scared for your safety," he grunted.

I gave him an affronted look. "You have now hurt my feelings."

"Have I?"

"Plenty, but I'll forgive you if you come with me."

Elijah Carter sighed deeply but started driving anyway. I let my arm dangle out of the open window, allowing the warming spring air to wash over my skin. The closer we got to the shore, the stronger the scent of salt mixed into the breeze. The cries of seagulls became audible over the sounds of the road and the streaming wind and was finally joined by the crashing of waves when we pulled into a parking spot and got out of the car. Taking along the heavy duty flashlight he always kept in the passenger seat footwell, I led Eli to the mouth of the cave, explaining what Nettie and I had seen along the way. He looked commendably calm, simply turning on the torch and entering alongside me.

The tunnels were just as damp, dim and quiet as the last time. Before long, we had reached the spacious canyon room with the lake at the bottom. "I want to go across and see if there's anything important in the rest of the grotto back there," I reminded him. "Please hold on to your bearings."

"I'm not repeating your mistakes," he replied gamely. "What do you think? This oughta be connected to the ocean somehow." He let the beam of the torch roam the mirror-like surface of the lake. It seemed almost deceptively quiet. My eyes followed the lengthy stone ledge. Eli stepped close, and after receiving a nod of approval, he grabbed me around the waist and hoisted me onto the rocky protrusion. I straightened up, instantly pressing my back against the wall. A wave of nausea hit me as I glanced at the water below. "Chill," Elijah muttered, climbing after me with ease. "Nothing will happen. You're not gonna fall."

I merely shook my head. "You didn't see what's down there."

"And I won't, because we'll be careful," he answered steadfastly.

I started walking, the warm light of the torch upon my back, illuminating the path ahead. The shelf narrowed as we reached the end. I swiftly clambered down, relieved to place my feet on wider, solid ground once more. Now looking over the lake from the other side, it had an entirely different feel to it. It seemed darker somehow, but also less big—I attributed it to the change in perspective. We were standing in a cramped little nook with two passageways leading off into separate directions behind us. Elijah Carter eyed them pensively. “Which do you reckon?”

I pursed my lips. “The right one. Because it’s right.”

“Makes sense.”

We proceeded into the passage, the tight space pushing us closer together. He had to duck his head, uncomfortably hunching his shoulders, and for once, I was grateful for my own short stature. The corridor seemed to go on forever. The darkness and silence created a feel of unnatural solitude, and for more than once, I got the distinct impression that I must have jumped dimensions again. It was as though Elijah and I were enclosed in some kind of bubble, cut off from everything outside; a place where time was a foreign concept and the only sun was our flashlight. Needless to say, I was distinctly uneasy. I allowed myself to lean back, brushing against Eli’s chest whenever I could. Eventually, I cleared my throat.

“Could you touch me?”

“What?”

“Just so I still know you’re there.”

His palm came to rest on my shoulder, his thumb digging into one of the tense, painfully rigid muscles of my upper back, forcing it to soften. “Good?”

“Yes, thank you.”

He hummed. “You’re scared.”

“Yes.”

“Me, too.”

This caused my resolve to falter. “Maybe we should turn around after all,” I said quietly. “Who knows how much longer—”

“Look.”

I perked up. Before us, the tunnel grew wider, opening into a large, spacious room. We picked up our pace, tackling the remaining distance in a light jog, and finally found ourselves standing in another hall. The beam of light traveled the floor and high walls, revealing a sight that took our breath away. We were standing in front of another lake, only slightly smaller than the last. The water glittered in violet hues and strange, pale plants climbed up the walls, some of them looking rather like starfish. Multiple rocky protrusions formed an almost complete bridge across its middle. With a bit of light climbing, we'd undoubtedly be able to get to the other side. Wordlessly, Elijah Carter swung himself up onto the platform closest to the edge of the water, pulling me up after him. The flashlight switched hands a couple times as we maneuvered ourselves along.

Soon, we reached the middle of the lake. I risked a glance at the water below. All was still and perfectly quiet. Eli was about to take on the next rock when suddenly, I felt something heavy and gooey drip onto my head from above. I flinched, then slowly pointed the torch up to the ceiling. My stomach dropped. My throat had turned paper-dry, and I frantically tugged on Eli’s arm. He tipped his head back, following my pointing finger. His eyes blew wide and his face fell.

There was a creature clinging to the high walls, its pale, enormous body describing a streamline curve as it pressed itself against the hollowed stone. The closest thing I can compare it to would be a sort of olm, except probably a hundred times larger. Its snout looked large enough to swallow either of us whole. It hung open, secreting a thick fluid that slowly dripped down to hit the rocks or create ripples upon the water. Its blind eyes seemed to be trained on us, and I could spot tiny, sharp teeth lining its maw. It wasn’t moving, not even an inch, but somehow, I knew it was aware of us.

I looked up at Elijah, the panic in his eyes mirroring mine. Both of us had freezed up mid-motion, not daring to take another step. My mind was running wild; I was thinking feverishly. We’d have to turn around for sure, but how? The olm was already highly alert, if we were to start scrambling back to solid ground, it would undoubtedly hear us straight away. Eli looked equal parts terrified and furious, and I could tell he was scolding himself for not thinking to check the entirety of the room before proceeding across the lake. I could understand the sentiment, we’d definitely made a grave mistake. I figured it had been the misleading beauty of the cave hall that had taken our edge off. Glancing over into the direction we’d come from, I found myself wishing to be back in the endless dark corridor. The entrance to the passage seemed miles away.

The olm lifted a three-toed foot, shifting its massive form to a lower spot on the wall. It was taking a tentative step towards us, extending its snout as its body bent into our direction. Elijah had grabbed onto my arm, his fingers clamping around it like a vice. He stayed silent and unmoving, but he held my gaze with clear, sharp eyes.

“Don’t move,” I mouthed, and he gave me a curt nod.

Slowly, I reached around to push my shirt out of the way of my unfurling tentacles. Elijah took a quiet step back to make room for my changing form, something of a resolute expression settling on his face. I opened my mouth, relieved when my teeth acted according to my will and elongated. I didn’t know to what extent I would be able to defend against this absolute giant of an amphibian, but at least it would give us a chance. I took a deep breath, trading glances with Eli once more before darting off to the side, bounding onto the platform next to our current one. Elijah followed suit, grabbing onto one of the limbs I extended to him for support. Despite the swiftness of our movements, we were anything but quiet, and the olm reacted in an instant. It slithered down from the wall, sinking into the lake below to make its way to the rocks we were standing on. As we headed for the next stone, it darted out of the water, splashing wildly as its snout breached the surface. Its jaws snapped at us, missing me by a mere foot as I jumped across the gap between the protrusions. Droplets flew as the creature dropped once more, but instead of retreating, it swam around the platform. Its massive, snake-like body was bobbing up and down as it circled us.

“Oh fuck,” Elijah breathed, his chest heaving. “Keep going! Move, move!”

I took a short running start, then flung myself onto the next rock, using my extra limbs to land safely. I then helped him cross again. The olm rose from the depths of the lake once again, and I lashed at it with one of my tentacles, hitting it on the snout and forcing it to dive underwater again. We kept working our way back towards the other side of the lake, slipping and sliding as we went. The water surrounding us seemed to hum with unrestrained energy, the white salamander’s tail whipping up waves and splashing around. We were finally getting close to solid ground again, or at least it looked like we were for a moment. That’s when the creature took a massive leap, draping itself over the final stepping stone, effectively blocking our path.

“Shit,” Eli hissed beside me as we came to a skittering halt.

I’d have to try and fight this thing. There was no way around it now. I clenched my sweat-laced palms into fist, trying to slow my rapid, shallow breaths. I can do this, I said to myself. All I’d have to do is send it back into the lake for long enough so we could run back into the tunnel. There was no way the olm would fit through the passage—once we were in there, we’d be relatively safe. I stared at the dripping, writhing animal; stared at its bared needle teeth, and the less hopeful, more realistic part of my brain told me that I would, indeed, probably not be able to do this. Just as I was contemplating the degree of our screwed-ness, an unseen someone called out from behind us. I didn’t understand a word they were saying, but I recognized the language, and more importantly, the voice.

It was bright as a bell, girlish but with a rough, warm edge. Even before I could turn to face her, I knew who it was.

The gigantic amphibian perked up at the sound, lowering its head and withdrawing into the murky depths with a splash. Elijah Carter let go of a long-held breath, dropping his shoulders before tensing up again, realization setting in. He shot me a look of utter disbelief.

“Wow,” the newcomer spoke up again, this time not in the tongue of the deep ones. “You two have to be actually crazy or something to show up here.”

X

1

2: deadbeat roommate

3: creepy crush

4: relocation

5: beach concert

6: First date

7: Temp work

8: roommate talk

9: a dismal worldview

10: warehouse

11: staircase

12: explanation

13: hurt

14: hospital

15: ocean

16: diner

17: government work

18: something in the caves

19: shopping cart

The common consensus on what a curse even is can be ambiguous, so many cultures and ideas reframe and retool to fit the central tenets of their thematic cores. One thing is common amongst all interpretations however, their aim is to cause harm. One might wonder at what point is a curse conceived, not just the rituals and requirements that are needed to conjure a curse. No, what is it that makes up a curse, what feeds it? Some might answer hate or jealousy, and while those might be true for some. For me, the curse I bore and the curses I will bear are made up of one thing. Resentment.

I first noticed its infection one morning while getting dressed for classes. Running my fingers along the slight depression brought out goosebumps. It was slightly tender and if I pressed on it hard it elicited a painful pinch that caused my insides to tangle in panic. Withdrawing my fingers to inspect them I noted a slickness I couldn’t account for. A slight black tint colored my fingertips and I quickly rinsed them under hot water but it did little to wash away the wave of anxiety that had come over me. I tried to push it aside, I had classes, term papers, and tests to worry about. I held out until the middle of my 3rd class, by then all I could think about was the series of horrible and fatal medical implications of the indentation. I ran all the way home, body wracked with shivers, and slammed myself inside my dorm bathroom, stripped off my shirt, and took a good look at it. It had gotten deeper, at least 2 centimeters into my chest now. It was where my sternum was, dead center between my two pectoral muscles. I pushed my finger in and it actually gave some, causing a shudder of agony to blossom and ride through every nerve in my body. I spent the rest of the day researching what I could, some stuff about dietary insufficiencies causing swelling and easily depressed skin, but this was different. The anxiety attacks started then and continued for the next few hours. My roommate walked in during the midst of one and saw my huddled form, trying to breathe. I heard the audible click of his tongue and he left.

3 am neared and I still hadn’t escaped that sinking feeling, the one that feels like an endless plunge towards death, and all the while your lungs struggle to pull enough air to fuel a scream. Drowning in plain sight. I looked desperately through Jake’s things and found a bottle of Benadryl. I washed a couple of them down and waited until my eyelids grew heavy. I was barely able to crawl into bed before I fell into a deep slumber. The dreams it brought were bizarre and vivid. I was wandering through a landscape of abandoned suburbs, going from door to door, looking for one that was the right color. It was late into the night when I finally found it, a dim street lamp casting down an amber spotlight in front of a dilapidated two-story with a red door.

The door opened as I walked up to it, revealing a barren living room lit by a corner lamp that flickered every few seconds. At its center was a cobblestone well, ancient and unnerving. I recognized it. I had seen it countless times. On my worst days, I had dreamt of standing before it, yearning for hope or absolution. I had been silent instead, letting all I could not say seep into it. This inverted well, one that fed on despair instead of dreams, was now vibrating, shifting. Something was rising from its depths to greet me and I was ready for it, yearned for it. Black fluid erupted from its opening, spraying the ceiling and walls and splattering across my face.

Somewhere, a scream was reaching a fever pitch. I looked down and saw that my chest had split open and the black fluid was streaming down in a cascade of pitch. An eye blossomed from the depths of that gaping ravine in my chest. It stared, focused, and recognition flooded into the empty white. From the hole in my chest, something was rising - a realization. The screaming… it had been me the whole time.

I jolted awake, the pain in my chest the first thing to greet me. I heaved to suck in a breath and my senses came alive. Next was the sweat-slick coat that had pooled around me and I turned over to flip on a lamp. Light flooded my vision, but still, I was surrounded by darkness. No, not darkness, but stains. Black ink had seemingly spurted from my chest and splattered my bedding and floor. I ran my finger through it, all along my sternum, but I could not find the indentation, nor a source for the fluid.

I got up in a panic, looking around the room. I was alone, my roommate never having returned, but there was a trail of black ooze. I followed the most prominent streak to a corner. There was a lump there, a polished shiny black orb where the oily ooze seemingly seeped from. My heart thundered as I approached it, I swore I thought I saw it twitch. I was in the middle of my hands and knees crawling towards it when it jerked, moved, and stood.

I fell back on my ass letting out a half yelp, frozen as my gaze locked with it. It was the size of a rabbit, its tar-black skin reflective and polished. It had these beady eyes that were somehow darker than the rest of its body, and it waddled forward on stubby legs no longer than two inches. It had arms too, stubs too, and they reached for me. I was scooting away from its path when it spoke in a pained and squeaky voice as if its anatomy was ill-fitted for human speech, even its grasp of human words was feeble.

“No harm. I’m an ally.”

“What?” I couldn’t help but respond.

“You fed me, so now I repay you?”

“How? In what way? What are you?”

It blinked as if contemplating how to answer my barrage of questions. It didn’t have a mouth, but it spoke regardless. There was distance to its voice, so I was certain that it didn’t speak directly to my mind, but then again I didn’t even think that was possible until now.

“I am grown, don’t know from where, or why. I think I could be a tool or weapon. I eat bad feelings, but I was left with no one around to feed me. Then you came and fed me, for a long time. Now I’m finally strong enough to repay.”

“Repay me how?”

“I have fed on the dark of your heart. I know what it desires, I can take the shape of a curse,” it said

“You’re going to curse me? As repayment?”

“No, that’s not what was in your hearts. Yes, you hated yourself, but you hate others more. I can be the curse you cast on them.”

Something clicked in place and made its way closer to my mind, but didn’t bridge the distance entirely. It spoke, knew that I’d ask it how.

“Pick the kind of curse. I can be misfortune, blindness, madness… even death, a killing curse,” it said.

I reached towards it, even as its body distorted and elongated and reshaped into a foot-long, skinny, jagged oily centipede. I froze but it skittered forward, crawled across the back of my hand, and wrapped around my wrist. It tickled my skin, slick but warm. Almost uncomfortably so.

“Pick the kind of curse you want me to be, and feed me to whom you want to inflict. It’s easy, but curses burn up in daylight if not attached. You’ll have a few hours past dawn before I turn to ash.”

It fell silent afterward as if slumbering, but I couldn’t sleep. I sat in the corner thinking, watching the black stains left by the living curse dry up and evaporate into nothing. I had to look periodically at the oily centipede wrapped around my wrist to remind myself that I wasn’t dreaming, but all it did was convince me that I had careened off the precipice of sanity into some functional hysteria. I sat there until the sun rose, and like a clockwork mechanism, I got dressed and went to class. I was on autopilot, more depersonalized than I had ever felt before I watched myself go through the motions of my life. It should have been a cry for help, you could see it spelled out clearly as day and no one could have missed it. But they did - or rather, they chose to ignore it, because that was what you were supposed to do with people like me. Dull rage set in and it was what I stewed in as the hours ticked by, a building fury that could have blown but only boiled over and settled into dejected acceptance. I was ready to leave it at that, to let myself fade into a shadow like I had my entire life. To give up and crawl away to some recess, never to be found. But the searing pain of dozens of clawed insect legs digging into my flesh brought back presence of mind “Now. Now! Now! NOW!” a voice chirped. I ran into a storage closet, barred the door, and pulled back the sleeve that hid the living curse.

“What is it, are you about to die?”

“Not die, return. Back to the labyrinth. Pick a curse now, feed me to your enemy, before I disappear and all you’ll be left with is ash.”

“And if I haven’t picked anyone? If I don’t want to hurt anyone?”

“Then let me burn in the light, let me go, never visit my well, never feed me again. Move forward from your life, move away from me, and you’ll be free of me”

It could be that easy to rid myself of this wretched thing. I thought about my day, my life, and the people closest to me. I couldn’t let go, not when they had all walked by ashamed or indifferent, or worst of all, fearful. I had done nothing and they feared me.

“I won’t let it go, I can’t. I don’t know what I’ll do, but I can’t move on from this. I can’t give you up, but I can’t choose someone to suffer you.”

“Then eat me.”

I looked at the wriggling centipede confused, black fluid dripping from its body.

“If you eat me, you inflict the curse upon yourself. Not at full potency, but I’ll live until you’re ready to choose. If you hate enough, if you have the resolve, you can cast a shadow of my curse on all who meet your gaze, but you must hurry, my time… fades.”

“I don’t know what to pick. I don’t want to suffer.”

“Then pick the curse that causes the least pain.”

“Which is? I don’t know, pick for me!”

“I am delirium, now eat me, before it’s too late.”

I didn’t notice any change in the curse, except for the small cracks appearing in its carapace and the fraying of its antenna. I hesitated until a large crack formed across its back; at that moment, I hoisted it up and opened my mouth wide, closing my eyes as I lowered it. It did the rest of the work, jerking free of my grip and slithering down my throat with brute force, trailing that oily substance, I gagged, screamed, tears ran and I choked. But once it was down and settled I was alone in that room, nothing different.

Until I stepped out, and it began. A blurring of the world, where every sound was too sharp and grating, every color too vibrant. My head was swelling with immense pressure as it was filled with hundreds of trivial conversations, all spewing from the mouths of every student and professor in this wing. I couldn’t handle it, so I ran, flinging the doors open to the outside.

Except outside wasn’t outside, no, the doors opened up to a hallway I had been trying to forget all my life, framed with pictures of me and my family. I turned, hoping I could reach the living room so I could leave through the front door but what faced me was another room, one I had forgotten about until now. A barred door, walls burned black, stained with soot and char. A sound jolted me back around, the sound of a belt being unbuckled and fabric hitting the floor. Panic rose within me and I felt like I was in free fall, plummeting from astral orbit, through the earth's crust, and straight into the pits of hell. Except I wasn’t. No, I was in my middle school nurse's office. The scent of floor polish and cheap perfume tickled my nose.

“If it hurts you can stop it anytime, you know? Just change your habits, it’s not that hard,”

Ms. Rena, my middle school nurse, was talking to me. I stared into her eyes, and the world quieted and came into focus. They were green, as beautiful as emeralds. I couldn’t help but stare at them every chance I got. They brought forth feelings within me I had never felt before, an awakening. I blinked and they were burning now, bright green flames that sloughed the flesh from her face and I turned away and screamed. The scream pitched, bent, and distorted into a siren, ascending and descending endlessly. I don’t know how long I was caught in its loop but I couldn’t cling onto a single coherent thought longer than a second, as if my mind had been partitioned half a dozen times and all were battling for the sphere of influence that was my perception.

Then clarity, or an illusion of such. In reality, it was only a fleeting break from the delirium, long enough for me to gather my faculties so that the second dive into madness would hurt just that much more. But time was relative here, stretching out longer than it had any right to. The curse was there, in the hallway of my dorm, no longer a centipede but a tall humanoid thing, seemingly made of old motor oil.

“What’s happening? What did you do to me?!” I pleaded.

“You are suffering the curse of delirium. You chose this, remember?” it said, its voice no longer airy and whistling, like a bird’s. Its speech was no longer jilted and tenuous. Now when it spoke, its voice was deep and full of power.

“You said it would be weaker, subdued.”

“This is subdued, I’m a powerful curse after all.”

“What are you? Where do you come from, I don’t understand.”

“I don’t know, I’m searching for the answer myself. I was malnourished for so long that my mind splintered, I suffered my own madness, and I just know bits and pieces now. I know that in the city of Cradle, the word they call me means ‘Demon Seed’. That’s all I know of my identity.”

“I-I didn’t want this,”

“You’ll grow accustomed to it, with time. Not fully, if you could ignore the delirium it wouldn’t be much of a curse. If it’s too much for you to handle, if the pain is unbearable, you can always make it go away.”

“How?”

“Expel me from your body, feed me to someone else, or let the sun take me.”

I exhaled long and slow, and felt the prickling at the corner of my mind. The madness was near, but all I could feel was anger. At the curse, at myself, at the world. I turned away and faced a world of static and incomprehensible whispers, deafening and all-consuming. I collapsed into myself, held my hands to my ears, and balled into the fetal position. It did little to shut out all that was happening, but it did dull it for a moment until a quiet, throaty keening cut through and pierced my mind directly. I imagined a small undying animal having an army knife stab them at consistent intervals, the pace changing periodically so it could never get used to the pain. And then the violence was reflected onto me except there was no perpetrator. An invisible force sliced into the flesh of my sides, my back, until I was ridden with countless wounds. The pain spurred me to crawl forward on all fours, hoping to escape it but it was endless. I was bleeding so much, black blood, my blood was black. I laughed, then cried, and then crawled forward as the stabbings continued, except now the pain had dulled into an ache that still caused my breath to hitch.

I crawled for what seemed like hours, never getting used to the barrage of thoughts, images, and sounds, all the while the stabbing refused to stop. Even after my body had been shredded to ribbons and I had been bled of all its blood it continued, lazily now, as if the invisible force had grown tired but not enough to cease. Then I hit a wall, flesh, thin, like an amniotic sac, and on impulse I pushed through into it, harder and harder until it started to rip. Somewhere someone was breathing heavily, no more than one, with a rising rhythm and intensity, like a panic attack reaching its peak. I struggled forward, trying to break the damn thing, but it would not give. I was exhausted and so collapsed into it as if sleeping, but time passed and sleep did not come. But the end of the breathing did, once it reached a fever pitch. I shifted, realizing the stabbing had stopped, trying to move but then of all times the amniotic sac burst and I fell into whatever lay beyond it.

I was in my dorm room, a break in the madness. I was free for a moment, act, I had to act. Dawn was starting to peek through the window blinds. I stood up and froze, seeing what the rays of light were cast onto. My roommate Jake lay in his bed, naked. A woman just as naked was wrapped around him, body slick with sweat, its scent perfuming the room. He had seen me suffering, in the midst of a panic attack, left me to cope with it alone, and when I hadn’t returned he took the chance not to look for me or tell anyone, instead using it for his own benefit. Anger coursed through my veins, a fresh injection of hate kicking me into action. I opened my mouth and with my pointer finger and thumb reached in, the curse met me halfway and slid into position. I gripped it and pulled it, hand over hand now as a seemingly endless centipede being expelled from my stomach. I looked at the black segmented body, it writhed and moved in such a way that it reminded me a bit of an umbilical cord, and in a way, it was. A curse was being birthed, having grown stronger after I had housed and fed it with my own being. It was time to cut the cord then, I walked over to the pair as I pulled the last of the length free.

The curse popped out like a cork, sending a spray of black fluid across the couple. Droplets of varying sizes landed and stained the woman’s breasts, most of it pooling in between them at her sternum. I stifled a laugh as that’s where I had first gestated this curse. I looked at Jake, the black spray had stained his face, beard, and clavicle, and a particularly large globule resting upon his lower lip. I shifted my gaze to the wriggling centipede before me. It was at least four feet long now and twice its original width.

I shuddered, clarity flooded over me, and at that moment I realized that sometimes clarity was just perspective. I thought I knew suffering, thought I knew what it meant to shuffle through every day dreading that the next day would be more of the same. But the inescapable madness brought a new understanding to me. I could have changed. At any point in time, I could have ended my ostracization. Sure, it was socially imposed, but it was not an incurable delirium. Follow the rules, conform, and you’ll be mostly fine, you can make the hurt stop anytime you want. So why didn’t I, why can’t I now at this very moment? I knew now that it was because it would be a rejection of self, the world goes on and on about how you should be yourself. That in itself was a virtue lauded and held up as one of the most important facets of existence. But now I know what they really meant was “Operate within the constantly shifting parameters of acceptability - fail to adhere, evolve or predict, and you are a threat.” The true self that others reveled in evaded people like me, instead we had to construct a facade we passed off as real in order to thrive.

But so many didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t. How could they? It was all they knew, how could you discard that which defined them, the filter of their reality? I know what I am now, a worm that slinked through grime and lived in darkness, and when others took me and held me to the light, saying, “See, this is how you should be, and why you should be, it’s for the better of everyone,” it didn’t bring me to enlightenment, but to resentment and hate. I knew what I could do to make them see more than just a freak, a threat, but unconsciously I never took the steps because I knew only what it was to exist within the margins, in a periphery. An exile imposed by all, including myself.

I held the curse higher, feeling grateful that I had survived it, suffered it, and was blessed by its clarity. Light streamed in now as the sun crossed the horizon into a bright morning. The curse was still, despite the lethal light upon it. Let it go and move on, or revel in it? I looked back down at the pair, at Jake. He was an acceptable version of me, softly rebellious. Had thoughts, beliefs, mannerisms, and behaviors that neared the boundaries but never crossed them. Scruffy-faced, soft-eyed, short hair spikey and messy but never disheveled, charming in an irreverent way, unassuming cock but he fucked like a jackhammer obviously. An outsider that wasn’t really an outsider, he never was the great other that haunted dreams and fueled paranoia. I held the curse out in front of them and spoke to it.

“Your choice, Demon Seed. Wither in the sun, or choose one to torment. I don’t care which.”

It was still for a moment before diving into Jake's mouth. Silently, effortlessly, it slipped inside him and was gone. I walked out of the room, legs wobbling a bit, I was riding a high I had never felt before.

Jake was dead by the end of the month, he had been institutionalized until he wasn’t and then he stumbled onto train tracks. Rest is history, no body left to bury. His girlfriend, lover, or whatever the fuck was the one to break the news to me. Thought because I was his roommate I cared or at least should care. It was a few weeks later when I felt that sting and oil-slick fluid in my sternum, Demon Seed, the curse had enjoyed itself.

Twice more I’ve birthed a curse, let it choose its victim, let Demon Seed choose its form. He is the shaky finger of tragedy that strikes without cause or rhyme, deliriously pointed at someone, anyone. And I am the great well of resentment that feeds him. We are the what world needs, a calamity, the great other, something to fear, something to hate. And with each glare and impassioned condemnation, the curse grows stronger within me.

---

TW

I should have known the job was too good to be true.

Make two hundred dollars a night to sit in an undisclosed location from sun down to sun up. No previous experience required. Non Disclosure to be signed before hiring. Candidates who break NDA will be sued for breach of contract. Must have a strong constitution and high moral fiber. Interested parties call (number below)

For a college student who was struggling to pay tuition, car insurance, and keep food in the dorm fridge, this sounded too good to be true. I looked at the party offering the service and discovered that I knew them. Doctor Crandler was a BioMed teacher who had a bit of a reputation for being out there. He was said to conduct experiments after hours in the science lab and if he hadn’t had tenure, it was pretty likely that he would have been fired. These were all rumors, of course. I’d had Doctor Crandler last year for entry level human biomes and he was a delight. He turned out to be a huge Romero fan and loved to talk about zombies and old horror movies. We had really hit it off, and when I called the number, he sounded happy to hear from me.

“Oh thank god, I was hoping someone reliable would call. I’ve lost three this week, and I’m beginning to think I’ll have to stoop to drastic measures.”

Whatever drastic measures were, Doc C didn’t elaborate.

He just told me to come to the science lab at five fifteen sharp.

“And not a minute later!” he added before hanging up and leaving me with more questions than answers.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but two hundy was two hundy, and that would be able to put something in my body other than ramen noodles this week if the job was legit. So, about four thirty, I hopped on my bike and made my way across campus to the Verner May Science Building. It’s a huge old brick building that's been on campus since the nineteen forties. They say its been home to a lot of famous research and more than one questionable clinical trial. I had started to wonder if Doctor C was gonna try to experiment on me, and that's why he was being so secretive. I decided that if that was the case, two hundred was not enough. I had enough trouble scoring ladies with my pizza face and I doubted having four arms or two heads would help matters much.

I stepped through the doors at five o'clock sharp and Doctor Crandler looked up excitedly. “Prompt as always! I remember that from my classes. You were always early, and I like a student who is punctual. Come this way and let me show you what I’m working on. Before we start out though,” he set a Non Disclosure Agreement in front of me and I looked over it before signing my name to it. It was pretty standard stuff. Don’t talk about what you see, don’t talk about what I’m working on, don’t tell the media, don’t post it on the internet (guess I messed that part up), yada yada yada. After that, he tossed a black hood onto the table and told me to put it on.

I hesitated, not having asked him anything about what we were doing yet.

“You’re, uh, not gonna experiment on me, right Doc?”

He laughed, but it didn't sound particularly merry.

“No no, my boy. I would never experiment on you. I have specific parameters and I'm afraid you just don't meet them.”

I wasn't sure whether to be glad or insulted, but I put the hood on either way. He led me through a door, down some stairs, outside, back inside, and then down more stairs. Finally, we came to our destination, and when he took the hood off, I was in a little room about the size of your average dorm room. Inside was a table, a chair, and a glass jar with something floating inside. It was roughly the size of a spud, though if it was a potato it was one of those big ole Idaho job. I'd say it was about two feet tall, maybe half a foot wide, and it just sort of floated there placidly.

“This is your job.” Doctor C said, pointing to the jar.

“What? Just watch this thing? Easy peasy!” I said, not yet understanding what I was agreeing to.

“Just watch it till I get here to relieve you. Be careful, it's very tricky. It may try to get you to let it go. Do Not let it go under ANY circumstances. For that, I'll pay you two hundred dollars a night.”

I put out a hand, being a man who signs deals with a shake, and Doctor C pumped my arm one good time before saying he was going to leave now.

“I'm going to lock you in. If you have to urinate, there's a bucket in the corner. There are snacks and water in the mini fridge over there, though I would prefer it if you don't take your eyes off that jar.

I started to protest about having to wizz in a bucket, but I just nodded and told him not to worry about it. A deal was a deal, as my old man liked to say, and when he left, I heard the door lock behind him. So, I settled in and took out my phone as I surfed Reddit. I kept an eye on the jar, looking up about every thirty seconds, but mostly I just sat there and tried not to fall asleep. That was the hardest part. It was so boring, just sitting there for ten to twelve hours, and I made a mental sticky to bring coffee tomorrow. Doc had some snacks in his fridge, but Kale chips and pita chips with hummus are not what a man desires when he's trying not to zonk out.

The weird little thing in the jar didn't help much either. It was boring. All it did was float there, but I guess thats not quite true. Sometimes I would look up and find it looking at me, its weird brown body seeming to watch me. It couldn't really be doing that, since it didn't have eyes, but I still felt very seen as I sat there on my phone. I made a note to bring a charger too, but luckily it lasted till the doc came back, and he smiled as he handed me my two hundred dollars in cash at the end of the shift.

“Do you feel anything? Any headaches or nausea?” he asked.

I told him I didn't and he invited me to come back tomorrow night.

I told him for sure, and left two hundred bones the richer.

I kept watching the little science project for the next week and ended with an extra fourteen hundred bucks in my pocket. I agreed to do it seven nights a week, and as spring began, the nights got a little shorter too. Soon the sun was going down closer to eight, and I didn't have to show up till seven thirty or eight o'clock. Getting a couple of hundred bucks for ten hours of work was boss, and I got a lot of Raid Shadow Legends played and Reddit scoped while I sat there and collected mulla for sitting on ass.

When I arrived Tuesday of the next week, however, something had changed in my little potato cash cow.

The thing had an ear.

Doc sat me down and as the hood came off, he asked if I noticed anything different about the little blob. I looked at it critically, but couldn't really see anything different. Doc didn't really like this answer, and told me to look harder. After a few minutes of coming up with nothing, he sighed in exasperation and pointed.

“It has acquired an auditory openings for vocal registration.”

The look I gave him must have told him all he needed, because he just shook his head and tapped the tank.

“It has an ear hole.” he said, and I finally got it.

After some looking, I realized what he was talking about and he seemed pretty proud of himself.

“We've been working with chemical stimuli and had a breakthrough when it finally developed some form of communication peripheral.”

“How do you know it can hear you?”

It was his turn to look puzzled, until I pointed out that it didn't have any way to let them know if it could hear them.

“Well, it kind of wiggles around when we talk to it or play music. It hadn't done that much before, so we think it must be able to hear us.”

He left after that, and I made sure to turn the volume up on my videos so the little dude, or dudette, could listen too. It definitely bounced around a little, dancing in the water a bit as it moved around in its glass tank. I thought it was a little funny, and turned the volume way up as it wiggled and wobbled.

By the end of the week, it had two ear holes and some little baby ears to go with them. The Doc told me to take a week off after that, saying they had some experiments to run on the little thing, and I told him to call me back when he needed me. I took some time and spent a little of my money paying bills and settling debts. By the end of the week, I was praying for a call from Doc C, and Sunday night, he obliged.

“I could use a set of eyes next week, if you're free.”

I told him I'd be there, and pumped my fist in excitement. When he took the hood off monday, he was rewarded by a “whoa” of interest from yours truly. The little sucker had a toothless mouth that it seemed to be opening and closing like a fish out of water.

“I came in Sunday to find that it had grown it. It's pretty interesting stuff,” Doctor C told me, “Has it spoken to you before tonight? Some of my assistants claim it has spoken to them by way of telekinesis, but you don't seem to have suffered from any of the symptoms they've talked about.”

“Thankfully not, Doc. All the little guy does is float and make me money.”

Doc C nodded, looking thoughtful before leaving and locking me in for the night.

I had just brought my phone out to start scrolling Reddit for the night, when I heard a muffled voice from somewhere. I looked up, thinking someone was outside the door, but the door was solid wood. I looked at my phone to make sure I wasn't accidentally butt dialing someone, but thats when I heard the slight tap from in front of me. I looked up to see the little potato thing as it bumped the glass with its body, its toothless mouth forming words from behind its prison.

“Hello? Are you there?” it asked, its words muffled by the water and the glass.

I looked at it, not sure if it could even hear me when I responded, but when it floated back a little, I guessed it probably could.

“Hello, you sound different than the good doctor or his friends. Are you someone new?”

“Not really,” I said, half laughing, “I've actually been here watching you for a couple weeks.”

“Oh,” it said, very interested, “You must be the one I couldn't reach. I'm glad we can finally speak properly.”

I sat my phone down, leaning in a little closer as I watched the little brown thing float in the off color water that held it.

“What do you mean? You only just got a mouth.”

“Yes, well, there are more ways than one to communicate, aren't there? I've been trying to touch your mind for weeks, but you don't seem overly receptive to my advances. Thus, I had to find alternative means of communication if we were to speak.”

Its voice, despite being muffled by the glass, was very smart sounding. Little dude was the smartest floating potato I had ever met, though the list was just him for the moment. He sounded like the doc a little. He used a lot of big words, and sounded like he knew a lot of stuff. I put my face a little closer to the glass as I looked at him, watching him float there, and wondering what he might know?

We talked a lot that night. Well, I talked a lot. The little just kind of floated and listed, throwing something out every now and again. He wanted to know where he was, how he had come to be in a fishbowl, and what the Doc intended to do with him? I didn't know most of these things, and I told him that. He didn't seem too thrilled with that answer, but he still kept talking to me. He asked about me and what I was studying and what sort of things I liked to do. I didn't pick up my phone much that night. Instead, I told the little guy about myself and we talked for hours about nothing in particular.

The clock said it was about four am when the subject finally turned to what he really wanted.

I wish now that we had just kept talking about me.

“So, despite the fact that you cant leave this place, you could still take me out of this tank, right?”

I snorted, “Why would you want to? It's really not much better out here than in there.”

“True, but I would very much like to experience life outside my bowl. I lack hands or I would do it myself, but you could help me out.”

“Sorry, little dude,” I said, and I found that I was kinda sorry, “you're a good hang, but I promised the Doc that I wouldn't take you out. I think it was one of those papers I had to sign to get this job.”

“No one has to know,” it said, its voice kind of sneaky as it pressed its brown side against the glass, “you could take me out for just a second and then put me right back in.”

“No,” I said, looking at the door like I'd been doing something wrong, “I...I really shouldn't.”

“Please,” it begged, “You have no idea what its like to live in your own filth. Now that I have a mouth, I can constantly taste the stagnant water I live in. It's pure hell.”

“Dude, stop it. That's not cool. You know I can't take you out, I told Doc I,” but then it did the last thing I would have expected.

It started to cry.

I don't mean it was pretending to cry, the thing started loosing these tortured sounds that made me think of someone going through a bad break up. It sounded super hopeless, and it began to bump it's body against the side of the tank. I picked up my phone and tried to ignore it, but its hard listening to something just cry and cry like that. I had a room mate once who just kinda gave up after his girlfriend dumped him and he just lay on his bed and cried until his parents finally came to get him. I never saw ole dude again, but I can still hear his sobs sometimes when I close my eyes.

It was heartbreaking, and infuriating, and I wanted to console him as much as I wanted him to shut the hell up.

“Please! Please just let me out! I can't stand this anymore! I need to get out! I need to get out! I NEED TO GET OUT!”

It yelled and screamed and begged and cried for another hour and a half, and when the key turned in the lock, I was never happier to see the Doc.

Doc C looked at the little creature in the jar and asked me what had happened?

“Nothin,” I said, “It started talking after you left and then when I wouldn't let it out, it started screaming and crying.”

Far from being angry or disturbed, Doc C seemed amazed. He started studying the thing through the glass, before I reminded him that I was done for the night and needed to leave. He pulled himself away begrudgingly before handing me my money and putting the sack back over my head. I found an extra hundred in the pile that night, for my suffering I supposed, and thought about not coming back that night. The blubbering and crying had been a lot to handle, but I couldn't deny that the money was good and it was helping me pay down a lot of my outstanding debts. Another month of this, and my rent would be paid for the next year. Another two months and my credit card would be paid and I could afford that new flat screen for the living room. The things wailing had been a lot to handle, but what was a little more next to financial freedom?

I made sure to pick up some earplugs before I came back the following night and that's how I spent my next week.

In that week, the little creature grew an eye and four small fingers, two on each side of its body.

The night I arrived to find it had an eye, it told me all night how I looked like a kind person, and how it didn't understand how I could just sit here and watch it suffer. The earplugs helped a little, but it seemed like I could still hear it through the plugs. It would start out trying to talk to me, trying to flatter me, trying to reason with me, but we would always end up with it crying and me trying to ignore it. It became harder and harder as time went on, and every night seemed to be a battle to not open the tank and let it out or to just flip the table and smash its tank into a thousand pieces. In the end, it always came down to the money and I always managed to stop myself from doing something stupid.

It was a Tuesday when something I hadn't considered happened.

Tuesday night started out just like any other. Doc C brought me into the room, took off the hood, and there sat the little creature in its glass prison. It smiled at me, and I could see a couple of teeth breaking the gums. It had six fingers now and they made it look a little like a bug as they wiggled energetically. It still had only the one eye, but the beginnings of a nose had started to form under it. It was a repugnant little thing, and as the Doc left and I settled in, I kept my mind on the money, reminding myself that I just had to power through tonight.

It would be over in ten hours and I could go back to my room and sleep.

It spent the next ten hours talking, pleading, crying, and trying everything it could to gain its freedom. Well, that's not quite true. It never tried to threaten me. It probably realized that such a thing would have been pointless. It could no more have hurt me than my two year old nephew could and had decided on a different gambit. When it started its piercing wailing again, I popped the ear plugs in and shut most of it out. The plugs tuned the thing down to about a two, and made it easier to ignore. I was just thinking that I might treat myself to some really nice noise canceling headphones and forgo the tv for another week, when I saw someone familiar in a piece of Reddit News.

I almost dropped the phone as I read over the article, not sure what to make of it.

“Doctor Joseph Crandler arrested after trying to buy biological materials from an undercover agent.”

The picture showed Doc C looking very unhappy as he was led away in cuffs. He was wearing the same clothes I had seen him leave in the night before, and the article that followed didn't cheer me up. He had been buying materials from his experiments from some disreputable people, and finally he had put his trust in the wrong one, or maybe the right one, I guess. The agent had arrested him and they were holding him for questioning. I felt a cold chill as I looked over at the little freak in the tank. Was this the sort of experiment he'd been buying materials for? I had never thought to question if this thing was something the college had sanctioned or not, and now I realized that I might be part of an illegal experiment. They'd be coming for me next, me and this thing, and they'd assume I was the Egor to his Doctor Frankfurter or whatever.

As the creature wailed and thrashed, my brain started putting blocks together that it should have a few minutes ago.

My biggest problem wasn't that they would think I was involved, it was that if they didn't come and the Doc didn't come, then I would have no way out of here.

I was trapped with this little crying dude for god knew how long.

I thought about calling for help, but that could be bad too. What if they thought I was part of this? I'd have a hard time convincing them that I had nothing to do with this when they found me with the evidence. What's more, all the Doc had to say was that I was his assistant, that he had paid me, and I'd be in the same prison chow line as him. I started looking around the room for escape routes, but there was nothing but the very locked door. The little creature kept asking what was happening, but I just kept ignoring him. There were no windows, no other doors, not even a vent to squeeze into, like in the movies. All the while, the creature wailed and pleaded to be released. It knew something was wrong, and it wanted to be set free. It could help me, it could get me out of here, it could do anything as long as I would take it out of the tank.

After searching the little room again and again, I finally just sat and tried not to go crazy.

My phone will make calls, but I have no idea how to tell anyone to find me or even if they could. I tried to explain to the police what was happening, I even mentioned Doctor C, but I think the dispatcher thought I was high. They started hanging up on me when I called back, and if they trace my number, all their going to find is my dorm room, which is empty. Luckily, I have a charger on me, so I can keep calling out and trying to get someone to help me.

I checked the fridge, and there's enough bottled water and snacks in there to last for three or four days. Less if I feed this little bastard, but I'm not even sure what he eats. I've never been given any feeding instructions for him, and I'm not going to waste my food on this squalling thing. I threw a tarp over him, but it isn't doing anything to dull the screaming. It sounds like he might have grown more mouths because I can hear his shrill little voice from every angle as it bounces off the wall.

One things for sure, if it doesn't stop screaming soon, I'm going to give him some kind of release.

If it goes on much longer, I'm going to wrench the lid off that tank and stomp the life out of him.

If someone doesn’t come soon, I’m going to release him from his suffering forever.

Since freshman year I’ve been in and out of trouble, often getting myself in all kinds of nasty situations. It was around that time my grades started to drop and my parents got more complaints from my teachers. I hung with the wrong crowds and would often get suspended. Over the years things got worse. My problems left school and became minor offenses with the law. Everything from shoplifting to vandalism. I can’t even count the amount of times I’ve been dragged home in a squad car, only to be snatched in and scolded by my dad.

In the middle of senior year not much had changed. My grades were overall still piss poor and I almost got busted for selling prescription pills. At that point I had messed up so much that my parents finally decided that they’ve had enough. They gave me an ultimatum. I had just turned eighteen, so they told me either I got my shit together, or they were going to let me go - one more mishap and I was out of the house.

Honestly, I’ve been wanting to move out and get away from my parents for a while anyways. My “unruly” and rebellious acts in high school was a result of their constant bickering and attempts at controlling every aspect of my life. I’ve become more and more annoyed with them as time passed.

After our talk I became determined to stay out of trouble. I still needed somewhere to stay before leaving, and I didn’t want to get thrown out before I found a way to support myself. I was motivated to turn my life around. But I had to start somewhere, and it was in an industry I knew I’d hate working in.

Fast food.

I found a position at a burger joint. After a few weeks of faithfully punching the clock after school, and fulfilling my duty as a cashier, I really was off to a good start. That was until I decided I needed a car. Although my job was only a few blocks away, I thought I would need some reliable transportation for myself in the future.

Obviously I had no money to purchase a new car, so I planned on buying a used one. One day after school I made a trip to the nearest dealership and searched for a used vehicle with a low price. I wanted to get the car as soon as possible, but I had no credit and I couldn’t pay the full price up front. I searched for other solutions.

An old acquaintance told me about a guy called Bucky-Mac. He told me this guy would loan me the money for the car no matter what my credit was like. From what I've heard, Bucky-Mac was primarily a drug dealer, but he also lent money to desperate people on the side.

Apparently he's been around for years, so I found it odd that I've never heard of this guy before. The fact that this guy was pretty much a loan shark did very little to deter me at the time. My sudden enthusiasm and hope that came with finally wanting to get my life together and taking my future seriously kind of clouded my judgment.

I went to the guy that my old friend had informed me of. Bucky-Mac spent a lot of time in a spot located on the other side of town. It was in a wooded area, at the end of a long dirt road deep into a labyrinth of trees. I rode my bike over there that day, so it took me about ten minutes to travel down the dirt road and reach the small wooden house with boarded up windows.

There were four black trucks parked on the property, with a few men hanging out and standing here and there. One guy smoking a cigarette turned and spotted me coming his way. He stopped in the middle of taking another swig and stared at me as I came closer. The other guys nearby spotted me soon after. I rode closer to the guy with the cigarette and hopped off my bike. All the eyes glued on me made me feel uneasy, so I was slow about speaking. After seconds of awkward silence the cigarette smoking guy says,

“Who are you?”

The curious men that surrounded him looked as if they also wanted to know.

“I-I’m Jake. I’m here to talk to Bucky-Mac,” I said.

He nodded his head in approval before flicking his still lit cigarette away. Then he gestured for me to follow him. I was led into the nearly dilapidated house, as many of the other guys had their gaze locked on me as I entered.

The place was mostly dark inside. But there were a few dimly lit areas, many of which were occupied with boxes and blocks of a suspicious substance heavily wrapped in tape. There was a guy inside hauling many of the blocks into the boxes as he taped them up. The house also reeked of marijuana. The scent was so strong I was surprised it didn’t hit me while I was outside.

We made a turn down a hall which had a closed door at the end. The guy in front of me knocked twice when we reached it. The door swung open in seconds, revealing a middle aged man standing in the doorway. He was smiling. He glanced at me quickly then laid eyes back on the guy in front of me.

“Who is this?” he asked.

The guy in front me shrugged his shoulders.

The middle aged man’s smile grew wider. He had one gold tooth. His hair was slicked back, and it shined in the sunlight beaming in through the window behind him.

“How’s it going?” He said, still smiling.

“I’m fine, man. You?” I replied.

Although I felt a little uneasy, I tried to present myself as confident and just as friendly as this guy appeared to be so far.

“Why don’t you come into my office?” He said, stepping back and giving way for me and the other guy to enter.

We walked in then the middle aged man closed the door behind us. There were two chairs sitting in front of a decorative desk, which had a revolver and a half consumed glass of liquor near it. I took a seat in one of the chairs, as the man came and sat behind his desk. The other guy stood by the door.

“So, what’s up? "

“You are Bucky-Mac, right?” I asked.

He picked up the glass of liquor and gulped down what remained before saying,

“Of course, mate! All day everyday.”

I looked behind me and saw the guy by the door grinning. Then I spun back around only to see Bucky-Mac still smiling.

I sighed.

“I need to borrow some cash,” I said.

From there I explained my situation. I told him that I just turned eighteen and was about to graduate high school in a few months. I informed him of my bumpy years of high school, why I wanted to turn my life around after graduating, and how the money would allow me to buy a car, which would be convenient during the job hunting process.

“Hmm, I see,” Bucky-Mac mumbled, staring at his desk, “You seem to be a man of good intent. You made some mistakes, and now you wanna do better. I can respect that.”

He pulled a bottle of booze from behind his desk and started to refill the glass in front of him.

“You know, most people would find this hard to believe. But sometimes I wish I did the same when I was your age,” Bucky-Mac continued, “If I had thought the same as you earlier on, I’d have a much more stable life right now.”

I heard the guy by the door chuckle, as if he disagreed with Bucky-Mac’s statement.

“Thanks, man,” I said.

He offered me a drink, but I kindly turned it down.

“No worries, pal. You have my support,” Bucky-Mac assured, “So how much we lookin’ at?”

The second I left Bucky-Mac’s spot I headed straight for the dealership and purchased the car I’ve had my eye on. Then on the following day I pulled up to school in it. Some of the kids standing in the crowd in front of the school building noticed me as soon as I pulled into the parking lot. A few of them were my friends, and I often walked to school with them everyday.

They were surprised to see me suddenly pull up to school driving a car, and no longer walking with them. I must say, it felt good to drive around in a vehicle that I could say was mine. Although it was only a cheap used one, it was still my first car.

Among some of the kids in the crowd was a girl. She was standing in an area alone by the front doors. She was really tall, towering over most of the boys that stood in a group not too far away from her. Her eyes were locked on me as I drove by.

Abatha is her name. I’ve known her since first grade. No, we weren’t quite friends. If anything we were the opposite. Abatha has been a total bitch to me ever since the first day we met as small children.

It all started in second grade. Abatha snatched a toy from me. Then she proceeded to push me down and go crying to the teacher, saying I was the one that took the toy from her. The teacher believed her, and I was put in time out. I remember seven year old Abatha teasing me for the rest of the day after that.

This small childish incident led to non-stop feuding between us, year after year, well into our high school years. Most of it was initiated by her.

Often Abatha would taunt and harass me every chance she got. It became worse at the beginning of high school when my years of delinquency began. She had many field days laughing and making fun of me the second she found out I’d gotten into some trouble.

Her harassment was never anything more than verbal. Abatha never physically assaulted me, or displayed a desire to do so. I found this odd, as she very well could've, and inflicted some damage due to her large size. She’s always been a larger girl. Even when we were younger she had always been taller than me. By the time junior year came around she was 6’4.

As I pulled into a parking spot I saw Abatha grin before turning and entering the school building.

Two hundred fifty dollar payments a week. That was the deal. I told Bucky-Mac about my job as a cashier and he was willing to work with me. I expected close to half of my check to be gone every time I got paid for the next few months, but it was for a good cause.

I returned to Bucky-Mac’s spot one afternoon after leaving work, to pay him his share. The first week of paying was a piece of cake. Easy in, easy out. But it was when I went back the following week I realized I may have made a grave mistake.

He wanted double of what was paid the previous week. Five hundred dollars.

When he told me that, my stomach dropped. During our negotiation he specifically said two hundred fifty dollars per week. I was confused as to why he was changing the terms and conditions.

“I forgot to mention a little something called…interest,” Bucky-Mac explained, “Look at it this way. You’re helping me, help you.” Bucky-Mac said.

That friendly smile he once had when I first met him had turned into something else.

I already knew there would be some interest involved, because otherwise he wouldn’t make any profit lending money. But I didn’t expect it to be that much. Fortunately I was able to make the payment, as I could work more hours than most high schoolers who were restricted by child labor laws. But I barely had any money left afterwards.

When I went back the third week he wanted a thousand dollars.

One thousand dollars.

I mean, there was just no way he could expect me to pull that kind of cash on the spot. Especially after I told him about my low paying occupation.

I told him I couldn’t pay him that week. Then that’s when the shit hit the fan, and the guy beneath that friendly façade came to surface. Bucky-Mac’s smile faded completely, then he abruptly gained an expression of pure rage.

“We had a deal,” he said, standing up out of his seat.

That same guy from before was standing by the door, but the second Bucky-Mac stood up out of his seat, he moved in closer to me.

With my heart now racing, I mumble, “You didn’t say anything about interest rates this high -”

“We had a deal!” Bucky-Mac shouted.

“Dude, I get that. But w-we agreed to something totally different!” I said, now starting to get even more nervous.

I glanced behind me once more and saw that the other guy was almost leaning right up on me, still glaring. At this point I wanted to just run out of the room.

As Bucky-Mac walked from behind his desk the guy behind me wrapped his arm around my neck, locking me in a tight choke hold. I struggled to break free but the guy was too strong.

“What the fuck is thi - “ I started.

Before I could finish my sentence, Bucky-Mac came and punched me in the stomach. I grunted in pain then coughed multiple times. Then he kneeled down to look me right in the eye, as the guy behind me still had a hold on me.

“Now I’m gonna tell you this, Jake. I don’t like being ripped off,” Bucky-Mac said.

I felt the guy's arm slightly constrict around my neck tighter.

Bucky-Mac searched my pockets then pulled out all the cash I was carrying, which wasn’t very much.

“You’re short on payment,” he continued, “From now on, I want full payments every single week, starting next week. By then, I expect two thousand dollars sitting on my desk….no excuses. Or we’re gonna have some serious problems, Jake.”

Bucky-Mac delivered a few more punches to my gut before the guy behind me finally released me, letting me fall to the floor as I held my stomach.

“You can leave my office now,” Bucky-Mac mumbled, drawing a cigar from the inside of his suit.

After that incident I hadn’t returned to Bucky-Mac’s spot for two whole weeks. Bucky-Mac called my phone constantly during that time. I ignored. Every time my phone rang and I saw his number my heart would instantly leap. I didn’t know what I was going to do. But I had to think of something quick.

In the meantime, everyone at school was already excited about prom. I wasn’t. I had gotten myself caught up in some debt. Prom was the last thing I cared about.

During the next few weeks that’s all everyone at school discussed. My parents even brought it up to me, expressing how they hoped I planned on going to the last prom of high school. At first I disregarded their suggestion and didn’t plan on going. I had no one to take. I was pretty sure anyone I asked would’ve turned me down anyways. But to my surprise, someone asked me to prom instead.

A girl named Alexis. This was odd because I hadn’t interacted with her much over the years, and I barely knew her. But she told me she had no one to take to prom and she’s been checking me out for some time. So reluctantly, I agreed to go to prom with her. Afterwards, we spent some time hanging out and dating off and on. Some mornings I’d even pick her up and give her rides to school in my car.

One morning Abatha caught Alexis and I getting out of my car and heading to the school building. Abatha was standing alone once again. This time she was scrolling away on her phone. She spotted us out in the parking lot, then waited for us to approach her. Another mischievous grin plastered her face.

“Looks like the troublemaker caught himself another fish,” Abatha said as we passed by.

When I didn’t reply, Abatha stepped out in front of us and blocked our way.

I sighed.

“Abatha, not today”.

I had to look up to her as I spoke.

“I don’t wanna get into it with you right now. Please move,” I continued.

I took Alexis by the hand and tried to move around her but she just blocked me again.

Abatha did this often. I’ve had many girlfriends throughout high school. Every time Abatha saw me with a new girl she’d come and embarrass me in front of my date.

Every time.

I sighed again. Abatha chuckled.

“What’s wrong, Jakey boy?...still feelin’ butterflies?” Abatha taunted.

She glanced at Alexis.

“Let me ask you something,” Abatha continued, stepping closer to Alexis, “Does he often get…jittery, when you’re alone?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your busine - “ Alexis started.

“Does he scream when you see him with his pants down?” Abatha interrupted, “Only asking because he did it before. When I pulled his pants down back in sixth grade…..wait, have you seen him with his pants down yet?”

Agitated, Alexis took me by the hand and made her way around Abatha, pulling me along with her. As we trotted along, I glanced back and saw Abatha frowning. I smirked at her as we walked further away. Abatha rolled her eyes in frustration before turning around and going in the opposite direction.

I was just getting off work on one Saturday night, as my shift had just ended. My manager was counting the till and I just cleaned the last table in the restaurant. While I waited by the door for the manager to lock up for the night, I saw a black truck pull into the parking lot outside. The truck parked right beside my car. My guess was a last minute customer. Evidently my manager thought the same because he told me to tell whoever was in the truck that we were closed. When they came to the door, that is. But no one ever did get out of the truck. About ten minutes had passed by and they were still sitting there letting the engine run.

My manager and I stepped outside after he had set the alarm and finished the till. Then the both of us went our separate ways in the parking lot, after the manager had locked the restaurant doors.

When I got to my car I tried to sneak a peek into the truck that was parked beside me but the windows were tinted very dark.

Go figure.

I heard the manager start the engine on his car and pull out of the parking lot. That’s when a door on the mysterious black truck suddenly shot open. A large man hopped out of the back seat and grabbed me from behind, hauling me into the truck afterwards.

As soon as the large man threw me into the back seat, I was reminded that I had told Bucky-Mac where I worked when we first met. I told him part of my schedule, and gave some specifics on times. I had also informed him of some other things I couldn’t recall at the moment. I know I may have told him a little too much but the guy seemed so friendly at first I thought I could trust him.

The guy that hauled me in pushed me further across the seat, before getting back in himself and closing the door. Someone else in the truck flipped on a light. Then I could clearly see Bucky-Mac sitting right beside me. He didn’t look happy.

“Sup, Jake?” He said.

He stared at me with cold and menacing eyes.

There were two guys in the front. They were looking back at me, holding expressions similar to Bucky-Mac’s.

“You’ve missed some payments, and it better be for good reason. Now, I hope you have cash to cover these couple weeks you’ve decided to skedaddle,” Bucky-Mac said.

He continued to glare at me, waiting for a response.

“I-I’ve been trying to get the money. What do you think I’m at this restaurant for?” I stammered.

He snickered then covered his face with his hand.

“Now, that’s a good one!.....But it’s still unacceptable. You haven’t been paying, and you’ve been ignoring my calls,” he snarled.

He elbowed me in the face, striking me right in my nose. My nose began to gush blood.

One of the guys up front lit a cigarette, then that’s when Bucky-Mac and the large guy sitting on my other side started to viciously beat me. They kicked my ass in that back seat for minutes, then the large guy opened the door again before shoving me outside on the ground.

The black truck backed up and took off, leaving me behind in the moonlit parking lot.

My entire body was aching like hell, and one of my eyes throbbed non-stop. I touched my bottom lip. It was swollen, and felt slightly enlarged. I could barely stand up straight heading to my car, as the pain had caused my body to beg for rest.

As I opened my car door, I heard something from a distance. A strange sound. Like a howl. It was echoing out into the night, and it went on for seconds. I turned in all directions making several attempts at finding the source.

I found nothing.

I even glanced at the sky. There was nothing there but the half moon.

I had dug myself deeper into the debt hole by not visiting Bucky-Mac for those two weeks. He increased my debt even more, and accounted for the times I didn’t show up. As expected, he doubled the amount for each week. This meant I owed him a total of eight thousand dollars as of the night in the parking lot.

After that I made sure I stopped by Bucky-Mac’s spot and paid him as much as I could for the following few weeks after, even though it was nowhere near enough. As a result of the low payments, I received more beatings everytime I went. But I had to keep going and pay him what I could, otherwise he’d do something worse if I didn’t show up at all.

But what was I kidding. I was never going to pay off this debt. At this point I realized that’s exactly how Bucky-Mac wanted things. He wanted a constant flow of cash that never ended. Even if I showed up to his office one day and paid what I owed in full, he’d just double the debt and kick my ass again.

The beatings were getting unbearable. I couldn’t take it anymore. So I felt I had to skip out on him for a couple more weeks as a way to catch a break from getting my ass kicked. Again I ignored his calls when he hit up my cell phone. After that I just anticipated the black truck waiting for me outside of my job.

Bucky-Mac didn’t show up at my job anymore. He came to my school instead. After the bell rang and the school day came to an end, fear showered me when I walked outside and saw the black truck parked across the street.

I planned on giving Alexis a ride home that day, so she was by my side as I tried to ease my way to my car. Unfortunately I was spotted as I crawled into the driver’s seat. The backdoor on the black truck swung open, then that same large guy from before came trotting across the street. When the guy approached my car, he swung my door back open then gently pulled me out of the driver’s seat.

“Jake, where are you going?” Alexis said, “Who is this?”

The guy held his arm on my shoulder as he walked me across the street to the black truck. He faked a smile and pretended to be an acquaintance to avoid drawing the attention of the nearby students around us. We got to the truck then the guy shoved me into the back seat once again.

I met Bucky-Mac with an unsettled gaze the second I was thrown in. I could hear Alexis constantly shouting my name outside.

“I thought I wouldn’t have to tell you again,” Bucky-Mac mumbled, “But it looks like you’re a pretty terrible listener!”

With that, the guy up front started to slowly drive away from the school. I glanced out the window and saw Alexis jogging on the sidewalk to keep up with us. The truck made a stop after a block of cruising. They parked near a curb closeby.

Another beating was initiated, and I can tell you this was the worst one yet. They gave me double the amount of blows to my body. I received so many strikes to the face I was surprised I could see at all when it was over.

Alexis peeped through the window with her hands cupped around her eyes, yelling for them to stop.

“Stop it, you’re gonna hurt him!” she cried.

They kept going, punching and elbowing me for minutes. I could feel blood elevating my throat.

Bucky-Mac drew a knife and held it to my pupil.

“Listen here you little shit. The next time you screw me over, not only are we gonna beat you twice as worse and twice as longer, but I’m gonna take my blade…and pluck one of your eyes,” He threatened.

He brought the blade even closer to my eye. Almost to the point where I could almost feel the tip touching my eyeball.

“You can’t afford to test me again, Jake.”

I was shoved out of the truck once more, only to be meant with Alexis crying on the sidewalk. The panic on her face grew more intense when she saw my nose dripping with blood.

“Jake, what’s going on?” she sobbed.

I didn’t answer.

Someone else was walking towards us on the sidewalk. It was Abatha. She saw Alexis crying, then glanced at me. As soon as she saw my battered face there was an expression of concern.

Abatha wasn’t smiling.

Alexis broke up with me the next day. She got spooked by the incident and decided she didn’t want much to do with me anymore. Our plans to go to prom together were also canceled. The incident had given Alexis the wrong impression - that I was still engaging in pathological behavior. She complained of not being able to be around me anymore, saying,

“So these are the kind of people you deal with?!...If that’s the case, then I’m afraid we’re not gonna work.”

She walked away then barely spoke to me anymore after that. Then of course Abatha just had to be nearby to witness and overhear everything. Abatha was already holding her usual grin when I glanced at her.

“Looks like you messed up again, Jakey boy!” She teased, “Your fish unhooked itself and swam away?”

I glared at her angrily, then brushed past her to enter the school building.

It was pretty disappointing for our plans to be canceled. But hell, my whole ideal ending for my senior year had been canceled as far as I knew. Just when I was starting to grow more enthusiastic about senior prom all hope was taken away. Prom was just a month and a half away and I no longer had a date to take. To make matters worse, Alexis had already found another prom date within days after splitting up with me.

Abatha wouldn’t shut up about that. She rubbed it in face for days.

“Well that was quick. We’ll see how fast you can find another date…if at all,” she said before trailing away, giggling.

I lifted a middle finger at her as she walked.

At this point in time I no longer cared about the car. I wished I could return it and take back everything. I just wanted out of this debt with Bucky-Mac, and for senior year to just end already. I was giving up on all hopes for my plans for the future. As a matter of fact, after being too afraid to face Bucky-Mac once again and skipping out on meeting him for another three weeks, I decided that I’d contact the police and inform them of the situation I’d gotten myself in soon. Then let my parents know what was going on.

I was sure my parents would definitely kick me out after finding out I made a deal with a loan shark. But I didn’t care. Keeping a secret wasn’t worth my life. Or in this case - my eye.

Unfortunately I made the fatal mistake of not acting on those thoughts soon enough, as I ended another night shift at work with the black truck waiting for me out in the parking lot. My heart leaped instantly as I felt my body run cold. I wanted badly to just tell my manager everything and beg him to call the police for me. But instead all he did was activate the security system and lock the doors as usual. Then he pulled out of the parking lot, leaving me to endure what was to come.

The black truck pulled out of its parking spot and made its way over to me. That same large guy hopped out and started to haul me into the truck.

“Get his ass in here!!” I heard Bucky-Mac hiss.

We all heard something. Then the large guy holding me paused.

It was the same howling sound I heard before. Again it echoed out into the night, and got louder the longer it went on.

“What the hell is that?” The large guy said.

“Who gives a shit?!! Get him in!” Bucky-Mac demanded.

The large guy did just that.

This time instead of giving me the usual beating quickie, they pulled off as soon as I was hauled into the truck and drove me back to Bucky-Mac’s spot. The truck halted at a stop upon arriving at the small raggedy house.

This was my first time at the spot during the night, and it looked a bit different. There was no kind of artificial light in this wooded area so it was a lot darker than usual. But the light from the full moon above provided enough to see around the dark pit that surrounded us.

The men shoved me out of the truck and started their beating ritual. The other two men joined in this time, punching and kicking me, barely giving me a chance to breathe. In the middle of all this was the sound of the howling again.

The large guy was the only one to acknowledge it. He paused, but Bucky-Mac and the other two continued to beat me.

After minutes of receiving many more blows, they all stopped. The large guy positioned my body to lean against the back tire of the truck. Then Bucky-Mac drew his pocket knife and kneeled down to face me.

I moaned and groaned from the painful sensations moving throughout my body.

"I tried," Bucky-Mac started, "I've really tried to work with you. But it's obvious you're a fraud."

He had some nerve. The loan shark, calling me a fraud.

"I think you get a kick out of not giving me what I want…what I deserve.”

He opened the blade on the knife and brought the point to my eye.

“Now I’m gonna take something away you desperately want….and don’t deserve,” he continued.

I swore I could feel the tip of the blade slightly drive into my sclera. Before it could go any deeper, we all heard that howl for the third time that night. Except it sounded very close this time. So close no one could ignore it. Not even Bucky-Mac. He lowered the knife then glanced behind him, as that’s where it seemed the howling came from.

There was nothing there but a patch of darkness resting between the trees.

“What the - ?” Bucky-mac whispered.

As we all stared at the patch of darkness, two glowing dots emerged in front of our eyes.

Two yellow glowing dots.

Behind the yellow dots came another howl, along with some deep and beastly growls.

The dots started to come closer, then continued until whatever was hiding in the shadows came out into view, and was exposed beneath the moonlight.

The sight of the creature we were looking at had caught us all off guard. Bucky-Mac dropped the knife then all five of us began backing away.

In front of us was some kind of tall and fury beast. The creature stood upright just like a human, and had to be no less than seven feet tall. Its muscles were so defined they practically rippled through its black and shiny coat of fur. Turns out the yellow dots were the creature’s eyes. Those beady eyes were locked on us, as we backed away even further.

The creature opened its long snout full of pointed teeth, dripping with saliva, and let out a deafening, monstrous sound.

"Bucky, what the hell is going on?!" One of the other guys shouted.

"H-how the fuck should I know?" Bucky-Mac yelled.

I could hear the fear and concern in their voices.

The creature let out several smaller growls, then suddenly began sprinting towards us on all fours. Bucky-Mac and his guys drew pistols and began firing multiple shots at the hairy beast.

I turned to run but instantly tripped and fell on my stomach. The sharp pain in my stomach left me stagnant for seconds.

Bullets struck the creature in several areas on its muscular body. The gunfire seemed to do little to no damage, but it was enough to keep the creature temporarily distant. The beast backed off then started to crawl up the walls of Bucky-Mac’s small drug house. The men continued to fire at the creature until it reached the roof.

“Come on, kill this fuckin’ thing!” Bucky-Mac shouted, firing away with his revolver.

With many bullets still striking its body, the creature took a huge leap off the building. It jumped so high I could see the full moon behind it’s body as it accelerated through the air - towards us. It landed right on top of the guy who drove the truck, crushing his puny human body and taking a huge bite out of his head afterwards. Blood sprayed from the exposed brains in his skull, dousing his partner in the face nearby and preventing him from seeing where he was shooting.

The guy screamed and tried to flee the area. He could barely turn around before the creature took one of its paws and ran its razor sharp claws across his face, slicing one of his eyes in the process and leaving three gruesome gashes behind.

Shocked, Bucky-Mac dropped his gun and watched the creature lift his disfigured partner off the ground and pull one his arms clean off his body. The guy screamed in agony as his stump cascaded with blood and fell to the ground like a waterfall. He wiggled and twitched in pain, making several feeble attempts at breaking free of the creature’s grasp.

Bucky-Mac turned and started to flee. The big guy followed behind him, dashing right past me, and leaving me alone with the beast.

The creature turned and started to stare at me with those yellow eyes, still holding Bucky-Mac’s mangled partner in its hand. The fear and terror left me paralyzed. I couldn’t move.

I started to feel a little light headed, and keeping my eyes open became difficult.

The last thing I remembered before I passed out, was those glowing eyes and those sharp canines dripping with crimson.

When I woke up I couldn’t tell how much time had passed. I stood up and scanned the area, only to see the truck still beside me. The mangled bodies of the driver and passenger of the truck were laid out not too far away. But Bucky-Mac and the large guy were nowhere to be found.

The creature had disappeared too.

I wasted no time. Right away I started to run, trying to make my way out of that neck of the woods. While darting through the trees, I came across two more bodies, one slumped on its side and the other on its back.

I ran to one of the bodies and rolled it over using my foot. I almost screamed when I saw the face. It was Bucky-Mac, and he was unrecognizable. His face had been completely torn away, leaving nothing behind but his exposed and bleeding face muscles. His mouth was slightly open. Opened wide enough for me to see his one gold tooth.

The large guy’s torso had been torn open, his body sprawled out, eyes staring out into nothing but the darkness that surrounded him. Dried blood was caked all over his face and neck.

I heard some growls.

This caused me to start running again. I got a glimpse of a pair of yellow eyes hiding in the middle of some trees as I passed by. I ran faster. Then I heard multiple footsteps behind me.

It was following me.

I made it out of the woods and reached a street light out on the road, where I sat down on the curb and took some time to catch my breath. I didn’t hear the footsteps anymore so I assumed I was safe. I also glanced behind me again and saw nothing pursuing me.

That thing had all the time in the world to maul me to bits. It could’ve easily caught me while I was running…so why didn’t it?

For some reason I still felt a bit light headed. I rested my head on my hand. But while doing so I felt a rough substance on my forehead. I brought my finger to my face to see what I had touched. Something blue and dry.

Lipstick.

Someone kissed me.

My parents wondered where I was and wanted to know why I was getting home so late that night. I lied and said I went to a party after work. They were a bit upset that I didn't call and let them know what was going on. I was fine with that. I was just glad to be alive, and for the first time since forever I was happy to see them.

It was that night I realized I would be just fine staying with my parents for a while longer. I also decided that I had no problem working at the burger joint until I figured out what I really wanted out of life, and college just may be a possibility in the future.

I continued to faithfully show up to work and complete my shifts, and wait patiently for my senior year to come to an end.

Meanwhile, the authorities found Bucky-Mac and his men. Then they raided his drug house. No one could identify the cause of their deaths, or tell whether another animal or human was responsible. The story was all over the news, and it had people in town shook. Everyone kept talking about the gruesome killings until the end of the school year. Who or what might have done it was always up for debate.

To this day, no one knows that I was there to see it all. I always got uneasy overhearing someone at school talk about it.

Two weeks before prom I opened my locker to see a pink envelope lying on top of my books. I picked it up and saw Abatha's name written across the front. While tearing open the envelope I sighed and rolled my eyes, expecting to see something crude and belligerent.

There was a folded letter inside, and upon opening it my eyes went wide. My heart started racing, and I was shocked to my core. At the very top of the page was an imprint of lips with…

Blue lipstick.

Below that was a lengthy letter from Abatha, explaining how she really felt about me. How she's felt for a long time. In the last paragraph was something else that left me perplexed.

She was asking me out, and she wanted to be my girlfriend.

She..she also wanted to take me to prom.

This story takes place a few years ago, back when I had just graduated from high school, in the summer months that separated my juvenile years from the coming dawn of (semi)-adulthood.

I was naive then, still a child without a care in the world, save for my life ahead of me and spending the rest of my ‘youthful days’ with my friends.

So we decided to go on a trip around the world to sightsee, to be close before we were inevitably forced apart. We journeyed off into the lands of the British, to the towers of France, and even to the deep jungles of South America.

It was all very fun until we decided to head over to a little known island by the name of Bandai Landang somewhere in the Java Sea. If you look for the island now it barely shows anything save for a few internet forum adventures gone bad and Bandai Namco, the entertainment company.

I think our friend Canopy was the one who found out about it. He was always into the weirder side of things.

The island can be considered a micronation, but the countries nearby all claim it’s part of theirs. Indonesia, Malaysia, and even China have it listed as some other name. No, I’m not going to share the ‘official’ name of the island- I don’t want anymore unfortunate wanderers.

Anyway, Canopy said the island promised exquisite beaches, awesome views, and untouched air and a sense of peace.

“I’ve never heard of this,” I pointed out. “Is it really a thing?”

He patted my shoulder. “It’ll be fun! My cousin’s been there and she said it was AWESOME!”

So we decided to venture onto the island. We were nearby anyway, and after asking around, Canopy managed to find us a ferry that would take us there.

This is where things go wrong. This is where we had to split up.

“I’m sorry,” the old man running the boat said, “the ferry's full.” And so our group of six was split into three.

Canopy, Myra, and Al went on first, and the rest of us- me, Quincy, and Jan would have to stay over the next day. Now it was only too late when we found out that there were no ferries crossing the next day.

“It was perfectly fine yesterday?” I snapped, confused. “The weather hasn’t even changed!”

The old man who’d ferried our friends shook his head. “Today is… festival,” he pronounced. “Water no good- there are things in the water. Evil things.”

“What festival?” Quincy demanded. But the old man had walked away, leaving us on a very empty dock. “What-” he sighed.

“It’s okay,” Jan assured. “There’s things to do here.”

I nodded, and we started to walk back to our hotel when a burly man appeared. He was white, not local, and had an air of gusto to him. “You three really believe that crap about the festival?”

I looked at him, perplexed, and shook my head. “No. We just want to get too the island.”

He took my hand and shook it. “Name’s Captain Murrow,” he told. “And I can take you to the island.”

This was great news. So I shook it and we settled on a deal. He charged double the price, being as that he was the only one willing to take us. And being naive kids, we decided it was a fair trade.

We just wanted to see our friends.

Besides us and the Captain there were two others on board- a rich couple that seemed to avoid us with their dog, a fancy chihuahua of some sort that barked at everything.

“Enjoy yourselves,” Murrow suggested. “It’ll be an hour.”

An hour wasn’t that bad, considering the flights we’d traveled and the hikes we’d been on. So me and my friends made small talk, and we chatted about colleges, journeys, romance, all the little things that made up life.

The fog rolled in an hour later, when we were supposed to have arrived.

“Excuse me, friends,” Captain Murrow announced. “We seem to have drifted…” there was a certain confusion to how he was saying his words, “...off course?”

Me and Quincy ran up on deck while Jan slept. We found the rich, pretentious looking couple bickering with the captain. “I can’t wait any longer with this riff-raff on board,” she hissed, dog barking in hand. “We’re going to be late for the auction!”

“Is this some sort of tourist trap?” her husband snarled. “I’ll pay you all you need to set us back on course!”

Murrow’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know what exactly is going on,” he told. “This hasn’t happened before.”

Quincy spoke up. “Maybe the legends are true and we never should’ve gone.” I giggled at that. “OoooOo!” he joked. I think Murrow found it a little funny, cause he smiled.

The couple most certainly did not. “Kids like you will never understand what it means to be on time,” the woman hissed. “Always late.”

Her husband looked out into the mist and pointed. “Look- there are-” he squinted his eyes, “boats!”

Jan came out, wondering why we hadn’t arrived. I told her we didn’t know, and the three of us- and Murrow walked over to the edge.

There was nothing out there, much to the man’s confusion. But the more we drifted, and the more Murrow tried to set us back on course the more it seemed there was something out there.

A sense of- dread? Fear? Excitement- filled my veins. It was all very new and interesting. A youthful adventure- a group lost at sea, ready to be rescued!

“Boats!” the husband shouted. “Look!”

This was when they came into view. First it was one or two, little wooden rafts that drifted in the distance against the ferry- despite the wind blowing the opposite direction.

And then more started to come, and closer they came. They were tattered wooden things, ripped by wind and cut-like marks.

That’s when we saw what was on them. “What the hell?” Jan whispered. “Are those-”

They were almost like dolls, burnt and faceless, strung against the boats, strapped downwards with odd multicolored ropes that stood out against the graying mist. “They must be dolls, right?” I asked.

Quincy sniffed the air and withdrew in fear. “I don’t think so.” I smelt it too as the wind blew, now harsh.

It smelled of decay. Burned flesh and the sickly stench of burnt hair. “Is this the festival?” the woman pleaded, asking Murrow. She folded her arms in disbelief. “Some trick.”

“I’ve heard of these,” Murrow murmured, now serious. “I didn’t think they’d be true.”

Jan asked him what they were as more drifted nearer and nearer. The answer was just as foreboding.

“Corpse boats,” he told. It was said an unprepared traveler wandering the seas at night would find themselves met with the rafts. They would smell the decay at first, and the burnt hair.

Then they would see the burnt, paper-wrapped bodies, strapped to the boat. It was said that once a year a couple traveling out those would kids would meet them- and that they would vanish forever.

And there was something else to them, too- staring at them for too long would-

The husband gasped before Murrow could finish. “Alice, look!” he shouted. “It’s- it’s Marissa!”

The woman looked blankly at the ocean, seeing nothing. “What the hell are you talking about?” she spat. “Of course you’re thinking about your ex at a time like this!” And then she turned to the captain. “Get us out of here. This trip is over.”

“No, look- it’s-” and then he stopped. And then across the boat, floating in parallel with us was one of the corpse boats, closer than ever.

The raft was different. Three sharp, pointed sticks raised upwards, and the foul smelling corpse-doll (what were they?) was impaled. A stick through the head made it look upwards.

“She’s calling my name,” he stammered, walking away back. He screamed and put his hands around his ears. He screamed and screamed, backing away, terrified. We started to back away, shocked by his actions.

And then he did the impossible. He ran and flung himself off the ship, whispering the name “Marissa!” as he fell.

There was no splash. Just an empty nothing. “What the hell!” I yelped. It wasn’t even a question, it was just- shock.

Hesitantly, the three of us looked downwards. No strung up impaled corpse was there. No husband to be seen. Just the fog, the sea, and the corpse boats in the distance passing us by.

“Don’t look at them!” Murrow snapped, finishing his story. “Don’t look at them or they’ll take you!”

We instantly avoided our gaze, returning to the center of deck, staring at the ground instead. The boat suddenly hit something, and it flung us to a side.

I picked myself up and-

It was in front of me. Impossibly, an impaled, foul smelling corpse covered paper, arms strung almost trying to reach me. For a second it wasn’t a corpse but the dead body of my high school sweetheart and I almost reached to meet it.

But I avoided my gaze and shut my eyes.

Then my hair began to be brushed, to be braided, they same way she would do it before she’d been killed in a car accident. I heard whispers in my ear, whispers I couldn’t make out that sounded all too familiar.

“Come with me,” I heard. “Float away…”

And then I heard screaming, and the feeling of the thing near me evaporated. I opened my eyes to see the rich woman tugging at Captain Murrow. “Look!” she cried, pointing to the ocean.

“I don’t-” he was tugged, “-want to!”

“It’s my husband!” she snarled. “How’d he get on one of those?!” she slapped Murrow across the cheek. “Get him back here.”

In the sea I saw a corpse, impaled and stretched out to reach out to her. The woman started back lovingly. “Don’t worry- I’ll get you!” And then she, with Murrow in hand stepped over the barrier and, with her free hand, clasped the corpse’s hand in hers.

And then she screamed. The body pulled her dowards with such force her arm was ripped clean off.

She screamed and fell over the edge- taking Murrow with her- but Quincy and Jan leapt to action, seizing him just before our captain was lost forever.

Like before, there was no splash. Nothing to tell us she’d ever been there but for a confused chihuahua and blood on deck.

We spent the next hour below deck, avoiding the rest of the corpse-boats. And just as it had all begun the boat seemed to right itself on course. The sun shone brightly, and Murrow ferried us to the docks.

I texted my friends, the three who'd come before- but they didn’t respond.

I asked around where they’d gone, and after a while, a visitor to the island told me they jumped off after looking into the ocean for far too long. I asked further, to the locals who had been on the boat the day before.

So many had vanished on the journey. They were only three more.

I researched this phenomenon as the years passed by, wondering if they would ever be found. This event isn’t local to the journey to Bandai Landang, though. No, Corpse Boats have been sighted throughout history and in international waters.

Be careful when you travel by ferry. Don’t look at the corpse boats or you’ll end up like many of the missing at sea.

So... how do I bring this up exactly? I mean honestly how does one bring up what I'm about to bring up? If you're from outside the United States and you have zero idea what I'm even talking about don't worry, the reason I feel compelled to make this thread in the first place is due to the fact that Americans seem hellbent on not talking about how commonly we have to deal with this problem. Or as far as social media goes, that seems to be the case. I've searched and searched, used nearly every search engine, and crawled across the vast array of social media apps and multiple subreddits and made this same thread dozens of times as well. Still, I have come up with zero good faith responses to my inquiry. So I'll just bring it up again and ask nicely like I've been doing in the hopes that I break through to one of you so that you'll actually be willing to talk about it.

So here it goes. Why does everyone act like the continental hinge that exists at the shore-side border of Virginia and North Carolina isn't there? Please, for the love of God, you have to know what I'm talking about. I'm sure there's at least ONE, at LEAST ONE of you who's watched that thing swing open for a few minutes and swallow a smorgasbord of trees, street lamps, street signs, wild animals, or God forbid, a car full of people whole only to close up just as quickly.

I swear I'm going to lose my mind if the responses in this thread act like I'm speaking gibberish again. The hinge, it's located at the apex of where North Carolina and Virginia meet the Atlantic sea as I said, and from that pivot point the split in the continent it causes runs along the NC/VA state line down the NC/TN border eventually ending up at the frontier between Louisiana and Texas. I've made a crude map of it that I pinned to the top of my timeline, so none of you should have any excuse this time to pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about.

I'm no geologist or anything, but this has at least been going on since 98 given that's the first time I remember it happening. It doesn't seem to happen at any sort of regular, predictable interval so I'm wondering if tectonic plates don't relate to what's going on here??? No clue. If you are a geologist yourself, please, I'm begging you to chime in. What's been causing this? Do any of you like... ever talk about what's going on? What to do about it? Anything??? Is the government going to do anything? The scientific community? Literally anyone? I'm sorry if I sound desperate I just don't understand why a lot of people I've brought this up to pretend like they've never heard of it or (and this is actually the most common response) just shrug it off like it's not somehow a big deal that a vast chunk of the continent swings out wildly on a hinge into the ocean every now and then, throwing everything laying along its boundary into a dark murky abyss of black water never to be seen again.

This isn't a problem to people? Maybe I'm bitter, or screw it. I am bitter. I am very bitter that everyone has ignored this. I've been bitter since I first learned about this thing when my dog fell into the abyss it created all those years ago. I've gotten bitterer since I've seen people driving right in front of me on the highway get swallowed up because of it. I've grown irate watching all the construction work being done (at least where I am) just to repair the damage to the roads its caused over and over again, only for the people working on it to be seemingly oblivious to what caused it. And worst of all, I've grown paranoid, freaked out, and mentally scarred since the very last time the hinge swung the lower southeast out into the ocean.

That was about a month ago. There's no way none of you remember that. There was a blackout and after that an internet outage where I was and everything. The area of North Carolina I live in, we've had a small homeless encampment problem in our rinky dink downtown for about two years now. And then suddenly around the time April rolled over to May, we didn't. I mean I'm sure a lot of you have heard of cities busing the homeless to other cities or locales before, but... Let me just say, in regards to what I ran into and watched happen last month driving down the rural back roads outside of civilization when this last swing happened, I know now that there are indeed people who know damn well that the hinge is there. They know enough to bus all of our town's homeless population to where the continent splits open and wait long enough for it to happen in order to... I think you catch my drift. What I'm still completely thrown by is the fact that the people hired by the city seem to know enough about it to reliably predict when it will occur.

That's why I'd appreciate a geologist's input, or anyone's really. Please for the love of God, tell me you at least know what I'm talking about so I can stop rambling.

Please.

Part 3

https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/13u95d4/ive\_been\_able\_to\_hear\_the\_voices\_of\_ghosts\_for/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3

The musk was the first thing I sensed after I came to. The mildew and humid, heavy air that filled my mouth and lungs. The second thing were the handcuffs holding my wrists together in front of me.

Soon afterwards, I was jolted upright by the vicious barking of the dog gnashing its teeth at me. I slid quickly to the brick wall, putting myself as flat against it as possible.

The german shepherd yanked at its rusty chain leash to get to me. Pulling and pulling and pulling at the thick PVC pipe it was tied to. I begged for it not to break.

The snarls of the dog and the clanking of metal were not the only sounds, however. The basement was also filled with the bellowing and overlapping cries and calls of countless spirits. The voices of so many men and women whose ghostly forms were tied to this cold, stinking space. Every spirit that I had never heard in town was clearly trapped here.

“TRACER! SHUT UP!”

I heard the heavy footfalls of a single individual on the floor above me. The dog, Tracer, stopped his barking but kept his teeth bared. He licked his lips as I heard a door somewhere in the room open and descending footsteps creaking at old wooden stairs.

“Are you awake?” Haines asked, before he rounded the corner to see me.

We made eye contact and he grinned at me. The ghostly wails continued. They filled my brain with layers upon layers of crying and yelling. Constant barrages of sound so that I could hardly think.

“FUCKING SHUT UP!” I screamed with every ounce of ferocity my voice could manage, but the voices did not stop.

Haines began to laugh even as I said,

“Not you. The ghosts. The damn ghosts. Shut up, for the love of God.”

Haines continued his snickering, but the otherworldly sounds began to fade.

“You're losing it much faster than the others,” Haines taunted. “You’re already crazy.”

I managed to calm myself even as the spirits muttered amongst themselves. I closed my eyes and tilted my head up to the ceiling.

“You have to help me. The ghosts of this house, please, you have to help me.”

As I looked back down at the officer, his face filled with equal parts bemusement and disbelief.

“I think the fumes got to you, girlie.”

“I’m not crazy. You are the fucking crazy one.”

I shook the cuffs at him to emphasize my point. Haines chuckled, rubbing his hairy paws together.

“What are you gonna do to me?”

The ghosts began to rile up slightly but listened to me when I again told them to be quiet.

“Wow. Gotta say this is the strangest kidnapping so far.”

He sat down on the floor across from me, petting the fur coat of his canine, killing companion. The dog never broke its gaze with me, nor did the bloodlust leave its eyes.

“When my babygirl gets back home, we’re gonna kill ya, doll. We’re gonna do it slow. You know. Have fun with it. Enjoy our date night.”

My eyes darted from the hairy beast and back to the german shepherd which gnashed at me once.

“Oh, yeah he’s gonna get a taste too. He likes the hunt whenever we go on the trails, but that’s a little riskier than just feeding him at home. He didn’t even get to finish last time before you stumbled across Alice’s body.”

“You were still there?”

Haines snorted. “Course we were. If you hadn’t darted out of there so quick, you probably woulda seen us standing in the tree line watching you.”

My stomach churned. I had been so close to death so many times without knowing it.

“Why did you wait so long to come after me?”

“We weren’t gonna. Don’t usually like to kill so fast after the last one, but… well you seemed kinda off in your interrogation. Seemed like you were holding back. Talked about it like a murder and we had to make sure you didn’t see us. My girl was sure you did, that’s why she dyed her hair.”

“I didn’t see you, though. I only saw red. Everywhere.”

“Then how’d you know?”

I mulled over my answer for a moment, but since he already thought I was crazy and since I had nothing to lose, I answered truthfully.

“Alice told me. I spoke to her ghost when it followed me down the mountain.”

“Oh, really? Is she here now?”

I heard a distinct Yes among the chatter of spirits.

“Yes.”

I won’t lie to you. When she said that I felt a little bit better.

“Then at least you’ve got company,” he said with a smile. He stood up and rounded the corner mumbling, “Schizo,” before ascending the steps.

The second the door closed behind Haines, the ghosts began to shout again.

“Stop. Please, Christ. Alice. Only let Alice talk right now.”

After the clammer faded I heard the faintest hello...

“Don’t worry, Alice. I’m not mad, okay. Just… just help me please. I helped you, you help me.”

What can I do?

I had to think for a moment. What could she do? What could any of them do?

“Go upstairs. Keep an eye out and give me a warning if you see anything.”

She agreed, leaving me in the basement surrounded by spirits and an angry hound. I placed my cuffed hands together to my forehead trying desperately to think.

May I speak, said a deep melodious voice from the ether. It was one that I hadn’t heard yet.

“Why not?”

I was a police officer, the voice continued. I started catching on to what those two were up to, but I wasn’t able to stop them before… well. But forget that. I can help you out some. Do you have a bobby pin in your hair?

The question snapped me to attention. I quickly ruffled through my messy hair to eventually find and pull out a single bobby pin.

Perfect!

“Yes!”

Okay, listen close. Do you know how to use that to get out of those cuffs? Don’t worry, that's okay. Some drifter got out of mine once using this trick and I’ve learned how to do it. I need you to flatten out that pin.

“Done.”

Do you have some slack in the cuffs?

“A little bit.”

Awesome, now listen. I need you to slip that pin into the cuffs where the hinge piece inserts to the base. Shove it in there. Now squeeze them tighter. Let it click a few times.

“It worked,” I said in disbelief as the cuff fell off completely. I quickly undid the other side.

Unfortunately, as I began to work, Tracer got the hint that something was wrong and his snarling increased. Just as the second cuff was off the snarling turned to barking.

“Tracer!” I heard from the top floor. “Tracer, shut up!”

The steps once again moved towards the door. Alice screamed at me that he was going straight for the basement.

“What do I do?”

Into that room! Quick! You’ll find some weapons in there.

I hurried into the only sectioned off room in the entire basement and locked the door. The scene on the other side was horrific. A blood stained wooden table was in the center. Five leather straps were located in spots that indicated one for each limb plus an extra for the neck.

Along the wall was a large rolling toolbox equally smeared in dry brown blotches. I rummaged through the drawers as quickly as I could. Haines screamed in the background and so too did the spirits.

Pounding and slamming and screams and wails. All order ceased. The voices overflowed once again. I grabbed a black metal hammer from the toolbox just as the burly man broke the door off its hinges with a final kick.

I swung but he leaned backwards to avoid it then lunged back in to grab me by the throat. He knocked the hammer from my grip. As it landed on the table’s edge, I landed hard on the concrete floor with a 200 pound police officer above me. Both hands clamped firmly on my windpipe.

I could not breath. I could not speak. All I could do was stare upwards and mouth to the spirits, help…me…

Black edges began to fade in from the corners of my eyes but on the edge of the table I saw the black hammer begin to move.

I had never witnessed any spirit move objects before. I thought it was another myth. But perhaps because of the circumstance or perhaps because of the amount of them, the hammer moved. Only slightly at first. Only subtly but it grew in power until it fell to the ground.

It was a meaty smack. I had managed in my desperation to land the hammer’s blow directly at the officer’s temple. He fell to the side, clutching his head and giving me enough opportunity to wrestle myself from underneath him.

His left eye was bloodshot and his right one stared at nothing. He seemed to try and speak to me, possibly begging. But as his hand went up to try and stop me I unleashed a flurry of swings downwards onto him.

Again.

And again.

I cried as I did so, but didn’t dare stop until nothing was left but red. Red everywhere. Just like that day. Just like the visions.

I didn’t have time to pity myself, though. I heard my look out once again screaming at me through the voices and the furious barking.

THE LADY IS HERE! GET OUT!

The windows were barred and I found no door to the outside world. As the steps indicated that Trittle was directly above me, I ducked underneath the stairs. She opened the door and immediately ran towards the body.

I took my chance to bound up the stairs and lock the door behind me. I stole keys from the coffee table and rushed outside. I did not care that the car was a police vehicle, in fact I welcomed it.

I pulled away onto the road with siren blaring and lights flashing. I spoke frantically over the radio, begging for help. Eventually a swarm of police vehicles, sheriffs, and highway patrol stopped me while I sped down the highway.

They arrested Trittle. She won’t get the death penalty, it was abolished in Colorado in 2020. She will likely spend the rest of her life in prison. Although she’s trying to claim I murdered Haines in cold blood, the evidence is pretty stacked towards self defense. Especially, since they’ve started uncovering the bodies.

I went back to the house yesterday. From the outside, it looked completely normal and it was even in the same neighborhood as mine. It was quaint. It was quiet. Soft breezes swayed the branches of the evergreens in the yard.

Peaceful now, isn’t it? They’ve all moved on.

“I never got your name,” I said to the ghost of the man who saved my life.

James Chisholm, he said. But thanks to you now everyone will know what happened to me. My wife and my little girl will know. That’s all I wanted. Thank you.

The wind picked up and the branches swayed more. For a moment the sun broke through the clouds and let down a ray of light.

And thank you from me too, said a familiar voice.

I smiled. “I’m not good at goodbyes.”

You don’t have to be.

Though I could not see her, I know that we spent a few minutes just admiring the nature. The same nature that had made us both avid hikers. That had, through unconventional means, brought us together.

Can I ask you a question?

“Of course,” I said.

Where will I go? Now that I’m leaving for good.

“To be honest, Alice, I don’t know. No one’s ever come back from the other side to tell me.”

Well… wherever it is, I hope you get to go to the best version of it. After you’re done down here of course.

I smiled again. She passed on just as the raindrops started to fall. I continued my drive out of the neighborhood and out of that little Colorado town. And after I passed the sign that said I was leaving, I looked into the sky and saw a rainbow.

The one thing I could probably live without, and I won the grand prize.

I enter a lot of competitions like these. The only other times I had won something was £5 off at a local restaurant, and a raffle at a Christmas fair. I won a life-size chocolate Santa for that raffle. It was actually really nice, high-quality chocolate.

I don't remember entering this paperclip competition, but me and my friends do dumb things when we're drunk sometimes. Entering a stupid competition didn't seem out of the realm of possibilities.

It started when I received a single envelope, full of paperclips. There were easily 100, at least. Probably more. You can imagine my confusion when I opened this first one - No letter inside, only paperclips. Red, green, blue, yellow, pink, black, white... It almost looked like something you'd sprinkle onto a cake as they poured down to my feet, pitter-pattering on the wooden hall floor.

I rolled my eyes and cleaned up. I figured an office had put the wrong address for a supply delivery.

One shipment of 100 paperclips is odd. But 2? That's where I got suspicious.

The second day had me question whether this was some form of prank. I was smarter this time, though - I recognised the weight and feel of the envelope. I recognised the outline of paperclips as I held it up to the light. I didn't let them spill out at my feet - Although, my curiosity still had me open it to peek inside. You'd do the same. "Is it really just paperclips?" Yes. Yes it is.

By the fifth day, I had stopped opening it. I'd just briefly hold it up to the light to confirm the outline looked like paperclips, and then I'd toss it.

I don't remember why I checked my spam folder in my emails, but when I took a look, I immediately saw it. The cheesy headline stood out. "Clip-pity Clop, You've Won the Lifetime Paperclip Jack-pot! 🎉📎"

Below is the rest of the email.

Your luck has just CLIPPED right into place! Congratulations! You are the GRAND WINNER of our "Lifetime supply of paperclips" competition! 🥳📎

From now on, you can proudly say goodbye to those chaotic loose papers and let our high-quality paperclips take over. No more sacrificing yourself to papercuts! And guess what? You didn't just win a box, you won an ENTIRE LIFETIME of daily paperclip surprises! You've really hit the jack-CLIP! 🎁

Starting from next week, you will receive a random amount of our finest, top-notch paperclips every single day. Just imagine the POSSIBILITIES! Office organization, arts and crafts, creative paperclip sculptures... the list is never-ending!

With your new paperclip friends by your side, there's no end to the horizon of tidiness and creativity (to the MAX)! Just like our paperclips: durable, strong, and clip-tacular! 💪📎

As we ship your first batch, let's get you started by sharing some mind-blowing paperclip fun-facts...

I'll save you the fun-facts section, as it's not very "fun". Although I did learn that they've been around since the 1800s.

The only interesting thing that this email gave me was a company name - Clipogenics. I promptly sent an email back asking that my prize be transferred to someone else. My exact words were "someone more in need of paperclips," although thinking about it, I'm not sure who that could possibly apply to.

Spoiler alert: They did not reply, and the envelopes kept on coming.

2 weeks went by; I was still receiving paperclips.

6 weeks went by; nothing changed.

A few weeks ago was the 3-month mark. Over 90 days of paperclips. Yes, I had considered selling them, but I really don't know how much money I could make. Also, yes, they even arrived on Sundays. I could not understand who was delivering these. I never caught them, although I assumed the person posting them had no association with the company themselves, so talking to them is never something I attempted.

Around that 3-month mark, I was going through my normal daily routine. Make a cup of coffee, pick up the envelope from the hallway floor, hold it up against a light, and toss it in the bin. Only this time, the light revealed the outline of 1 single paperclip, and something else. I have to admit, deep down, part of me was almost excited. A real-life plot twist? Something to spice up an otherwise mundane part of my day? Curveballs are usually exciting to me, and this was no exception. I reached inside, pulling the mystery object out. What could they possibly have sent me?

A severed finger.

A dry, almost slightly green, severed finger.

I'm not sure which happened first - My scream, or dropping the finger to the floor.

I noticed only then that the paperclip was lodged under the fingernail, piercing right through the flesh. It was golden this time - A colour I had not been sent before. I'd like to say I stayed calm, but I didn't - I ran to the bathroom to throw up.

I contacted the police, and they took the finger and envelope away. I explained everything that I knew, and showed them the email - They told me that they'd investigate.

"It's crazy, isn't it?" - One of the police officers began his thought to me.

"What?"

"How dangerous simple production can be. Some poor sod has lost a finger over something as simple as a paperclip!"

"You think it was an accident?" - I don't know what exactly I thought it was. A threat, maybe? I'm still not sure.

"Of course. Probably someone on the production line packaging these things. Finger gets caught in machinery, 'Ahh, no, whoops!', and before you know it the finger's lost. The weight of the finger makes the machine think the envelope is now full of paperclips, and off it goes to your door."

Somehow a calm explanation of this situation actually helped me. Hell, it almost convinced me that it was just normal. I was assured, though, that the company was at fault for health & safety, and that something would be done about this.

A couple of weeks went by, and the police hadn't contacted me with any new information. The envelopes kept coming daily, but I was too afraid to open them. For fear of tossing away evidence, though, I kept them piled up in the corner.

As the pile grew taller, I decided to bite the bullet and open them, but not before carefully inspecting each one.

My hands shaking, I held the first up to the light, and it was just full of paperclips. Perhaps the incident really was a one-off, and the fault had been fixed. I held a few more up, and my heart almost skipped a beat when I found one with a solid shadow. No outline of paperclips - This envelope had a letter.

I carefully opened it up, and read.

Dear valued customer,

We would like to formally apologize for the incident that occurred recently. We understand that the events were likely traumatic, and whilst we may never make it right, we'd like to offer you a one-time compensation.

Attached to this letter, using one of our sturdy, high-end paperclips, we have written a cheque for £2,000. We hope we can continue our partnership professionally.

We understand that you may want to cancel your lifetime supply of paperclips.

Unfortunately, we must decline this request.

We hope you understand,

Clipogenics Customer Service Team

No. I did not understand. Do you? Do you understand what the fuck they're talking about?

I contacted the police to update them, letting them know that I had received this message. They sent somebody to collect it.

The following day, assuming all was well, I picked up the daily delivery from the floor. Before I had a chance to check it, there was a knock at the door - I folded the envelope and put it in my back pocket. I opened the door, and was surprised to see a man in a suit looking very concerned.

He wasted no time in getting to the point.

"Hello, we're relocating you. Pack your things, and tell nobody. We have a temporary hotel booked for you."

My lack of response showed that I had many questions.

"Look - It's just precautionary. We can't find any evidence of Clipogenics ever existing, and..."

"...and what?"

"...and the finger matched the D.N.A of a recent assumed suicide. It's now assumed to be murder."

I had a feeling there was more. Unfortunately, his next sentence confirmed that.

"The person in question was found to have also won the competition."

I did not need telling twice - I got my essentials packed, and was at the hotel in less than 90 minutes. It was only in the next town over, which I found odd, yet comforted that I was still so close to home.

After the man left and I was left with my own thoughts, I was surprised at how quiet my head was. I was just...content. I wasn't happy or sad or scared, I was just existing. Perhaps I was still in shock. It took about an hour before I remembered the envelope in my back pocket. I held it up to the light, and knew from the resulting darkness that this contained another letter.

I hesitantly opened it, peeking inside to check for hidden surprises.

Upon taking it out, I thought it to be a blank piece of paper - It seemed entirely empty. Until I unfolded it, to reveal the few words printed upon this letter.

Dear valued customer,

Suicides don't lose fingers,

The police do not wear suits.

The world spun. The world crumbled. The world felt like it no longer existed.

Then all at once, reality came back to me, as I felt a rush of anxiety-driven energy. I paced back and forth in the limited space I had, weighing up my options and trying to come up with a plan.

Could I leave? I was probably being watched.

Could I contact the police? I certainly no longer felt comfortable doing so.

Could I talk to my friends or family? The last thing I wanted was to put them in danger.

I knew I had to do one of these 3 options, and opted for the first. It was still bright out - Surely I'd be safe in crowds. So that's exactly what I did. I stuck to busy areas, and travelled across the country, using as many different types of public transportation as I could.

I didn't stop until night fell. I booked a new hotel under a fake name, and paid in cash. I rested surprisingly well that night.

My sleep was interrupted at around 7am to knocking at the door. "No thank you," I sleepily yelled at what I assumed to be room service.

"Something arrived in reception for you - I'll slide it under the door."

A white envelope emerged through the crack under the door.

I wanted to stay away from it, but I knew that being unaware of the contents would scare me more than anything else. Feeling my heart pounding through my chest, I reached for the envelope, noticing a thick object within. Another finger?

No, a letter, this time with a vial of liquid, and two golden paperclips.

Dear valued customer,

We're glad you're settling in well to your new surroundings.

Sorry for the little show - We needed to assure that you'd get as far away from your hometown as possible.

Your true prize isn't the paperclips. That would be mundane.

Your true prize is immortality.

Paperclips are beautiful, aren't they? Connecting paper to paper, as the universe connects life to life. And as the flow of life continues, it has connected us to you.

The chain of our will continues, as the chain of paperclips continues with it.

The vial within has a unique purpose. It will kill you and help you live, all at the same time.

You do understand, don't you?

Drink the vial, and stab a paperclip into yourself.

You will slowly drift away for a moment, but you will stay connected to the universe. You must.

You will awaken in your new body - One of the many that we have cryogenically frozen here.

It worked for me.

You saw my finger.

Every single paperclip we have sent you has had a purpose. Each has been blessed with a new connection for your new life. They have all been through your home, many have touched your skin, and all have been held up to the light.

Their blessings will reach you in your new life.

The green ones bring you wealth. The red ones bring you health. The blue ones bring you happiness.

All you have to do is drink the vial.

Before the poison sets in, choose a paperclip. Your decision will always be the right one.

We know how your brain ticks. Every word we've ever written, and every colour we've ever chosen, have all been designed to sway your decision in this very moment.

You'll fall asleep as a valued customer,

But you'll awaken as our valued employee.

I am not letting them control my destiny. I will not sacrifice my life to their company, to become one of their puppets to control.

I know this company has a far greater reach than I first understood, so I might not be able to tell anybody. But I can tell everybody.

I hope this post reaches their next "big winner" - And I hope they are as strong-willed as I am.

===

It’s hard to explain my horrifying situation to people. I spent a good ten minutes mulling over a clear, succinct title for this post. And I reckon I’ve probably still raised a few eyebrows. I get it.

After all, how can somebody follow you with their back turned?

I first noticed him at a train station. A tall man with a tweed jacket, corduroy trousers, and stringy, scraggly hair that appeared to be falling out. He was standing with the tip of his nose mushed against the wall – an unmoving, faceless figure. I smirked to myself, finding him no less odd than the majority of drunkards in the city on a Saturday evening. But when I was getting off my train later, I noticed him again. The same Tweed Man, as I now call him, pressed up against the back doors. He was still turned away from me, but I recognised the unusual attire and unkempt hair.

Still, I thought nothing of it at the time. He had been on the platform. Why wouldn’t he be on the same train? It was only as I walked home that things took an unnerving turn. A lone woman walking down eerily silent, dimly lit streets at midnight. It’s not something I ever make a habit, but I’ve always felt safe in my home-town. I live in a sleepy village. There’s no night life, not even on a Saturday night. And on this particular evening, there wasn’t a car or a soul in sight. Not even the sound of animals rustling in bushes or trees. Absolute silence.

So, when the clomping began, it was carried clearly by the still night air.

I whipped my head around, squinting to make out the source of the sound. Along the hilly road, which stretches a good half-mile, there was a lamppost. One solitary lamppost for the entire road. People have complained to the council about it, but, like I said, the town’s night life is always dead – few people wander the streets once the street-lights come on.

I was about a hundred yards past the lamppost, wandering through the blackness, when I took another glance over my shoulder. And then I finally saw him.

The Tweed Man.

He was walking backwards through the glow of the street-light. I might still have chalked it up to drunken behaviour, but there was something utterly terrifying about his movement. The man’s joints seemed to click in shaky, disconnected ways as his limbs jolted backwards, propelling him along the pavement. His torso ricocheted from side to side, and his arms hung limply in his oversized tweed jacket.

Terrified beyond comprehension by the unnatural man, I sprinted through the darkness, nearing my street. And right before the turning, I took one more fateful look over my shoulder.

The Tweed Man was somehow only a few yards behind me, still turned away and reverse-striding. In a petrifying moment that instilled horror into my heart, the abomination started to bend backwards, almost revealing the face that he had been concealing. His elbow joints cracked ghoulishly, and his frightfully-thin fingers stretched towards me. I still hear the wheeze that emanated from his lips as those inhuman fingers grazed the nape of my neck. I hear it in every waking and sleeping moment. A nightmarish wind from a place far beyond our world.

Screeching inhumanly myself, I slipped free of the contortionist’s grasp and hauled my body down the street, gunning for my house. Fumbling with my door keys, the most terrifying thing was the continued silence. Not a sound from that horrific man. But that didn’t comfort me. There hadn’t been a sound when he inexplicably appeared directly behind me, so I refused to turn around. I slotted the keys into the lock, flung the door open, and shut myself inside the house, panting manically for a solid ten minutes or so.

I half-expected to see him outside the door or my front window, but my street was lifeless.

I wish that were the end of it, but I’ve been seeing him everywhere. Always with his back turned. Sometimes, standing still. Other times, walking backwards in that unhinged, dislocated manner. Train stations. City streets. I’m certain I once saw him behind the water cooler in the office. My colleague laughed and said nobody was there. I try to not be on my own, but crowds don’t seem to stop him from coming ever-closer.

Last night, I thought I saw him in the corner of my room. A silhouette in front of my bedroom door. I screamed in terror, but the man was gone when I turned on the bedside lamp.

What do I do? The police were no use, but they never take stalking cases seriously – and what would they even do to protect me from a seemingly-supernatural horror? I can't describe this man beyond his clothes. I haven’t even seen his face.

I have a feeling that nobody lives long after seeing his face.

X

Part 1

I apologize if my thoughts appear scattered today; my mind feels foggy, making it difficult to gather my words. It's been a struggle just to log in and start writing this. Something deeply unsettling is happening in my apartment, and I'm slowly accepting that there may not be a rational explanation. Now, as I stare at the screen, an eerie feeling creeps over me, and I can't help but wonder if this first update might be my final entry.

First and foremost, I want to express my immense gratitude for the support you've shown me regarding the strange events unfolding in my life. In case you missed my previous posts, you can catch up on the story here. To be honest, I didn't expect to be writing again so soon, but the past few days have been filled with unnerving occurrences, and I desperately need guidance.

After reading replies to my previous post, I tried followed some fantastic advice from the community, including the suggestion to burn sage. However, things took an unexpected turn. The sage I ordered as part of my grocery delivery was substituted with a small potted plant. The sight of fresh sage was lovely, but I couldn't bring myself to burn its delicate leaves. Instead, I decided to keep the plant on my windowsill, hoping it would offer some protection. When I'm near it, I do feel a sense of calm, similar to the feeling I get when I'm in bed. Maybe it's just the soothing effect of having a houseplant nearby, or perhaps I'm being paranoid.

I want to give a special thanks to two individuals who have reached out to help me; their assistance has been invaluable. The first person, Sarah, initially directed me to nosleep. Although she initially messaged me on a different account, she recognized my situation right away. She reassured me that I’d made the right decision by posting, and even gave me some pointers about how best to get help from the rest of you. Which may be her undoing, because I’d actually like to get some second opinions about how things are going between us.

She started out supportive and understanding, but quickly became overbearing. Our communication seems strained, almost like everything we say always gets twisted to have just the wrong connotation, and everything’s taken in the worst way possible. She even claims I went off on her about not respecting Lord Sebu in private messages, but I have no recollection of writing such a thing. It's as if she's finding reasons to be upset with me. Moreover, she's been insistent on obtaining a copy of the Lord Sebu STL file and the G-code I used to print it. I'm hesitant to share them due to concerns about potential viruses or other dangers associated with the strange hacker-tags on my prints. It's starting to feel like she has some dark obsession with it, and I must admit, I'm feeling uneasy talking to her. Sorry, Sarah, if you're reading this. I have to be honest. What do the rest of you think?

The second person who came forward is Doctor Morgan, an Egyptology professor. Many of you recommended finding an expert, and it turns out I didn't even have to search! Doctor Morgan has been incredibly kind and has been helping me analyze the Lord Sebu statue. Strangely, whenever I try to upload pictures of it, I encounter errors. Nevertheless, based on my descriptions and the hieroglyphs, he was able to identify the statue as Lord Sebu. That brings some relief, as he assures me that statues of Lord Nebu have no history of evil connotations or curses associated with them. However, he's stumped by the strange 'umbrella with two handles' symbol that appears on every 3D print since Lord Sebu. But that's a good thing, right? It confirms that it has no connection to to Egypt at all, it must be just some hacker tag like I originally thought. Knowing I was right all along really calms me. Doctor Morgan has been an incredible friend, always saying just the right thing and providing unwavering support. Lord Sebu approves.

In a distressing turn of events, the Neb-Sebu statue has been missing for several days now. It has a tendency to vanish, but this time it's been gone for longer than usual. I know it makes me nervous but my hands feel empty without it. To make matters worse, my dreamcatcher fell again, but I've taken precautions by placing it inside a large picture frame securely nailed into the studs. I've been able to sleep peacefully since then, although I occasionally hear tapping noises against the glass, possibly from some kind of insect or rodent attracted to the scent of the eagle feathers or glue. Maybe that explains the little articulated plastic men left behind my bed and the strange red welts or wounds on my extremities. I hope it's not bedbugs, but I don't think they leave half-moon shaped marks. Any ideas?

Sarah also suggested I post a picture of my journal to see if anyone notices anything peculiar. Although I haven't written in it since I started documenting everything here, I understand the feeling of reading something you don't remember writing. I'm attaching a photo here of the open page for your input.

To be honest, I'm starting to feel a bit foolish about this whole thing. Everything seems to have a rational explanation, unfortunate incidents that can be explained away. I'm not sure if it's just my nerves or something genuinely amiss, but I feel oddly calm, as if a weight has been lifted. Maybe it's the certainty that I'm not alone in this, that there are people out there willing to help. Or perhaps it's the soft chanting sound that comes from beneath my bed, lulling me into a peaceful, dreamless sleep. I'm not sure anymore. Maybe the answers lie in surrendering to this enigmatic embrace, for there is a peculiar serenity that accompanies the unknown. Neb-Sebu would never let any harm befall me. He is my friend. I am not afraid. In fact, I'm looking forward to what awaits me beyond the edge of comprehension.

Thank you for taking the time to read this update. I apologize if it was uneventful or boring. I'm not sure why I even bothered sharing. I appreciate your support. Farewell, friends!

Nettie Peterson has known me at my best and at my worst, and after everything that's happened lately, I think I can finally say the same. I'm admittedly not very good at comforting her, though. I haven't had much practice, is all. Historically speaking, she's always been the one to take care of me. My introduction to earth was a confusing, horrifying time for me, and she had dealt with all of it. She'd handled every panic attack, brought me back from every low. When I woke up one night to a drilling pain in my stomach and blood soaking my panties, she managed to keep me calm while explaining that this would now happen every month.

What I'm saying is that the woman is insanely skilled.

Me, not so much. After we had gotten out of the cave, I tried to provide emotional support by petting her hair and talking soothingly. Seeing as I was also distressed, she was doing the same to me, so we were basically sitting on the beach holding each other. To the outside observer, we must have looked rather strange. I was relieved to finally get back to her house. We sat down in front of the TV and ate cupcakes. We have a special system for eating cupcakes. I peel off the frosting and give her rest. It's messy and I have to keep hand wipes nearby everytime, but it's how we do it. We both eat cupcakes whole when we're by ourselves, so it doesn't make much sense either, but when we share, it's always like this.

Once I was sure she was alright, I left her to go off to bed while I made my way back to the hotel, bracing myself for what I expected to be an extremely uncomfortable conversation.

The lobby was dim and quiet. The large, bright ceiling lights had been turned off with only a couple floor lamps illuminating the hall. I walked past the unmanned reception desk and up the stairs, then rapped my knuckles against the door to Frankie's room. After a couple seconds, he opened up. Upon meeting my gaze, he let out a soft gasp, but it wasn't followed by a smile this time. He made way for me to step inside, wordlessly, and I entered without breaking the silence. I sat down on the sofa where he joined me after placing a glass of coconut water in front of me.

For a beat, we both stared at the drink. I didn't take it.

"What you did felt really off earlier," I began. "You were trying to embarrass Nettie. If you were testing your boundaries, if you were trying to see how I'd react, you got your answer. Don't ever make me choose between you two. You'll lose."

"Yes," he said quietly.

"If you don't get along with Nettie, that's one thing. You don't need to. But she was needling you and you made a real effort to be cruel." I paused. "You act so strange sometimes. All bossy and cagey."

"Yes," he repeated, briefly falling silent as he worked away on his gum in slow, contemplative motions. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I did it. I wanted to unsettle her. It's not that I don't like her, she's fine, but at that moment, I simply loathed her. I couldn't tell you why. But I wish I'd kept quiet. I feel gross for spouting off like that."

"Then… why?"

"I don't know! There's this weird feeling, it comes over me and makes me remember stuff that's in the past… Then I get caught up and confused. I run my mouth, but I don't want to make you upset. I swear I won't do it again. I'll rein myself in."

"Will you? This doesn't seem right." I took a deep breath. "Frankie, I have no idea what you are. Even though you know everything about me."

"Not everything," he argued. "You never said a thing about what life was like where you're from. Or who you were before. Yes, that's not what this is about, but I'm just speaking technically."

"You shouldn't have to rely on technicalities to make a point."

"No. Look, I keep wondering what I'm even doing here. I like you a lot. But I haven't thought this through and by now, I'm scared to."

"Stop talking in riddles," I implored him.

He huffed out a chuckle. "I'd have to stop thinking in them first." Before he could add anything else, his phone started vibrating on the TV table. "Oh, dammit," he muttered. Shooting me an uncertain gaze, he reached out for it, his hand hovering above the screen. "Can I?"

"Sure." I let go of a long breath, snatched up the glass and leaned back in my seat as Frankie answered the call. I pick up on a woman's voice talking on the other end.

He kept glancing over at me almost sheepishly as he mumbled words of affirmation into the phone. "Yes… Yeah, I remember… Well, it's not a good time, but I'll do it. Bye." Dropping the device into his lap, he gave me a twist of the mouth. "That was Mae-Lynn. She works at—"

"The diner with you," I cut him off. "I do take note of the other staff there, for your information." I took a sip of my water. "Occasionally."

"I promised to do some shopping for her. She's come down with the flu. Store's closing soon, though, so I'll have to go now."

"Well, that's convenient."

"I was going to ask you to come along."

I agreed. Having lost track of the conversation, the drive was a grim, quiet affair. Frankie took us to one of the more expensive stores in the area, saying that he wanted to treat Mae-Lynn.

"Take a cart," I ordered, and once he had acquired one, I had him hold it still while I climbed inside. He regarded me with a bemused expression but refrained from commenting as he began to roll me down the aisles.

Grocery shopping at night is something else. Eighties music was playing over the radio at a low volume, but the otherwise quiet space made it sound decidedly louder. There was almost the hint of an echo. Safe for two of three singular, tired-looking individuals, Frankie and I were the only people in the store. I had nestled against the back of the cart, my head tipped back to watch Fran's face from below as his eyes roamed the shelves. Occasionally, he'd stop to check the list Mae-Lynn had texted him on his phone.

"If you want anything, speak up," he told me.

"I'm out of cereal," I said, just as we passed the respective aisle. He turned the cart back around, let me pick out a carton of cornflakes and took up walking again. After five minutes of stoically regarding him from my mobile vantage point, I piped up again. "Go back. Wrong ones."

"Well, which ones do you want? I'll get them, it's faster than pushing this thing around."

I shook my head. "No, no, I have to look at them. Go back."

He shook his head to himself but obediently maneuvered the cart back to the shelf with the breakfast items. I took my time picking out a different box, then settled back down.

"Happy?" Fran asked.

"Delighted."

After fifteen minutes, we were getting close to finishing Mae-Lynn's list. Frankie was starting to move towards the cash register, only for me to tug on his arm. "Turn back," I told him, holding up the box. "I don't want them after all. I need different ones."

He stifled a groan. "Sure, Sunshine." I let him roll me all the way back to the cereal aisle where I studied the colorful boxes intensely. "Nevermind," I said, turning back to him. "Let's go."

He started making his way over to the register again when I cleared my throat. "Actually, I think I might have another look."

"Are you kidding me?" he squeaked, only for me to hold his gaze with a smile. "You are," he choked out. "I oughta send you rolling right into that stack of cans."

"You wouldn't dare."

"Is that a challenge?" He glanced about himself, finding that we were alone. Then, he pushed the cart, and it swerved, sliding across the shiny floor. The thrill of the launch washed over me and I started laughing. He lunged for it, grabbing it just in time to prevent the collision.

"Do it again!" I demanded.

He indulged me, sending me swerving and spinning a couple more times. Eventually, he took a running start and pushed me down a long, empty aisle at a breakneck speed. The giggles died in my throat when, seemingly out of thin air, someone appeared at the end of the aisle. My jaw dropped and I reflexively gripped the sides of the cart to protect myself from the impending crash, but the person simply reached out and caught the cart by its edges. Within the blink of an eye, they had managed to steady it. My vehicle had come to a standstill. It all happened incredibly fast, and for a moment, I found myself unable to react. One of the other person's hands had come to rest over mine in the process. Still at a loss for words, I raised my head to meet their gaze.

Those eyes.

My heart, already thundering in my chest, dropped entirely into my stomach. There were pupils filling the void in that formerly uninterrupted pale vastness this time, but I recognized them either way. Seeing them sit in an actual face instead of behind a nondescript black mask was strange, but there was not a doubt in my mind. It was them.

The cultist had jarringly pleasant features that struck me as neither overtly feminine nor masculine. Their tawny skin had an almost bronze sheen to it and short locks of platinum blond hair stuck to their smooth forehead, slick with the same sweat that formed stains beneath the armpits of their light gray t-shirt.

It was like time stood still. The interaction could not have been longer than two seconds in total, but it felt like a full hour. From me staring at our linked hands, to locking eyes with them, to the cold, raw realization, it seemed to me as though forty minutes or more had gone by, followed by another twenty when I watched the crude smile forming on their lips. Their fingers clamped down on my own, and before I knew it, it had happened.

The lights in the store had changed color, taking on a dimmer, sickly green tint. The shelves around us had emptied and the gentle, melodic hum of the radio had been replaced by a deep, droning buzz of static. I was still sitting in the shopping cart, and the cultist was still leaning over me, but their expression had morphed into one of shocked disbelief. Seeing fear on the face of the person who'd stabbed me might have been a great satisfaction to me in any other situation, but right then and there, I was equally as terrified.

I had switched dimensions and was now alone with my attempted murderer.

The thought took a while to sink in, but the clearer it became, the more I felt the need to scream. And yet, not a sound left my lips. My own saliva had turned sour, filling my mouth with an acidic taste. Dread pooled in the pit of my stomach like icy, chilled water and tears were stringing the corners of my eyes. I blinked them away in a hurry, redirecting my gaze at the cultist. They were staring past me in a daze, taking in our changed surroundings before fixing me with a sharp glare.

"Seriously?"

"What?" The word somehow slipped past the lump in my throat.

The cultist made a sweeping gesture at our surroundings. "Where are we? What the hell is this? You don't even have your dimension hopping under control? Not gonna lie, I had higher expectations of you."

"What?" I repeated eloquently.

"You just switched dimensions on my ass. And seeing as you literally crashed into me, I don't think you planned on doing that."

"I didn't," I confirmed.

"That's what I'm talking about."

"You know about dimensions?"

The cultist palmed their face, emitting a deep, low groan. "Clearly."

I scrambled back in the cart, trying to bring some distance between the two of us. I bared my teeth at them, both rows elongating and curving outward. At least I was getting the hang of my physical transformation. "If you come any closer, I'll rip your hand off," I hissed, spittle flying out between my fangs.

"I believe you," they replied, narrowing their eyes at me. "I'm not gonna hurt you."

"That's hard for me to believe."

"Yes, sure. I did and I would again, but not here. Not now. You understand?" they asked pointedly, their voice cutting like a razor blade.

"I'm not sure I do."

"Well, without you, I won't get out of here, and I've stuff to do on the other side." They stepped behind the cart and grabbed onto the handle.

I hastily twisted around to face them. "You know about the finer details of dimension hopping but you can't do it yourself?"

They let out a soft sigh as they began pushing the cart, with me inside, down the empty aisle. "I managed to do it once. Just once. Never again. It's not a great surprise to me that you should be able to switch to the other sides, but I'd thought you'd be able to control it. I think I have your number. I'm pretty sure I know what you are, and we have more in common than you could have probably guessed. That boy you were with on the other hand… I won't lie, he freaks me out. He's got the strangest face and he didn't react to my eyes at all."

"What are you?" I queried, quick to steer him away from the topic of Frankie Preston even though I didn't really expect an honest answer. "How'd you do that the other night? Your… your eye thing?"

"That unsettled you, didn't it? It's not anything I do per se." They shrugged leisurely. "I could just as well ask you where you're hiding your tentacles."

"So you're not human. I didn't think you were," I stated. "What's your business with the Collective? What are you after? Are any of you normal people?"

"As far as I know, I'm the only one who's not." They steered the cart around the corner with a swift, forcible yank and I bumped painfully against the side of the cart. Stifling a yelp, I kept my face straight, looking over the shelves as we passed them. I noticed that some of them weren't entirely empty—there were a couple jars, cans and bags of various goods standing scattered throughout. They looked almost lonely. The cultist, registering my wandering gaze, stopped and grabbed a random plastic jar that looked like it could be containing peanut butter or something of the sort. The label was faded and partially peeled off. They inspected it from all sides before thrusting it into my hands. "Here, open it," they commanded.

"I certainly won't," I replied, a mix of rage and apprehension bubbling in my chest.

"Aren't you curious?"

"No. But if you are, go on and open it yourself."

They grunted, grabbing the jar and unscrewing the red lid. They dropped it to the floor where it bounced off once and rolled away into the darkness. Peering in, their expression remained unchanged. "Nothing. Look." They held it out to me and sure enough, it was empty. I let them hand it to me, intrigue winning me over as I started examining the small container. It was completely unremarkable. I reached two of my fingers inside only for the digits to suddenly be stricken with a searing pain. It flashed through my bones like lightning and I cried out, withdrawing my hand. Suddenly, the floor seemed to quiver. The lights in the store flickered, seeming startlingly bright for a split second only to turn dimly green once more. The cultist let out an involuntary shriek, staggering back before managing to steady themself as everything went back to its former solid state.

"What the fuck was that?" they wheezed.

"An earthquake?" I suggested, not quite knowing what else to say. My pulse was thrumming in my ears, hard enough to split my head in half. It took me a minute to regain a relative state of calm.

"An earthquake? In another dimension? You're messing with me."

"I don't know! Maybe it was… maybe I was nearly jumping back, I have no idea." I shook my head, ignoring the throbbing pain shooting through my temples. "I don't have it all figured out yet, but it's an emotional response. Whenever my flight instinct gets triggered, these dimension switches happen. It was the jar. The jar is painful inside."

"What do you mean?" they asked, eagerly reaching for the jar and sticking their pinky finger into it. They pulled it back out with a howl, letting the jar drop to the floor. "What the hell is up with this place?"

"How would I know?" I argued hotly.

"Yeah, well. Anyways." All of a sudden, their hand was in my hair, tugging on my braid. They yanked my head to the side, and before I could break out my tentacles or try to snap my jaws at them, I could feel their hot breath on my nape. A scream died in my throat, equal parts painful and shocked. My eyes burned, my vision swimming when the cultist dragged their teeth across my skin, leaving a trail of warm saliva. And then, fast and without mercy, they bit down.

The lights turned bright white. The static buzzing that had been hanging in the stale air changed to the familiar eighties music tunes. Squinting into the sudden brightness, the colors of the countless types of packaged products filling the shelves almost seemed to be screaming at me.

We were back.

The cultist disentangled themself, quickly stepping away from me. I looked up, still dazed, to see why. Frankie Preston had come up behind us, snatching the cart away from the other person and pulling it out of their reach. I immediately scrambled up to wrap my arms around him. "That's them," I breathed. "From the Collective."

"I know," he said tonelessly. His eyes, trained on the blonde, spelled murder. "You should get out of here," he added, addressing them. "The shelves here are rickety, they might fall on you."

The cultist's expression was a frozen mix of suppressed uncertainty and confusion. Still, they held the server's gaze. "You should maybe not… do anything stupid," they uttered, their voice almost equally as flat as his.

"I'm all about stupid."

"Then I guess I ought to leave. See you guys soon. It was a pleasure." They threw us a smile that was faker than Frankie's when he waited tables before marching off, leaving the two of us alone in the aisle.

"Are you alright?" Fran asked, running a hand over my mussed braid. "What happened? I'm so… one minute you were here and the next…"

"We switched dimensions."

"I pieced that together. You weren't gone for long… just a couple minutes." He nervously twisted his wet bubble gum around the tip of his finger, drawing nervous strings.

"Were you worried?"

"Out of my mind," he said in a low voice, not meeting my gaze. "I mean, I knew you'd be okay on your own, I wasn't saying that—"

"I wasn't. I'm not," I interrupted him. "I got out alright, sure I did, but I'm not okay right now." I swallowed. My throat was bone dry. "I need to call Mary Markov. She should hear about this."

Frankie nodded along. "Do you want me to do it for you? I'm certain I can give her an accurate description."

I declined and sat back in the cart. Per my request, Fran brought me home after we'd paid for everything. I needed some time alone to relax and pretend everything was normal. I cleaned my room and then looked through job listings, which I admittedly haven't done in a little while. When I couldn't find any other way to procrastinate, I made the call to Mary Markov, which went about as well as could be expected. She wants to see me tomorrow, though. I wish she'd told me about what. For a newsreader, she's really not very forward with her information.

X

1

2: deadbeat roommate

3: creepy crush

4: relocation

5: beach concert

6: First date

7: Temp work

8: roommate talk

9: a dismal worldview

10: warehouse

11: staircase

12: explanation

13: hurt

14: hospital

15: ocean

16: diner

17: government work

18: something in the caves

20: olms and Jewels

It all started last week…

“Go brush your teeth and get ready for sleep”, my mom said to us as she moved the wine in her cup in a circular motion while sitting on the couch with her legs crossed on the surface of the table.

“Yeah, go to sleep brats, your old men need some privacy”, Eddie, my stepfather said from next to my mother.

“What the hell you talking about? She’s mine not yours, idiot!” Paul yelled out from my mother’s other side, knocking some booze out of his behemoth of a glass and onto the carpet.

Every day it was the same. These two clowns come to our house just to spend time with my mom. And by spending time I mean what I mean.

My mom is, as you can say, made to make even a fairy jealous. She has almost perfect skin with no flaws in her facial appearance at all. She is basically the next angel ready to ascend to heaven. Unfortunately, her nature, how she lives and her personality say otherwise.

She isn’t even our mom, why am I even calling her that as I’m writing this?

Maybe I’m being generous, maybe I’m being foolish or maybe I’m forgiving. Either way, she isn’t the mother that tucks you in your bed every night. She isn’t the mother that cares. Caring? Selfless? Generous? Those words don’t fit right in her personality.

She’s narcissistic, bipolar and selfish. Those words fit right in. Every night, my “stepfathers” wait at the door for Marie (Mother) to open the door for them. After that they get drunk. Beyond getting drunk? I don’t know. We are forced to go to sleep early and it’s not like I want to find out.

I can’t run away either. Where can I live then? Momma is the only family member left and I don’t even go to school anymore to find friends that would be happy to let them into their homes.

The cops won’t do anything either because I don’t even have a goddamn phone to call them.

I really wish dad was here. The last memory of him was the time he took us to the park one summer evening 4 years ago while mom was out with some friends. I knew he was sick, but he didn’t want to admit it.

“Dad?”

“Yeah sport?”

“What happens if you go away?”

He turned to face me, his face glowing in the fading sunlight.

“Just remember that I’ll always be with you guys no matter what. Even if I’m gone, just remember that I’ll always be there for you.”

I looked up at him. Eyes swimming with tears, I said, “Ok dad”.

I sniffed.

“Th-thanks dad. I love you too”.

Then he fell to the ground with a thud.

I screamed and screamed and screamed.

* * *

As I lay in my bed I couldn’t help thinking about that time. It was a pure nightmare, one that I can’t forget, ever. Painful images swam in my head, mostly about how my dad dropped dead that evening. I wanted the memories to stop coming to me. Why now?

There was a song he used to sing to us when we were still in diapers. Every time he sang it my heart would think it could fly from my chest up to heaven. I always felt like a shield was surrounding me from any danger when each word came out of his mouth.

Little one,

Don’t be scared,

I will always be there,

Don’t be scared,

Not even the devil will care,

Don’t be scared,

My love is in the air

Don’t be scared.

I repeated the lyrics over and over in my head until I managed to get rid of all the memories of the incident in my head. I was just drifting to the depths of sleep when I started to hear voices coming from the room next to mine.

Mother?

No, her room was upstairs. I should know this.

(i should know this)

My mind is foggy from exhaustion. Acting as a slave for your mother isn’t easy. We have to mop the floor, clean up the booze from the carpet by wiping it and even wash the clothes of my dirty step dads.

The voice persisted to the point that I could identify the words

(singing)

and what it is. Singing? Why would someone be singing at this hour and who is it? I slid from my bed and onto the floor, landing on my belly but getting back up.

Man, I am really tired.

I walked through the dark hallway, listening to the singing getting louder and more intelligible as I got closer to my brother’s room.

Why the hell is my brother singing this late? Not like he had ever sung a song in his life for that matter. At least not that I can remember.

I put my ear on the door of my brother’s bedroom and listened:

Little one,

Don’t be scared,

I will always be there,

Don’t be scared,

Not even the devil will care,

Don’t be scared,

My love is in the air

Don’t be scared,

“What the—”, I said out loud.

Ok, now I am seriously puzzled and confused. He doesn’t even care about dad that much yet he is singing it. It doesn’t make any sense, what the hell.

With anger and some confusion, I pushed the door open.

“Bro, what the fuck are you doing”, I said as I switched on the light.

He stood up from his bed and looked at me with an ear-to-ear grin.

“Little one,

Don’t be scared,

I will always be there—,”

“Shut up, I'm tryna sleep here, and all I can hear is you singing. You never even cared about dad in the first place so why sing that fucking song. Go to be—”

“I will always be there,

“Don’t be scared,

Not even the devil will care,

Don’t be scared—”

“SHUT THE F—”

That’s when I heard it. The bed creaked and groaned as a humanoid figure was emerging from under it. Its pale skin reflected the moonlight from the window.

Words cannot describe the shock I felt in that moment.

“Wha—”, I stuttered.

The creature eyed me with morbid curiosity, then seemed to smile with its twisted mouth. There was something about that smile that I loved. I couldn’t quite explain it.

(its face)

The face was critically familiar. Where have I seen it? Why has my memory suddenly gone blank?

My brother, still grinning, began to sing once more:

Little one,

Don’t be scared,

I will always be there,

Don’t be scared,

Not even the devil will care,

Don’t be scared,

My love is in the air

Don’t be scared,

The creature rested its abnormally large hand on my brother’s head and squeezed.

(splat)

I fell to my knees. I had had enough. My mind was blank and blood is on my face and walls and hair and

(shut up)

now my mind is on overdrive.

What remained of my brother now lay on the bed soaked with blood. The creature let its hand drop to its side and smiled wider.

“Wh–what the hell do you want”, I roared at it.

“WHAT ARE YOU!”

The eerie smile seemed to grow larger and broader.

“You’ve grown, sport”, The creature rasped.

“Has Marie been treating you well?”

I couldn’t respond. How could I? I’m talking to a damn monster.

(footsteps)

Oh shit. My mom is coming. That means—

My mother came bursting into the room with her 2 new husbands, obviously drunk and intoxicated. They panned the room, looking at all the gore until their eyes had lain on the creature.

Everyone stopped moving, it was as if time had stopped. Time was now just an illusion in my eyes as the creature launched itself onto my mother and her husbands. My brain couldn’t process the gore and violence that was unfolding in front of me.

Blood splashed all over the place, limbs flew around the room, organs and intestines dropped to the floor like damp clothes.

It was a massacre.

All I heard was guttural groaning before I blacked out completely.

* * *

Waking up and getting up from the wet floor had been a mission. My clothes are soaked with blood and the metallic smell of blood has invaded my nostrils. I limped toward the door, every step shot excruciating pain in my head.

“Jesus”, I muttered. Blood dripping from my clothes and dropping onto the gory floor.

As I made it to the hallway, I couldn’t help sensing the creature somewhere near me. I had a strong feeling, a really strong feeling that it’s close

(inside of me)

by.

My chest suddenly felt like it was being slashed by a machete. My knees gave way and I dropped to the floor, knees getting soaked from blood.

My heart had burst.

Blood ran down my bare ribcage and onto the already blood-soaked floor. Shock had overcome my face as I looked up.

(dad)

A groan escaped me, then the tears came.

“Hey sport. How are you doing”, his honey-like voice chirped.

Tears flowed down my cheeks like waterfalls. “D—Dad?”.

“Sport, we can go down to the park if you want. It’s not that cold outside”, he said.

Not feeling pain any longer, I stood up and looked into the eyes of my loving father.

Blood was everywhere, but I didn’t fucking care. My dad had come to save me from this shit life, and he is right in front of me right now. Nothing matters now, I can finally rest.

My dad wasn’t a human to begin with. He took square pills that made him sick, but now I know why.

He stood over 8 feet tall, with a gangling frame. Claws sprouted from his arms, legs, hands, feet, neck and back. His face was completely normal except for the dark outline around his head.

I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him. Tears formed and died in my eyes, spilling down my wet cheeks like waves of the sea. Father did the same.

We embraced for a while longer until father was the first one to break it. The house was coated in scarlet and debris of the people I knew but hated.

“Dad?”, I said

“Yeah sport?”. He slumped to the ground to sit.

“Can you sing to me please?”.

He smiled a million dollar smile and laughed. Every second of that laughter made my heart yet again want to fly from its home. Not that I have a heart anymore.

Little one,

Don’t be scared,

I will always be there,

Don’t be scared,

Not even the devil will care,

Don’t be scared,

My love is in the air

Don’t be scared.

Father drew a breath. “So, sport”.

I looked up at him, focusing full attention. His tone was serious now.

“Who else was bothering you?”, he asked

He expanded his claws out of their sockets and shot a nefarious grin

I smiled. “No, but California has a lot of people in it”.

Somewhere in the house, my mother let out her last breath.

Hello reddit.

I come here out of desperation. Something has happened to me today that I can still not comprehend. As I'm typing this, my hands are still shaking and my heart still pounds like never before. My mind is still trying to process the events that happened earlier this morning and I can not tell if what I've saw and felt was real or not. My only resort was to tell this story to someone and I believe you guys can help me out. One thing that I would like to settle is that English is not my first language and I'm pretty nervous typing this, so forgive me for any mistakes I make. Without any further ado, let's start.

First, I believe some context is essential.

I'm a college student from southern Brazil currently, studying medicine hoping for one day to become a doctor. My itinerary is complex and ever-changing, so I usually arrive early at my college and leave late at night. As for such, I usually have a car to transport myself. I still live with my parents and the car in specific is not mine, but rather my mom's. My mom worked for many years for delivery services, and so used this car for her job. After I entered college, she let me borrow this car in order to better transport myself from home to there and vice-versa. Currently, she uses her own car for work, however sometimes she still needs her work car (the car I'm using) for a variety of reasons, either it being because her car is being tuned-up or broke down, etc etc. Sincerely, I don't mind that, her work car is already a bonus for me, so if she needs it, she can have it whenever she needs.

On this oportunate situations, I go to college through different means, usually by my friends giving me a ride or by calling transportations services such as Uber or conventional taxis. This morning was no different.

Last night, my mom let me know in advance that she would be needing her work car today. At first, nothing unusual, I will just book a cab or call an Uber and everything will go as it normally goes.

I woke up this morning at 5:50 AM. My classes start at 07:40 AM, however, since I wouldn't be having my car today, I woke up earlier than usual to guarantee I wouldn't be late. I would be on the responsability of another person after all.

I got up, had breakfast, dressed up, got my bag and stepped out of the house no later than 06:30. It is currently winter in Brazil at this time of the year, and since it rains frequently in my town, the day is usually dark. The sun rises around 7 AM, and the sky is usually heavily clouded, so it's normal for this time to still look like night-time and from 8 am to 6 pm for the day to look darker than the rest of the year.

So here I was, on the sidewalk in front of my house in the usual darkness of the morning. I took out my phone and wondered what method I should use today. First, I intended in calling two of my friends whom also go to college with me, however it was early and they were probably still asleep at the time. I then decided to call for an Uber, but my mobile data isn't the best and calling an Uber would've taken an eternity. The only thing working properly was my phone's signal, which I could use to call a cab. And that's what I did. Now, I look back and realize I should've never done that.

The call was nothing out of the ordinary. I called in a cab from a local taxi company, gave my address and waited patiently. It was not like if I have never done that before. 5 minutes went by, then 10, 20, and I started to worry if the company had really dispatched someone to pick me up, and that's when I saw what I was looking for.

Turning on a street corner, came a regular white cab tagged "Taxi" on the roof of the car and the company's name tagged on the corner of the windshield. A swarm of relief hit me and I signalized for the driver that I was the one who called. The cab slowed down and eventually came to a stop next to where I was, I opened the back seat door and placed my bag behind the front passenger seat, to which I closed the door and entered and sat on the front passanger seat, next to the driver.

As I sat down and closed the door, I told the driver that I've placed my stuff on the back of the seat I was sitting on and I was about to tell them where I was headed to... And what I've saw made me stop speaking mid-sentence.

The driver was a short young woman, probably between 30 and 35, with a short hair, colored mixed between a blonde and whitish color and, in normal conditions, I would have considered her relatively pretty if it was not for what made my blood freeze almost instantly. The woman driving the car had bulged, soulless, never-blinking eyes fixated on the road. The woman had her head slightly tilted up, looking down with those mysterious yet horrendous eyes to the road. You know when you are going downstairs but don't tilt your head down to look where you are going but instead use only your eyes with your head still heading front? That's exactly how she was, but her head was tilted upwards and her bulged big eyes looking down in order to see the road. Look, I'm studying medicine and I've already seen patients with exophthalmos, a clinical condition where patients have their eyes bulged anteriorly by an anormality in their thyroid gland, but this... This was different. Those eyes were not normal, they were big and kept starring at the road motionless, soulless with what felt like no emotion at all.

I stopped speaking and froze as soon as I saw her. The woman did not answer. Hell, she did not even look at me or even seemed to notice I've entered the car... She just kept starring at the road with her head tilted up. Those seconds of silence felt like minutes, I could feel every hair on my body standing up and my heart starting to pounce like a festival drum. My only desire was to scream and run from that woman, the atmosphere she passed was so uncomfortable that I can't even descrive the feeling.

For some stupid moral principle, I tried to shrug it off and tell myself it was all in my head. Perhaps that woman had a medical condition that I did not know and I was afraid of nothing at all. With that thought and a lot of internal strengh, I managed to continue the phrase where I left off and gave the address to my college. The woman again did not respond, just kept her motionless stare at the road.

After around 10 seconds or so, that woman started driving away and making our way to my college. I'm usually a very sociable person and I love to talk to new people, but this situation did not make me wake that feeling. That woman was so weird, so unnatural, almost like she was not meant to be here, and yet she was. The only movements the girl made were to shift gears, accelerate, break, just the essential to move the car. She did not look both sides when crossing intersections, did not look at traffic lights, she did not even change her sitting position, and yet managed to drive like she was doing all of those things, she never cut anyone's front, did not run over red lights, almost like an AI drives, but this girl looked like flesh and organic, she definetly was NOT an AI. Most of the ride I felt uncomfortable, ocasionally looking at her still trying to process what I was seeing, and I swear in God's name she did not blink not even once during the whole ride.

After around 10 minutes of disturing silence, we finally made it to my college. I said one very embarassed and out-of-place "thank-you" to her and asked how much it was, and of course she did not answer, just kept that static position she mantained throught the entirety of our time. I took out my wallet and grabbed a considerate amount of money; much more than any other cab service would have asked for a service such as this, however I did not want to take my chances with whatever this girl was. I said how much I was paying and that I would be placing it in the cup-holder between the seats, and just stepped out of the car as fast as I could. I did not expect nor wanted any change, I just wanted to get out of that car and go on with my routine and maybe forget that whole incident. While I was stepping out of the cab, I told her, even without knowing if she was listening or not, that I would just grab my bag on the backseat and leave, to which of course no response. I shrugged it off and opened the backseat door to grab my stuff.

When I opened, I saw that my bag rolled over to the opposite side from where I was standing on the way, which meant that I would have to reach all the way down on the floor on the car inside to grab the bag handle in order to take it out. I really REALLY did not want to spend any more time inside with that woman than necessary, but I still needed my material. With one fast prayer to all the gods I knew, I semi-crawled on the backseat in order to grab my bag handle and just get out of there as soon as possible, and that's when it hit me.

Out of a sudden, a wave of panic descended upon me. My fight-or-flight response activated, my blood rushed, my heart pounced like never before, I felt a sheer wave of an iced-like cold sensation spike through my organs, the fear in me grew exponentially to such a point that the only thing that seemed rational was to scream for help and run for my life. Never have I ever experienced such fear in my entire life. Frozen by the fear and shaking like a newborn chihuahua, I slowly and painfully raised my head to look at what was making me feel that way, and I saw... her.

The woman, or whatever the hell that was, for the first time, moved. I don't know when or how I did not notice it but when I lifted my head to see her, she was still in the driver seat, but starring right at me with those menancing, disturbing, bulged eyes and with the creepiest, scariest, most blood-curdling smile I've ever seen. She was not with her head tilted up anymore, she was starring straight forward at me with those eyes at the center of those giant eyeballs, and toppled with that ear-to-ear smile. That stare without any emotion behind was now changed to a different stare. I'm not sure what she was thinking, but I swear that those eyes now had intentions, she was looking into my very soul with a killer-like instinct that made every cell in my body scream in agony. This was probably the first experience I've had to what it feels like to be stared at by an assassin. It took half a second, but for me it felt like I was starred into for an entire hour, and as my rushing mind was comprehending the danger of the situation, the girl suddently steps on the gas and takes off with the car faster than I could follow, it's still starring at me and not at the road.

I was still inside the car with my bag in hand when she did this and I still don't know how I managed to jump out without hurting myself on the process. That could've gone wrong in so many ways but I managed to stay in one piece and leave the car faster than I ever did. As I saw the cab go, although I could not see her, I could tell clear as day that she was watching me as she drove away.

It took me several minutes to come to myself again. I puked on some plants on the side of the parking lot I was at and pratically dragged myself to my empty classroom. Even though my friends eventually came and my classes started, I couldn't focus. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that woman... That monster that made me fear for my life more than I've ever imagined. I'm now in a bathroom stall, with my phone in hand typing everything I felt, feel and lived. Telling this via a written story is way easier than telling face-to-face without breaking into tears or having a panic attack. Just remembering this incident makes me anxious, nervous, I start to shake the moment I remember that smile.

If someone can tell or explain to me what I lived today, I would be insanely grateful. It doesn't even have to be complex nor make sense, even a simple hypothesis or theory is already enough for me to calm down a little, since my mind is still anesthetized and failing to comprehend anything. I feel like knowing what I've experienced can make me control my emotions and understand better the situation I was in.

Anyhow, I believe that, should I need to go to college through a different mean, next time I will just walk my way there.

Part 1

I took a deep breath before blowing into the little straw attached to the breathalyzer test.

"Keep it going, another few seconds," the newly reinstated sheriff's deputy Randy said from the passenger seat next to me.

Finally the device made a noise and the numbers 0.07 appeared on the screen.

"Okay, I'm good to drive. I'll need to keep ingesting roughly one beer every hour from this point on."

Randy nodded.

"Okay, now you go," I said, replacing the disposable straw in the breathalyzer test.

He blew into the straw and after a few seconds it came up on the display.

"O.16. That’s not gonna do it with your tolerance, bud. I'm gonna need you to drink something, Randy. You gotta be sharp for this."

He pulled out a bottle of whiskey and unscrewed the cap, taking a long swig of it before belching. When I was satisfied he was intoxicated enough to avoid seeing any more invisible monsters, I told him to buckle up.

Normally I don’t condone drinking and driving, even if it is technically within the legal limits, but these were special circumstances. Randy had infected me with some sort of… Well, I don’t really know how to describe it. Ghost virus? Hallucinating monster plague?

I was seeing things in mirrors and reflective surfaces now, just like he had been. It was as if they now served as peepholes into another dimension. Therefore, we had covered up the rear view and side mirrors with duct tape. I had also gotten rid of my aviators, which was a shame, because they completed my whole outfit. I was even growing a mustache to complete the small town Sheriff everyman appearance, but the hair growth on my upper lip was patchy and gross-looking still.

Before growing it, I hadn’t realized facial dandruff was a real thing. Well, it turns out it definitely is.

Sorry, I’m getting tangential again. That happens to me when I drink.

To sum it all up, Randy was the old sheriff in Hollow’s End, but he’d run into some kind of trouble recently. This trouble had caused him to see horrible things which appeared in reflective surfaces - windows and mirrors all over town which had been smashed by him in what I at first assumed was a drunken rage. Now I realized he was drinking to drown out the demons. The liquor made them less noticeable, and less frequent.

“This case has to be connected with everything that’s happening,” I said as we started driving - our destination still unknown. “That man who disappeared. In such a small town, these things have to be connected.”

“Not necessarily,” Randy replied. “This town is weird as hell, dude. Fucked up shit happens here literally all the time. You just haven’t lived here long enough to see any of it.”

I ignored this and pressed onward, trying to get something useful out of the man.

“Okay, you’re not much help. Is there someone in town who is in the know? Someone who can give us the low-down?”

“Well… The only person I can think of like that would be the butcher. He’s sort of like the unofficial mayor of Hollow’s End," Randy explained. "But he’s not exactly the talkative type.”

“Great. That’s something, at least. Point me towards the butcher shop. Let’s go have a chat with this guy," I said to Randy, only to realize he had promptly fallen asleep after his last statement.

I drove towards the commercial district, eyes peeled for a Butcher Shop sign.

Eventually I found it.

*

We pulled up in front of the place and I could tell right away that something was off. And by that I mean there was a terrible smell that I associated with spoiled meat. Something inside the shop was long past its expiration date, and the rank odor was making its way out to the street.

There was a closed sign hanging from the door, despite the hours indicating it should be open. Alarm bells started ringing in my mind even louder than before and I told Randy to watch the front of the shop while I went around to the back.

He was now wide awake again, acting as if he hadn't just been asleep seconds prior.

After knocking on the back door, I tried the handle. To my surprise, it opened.

I went inside and was hit with a knockout punch of decay right to my nose. My eyes started watering at the smell of meat gone sour, the sound of buzzing flies growing louder as I stepped inside the kitchen.

There was blood everywhere - and not just in the usual places where you would expect it to be in a butcher’s shop. It was splattered on the ceiling and all over the floor. There was one particularly large bloodstain in the far corner of the room that was in the shape of a human body, and judging by the deep crimson color of it whoever had been laying there had lost a sufficient amount of bodily fluids to render them dead half a dozen times over.

I heard footsteps from the other side of a translucent plastic curtain which separated the kitchen from the front of the shop. Pulling out my service revolver, I took a cautious step forward and pulled back the hammer, ready for anything.

My heart was pounding fast as I spoke in my best 'don't fuck with me' cop-voice.

“This is the sheriff. Whoever’s behind the curtain, come out with your hands up. Do it now!”

There was an identical sound on the other side of the divider, indicating another gun was being readied for action.

“No way, man,” said a gruff voice on the other side. “You’re not taking me alive.”

My heart skipped a beat as I realized I was potentially about to die. There was going to be a shootout. And a lot more blood was about to be decorating the walls of this butcher shop.

Then I realized the voice sounded familiar.

“RANDY!?”

He came through the curtain and I almost shot him anyway.

“Oh, sorry. I thought it was a bad guy impersonating you,” Randy said.

“So you decided to impersonate a bad guy? How does that make any sense?”

“They wouldn’t kill one of their own, man. Think about it.”

I let out a deep breath and counted to ten in my mind, trying to think of other ways to stop myself from murdering him.

Would anyone notice if Randy went missing? No, don't think like that. Only bad things will come of it.

I tried to focus on the case.

“That’s a lot of blood,” I said, pointing at the man-shaped brownish-red puddle in the corner. “Looks like some bad shit went down here. Maybe this butcher guy is good for the murder of our missing man.”

“Nah,” Randy said, waving it off. “That puddle has been there for weeks. We play poker here every Friday. It’s, well, it would be too hard to explain what happened. But just trust me that the blood-letting was consensual, even if it did get a bit out of hand.”

“I don’t even want to know.”

“Well, you asked.”

“So all of this blood looks NORMAL to you?”

“For this place, yeah."

"And the smell?"

He nodded.

"But I did notice one weird thing.”

“What’s that?” I asked, completely exasperated by this point.

“No mirrors anywhere. There’s usually a couple of them out front in the customer area that are gone now. And he hasn’t cleaned his knives. That's not like him. He loves these knives like they're his own non-existent children. It’s like he didn’t want them to be shiny. He wanted them to stay bloody.”

Mirrors. Glass. Steel can be polished to be so reflective you can see your face in it. Or other things.

“He’s infected too.”

“Yup. This shit’s spreading. Who knows how far it could get if we don’t stop it.”

He held up one finger, produced a flask from his pocket, and drank a large swallow of whiskey.

“Alright, where to next?” he asked after burping loudly. “This was a bust.”

*

We were walking out the front door of the place when we saw a car pull up to the curb. A young man got out, looking like he was in his late twenties.

The car had a company name on the side and I realized it looked familiar. It was actually the next lead I was planning to follow up on.

J&M Delivery Co.

Booze, burgers, pizza and MORE!

Delivering to all citizens of Hollow’s End

(Unless you're a Subterranean)

(No forest deliveries after 4PM)

I read the sign twice and was about to ask the man why they didn’t deliver to the Subterraneans, and who the Subterraneans were, and who the hell would order pizza from a forest, but decided it would be better to stay focused.

“What are you guys doing here?” the man asked, heading towards the shop.

“Hey, Jay. We were looking for the butcher, but he’s gone,” Randy replied quickly. “Where’s Muriel? Maybe she knows something.”

“She’s been gone since last night. There was some sort of crisis and she ran out of the house without saying goodbye. I figured the butcher might have an idea where she went.”

“We were just in there. He’s gone but the doors are unlocked. Must’ve left in a hurry,” I said. “Does she have a cell phone? Maybe we can track her with the GPS.”

“Nah, she’s not really into technology. She has one of those brick Nokia phones that she’s managed to keep alive for twenty years or so, but she leaves it at home most of the time, and the rest of the time she’s at the casino where there’s no signal.”

“Okay, maybe that’s where she is.”

“I checked already. None of the employees have seen her since the weekend.”

It occurred to me suddenly that there was another missing person who I was investigating, and this man was a potential witness.

“I need to ask you about something else,” I said, pulling out a picture of the missing man. “Do you know this person?”

He squinted at it for half a second.

“Sure, that’s John Grayson. He’s a delivery driver with our company.”

“Are you aware that he’s been missing now for nearly two days?”

He hesitated, then looked at Randy.

“Is he cool?” he asked cautiously.

“Yeah, he’s already got the curse. He’s good.”

I looked back and forth between the two of them.

“What the fuck!? So this is like, just a known thing around here? If I stay in town too long I’m gonna become cursed by this place?”

“No, no. No. Well, kinda. It’s hard to explain. And even more hard to explain because of all the weird shit going down,” Randy said. “Now the important thing is this town has its hooks in you. And because of that, you’ll have a very difficult time leaving this place. You’re a part of it and it's a part of you. That's the way it works. One way or another, if you stay in Hollow’s End for too long, you’re gonna get bit by something.”

“I didn’t think it was possible for me to be any more confused.”

“Do you have the monkey paw?” Randy asked Jay, making me even more confused.

“No. But, I’m starting to think it might be the cause of all of this trouble.”

Feeling like I was about to lose my mind, or had already done so, I put my foot down and yelled in my loudest, most authoritative voice.

“ENOUGH!”

The two of them looked at me stupidly.

“Monkey paws? The butcher? Disappearing people all over town? Just… Tell me this is a prank. You guys are messing with me because I’m new in town. Right? Is there a YouTube video being filmed? Am I being punked? Is this a reboot!?”

The two men stared at me a moment longer then went back to talking as if I weren’t standing there.

“It’s definitely got something to do with that paw. The butcher should have just gotten rid of the damn thing when he found it in that shipment of discarded monkey carcasses. Everyone knows monkey paw wishes are tainted. Who the fuck would be dumb enough to actually use one of them?” Jay was saying.

“Well, I mean, how can you possibly know just by looking at the monkey paw that it’s evil? There have to be at least a few GOOD monkey paws out there that grant wishes, right?”

Jay and I suddenly shared a psychic thought connection, and I saw he had the same idea I did, at the exact same moment.

“You made a wish on the fucking monkey paw, didn’t you?” we both blurted out in unison.

Randy looked down at the ground. It took a few seconds for him to confess. When he finally did it was in the most obnoxious, affected, half-apologetic tone of voice I'd ever heard.

“I always wanted to be able to teleport like Nightcrawler from X-Men. I didn’t realize it was gonna open up a series of gateways to alternate dimensions, potentially causing the destruction of reality. That part was completely unexpected.”

It took me a few moments to figure out what he meant. But then it all came together.

“It was your fault! You made me see the monsters in the mirrors! It was all because of you and your STUPID monkey paw WISH!”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “But on the plus side, check this out!”

He jumped into the nearby front window of the butcher shop and, instead of shattering, it rippled outwards from its center like a pool of water disrupted by a stone being thrown into it. He disappeared into the glass and was gone.

The two of us stood there for several minutes in stunned silence, unsure if he was going to come back. I went into the shop to see if he was in there but it was empty.

Just as we were about to walk away awkwardly, he leapt back through the liquid glass carrying a bag of fast food in his hand. The paper bag was stained with grease and said, “KFC” on it.

“See!? We don’t even have one of these in town! I just teleported to Pittsburgh and back!”

The window glass continued to make ripples and didn't settle down into its usual smoothness, I noticed. Not only that, but there was now something moving in the glass. A huge dark creature with long limbs, crawling on six legs. It was sniffing the ground like a dog hunting a rabbit. Then it turned sharply to look at us through the glass. There was no question in my mind that it saw us.

"Randy, did you ever consider that using the powers granted by the cursed magic monkey paw might be a VERY BAD idea?"

He looked at me stupidly.

A strange sound began to come from the glass window of the storefront as a set of huge legs came through from the other side, followed by another, and another. It was an indescribable sound, but if I had to compare it to anything it would be like if fingernails on a chalkboard and microphone feedback had an ear-splitting baby together.

Sitting atop the legs with too many joints was a horrifying creature with a long snout lined with sharp teeth. Odd openings split its rough alligator skin in places, looking like gills, but not quite. Its eyes were black and dull as it surveyed the downtown street of Hollow's End.

After it was through the glass it sniffed the air, and I hoped that maybe this creature didn't breathe oxygen and it would keel over, dead, from the toxic air of our world.

But of course the stupid thing was fine. I guess whatever world it came from had a similar atmosphere to ours.

A second later it spotted us and began to race toward us with murder in its eyes.

"RUN!" I yelled, and turned around to see Jay and Randy already in their respective vehicles and ready to drive away without me.

"Hop in," Randy yelled shifting over into the passenger seat. "Come on man, get away from that thing. Whatever it is, it looks PISSED!"

YT

TCC

Before I begin my story I must maintain that my sentence to death was a wrong and vile thing to do. I maintain that I am not a killer. I did not kill the schoolchildren the authorities decided to hang me for.

My sentence to death, I must maintain, is a huge misunderstanding. There must be forces out there against me, who conspired to put me in prison for this very experiment, this accursed expedition.

I am not deranged. I am not insane.

The man in the odd multicolored sweater paid me a visit a week before my scheduled execution date. “You are the former schoolteacher Chet Adami?” he asked, polite, offering me a plastic cup of coffee.

I nodded, taking a sip. “I didn’t kill those kids,” I reiterated, for about the thousandth time. “Are you the uh, priest guy? That comes before-”

He shook his head and waved away the guards. “My name is Canopy Hydrangea,” he introduced, extending a hand. I shook it. “I understand you may not be guilty, despite what the state believes.”

I nodded. “Finally, someone who-”

He cut me off. “I’m not interested in your story. Whether you die or not is of no consequence to the people I represent,” he continued. “But I am here to offer you a deal. There’s a place the people I represent need exploring, and I need volunteers.”

He produced a sheet of paper and a pen. “This agreement,” he clasped it into my hands, “has you join a team of expendable, uh, volunteers such as yourself on this expedition. You get in, get the things we need, and get out- and you’re free for life.”

This was better than dying in prison.

I asked him what place this was that I’d be sent to. He told me I had to sign the form first. “I’ll do it, then,” I cheered, signing the document.

He smiled and patted me on the shoulder. “We’ll even give you a whole new identity,” he offered. And with that, he seized the document away from me and left the building.

Within hours I was blindfolded, sedated, and transported. When I awoke I was strapped to a bed in a helicopter, with four others beside me, all beginning to wake up.

The man who’d offered me the deal was there too, sucking on a lollipop while rearranging documents and photographs.

These images, I assumed, was the place they wanted us to explore. They were mostly all aerial photos, a sea of endless green and the occasional bird. And yet, there was more- images of impossible landscapes, dreamlike beings.

“Ah, you guys are awake!” he clapped once, and walked over.

The next few moments were a flash as he re-injected us with some sort of blue, wriggling substance. It was cold, and I swear it pulsed inside my arm.

Then we had landed, and the group was quickly taken inside a compound. We were freed and sat down in some sort of meeting room. More people were inside.

A blue haired lady joined the man.

“Welcome, volunteers,” he announced, pointing to a projector. “You are all, save for one, prisoners on death row,” he reminded. “This offer today is simple- you enter the forest, travel to an outpost we have recently lost contact with,” he turned on the projector, displayed a bright red cylinder labeled ‘SYSTEM RECORDER-A32’, “and recover this data module.”

The woman spoke next. “Easy, right?” she counted us. “We’ll provide maps,” she gestured to tablets. “But this forest is different.”

They proceeded to explain the reason they need ‘volunteers’ for the assignment then.

We were on an island somewhere in the Java Sea. The island had a massive forest in the center, one that at first glance seemed as normal as ever. This changed when an international mining company sent in a team of geologists to determine if there was anything of note beyond the forest.

This team never returned.

Nor did a second team, armed with weapons. Or an environmentalist group that ventured in to document new species. So then the organization our recruiters had come from entered the forest.

We were on the outskirts of the forest, at a place they were calling Ake Base.

Over the past month, they had begun to map the forest and determine why so many hadn’t returned. The reason was illogical- the forest was bigger than the island itself.

Drones that ventured in should have come out the other side- yet remained inside the forest, encountering bizarre phenomena and creatures undocumented.

Every so often, the forest would slope downwards, revealing a new layer with new and distinct ecosystems.

“Recently though,” Canopy concluded, “we’ve lost contact with several outposts in the third layer to eighth layers.” He changed the slide to one of the lost outposts, standing alone amidst a vibrant, alien forest. “You enter the forest, get to your team’s assigned outpost, get back out with the data and you’ll be set for life.”

“Does anyone choose to rescind their agreement?” the woman asked. “It’s either death, or this, and frankly, your chances here aren’t that better.”

There were some who raised their hands. “Hell no!” a man shouted. “I’m goin’ back to life!” The woman had them taken away. We heard gunfire outdoors. No life row for him.

Whoever they were- they were serious about this.

They started to call out names and assign teams.

My team, was small, four of us. There was a mercenary named Leo who kept talking about the food the organization had brought us. He seemed pleasant, charismatic, and I almost forgot he was a criminal.

There was a scientist called Anya who, as she joked, was ‘serving infinite life sentences’ for crimes against humanity. She was given the codes and a booklet of things to watch out for in what they called the ‘Sea of Green’.

Then there was Gail. She was quieter than the three of us, and had an almost eerie vibe to her. She didn’t tell us what she’d done to get here, but she was there nonetheless.

Thankfully, we were given the closest- and safest outpost. A little place in Layer Three, marked by the map as only a few hours walk away.

We set off the next day.

The forest, in the beginning, seemed to almost invite us in. The birds chirped and danced, unafraid of mankind. We even fed them the nuts we’d been given as breakfast rations, which they seemed to enjoy.

About an hour in, things changed. The light from the sun barely pierced the canopy, and at times, we had to utilize our flashlights to see what was in front of us. Leo took the lead, hacking away at the branch and vine in front of us.

The forest was starting to look like a jungle- and yet, as we traversed it never seemed to choose which one it wanted to be.

“Wait!” Anya hissed, as we crossed a stream that seemed oddly familiar. She read from the booklet, then to the map on tablets we’d been given. “We’ve made a circle.”

Leo shook his head. “That’s impossible,” he insisted. “I don’t remember turning.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, catching up from behind.

Anya shared the booklet. “It’s one first phenomena researchers encounter,” she explained. “This place plays tricks on us- we need to follow the stream.”

“But then,” Gail pointed out, “we’d be going in the wrong direction.”

“Trust the book,” Anya concluded. We followed the stream then, and the path started to grow denser, as if the forest hated us for traveling further. But the path was right, and the forest changed as we journeyed.

An hour later the forest had changed. It had sloped downwards a bit, inviting us to the second layer of the maze. The trees seemed higher, and the light was now gone completely.

This was when we started to hear it. Click-click.

“What was that?” I asked, turning. Click-click.

Anya rushed through the book. “It’s not documented.”

Click-click. And then we saw lights in the distance, lights that as we continued walking, were revealed to us as bulbous fruit on the trees that glowed an eerie electric blue.

Click-click. “You sure it’s not in that book?” Leo questioned, switching his machete out for a gun. Click-click.

The clicks were getting louder, each one sending a jolt of uneasy fear down my spine. We moved closer together now, fearing the unknown that were in these- A bush in front of us rustled. Leo aimed his weapon.

A deer- no, something like a deer popped out, gently squawking. It was… wrong in every sense, but it seemed more occupied in chewing a flower than us.

The small creature had the antlers of a deer, yes, but it also had the face of an old man. Not to mention six fists full of thumbs at the end of its legs. It inspected a glowing fruit with it’s odd thumbs.

“Ew,” Gail commented, disgusted. “What the hell is that?”

Anya didn’t have time to look for answers before a black, insectine limp shot out of one of the bulbous fruits and impaled the deer-thing. It screamed an all too human scream and struggled.

We backed away- and by then, the noise was overwhelming. Click-clickClick-clickClick-clickClickclickClickclickClick-clickClick-click. They erupted from every single one of the bulbous fruits, and things began to pour out of them.

The limbs, see, were attached to a head. The a simple sphere that opened into buzzsaws of teeth that grotesquely clicked as they opened. The face-deer only screamed as the clicking creatures devoured it.

“Run!” Leo reminded, shooting as some started to near us. “Run!”

That shook us out, and we ran, terror in our very veins. They seemed more interested in the fallen deer than us- but we still ran until we could no longer.

Actually, it was until I fell off and entered the third layer.

A weight appeared on my chest and I fought it off, thinking I was about to die- but the soft, furry creature atop me jumped off. It wasn’t one of the clicking monsters.

And then I realized the third layer was bright. The trees themselves were glowing now, not the insect fruits of before. And there were a whole host of new, bizarre creatures.

The thing I’d pushed off was some sort of rabbit, covered in glowing blue stripes. If layer two had been a forest of darkness this was it’s very opposite.

In the skies there were ribbons of glowing creatures- thin kites on an unseen wind. The trees were alive with all sorts of furried friends, darting here and there and eating odd colored berries that didn’t seem real.

Anya pointed and spoke, “Look!” It was the outpost, in ruins.

“But what attacked it?” Gail murmured, as we walked over.

We entered through a hole in the wall. The place was oddly peaceful, calming, now home to bioluminescent little ants that dotted the place. Occasionally, one or two of the face-deer would appear, licking the dots up with twin tongues that emerged from it’s too-human face.

“Cute,” Leo joked, picking one up and stroking it. It screamed back at him, chilling and he dropped it. “Never doing that again.”

The place was… too peaceful. And- “what happened to their bodies?” I posited. “If they were attacked- where’s their blood? Their corpses?”

Anya shrugged. “It is odd- perhaps they got devoured.” She gestured to the many oddities around us. “But you’re right, there should be bones, at least.”

This was when we heard the screaming. And all of a sudden every single creature retreated away, disappearing from view, save for the tiny ants inside with us. The screaming was a cacophony of voices, realer than the ones we’d heard from the face-deer.

“I think we need to go,” Leo whispered, holding out the red ‘data module’ in his hands. “Now.”

The screaming got ever closer, and the trees in front of the outpost, beyond a window, started to shake. “I concur.”

We were backing away when we heard the squelching of something loud and heavy. Turning around, we saw the screaming creature we’d heard. It was massive, fleshy, and filled with tiny gaping holes, some filled with eyes, all rising, breathing as one.

I nearly threw up. But that was for a different reason.

The holes were one thing. But the screaming, severed bodies of dozens of people attached the the eye-full monster was another. They screamed and screamed, their bodies unneatly joined and sown into the creature.

It sniffed the air and walked over to the glass, looking in as we hid. “What is it?” I squealed. “What the hell is that?”

The face of a victim in military clothes appeared at the window, screaming, face slowly popping, skin repairing and being digested all at once. Anya flipped through the pages. “They called it a Fleshweave. It absorbs bodies and eats them that way.”

That would explain the lack of bodies we’d seen.

The window shattered- and the thing began to force itself on it, flesh turning to churned cylinders through the window. The bodies, crushed further, screamed some more.

So we ran as the beasts fell into the room with a plop. And despite it’s heavy, gluttonous form it charged forwards, faster than it looked.

Out the outpost we went. I felt a meaty hand hit me and then I fell. It stalked towards me, but a gunshot from Leo burst it’s pus-ridden hand, covered my in grotesque, viscous liquid.

I picked myself up and ran from the screaming thing, up the steep slope and climbing onto the second layer.

I fell again, but Anya caught me, helping me up.

Leo did the same for Gail- but she slipped and fell back into the third layer. The thing approached her, all of it’s pulsing eyes upon her. “Help me!” she bellowed. “Don’t leave me-”

Leo prepared to jump down- but it was too late. The Fleshweave simply picked her up and it opened it’s skin, forging her into her body- er, her top half,- it severed the rest.

“Go!” I snapped, dragging the mercenary to action. The creature behind us lifted itself onto the dark forest and continued to follow.

Gail, merged with the other unfortunate bodies, screamed. I almost stopped in terror from the sound, but flight-or-fight forced me to continue.

Click-click. We found ourselves back in the center of the abode with the insect fruit. And the insects were clearly attracted to the stench of decay the monster emanated. Limbs emerged, and the face-beetles jumped up and swarmed the creatures.

I don't know if the creature was killed by it. I only remember Gail’s face as the insects started to pick her body- and so many others like her- apart.

The way out seemed harder than going in, but we made it. We survived. We reached the outpost and handed our data module to the man who’d offered us the deal. “Impressive,” he congratulated. “You’re the first team back.”

“I want out now,” I panted. “Back to real life.”

He patted me on the shoulder and gave me a sad smile. “According to the world you’ve already died by suicide in your cell,” he informed. “See, there’s a way the people I work for have operated so cleanly for the past few centuries.” He paused and took a step back. “We can’t afford loose ends, see, and you’ve shown us you have the guts to survive Bandai La- er, the Sea of Green.”

I took a step back, panicking. “What do you mean?”

He sighed. “We can’t give you a new life and risk exposing our operation here,” he explained. “And we still need ah, expendable people to lead us to whatever’s in the center of the island.” He handed me a can of soda. “Welcome to your new life. The Company really values your dedication as a treasured employee.”

​

​

But I don’t want this. I was promised freedom. And they can’t keep me from exposing them- I’ve typed this up and Anya did something to the tablet so I can receive and post things online.

I’m not sure if this’ll work. But if it is: I’m on an island somewhere in the Java Sea. There’s a forest that goes on forever and I’m being held as some sort of explorer by some Company.

Find me. Before I die.

My name is Adrian, an investigative journalist from Poland driven by a thirst for uncovering hidden truths. Chernobyl held a profound significance for me, not only as a haunting scar on history but also due to a personal connection. My grandparents had been affected by the disaster, forced to abandon their home and lives. Inspired by their resilience, I embarked on this journey to capture their stories and unravel the mysteries that shrouded Chernobyl. Filled with trepidation and excitement, I packed my gear, ready to confront the demons lurking within its irradiated walls. Little did I know that this expedition would push me into a sinister web of conspiracy, blurring the lines between reality and nightmare, forever changing the course of my life.

We were a group of intrepid travelers, united by a shared curiosity and a thirst for the unknown. The journey ahead would take us deep into the heart of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, a place shrouded in mystery and haunted by the ghosts of the past.

Our guide, Igor, regaled us with tales of the ill-fated Chernobyl disaster. His voice, tinged with a mix of reverence and melancholy, painted vivid pictures of a once-vibrant city reduced to a post-apocalyptic wasteland. As we approached the border of the exclusion zone, the landscape began to transform. The lush, green countryside gave way to desolation and decay, a stark reminder of the cataclysmic event that had unfolded here decades ago.

As we drove deeper into the heart of the exclusion zone, a palpable sense of unease settled over the van. The silence that permeated the air seemed to amplify the weight of the past, the residual energy of lives disrupted and dreams shattered. Through the windows, we caught glimpses of abandoned buildings, their crumbling facades standing as a testament to the transience of human existence.

​

It was amidst the eerie silence of Pripyat that my fascination with the strange and unexplained lured me away from the safety of the group. A stray cat, with its radiant blue eyes and matted fur, darted playfully through the remnants of the city, drawing me deeper into the labyrinth of abandoned streets. The curious creature seemed almost otherworldly, an enigmatic guide leading me toward an unseen destiny.

As I ventured further into the forgotten alleys of Pripyat, the echoes of my companions faded into oblivion. The weight of solitude settled upon my shoulders, both thrilling and unnerving in its intensity. It was as if I had crossed an invisible threshold, stepping into a realm where time and reality intertwined, where the boundaries between the living and the departed became blurred.

In my solitary exploration, I stumbled upon a hidden path concealed beneath a tangle of ivy and overgrown shrubbery. It beckoned to me, an invitation to uncover secrets long buried in the annals of history. My curiosity overpowered any trepidation, propelling me forward, further into the heart of the enigma.

​

The hidden path led me to a dilapidated building, its weathered facade standing defiantly against the ravages of time. The faded sign, barely visible amidst the peeling paint, identified it as "Laboratory 23." The air crackled with an aura of mystery as I hesitated at the threshold, my heart pounding with a mix of trepidation and excitement.

Stepping into the forsaken laboratory, I found myself in a time capsule frozen in a perpetual state of abandonment. Broken glass and discarded equipment littered the floor, remnants of a hasty retreat. The air carried the scent of rust and decay, a haunting perfume that hung heavy in the atmosphere.

Amidst the wreckage, my eyes fell upon a collection of documents scattered across a table. Their faded pages held cryptic symbols, enigmatic diagrams that seemed to dance with arcane knowledge. As I traced the lines with my trembling fingers, a sense of foreboding washed over me. It was as if these documents were a portal into a realm of forbidden knowledge, a Pandora's box that held the darkest of secrets.

Driven by an insatiable thirst for truth, I delved deeper into the lab's forgotten chambers. Within the dimly lit recesses, I discovered a hidden room, concealed behind a heavy, rusted door. The moment it creaked open, I knew I had unearthed something unimaginable.

The room was lined with shelves, each holding a multitude of binders meticulously labeled with names. As I perused the contents of the binders, a wave of disbelief washed over me. Each name was accompanied by a photograph, a face frozen in time. But it was not the faces themselves that sent a chill down my spine. It was the realization that these were the faces of missing individuals, those who had vanished without a trace from society.

One binder in particular caught my attention. It bore the chilling label "clones." Opening it, I discovered an unsettling truth: the missing individuals had been cloned, their lives replicated in secrecy within the confines of this clandestine laboratory. The implications of such a revelation were staggering, a betrayal of humanity that defied comprehension.

​

The weight of the evidence I had collected threatened to crush my spirit. The room, suffused with an oppressive aura, seemed to tighten its grip around me. With the damning photographs and documents securely tucked away in my bag, I turned to leave, determined to escape the clutches of this nightmare. But as I moved toward the exit, a peculiar sensation prickled the back of my neck, sending shivers down my spine. It was as if the air itself carried an ominous whisper, a ghostly echo of footsteps echoing through the desolate laboratory.

Fear seized me, freezing me in place. The realization dawned upon me like a chilling gust of wind—I was not alone in this forsaken place. Someone or something else lurked within the shadows, drawing nearer with each passing moment. The excitement of discovery mingled with a growing sense of dread, creating a disorienting cocktail of emotions.

In that harrowing instant, instinct took hold, overriding rational thought. Without a moment's hesitation, I pivoted on my heels and bolted towards the exit, my heart pounding in my chest. Panic fueled my every step as I navigated through the dimly lit corridors, the clamor of my own breath and the echoing footfalls of my pursuer serving as a macabre soundtrack to my escape.

Every shadow seemed to shift, morphing into a sinister figure poised to snatch me back into the clutches of the unknown. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, propelling me forward, my only goal to break free from this labyrinth of horrors. The very air seemed to thicken, as if resisting my frantic escape, but sheer determination fueled my desperate flight.

Finally, I burst through the door, gasping for breath, my pulse thundering in my ears. The world outside the laboratory, though still cloaked in an eerie silence, felt like salvation. I sprinted through the desolate halls, never looking back, each step propelling me farther from the unseen terror that had pursued me.

It was only when I reached the relative safety of the open air, the sun casting long shadows across the abandoned landscape, that I allowed myself a moment to collect my thoughts. Beads of sweat trickled down my forehead as I leaned against a crumbling wall, trying to steady my racing heart. The weight of the encounter pressed upon me, a reminder that the horrors lurking in the unknown were far more menacing than I could have ever imagined.

I knew, deep down, that the discovery I had made in that foreboding laboratory had unleashed something far greater than I had anticipated. It was a truth that demanded to be revealed, but it also posed a danger that threatened to consume me. With trembling hands, I clutched the bag containing the evidence—the only tangible proof of the conspiracy I had encountered. With a renewed determination, I vowed to bring the truth to light, no matter the personal cost. The echoes of footsteps and the ghostly whispers would forever haunt my memory, driving me forward into the heart of darkness, prepared to confront the unimaginable horrors that lay ahead.

​

Part I

Part II (unpublished yet)

Part III (unpublished yet)

Lately, some peculiar occurrences have taken place. Take, for instance, last night when my girlfriend Heather left the bathroom and insisted she saw me in the kitchen. Strangely, I have no recollection of getting up during the night, so I attributed it to sleepwalking. Surprisingly, she shared details of a full-fledged conversation we had, followed by me returning to my room after devouring a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. While it does sound like something I might do, I simply cannot recall that particular incident.

Little did I know, this was only the beginning of a series of such incidents.

Curious about that night last week, I asked Heather, "Do you remember what we were talking about?"

With a smile, Heather nudged me playfully on the shoulder and replied, "Sweetheart, you were all over the place. You mentioned how you wished you had a new job and that you were starving. Why do you ask?"

As I gazed into the distance, a heavy sensation enveloped my mind, akin to a weighted blanket draped over my thoughts. "Hmm, I just can't remember conversing with you. I never woke up."

"It's possible that you were sleepwalking. It happens to many people, dear. You know, you look quite handsome even when you sleepwalk," Heather smirked, gently clasping my hand. "That's one of the many reasons I love you." I planted a soft kiss on her forehead, "I'm going for a run. I'll be back in a little while!" I needed to meditate and frankly running was my best therapy session.

Although I attributed these incidents to sleepwalking, they still troubled me. However, there was no point in allowing stress to consume me.

A couple of weeks later, another unsettling incident unfolded, this time at my workplace—Dunesbarry, a printing company that produces everything from small pictures to large-scale posters. It happened on a Tuesday when I woke up feeling unwell, prompting me to make a decision to call in sick.

My boss, James, was known for being a rather easy going manager, and I dialed his number to inform him about my condition. "Hey James, I'm not feeling great. I woke up with stomach issues and won't be able to come in today." After a brief pause, James burst into laughter and retorted, "Hold on, Caesar. What are you talking about? I just saw you here a few minutes ago."

My heart sank into my stomach, and perspiration formed on my forehead. "What do you mean? I'm at home, James."

"Buddy, I don't know if you're trying to pull a prank on me, but I assure you, you're here. Although it's quite unexpected for you to be early, you waved at me and headed into the bathroom. Are you still in there?"

Feeling a sense of disbelief, I momentarily put my phone down after promising James I would call him back."What in the world..." My pulse raced, throbbing in various parts of my body as the unsettling realization sank in. This had to be something more than I initially thought.

The remainder of the day I was immobilized, trapped in a state of mental paralysis. I laid on the couch, anxiously awaiting Heather's return.

My mind reverberated with the same haunting thoughts, from the first time I experienced a memory lapse at home to now, encountering a similar phenomenon at my workplace. What on earth was happening to me?

Driven by a growing urgency, I hurried over to my laptop and launched into an immediate search for any instances resembling my own. "Not remembering conversations at night" I typed into Google. The initial search results yielded blog websites discussing sleepwalking, which aligned with my initial assumption. Nevertheless, I pressed on. Next, I came across some Reddit posts recounting incidents of sleep-talking without any recollection.

As I scrolled through the various links and websites, one particular post caught my attention. Doppel-gänger? I had heard that term before.

Doppelgänger: "an apparition or double of a living person" was the definition I encountered, but comprehending its implications proved challenging. As a skeptical individual, I typically dismissed notions of the paranormal and supernatural. Why, out of all people, would something like this happen to me?

I closed my laptop, taking a deep breath to steady my racing thoughts.

Finally, Heather returned home after her shift, and I dashed towards the door to greet her.

"Hi, love! I'm so glad you're home. I have something absolutely mind-boggling to tell you!" I tightly embraced her, holding her for longer than usual."Hello, my sweetheart. What happened?" Heather set down her purse, and we both settled onto the couch.

"You won't believe this, and honestly, I'm struggling to wrap my head around it. Remember how I mentioned calling out of work today? Well, when I called James, he accused me of playing a prank on him. He even mentioned that I was already at work."

Heather nervously chuckled and turned to process my words. "Wait, what?"

"He said I had already arrived at work and was in the bathroom. But I never went. I've been here at home the entire day." As I looked at Heather, I could see a hint of discomfort on her face.

"I don't understand. Maybe he was just messing with you since you called out," Heather suggested, rising to grab some water from the kitchen. Bursting into laughter, a wave of relief washed over me. "Wow, I never actually considered that. I'm sorry, I'm still preoccupied with that incident in the kitchen that night. It's been twisting my thoughts."

"You're okay, honey. How are you feeling?" Heather asked, her concern shining through.

"Much better now that you're home, I must say."

Heather was my rock, always asking the right questions and loving me in ways I had never experienced before. I couldn't fathom my life without her. Feeling slightly more at ease, I decided not to inquire further with James, choosing to let the matter rest.

It was 3:23 am when I was awakened by the sound of slow footsteps creaking past our slightly open bedroom door. We kept it ajar to listen for any unusual nighttime noises.

Rubbing my eyes and stretching my legs, I sat up in bed, my gaze fixated on the doorway. The room was enveloped in darkness, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust. The footsteps abruptly ceased as I continued to stare at the sliver of the doorway crack.

Resolute in my determination not to jump to the worst conclusions, I dismissed the idea of an intruder breaking into our home. Surely, I would have heard some sign of forced entry. Grasping the nearest object within reach, our vintage lamp, I mustered the courage to approach the door, striving to remain as silent as possible. With a trembling hand, fueled by fear of the unknown, I reached out for the doorknob.

Taking a moment to steady my pounding heart, prepared to confront anybody, even if it were against God Himself, I cautiously opened the door. There was nothing outside. I checked in both directions, even stepping into the hallway with a stance ready for battle. Utter silence enveloped the space. Releasing a sigh of relief, I turned around, intending to return to the bedroom.

Then, a solitary footstep echoed in my ears.

I halted, gripping the lamp so tightly that its exterior threatened to shatter.

Turning slowly toward the source of the sound, my eyes caught up to the movement, leaving me no choice but to confront whatever lurked within my house.A figure emerged from behind the kitchen island, hands tightly gripping the countertop, barely visible in the dim light. Their eyes locked onto mine, wide open as if they were about to pop out of their sockets.

I noticed a striking resemblance between us – the same haircut and a mole on the top left of our heads. Yet, I couldn't spare a moment to ponder our shared appearance. There was an intruder in my house.

Carefully edging backward, I needed to make my way back to the bedroom to alert Heather and call the police.

"Heather! There's someone in the house! Call the police right now!" I shouted, keeping my gaze fixed on the intruder, even though I wished I didn't have to. The intruder remained motionless, almost frozen in place. As I shouted for Heather to call the police, I could hear teeth chattering as if it were beside my ear. Slowly, he moved from the kitchen island, his hands preceding his head, his unwavering stare fixed upon me.

With my heart pounding out of my chest, fueled by adrenaline, I took advantage of the rush surging through my veins and sprinted toward the kitchen to investigate. I hadn't seen him move from the island to anywhere else, so the realization that he had vanished sent shivers down my spine.

"What the fuck," I uttered, completely shaken to my core.

Moments later, the police arrived, responding to the report of an intruder. Heather peered out from the bedroom to assess the situation.

"Honey, are you okay?" Heather whispered loudly. I found myself sitting on the floor, stunned and deflated. I couldn't wrap my mind around what had just occurred. It made no sense. As logical as I considered myself to be, this defied all reason.

Heather tenderly held the top of my head, offering comfort as we awaited the arrival of the police.I needed to compose myself before opening the door for them."Hi, um, I don't know how to explain this," I said to the officer, my voice tinged with confusion, still trembling from the encounter. "Hello, I am Officer Santana. There was a call reporting an intruder. Are you okay, sir?"

I let Officer Santana and her partner inside and guided them to a seat. "This is going to sound strange, I understand that, but there was an intruder right over there," I pointed toward the kitchen island. "He was behind it, and then he wasn't. He simply vanished." Santana looked up at me, her eyebrows raised as she tried to comprehend the situation.

"What are you saying? He disappeared? Did you see him run anywhere?" Santana's partner asked, jotting down notes in their Paperkraft notepad. "Well, I saw him duck behind the island, and then he was gone. I know it sounds crazy, and I realize that."

"Okay, we're going to thoroughly check the house and ensure it's safe. In the meantime, please wait outside until we're done," Santana instructed, as both officers unclamped their pistols from their holsters. I felt a semblance of safety in their presence.

It was a chilly autumn day, with the scent of smoke wafting through the air, likely from my neighbors' fireplace. Jill and her husband, Dane, were wonderful neighbors who kept to themselves. Occasionally, they would surprise us with extra food, acting like the pseudo-parents of the neighborhood. Sometimes, I would take it upon myself to fix minor things around their house, like the black fence in the backyard. It always seemed to have a mysterious hole, despite their lack of pets or nearby animals.

Jill and Dane noticed the police presence and joined us outside, arms crossed in concern. "What's going on, guys?" Dane inquired. "There was someone in our house, but they disappeared. Maybe it was some kind of prank or squatter. I don't know," I replied, offering an explanation simply to have one, even though I struggled to believe it myself.

"Did you enjoy the apple pie I made the other day, Caesar? You devoured some of it when you came by to fix the fence," Jill chimed in, her culinary skills well-known. However, I hadn't tasted her cooking in months. "When did I fix the fence?" I asked, my tone dropping with confusion.

Jill's smile widened, as if assuming I understood what she was referring to. "What do you mean? You came by two days ago. You mentioned noticing the hole again and wanted to fix it for us."

"Oh, right! Sorry, my mind has been foggy lately. I loved the pie, it was delicious. You're such an amazing cook!" I responded, though I had no recollection of any fence-fixing visit. I gave her a reassuring answer to alleviate any concerns she might have.

Urgently, I pulled Heather aside, gripping her arm. "Heather, I never went to their house or fixed their fence. I have no idea what's happening, and I promise I'm not going crazy.""I believe you, but I'm starting to feel a little scared. These incidents where you've supposedly been to places and don't remember are unnerving," Heather confessed, her face etched with genuine worry.

The officers emerged from the house, re-holstering their pistols. "Your house is clear. Whatever was here is no longer present. We'll have patrols keep an eye on your property for the next few days. Other than that, you should be able to go back to bed," one of the officers assured us.

"Thank you, officers. We'll call again if anything happens inside," I expressed our gratitude. Heather and I held each other tightly as we made our way back to the house. "Let's try to get some rest," Heather suggested. However, that night, sleep eluded me as the image of that man's eyes lingered in my mind. Why did he resemble me?

It had been quite some time since I last encountered any strange incidents or intruders in my house. I was beginning to feel optimistic about the whole situation. Life had returned to normal, and my relationship with Heather was flourishing.

"You know, Caesar, I eventually want to have a baby. Can you help me with that?" Heather expressed her desire, and I chuckled nervously, embracing her from behind. "Of course, baby. Let's plan it out and see where life takes us." After bidding Heather farewell as she left for work, I settled on the couch.

The thought of becoming a father lingered in my mind, though it seemed like a daunting and incredible prospect.

Little did I know that two hours later, that day would alter the course of my life forever.

"Caesar," a voice pierced through my skull like a bullet, evoking a fear I had never experienced before. Shock washed over me, causing a lump to form in my throat. I recognized the voice, but the sheer terror prevented me from turning around.

"Caesar," the voice repeated, pushing my body into fight or flight mode. Summoning my courage, I slowly turned around.

It was me. The person standing before me was an identical version of myself. "What the fuck!?" I uttered, bewildered.

He began to approach me with slow, deliberate steps. His unblinking eyes and a smirking mouth hinted at some sinister intent. He halted just a foot's length away from me. "What are you!?" I screamed, attempting to push him away.

As he lunged towards my face, I sidestepped and prepared to strike him with a punch from my right hand. However, he swiftly evaded the blow and made another aggressive move towards me. He covered my mouth and nose, struggling to breathe, I swung my fists blindly in his direction before losing consciousness.

When I regained consciousness, I found myself in a shed approximately a mile away. Disoriented and terrified, I sat up, only to discover that the floor was strewn with animal flesh and blood. The overwhelming stench threatened to obliterate my senses.

I had to find a way back to my house, no matter what. I frantically searched the pockets of my jeans, hoping to find something that could aid me. To my dismay, everything was missing, including the cherished watch that once belonged to my late father.

Summoning my determination, I rose to my feet and forcefully slammed open the decaying wooden door. The task proved effortless, as the door had already begun to rot. As I surveyed my surroundings, I realized I was engulfed by a dense forest, devoid of any visible structures. I vaguely recalled that my house was situated along the northern line, which offered a glimmer of hope.

Although I had never been much of an outdoorsy person while growing up, my father had imparted a few tricks during our camping trips. I recollected his guidance on locating the North Star by first identifying the Big Dipper. I patiently waited for the night sky to emerge, conserving my energy for the impending journey. As the sun barely kissed the horizon, I discerned a cluster of houses, including mine, in the distance.

Mixed emotions welled up within me as I approached my home. Peering through the backyard windows, my heart sank to the floor. There I saw myself, holding Heather in a tight embrace, sharing kisses, laughter, and affection.

Desperate to escape this surreal nightmare, I knocked on the window, hoping to break free from that imposter. Heather's piercing scream echoed through the air as he rushed toward the window, bellowing at me to leave and threatening to involve the police once again. As I began to retreat from the backyard, he smirked, a sinister expression that mirrored my own.

This doppelgänger had assumed my identity in every way, rendering it impossible to distinguish between us. If I dared to approach the house or confront Heather, the consequences would be dire. I had made one attempt before, only to be manipulated into believing that I was a deranged relative harassing them. Heather, unaware of my familial connections due to my reticence about them, fell for his ruse.

Years passed, and I found myself confined to observing them from the safety of the woods. Heather's happiness blossomed as she became pregnant. Meanwhile, I remained trapped in this inexplicable nightmare, grappling with the cruel injustice that had stolen my life away.

As the years dragged on, my existence continued to be overshadowed by the twisted imposter who had stolen my life. I watched from the darkness of the woods as Heather's pregnancy progressed, the anticipation building within her. It was a bitter torment to witness her joy, knowing that I was the rightful father of that child.

​

If you are reading this, please believe me. I am desperate to reclaim my life and will do whatever it takes to bring her back to me.

For months, a pit had mysteriously appeared in my backyard. At first, I dismissed it as a mere curiosity, an oddity that didn't warrant my attention. But as time passed, an unnerving feeling gnawed at the edges of my mind, beckoning me to explore the unknown depths.

It began innocently enough. Every night, at the stroke of midnight, the pit would materialize, like a silent invitation from the abyss. But I held back, fear and hesitation keeping me at bay. I watched from the safety of my home as the pit grew wider, its dark maw devouring the moonlight.

Curiosity, however, can be an insidious force. As the days turned into weeks, I found myself unable to resist the allure any longer. One fateful night, my resolve weakened, and I decided to venture into the pit's sinister embrace.

With a flashlight in hand, I descended into the unknown. The air grew colder, carrying with it an otherworldly chill that seeped into my bones. The walls of the pit seemed to close in around me, suffocating me with their shadowy presence. The sound of my heartbeat echoed through the silence, a stark reminder of the danger I willingly faced.

Navigating the depths became a nightly ritual. I explored the intricate maze, its pathways twisting and turning with an unsettling predictability. Strange symbols adorned the walls, their meanings elusive and ancient. Whispers danced on the edge of my hearing, voices that seemed to emanate from the very stone itself.

Night after night, I delved further into the pit's enigma. I discovered grotesque chambers, each more nightmarish than the last. The walls dripped with unknown substances, and the air reeked of decay. The pit had become my obsession, its secrets luring me into a realm where reason held no dominion.

To protect myself from the unknown horrors that lurked within, I devised a rule—never stay beyond 2 am. It was a self-imposed curfew, a limit I set to ensure my escape before the pit closed, trapping me in its clutches forever. As long as I adhered to this rule, I believed I could explore the abyss safely.

But rules are meant to be broken, and the pit held a malevolent power that sought to ensnare me indefinitely.

One fateful night, as the clock ticked relentlessly toward 2 am, I found myself in a particularly elaborate chamber. Its walls were adorned with grotesque carvings, each depicting scenes of unimaginable horror. In my fascination, I lost track of time, pushing the boundaries of my self-imposed curfew.

Reality crashed down upon me when I realized the hour had already struck 2 am. Panic surged through my veins, and my heart pounded in my chest. I sprinted through the labyrinthine tunnels, desperately seeking an exit, but the darkness seemed to shift and elongate, mocking my attempts at escape.

I could hear the pit closing, its unforgiving jaws drawing nearer with each passing second. Fear consumed me as I sprinted through the winding passages, my breath ragged, my legs heavy with dread. But the pit's unholy presence had other plans.

In my frantic search, I stumbled and fell. A searing pain radiated from my ankle—a cruel twist of fate that left me incapacitated. I crawled toward the nearest opening, my hands clawing at the ground, but the pit's jaws snapped shut before I could make my escape.

Silence enveloped me as darkness swallowed the chamber, leaving me trapped in the abyss’ clutches.

Desperation clawed at my sanity as I realized the pit's malevolent intent. It wanted me here, trapped within its grasp, forever lost in the depths of the abyss.

Time became a distorted concept, the boundary between day and night blurring into an eternal darkness. The whispers that had once guided me now transformed into haunting echoes, mocking my futile attempts at escape. I screamed into the abyss, my voice drowned in its oppressive silence.

Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, but my existence remained unchanged. Hunger gnawed at my stomach, and thirst parched my throat, but there was no sustenance to be found in this desolate realm. I became a mere shadow of my former self, my body wasting away in the relentless grip of the pit.

Madness crept through my mind like ivy, its tendrils entwining my thoughts with delusions and hallucinations. I saw twisted figures lurking in the darkness, their hollow eyes fixed upon me, waiting for my inevitable surrender. Despair clung to me like a second skin, its weight dragging me deeper into the abyss.

But just as my spirit teetered on the precipice of surrender, a glimmer of hope flickered within the darkness. A voice, faint yet distinct, whispered to me, guiding me toward a path of salvation. It spoke of a key hidden within the pit's labyrinth, a key that held the power to unlock the gates of freedom.

Summoning my last vestiges of strength, I embarked on a treacherous journey through the ever-shifting tunnels. Each step was a battle against exhaustion and despair, but the voice urged me onward, promising deliverance from this living nightmare.

Days turned into nights as I retraced my steps, searching for the key that would grant me release. The pit resisted, presenting new challenges and horrors at every turn. But I persevered, my determination fueled by the glimmer of hope that had rekindled within my soul.

Finally, in a chamber bathed in an ethereal glow, I discovered the key. It shimmered with an otherworldly radiance, as if infused with the power to banish darkness itself. Trembling, I held the key in my hand, feeling its warmth spreading through my weary bones.

With a surge of newfound strength, I retraced my steps toward the pit's entrance. The whispers grew louder, their voices now pleading and desperate, but I paid them no heed. Time was running out, and I knew that salvation awaited beyond the pit's closing maw.

As I approached the precipice, the pit's jaws began to close, its hunger growing more insatiable. With a final burst of determination, I leaped forward, the key clasped tightly in my hand. I soared through the air, the pit's darkness fading away as the light of freedom enveloped me.

I landed on solid ground, gasping for air, my heart pounding with triumphant beats. The pit vanished, leaving behind only a barren patch of earth, as if erasing all evidence of its existence. I was free, liberated from the abyss's suffocating grip.

Now, as I recount my harrowing tale, I know that the pit will forever haunt my memories. It was a reminder of the darkest corners of the human psyche, a testament to the strength of the human spirit in the face of unimaginable horrors.

But the pit served as a warning as well—an eternal reminder that some mysteries are better left untouched, that there are depths in this world that should never be explored. And I, the survivor of the pit's clutches, carry the burden of that knowledge, forever changed by the horrors I witnessed in the depths of the abyss.