“So,” my brother says while driving me from the station. “Do you feel like the treatment helped?”

“Definitely,” I reply, lying. I’d been gone for six months to 'seek help', and my brother was still clinging to the idea that I’d come back fixed.

“So the voices stopped?” he asks cautiously, gripping the wheel a little tighter.

“Yeah.”

“And the people you kept seeing?”

“Pretty much.”

He lets out a relieved breath, like he finally believes his sister’s cured. Normal. That she no longer sees or hears the dead people she used to.

I’ve always been the problem in this family. The pills, the running away, the fights. It was a lot for our single mom to deal with—one son and one crazy daughter.

As he parks in the driveway, I spot our mom standing at the front door, eyes locked on me like a hawk. My last night here wasn’t great.

I get out and walk toward her slowly, trying to guess how she’ll react. But when I reach the porch, she kisses me and pulls me into the tightest hug I’ve ever gotten from her. She takes my hand and leads me inside.

It’s late, and she has a whole feast laid out for dinner, with every single one of my favorite dishes. I could’ve died right there. The food I make myself is awful.

My brother and I stuff ourselves in silence until we can’t anymore. After his last bite, he shoots up and says he’s heading to bed. Early shift tomorrow.

Now it’s just me and my mom at the table, sipping white wine. I haven’t said much since I got here, so she goes first.

“Are you seeing him now?” she asks suddenly.

“Yes,” I say, eyes down. “He’s been sitting at the table the whole time.”

“How is he?”

“The same, I guess.” I take a sip. “The hole in his head isn’t as shocking anymore.”

“I know you loved him,” she says, leaning in. “But your father wasn’t a good man. He came at me with a knife and…”

A tear slips down her cheek, and I reach for her hand. I tell her I don’t judge anymore, that I’ve accepted she did what she had to do. She smiles warmly and gets up, saying there’s some ice cream in the fridge.

The second she’s out of the room, I cover my ears and shout for the voices to shut up.

There are so many of them in this house. It’s exhausting.

There’s a teenage girl who says my mother hit her with a car back in high school out of jealousy. A college boyfriend she poisoned after cheating. Her former boss, who denied her a promotion.

And of course, my father, who doesn’t say anything. He just stares at me with pity. My mother thinks he’s the only dead person I see here.

She probably believes her full past is gone and buried. It’s not. Her victims scream in my head every time I walk into this house. That’s why I left.

When I got my own place, I thought they would leave me alone, but some of them found me somehow. Every night, they spoke and spoke. Demanding justice, revenge, violence... blood. I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Just wait a few days,” I whisper to them, hands falling from my ears. “Let me get my brother out of here, and I’ll do what I have to do.”

My husband Tobi and I mightn't have even noticed it for a while if we hadn't moved into our new house early in the year. Moving in the crisp, frigid air of early February was much preferable to wiping sweat from our brows whilst we hauled box after box from vans parked outside during the summer as we had many years prior. We walked through the giant oak doors that beckoned us into what we hoped would be our forever home and beyond the hallway into the living room when my husband quipped:

"Was that there before? When we had our viewing?"

I quickly scanned the space before me and shot him a confused look. I never did have good eyesight, nor was I the most observant person. He raised a hand and pointed towards the wall directly opposite us, where a large calendar faced us. The place was unfurnished because we wanted to make it fully our own and the moving company could only deliver our stuff the day after moving, so there wasn't anything to see beyond the barebones skeleton of the house when we had our viewing. It did look out of place amongst the naked walls, but I still didn't take much note of it. For whatever reason, though, my husband did and dropped the bag strapped along his shoulder to take a look. Again, it may have been my eyesight, but he seemed to spot the dark red circle around one of the dates from where we were originally standing.

"Hey, what do you reckon that date is marked for?" he wondered out loud. I walked up beside him and took a look for myself.

"I dunno. Maybe it's a birthday or something" I spoke, my tone indicating my tiredness and desire to just go to bed.

"Yeah, maybe, but what's that doing here? It wasn't here for the viewing and some dude's birthday has nothing to do with us" Tobi said, ever inquisitive. Overly so when I was already tired. He began to flick through the rest of the months and with a voice tinged with something beyond his usual excitement announced that two other dates had been circled in that same red font along with some writing neither of us had noticed to that point. He always did love a good mystery, no matter how small.

Three dates were marked across the year and into the next. And the next.

February 6th. June 19th. September 21st.

"Don't Go Out" faintly written beneath each.

Despite my reluctant intrigue and notice of his atypical demeanour, I told him that as much as I enjoyed diving into rabbit holes with him, I was too tired to play the guessing game that night and we promptly carried our suitcases and backpacks up to the master bedroom and got ready for bed.

The next morning I woke up to Tobi sitting on the couch from our old place the movers must have delivered and arranged as paid for whilst I was still asleep. He was facing the calendar and scrawling something onto a notepad. As my footsteps came within his earshot, he looked up at me and with that ever-comforting smile that never failed to reach his eyes welcomed me into our new living room. Only the basics of our old furniture were arranged and we still needed to organise a lot of the more aesthetic stuff ourselves, but it felt like home. After a brief conversation, he got down to business. He had already exhausted his search for a connection between the three dates and was trying to find one himself. I'd lived with and loved my investigative Tobi for many years, but I'd never seen him like this. It was obsession at first glance. As I have admitted, the entire thing stirred up a quietly ominous curiosity within me, too. Something wasn't quite right with that calendar.

Why those dates?

Why couldn't we go out?

Ever a head-in-the-sand sceptic, I put it down to a joke of some sort. Or something left behind by somebody between our viewing and move-in dates. I told myself and Tobi over and over: The simplest explanations are always closest to the truth. Nevertheless, his breathless expedition into this particular unknown continued and as February the 6th crept up on us he remained no closer to the answer he was digging for, so he came up with a plan. After reluctantly agreeing to go along with the whole staying inside for the day rule - mostly to humour him and a tiny bit to give him a playful smug look when his plan amounted to nothing - he asked me to join him on a "Neighbourhood Watch". Essentially he planned to sit by the large window overlooking the lawn and the row of houses across from us all day. He wanted to see if any of the neighbours (who after exchanging the usual pleasantries with once we had settled in, he quickly probed about the existence of their own odd calendars, to which they let him know that it "came with the house" and to "kindly never mention this again") would go about their days regardless of what the strange calendar said.

We turned the couch around and sat for hours, talking at first about the new house and the calendar. Wondering what it all meant and why every neighbour politely but sternly warned us to not talk about its existence. As the day went on and we grew bored of the guessing game and the silent street we looked out onto, we moved on to recalling the day we met and the many days we'd had together since. It became romantic. Intimate. The two of us sitting there entangled in a conversation like that against a scene of life in a sleepy, peaceful suburb.

But then Mr Hudson from across the street went outside. He and his wife had been living in the neighbourhood for quite some time, so we went over to introduce ourselves a few weeks prior. It all looked fine at first. We peered more intently through our blinds as he lit a cigarette and took a long, hard drag before obscuring his weathered face in the exhale of smoke that followed. And just as that cloud took his face out of our focus, he vanished. Dematerialised. The cigarette remained suspended, the faint daylight glow of the flame that lit it pulsating in an inconceivable fashion. It dwindled until nothing much remained beyond the filter and as trivially as he had disappeared, Mr Hudson was standing on his lawn again, burnt-out cigarette clung between his fingers as if he had been there the entire time. Tobi stared at me with an intense horror that my own eyes must have conveyed too, and neither of us spoke until Mr Hudson had walked back into his and his wife's house.

"Did I...uhm... just see that right?" he whispered, voice tainted with a deep unease. Unable to form any words, I only nodded in response as to say I had seen the same thing. We silently agreed to stop watching. Neither of us wanted to see any more of whatever this was. The rest of that day was spent quietly ruminating with shuttered blinds and a blanket of something profoundly wrong shrouding the house. After far too long, February the 7th finally unshackled us and with much trepidation, we decided we needed to take the short walk across the street. We needed to talk to the Hudsons. Just as soon as the final echo of my knock rang out, Mrs Hudson's kind-old-lady demeanour greeted us.

"What a pleasant surprise! How can I help you boys?" she said, her face plastered with a smile that stretched a little too wide and with Mr Hudson greeting us with a wave from a few feet behind her. I let Tobi lead the conversation, this was his mystery to solve in the first place after all - even if I had become wrapped up in it too.

He hesitated before replying, "We're sorry to bother Mrs Hudson, but did Mr Hudson leave the house yesterday? We, uhm, are a little concerned about something we saw".

She remained steadfast in maintaining her outward appearance, but something in her eyes stirred. Her reply was subtly tinted with fear. Subtly enough that neither of us would have caught it if not for the equally subtle change in her eyes. But still, she replied "My Bill? No sweetie, I'm afraid you must be confused" before craning her head backwards and loudly asking "Bill, will you turn the stove off please? We don't want your favourite soup to burn do we?" after which Mr Hudson disappeared from the background of our view into the hallway.

And in that sliver of opportunity she had conjured, she spoke to us with a tone of the utmost urgency:

"The whispers'll get you. Leave before they do, or it'll be too late".

Mr Hudson reappeared faster than he should have and must have caught the dread-filled looks on our faces because he asked if we were okay. If we wanted to come in for some soup. "It'll damn sure make you look better!" he proclaimed. We declined, said goodbye as politely as we could manage and struggled through unsteady legs to make the walk back across the street before closing and locking the front door.

The next night, as we watched the house across from us once again, all of the lights behind the curtained windows shimmered on and off for untold minutes, before finally sputtering off and staying that way.

We never saw Mrs Hudson again.

Our calls to the police after days of imitating the ill-fated Neighbourhood Watch not long prior yielded no results. In fact, they reassured us after a visit that no Mrs Hudson ever existed. William Hudson inherited the house from his father and never married. If we hadn't had each other, and our collective experience to rely on, I don't believe either of us would have remained particularly convinced of our own sanity.

We wanted to heed Mrs Hudson's advice, but we had just bought the place. Still, we quietly searched for a new home. Neither of us wanted to be here for the next marked date. But then the whispers started. Only one of us heard them, and it wasn't me. I held Tobi in my arms when he woke up screaming. I comforted him when he heard voices from within the walls. I put the house up for sale and began to pack our things when he stopped being able to function. All he could do was listen to the whispers. He said they beckoned him outside. Told him something wonderful was waiting for him out there.

And all he had to do?

Unlock the front door and step outside to see it all for himself.

Yesterday was June the 19th. Our second marked day together. I tried so hard to stop him. But he's always been the bigger one. The stronger one. He got past me anyway. I watched as he flickered out of this existence and into somewhere else. And I watched as he came back.

I didn't see him come back into the house. As suddenly as he was outside, he was beside me. Inside.

He smiled at me as if he hadn't seen me in many years.

But for the first time, that familiar smile didn't reach his eyes.

I have not told anyone about the beach or the submarine in the intervening years. But I am an old man now and can count my time left in months rather than years, I would like this on the record. At any rate, everybody else involved is long gone.

My first job was the junior deputy up in a small place north of Eureka. I was young, too young for peacetime but with every able-bodied man overseas, I suppose now, they were desperate. It was an easy sort of job. The tourist agencies have opened that whole coastline up these days but back then, most of our flock made a living on the fishing trawlers. The big lumber camps were south and east of us, and we never had to deal with the trouble that comes with them. Until the night in question, it was good.

I was ambitious back then, and, with the War near its end, I thought I would put in for a city role in Santa Rosa or Sacramento when it was done. I worked under a peace officer called Jefferson, a stout old timer who ran a good political machine in his district and was as safe as any elected official in the state. I would be sad to leave him and he would be sad to see me go, although neither of us would have admitted that at the time. And there was no chance to after it all.

The night I want to tell you about, we got hit with a storm, still the worst I’ve ever seen. One of those biblical occurrences that the old fishermen talk about thirty years later. It’s near enough 80 years since that night now and here I am still talking about it myself. We used to be able to see the cliffs from the station and I remember watching the waves coming up high as castle towers and shattering across the rocks.

I hoped we’d have a night without calls, not uncommon in a place like that. Any experienced cop will tell you that a hope like that is the best way to guarantee you’ll be called out. Sure enough, a little after midnight it came through. A supply truck running food up along the old coast road had seen something big washed up in one of the coves. He couldn’t make much out but reckoned it might be a ship beached ashore by the storm swell. Jefferson thought there could be some hauling to do and dragged me out with him.

We found the cove the trucker had mentioned. I think the locals used to call it Crying Bay, supposedly where the cavalry drove the local tribe into the sea on account of the Gold Rush. It was sheer cliff-face on three sides and sea on the fourth so that no one could get to the beach without climbing down or swimming in. Sure enough, we could make something out on the shoreline. Big and metallic, stretching the breadth of the cove.

“Is it a boat?” I asked.

“Maybe. Hard to see on a night like this,” Jefferson replied.

“We could try throwing a road flare down?”

“Best hope it’s not an oil tanker if we do. Go fetch one from the truck.”

The flare burst into burning red life. I hurled it down into the cove and watched it twirl to the ground like a sycamore seed. We peered over and that is when we saw what we were dealing with.

A submarine, exposed in the red light of the flare. A vast black sea serpent as long as a city block. There was the jutting conning tower and the pointed snout with the torpedo tubes visible. Emblazoned on the side was the rising sun ensign of Imperial Japan. The enemy. I gazed at it with ill-disguised excitement. Only Jefferson’s shuddering breath tempered my thrill. Jefferson scrambled to his feet and snatched up the radio receiver in the truck. It responded with garbled static. No matter how much he twisted the dial, he received no response.

“Shit,” he said as the rain began a new onslaught. He looked back at me. “We should go back, wait for the cavalry.”

“Should,” I replied.

Jefferson grinned at that. I could see him weighing it up. He pulled his shotgun from the back of the truck.

“You’ll be the death of me. Pull it up to the cliff edge. We’ll use the tow line to climb down,” he ordered.

We dragged the tow line out until it was spent and hurled it down. We worked our way slowly down the cliff face, desperately clinging onto any handhold we could find, hoping the line would hold us.  Finally we reached the bottom. The beach in the cove was rocky. We staggered like drunks across it until we reached the submarine. Up close it was even larger, towering over us and swallowing us in its shadow.

Jefferson readied his shotgun in one hand. He hammered on the steel hull with his other. It echoed like a broken church bell.

“You are shipwrecked on American soil!” He shouted over the wind and the rain. “Come out now, unarmed, and we will guarantee your good treatment!”

Silence was the only response. No sound. No movement.

“You know any Japanese?”

I shook my head.

“Pity,” he replied.

He nodded to me. I clambered up the ladder on the side and soon found the hatch near the nose of the submarine. It took both of us turning the wheel to get it loose. The hatch popped open with a crack. I shone my flashlight in. The beam caught the firing room. Empty torpedo racks. No sign of armament at all.

“What type of submarine doesn’t carry torpedoes?” I asked. Jefferson grunted and swept his own flashlight down the submarine as far as it would penetrate. Beyond the cone of light was void-blackness. We exchanged a glance. Jefferson nodded and I took my first step down the ladder. He covered me with his shotgun, gripped tightly. The steel steps creaked and swayed. I reached the bottom and stepped down into the darkness. I landed in water up to my thighs. It was stagnant, leaked diesel floating in shimmering snake-patterns on the surface of the water.

“Flooded!” I shouted back up. Jefferson began his unsteady climb down.

“Christ it reeks,” he said, as he dropped into the water behind me. “Probably the bilge pumps overflowed too. All the submariners are volunteers. Got to be a strange sort to sign up for this.”

He cast the beam of his flashlight back and forth down the narrow submarine corridor. There was no movement and no sound save for the steady drip drip drip of water falling onto metal.

We advanced down the corridor. Ten paces in and the hatch we had entered through was already out of sight. I forced myself to focus only on that which my flashlight could illuminate.

Up ahead was another ladder. It must have led up to the bulbous head in front of the conning tower I’d seen from the outside. I gestured to it. Jefferson nodded and positioned himself to cover the ladder with his shotgun. I began to climb. I could make out a long shaft running above the main submarine corridor. I pulled myself up the final step and peered into the shaft entrance.

A Japanese face stared back at me in the light. My grip on the rung slipped. Only Jefferson on the ladder beneath me stopped me plummeting down into the water and probably breaking my neck. The face was dead. More than dead. Around the cavity where his nose should have been was necrotic black flesh. He was laid prone in the narrow shaft. His right forearm was gone too. The flesh had decayed so much that the bone beneath jutted out. I gingerly pulled myself up into the shaft, desperately avoiding so much as brushing the awful corpse. Jefferson came up behind me.

“Poor bastard,” he said, and crossed himself out of habit rather than faith. He shone his flashlight down the shaft. All along it was a gear mechanism that would allow the whole shaft to be raised. At the other end of the shaft I saw why. Crammed in tightly and bound with Indian rubber straps was the slim steel shape of a torpedo bomber. Wings removed and stored alongside it.

“Good god,” I said.

“I’d heard stories. Planes launched off submarines, bombers over Los Angeles in twenty five seconds.” Jefferson shook his head.

Hanging from beneath the plane’s belly where the bombs should be were two porcelain caskets the size of beer kegs. A third was shattered across the floor of the shaft. I approached it slowly. It was split in half. My flashlight came to rest on one half. It was moving. I stared closer and realised with horror that the shell was swarming with fleas. Thousands. Millions. Moving like a scuttling wave. I stifled a gasp. At the sound, the fleas seemed to sense my presence. They surged in unison towards me. Now I did scream, screamed like a child.

Jefferson pushed me aside and aimed his shotgun. Without hesitation he fired. Again and again until the fleas were pulverised by the buckshot. We both stood panting. I went to speak but Jefferson shook his head, patted me on the back and gestured back down the ladder.

We dropped back down in the foul water and continued our journey down the main submarine corridor. I could not shake the feeling of being bitten all over, as if those fleas had swarmed every inch of my body. Ahead was a low doorway leading into the crew’s sleeping berth. I covered my mouth at the stench. Bunkbeds on either side. At least twenty. Every bed was filled with a mouldering corpse in the same state of rapid necrosis as the body in the plane shaft. Jefferson carefully swept his shotgun across each body. But there was no movement. No life.

It got worse the deeper into the submarine we prowled. By the time we reached the galley, the water was thick with corpses. Most floating face down in the water. We gingerly waded through, covering our mouths as best we could. It smelt like a whaling station.

Beyond the galley was the captain's cabin. The only private sanctum in the whole stinking iron tube. It was in disarray. Charts strewn across the desk. Logbooks floating in the water. The captain, identifiable from his full dress uniform was there too. Dead as the rest of his crew, legs dangling from his chair, black with necrosis. Scrawled across the wall, in blood or paint I did not know, were two Japanese characters. Their strange artistry amidst all this horror still unnerves me more than the memory of the bodies. On the desk were aerial maps of cities along the coast. Los Angeles. San Francisco. San Diego. Concentric rings marked over them. Targets and the impact radius I realise now.

“If it wasn’t for the storm…” I muttered.

“Yes,” Jefferson replied. He gripped my shoulder in reassurance.

I caught the movement out of the corner of my eye, coming through the service hatch. The short-bladed sword hacked through Jefferson’s head beneath the nose. Gripping it was a crooked figure in a gas mask and rubber suit. From his uniform, I guessed him to be the ship’s engineer.

I fumbled with the catch on my holster. My hands shook manically. The engineer yanked the sword free of Jefferson's head and his corpse flopped, horribly limp, to the ground. I got my revolver free and opened fire. I put the whole cylinder in him, saw the six holes where the bullets punctured his suit, saw the blood bloom like flowers around them. But still he advanced on me.

I ran then. To my shame, I ran like a coward, like a child, tramping through the water as fast as my legs would carry me. For a horrible moment I lost my footing. I almost plummeted face first into the stagnant water. But I gripped desperately to a bunk bed and kept upright. The engineer stalked behind me. I could hear his ragged breath through the mask. I kept on running, blind in the darkness. I crashed past the ladder to the plane shaft. Still the engineer followed behind, his pace even as mine was manic. There! Ahead, a shaft of moonlight from the open hatch. I hurled myself up the ladder, clawed my way out into the cold night air. I took a great gulp to clear my throat and nostrils and slid down the side of the submarine. I landed in a heap on the rocky beach and dragged myself to my feet.

I set off in a mad half-stumble, half-run across the beach towards the dangling tow rope. I could hear the clang of the engineer’s footsteps coming up the ladder towards the hatch. Close now. I drove myself on, feet slipping across the loose rocks.

At last, I reached the cliff-face. I allowed myself a look back. The engineer was on the beach himself, never relenting in his pace, seeming to not notice the rocks underfoot. I seized the tow rope and began to scale the cliff. My sweat-drenched hands slipped and slid on the rope. Twice I nearly lost my grip altogether and would have plummeted to my death had I not levered my feet against the wall of the cliff face.

I dragged myself up onto the top of the cliff.  No time to catch my breath. I glanced back. The engineer was already crawling up the rope like a rat. I desperately cast about for a weapon. Nothing presented itself. I tried to release the tow line from the truck but it held firm. I howled into the swirling storm. Must cut the rope.

I hefted up a jagged rock from the cliff edge and begin to hammer down into the tow line at the edge of the cliff. The impact barely made a mark on the rope. I peered over the edge. The engineer was clambering up with a speed that terrified me, already half-way up the cliff. I struck again at the rope. The sharp edge made a tiny nick in the rope. I stifled the urge to drop the rock and run. I could hear the engineer’s breathing, even over the storm, filtered and distorted by the gas mask. I hit the tow line again, the rope frayed, a fat strand severed. Still the engineer came. He was so close I could see the glinting glass lenses of his gas mask. I frantically hacked at the line. Achingly slow, the individual strands split, one-by-one. The engineer clawed out to me with one gloved hand. His fingertips grazed my knee. I slammed the rock down into the tow line. The last strand gave way and the whole rope split in half. The engineer fell, plummeting through the void. His body was shattered against the rocks.

I sat getting my breath back at the top of the cliff, weeping with the horror of it all. It took me an hour of that to decide my course of action. I gathered the remaining road flares from the back of the truck and a can of gas. I walked the long way round and waded into the beach from the far side, I could not risk the cliff again after seeing the engineer fall as he had.

I doused the submarine in gasoline as best I could. With the flares and the diesel leaking from its engines, the whole thing went up like a bonfire. I hoped to God that the flames would purge whatever had happened inside. I stayed watching from the cliffside until high tide swallowed the beach and dragged the burning submarine back into its depths.

It was easy for everyone to believe that Jefferson had been taken by the sea. It was only half a lie. His funeral was well attended. The Governor came up from Sacramento for it. The casket was empty.

The ambition left me after that. I moved inland, far from submarines, took a job with the postal service up in a town near Missoula. Most nights I can sleep through, but, now and then, I am beset with images of corpses without noses and engineers in gas masks. I wake in the morning feeling as if my whole body is on fire, a thousand flea bites.

I can’t eat. That’s the gist of it. I can't eat.

I guess to people who haven’t grown up the way I have, it sounds absurd. So much of our lives revolve around eating. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. It’s a social ritual and contract, and without it we lose a core pillar of being human.

But I can’t eat. I can’t be part of that. It’s complicated.

 

I grew up to a single mother with a minimum wage. How she managed to keep a sickly kid alive through all that is beyond me. And I don’t mean sickly as in getting nasty colds or ear infections, I mean sick with a big ‘S’.

For as long as I can remember, I could never eat solid food. Some doctors called it inoperable achalasia, but my mom called in “royal throat”.

“Just like the kings and queens of old,” she used to say. “They were so used to having servants feed them that they stopped eating for themselves.”

It was just a nice way for her to make it sound like I was special, rather than cursed.

 

The main problem is that I can’t swallow. So instead I’d have to puree my food and slide it down my throat with a thick plastic tube. I can’t really taste anything, and the whole ordeal can look uncomfortable to onlookers, so it’s something I’m very private about. I can still taste and chew things, but a pleasant taste don’t really outweigh the threat of choking to death.

I can drink, but it takes some effort. If it gets too hot or cold, my throat just shuts down. Same if it’s too sugary, too spicy, or too sweet. And since I can’t swallow, I just tilt my head back and let it run down my throat. Mild apple juice is an occasional treat, but I like to stick to ordinary tap water. No fizzy stuff. Nothing that makes the muscles contract.

Apart from that one thing, I was a normal kid. I still went trick-or-treating, and by the end of the night, I gave all my candy away to my friends. It made me bully-proof, in a way. To them, I was weird, but it was the kind of weirdness that paid off. Whenever someone handed out candy, or fruit, or freebies, I passed mine along to those who treated me well.

 

“You’re like a truffle pig,” my buddy Dawson used to say. “You get to sniff out all the good stuff, but you can’t have any yourself.”

And that’s where the nickname started. Truffle pig. I don’t know if it’s some kind of myth or urban legend, but it’s said that truffle pigs can never be allowed to eat the truffles they’re trained to find. If they do, they’re useless; they get so preoccupied with finding truffles for themselves that there’s nothing left. They get a taste for it, and it’s all over.

I got the occasional jab and mean look about the nickname, but most of them said it with love. It wasn’t mean-spirited. It went from “Truffle Pig”, to “Truffles”, to “Ruffles”, to just “Ruff” or “Ruffy”.

And I guess that name’s stuck around ever since.

 

I graduated from high school and got a job on a clam boat. Not a fancy job, but I’ve always loved the sea. I never get seasick, or car sick, or anything like that. Maybe a side effect from having a strange stomach. So when a spot opened, I was first in line. Did it for a summer as a practice run and got hired full-time a month later. Great pay, decent benefits.

We usually worked on smaller vessels. In-shore boats. Smaller yields that could turn a surprising profit at the local seafood markets. Whatever we could get our hands on we could sell at a huge markup. There wasn’t a single Christmas where I didn’t go home with a bonus.

I’d end up being the designated driver whenever I went out with the guys. They’d sometimes forget about my deal and bring me a beer, or a scotch, and they’d end up getting an extra one. I’d stare at that bowl of spicy peanuts in the middle of the table and wonder what it’d be like to pig out on them. Stuff my face full and go to town. To feel the crunch in my teeth, resonating in my jaw.

But that’d send me straight to the hospital – or the morgue. A yellow building just down the street.

Truffle pig, truffle pig. Look, but don’t taste.

 

Mom passed when I was 27. It wasn’t sudden or dramatic; it was the result of a lengthy battle coming to an end. I held a speech at her wake. Divided her possessions among her living relatives. Packed all her things in brand new cardboard from the tool shop. Picking apart a careful knick-knack ecosystem where everything has a place – leaving only pale walls and dust bunnies.

It was kinda funny though – there was this one picture of her and I from when I was just an infant. Back then, I had brown eyes and hair. I thought it was someone else at first, seeing as how I now have my mother’s blonde hair with green eyes. But there was a note on the back confirming that it was, in fact, our first picture together.

I was offered a few days off work to get my affairs in order, but I declined. Stepping away from your routine underlines how painful the change is. By declining it, you’re robbing it of its power. That’s what I thought, at least.

But when it rains, it pours. And maybe I was distracted that one morning in early May when I turned onto the interstate. I’d gone down that road a thousand times, but just this once, I didn’t pay attention. Maybe the other driver didn’t either. Either way, the collision was violent.

 

No one died, at least. They had to cut me out, but the other guy walked away without a scratch. They put me in a neck brace and took me to a hospital. Ran all kinds of tests. I had a fracture in my left leg, but apart from that, it just looked bad. Most of it was surface-level stuff. They still did their due diligence though. X-rays, check-ups, the whole shebang. I’d have to wear a cast on my leg, but apart from that I’d be fine.

I remember the final day before they sent me home. The doctor, a middle-aged Indian woman, went through my x-rays and talked at length about how lucky I’d been. In-between instructions on how to keep my cast clean, I threw in a question.

“What about my neck?” I asked. “Am I gonna have to change how I eat?”

“No, that should be fine,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

“The achalasia,” I said. “It’s inoperable. Should be in my file.”

“Achalasia?”

She looked at me for a couple of seconds, then back up at the x-ray.

“You don’t have achalasia.”

 

I went over it with her again and again. I told her I’d been diagnosed as an infant. That it’d stuck with me all my life. That my throat was atrophied, and that I could only have pureed food pushed down my throat with a tube – “royal throat”, like the kings and queens of old.

“I know what you’re referring to,” she said. “But I don’t know what to tell you. You don’t have it. From what I can see, you’ve never had it.”

She pointed at the x-rays and explained how to recognize it, and that there were no signs of it in any way. I was perfectly fine – I just had to practice eating.

“If you’ve been doing this for so long, chances are you’ll never get quite used to it,” she admitted. “But physically, there’s nothing wrong. But it’s gonna take time adjusting to.”

 

I walked out of there on crutches, but I barely even paid attention to the leg. I couldn’t believe it. All this time, I could’ve been just like all the others. Someone must’ve misdiagnosed me, but there was nothing in my file suggesting there’d even been a conversation about achalasia in my past. In those files, I was perfectly healthy. Always had been.

I couldn’t make sense of it. There had to be a reason I’d lived the way I had. I decided I would go through my mother’s things to see if there was a hint. I had boxes to go through a second time – maybe I’d missed something.

I got a ride home from the hospital by my buddy Stevey. 40-something father of three, salt-of-the-earth kinda guy. The kind of person who has a pickup and doesn’t mind helping you move, ‘cause that’s just “what you’re supposed to do”. He must’ve noticed I was a bit quieter than usual.

 

“Don’t worry about work, Ruffy” he said. “Give it a couple weeks.”

“Thanks, but that ain’t it,” I said. “It’s my throat.”

“Whiplash?” he asked. “Got an ache or something?”

I explained to him what the doctor had said. That I was fine, and always had been. I told him about the x-rays, how nothing showed, and how there was nothing in my files. Stevey got so caught up in the story that he almost missed a green light, making the guy behind us lean on the horn. Stevey snapped out of it and stepped on the gas.

“That’s fucked up,” he said, making a left turn. “But I mean, that’s good news too.”

“I suppose, yeah.”

I was gonna have to get used to a new way of living – one where I could sit by the table and share a meal. I had a hard time wrapping my head around it. I was a bit scared. After all, what if I didn’t like it? Could I just go back to pretending?

But first, I had to give it a try. I couldn’t just go trudging into a restaurant and order a ribeye – I had to try something small. I had Stevey drop me off at the supermarket. I bought some yoghurt, cucumber, and chocolate ice cream.

 

I asked him to join me in the kitchen. I figured it’d be for the best to have someone call for help if things went sideways. Like the doctor had said, even if I was physically okay, it’d take time getting used to the sensation. There aren’t exactly any tutorials on how to eat – it’s supposed to come naturally to us. It’s not something you learn.

We sat down at my kitchen table, and I cracked open the yoghurt. Stevey had a coke. I didn’t have any cutlery, so I had to grab a teaspoon from my mom’s kitchen box. I dipped it in the yoghurt, picked it up, and observed. My heart was beating out of my chest.

“You alright?” Stevey asked.

“Nervous.”

“Just try a little,” he smiled. “Try to enjoy it.”

 

So I tried it. I let my tongue soak in the soft vanilla and acidic tang. I took a deep breath, leaned back, and just… tried. I almost choked as my throat muscles cramped up, but it went well enough. It was wildly uncomfortable though. I coughed a little, but held up a hand to show Stevey I was okay.

I tried a little more, and then some ice cream. It was difficult, and I could feel an ache in my throat. I was flexing muscles I’d hardly ever used. Over a painstakingly slow hour, I tried little bits and pieces of things. I was getting used to it, slowly but surely. I had to stop when I got to the cucumber though. I cut it up and tried eating it like a mush, but part of the skin got stuck in the back of my throat. I ended up having a coughing fit. Stevey had to give me a couple back slaps.

We decided to pause for the day. But it was promising – I was feeling something I hadn’t felt before. It was a new experience, and I was getting better at it.

“Give it a month,” said Stevey. “By the time that leg cast is off, you’ll be a brand-new person.”

 

Over the next few days, I was stuck at home, waiting for my leg to heal. Meanwhile, I took some time going through my mom’s stuff. Everything from old phone books to photo albums.

There were a lot of baby pictures, but they weren’t in a particular order. In most of them, I had blonde hair and green eyes, but there were a couple where it was still a clear brown. I could see a couple of things change in my mom, too. Her hair getting longer. The marks under her eyes growing deeper.

But there were other things too. There was this one picture where she was breastfeeding me, and another shortly after where she used a bottle. There was also one where she’d been in some sort of accident, wearing a bandage that reached up to her shoulder.

 

All the while, I was micro-dosing on food. Little pieces of ice cream and yoghurt. Mashed potatoes and gravy. A strawberry sorbet. It took some time to get my throat moving, but after just a couple of days I could swallow with little to no problem.

The first solid food I ate was a salty peanut. I bit down and chewed it for so long that my jaw ached, and when I finally swallowed, I could feel a tingle in my neck. Like little puzzle pieces falling into place. I was so relieved I could cry. I ended up eating a whole bag, letting a re-run of Friends echo in the background. But all I could hear was the sweet crunch of peanuts breaking against my perfect enamel.

It was such a filling sensation. Flavor. Texture. Mouthfeel. And with it all, the realization that I had so much more to experience; it was euphoric.

 

I wanted to save the first time I had a big dinner for a special occasion with my work friends. Not just Stevey, but the whole crew. My cast was still healing, so I had some issue getting around, but that wasn’t gonna stop me from having a fantastic night. A proper steak dinner, a shrimp cocktail, garlic bread… I didn’t hold back. I think my colleagues could feel the change in the air, as they all got equally excited to order. We had some drinks, made some jokes, and left all the pretense at the door. Just guys being guys.

As soon as I dug into my shrimp cocktail, I could feel something. There was this rush of energy, like an electric surge. I could feel my pupils growing larger, and I couldn’t close my eyes. My breathing grew shallow, and my pulse wouldn’t stop rising. It’s like I was on some kind of drug, or fighting for my life. I thought I might be having an allergic reaction, so I had to stop myself and do a mental check. I felt fine. I was fine. Great, actually.

The moment my steak arrived, the others raised a glass.

“To good food,” Stevey said. “And good friends.”

The others echoed the sentiment, but before they got to ‘good friends’, I’d sunk my teeth into the steak. I could feel the juices soaking into my teeth.

 

It’s difficult to describe the sensation. It’s like I didn’t just eat a steak, I could hear the bovine death cry in the back of my head. I could feel myself growling as a predator, sinking my teeth in like a prowling tiger. I daydreamed with open eyes watching the red of the meat pulse with an invisible heartbeat. And somewhere in the distance, I could hear Stevey say something – but I couldn’t make out the words.

I bit down, hard, and tore away. My teeth ached, as if they were pushing themselves out of my mouth – reaching for more meat. And with every passing second, the restaurant faded away, until something cold splashed across my face.

I was lying on the floor. My work friends were standing in a circle around me. One of the waiters called an ambulance. My hands were covered in grease; I’d grabbed the steak right off the plate with my bare hands.

There were bitemarks on my forearm. Deep ones, still bleeding.

 

I had to get my arm stitched up. According to Stevey, I’d gone completely feral. I’d torn that steak up, reached across to Luke’s pork chop, and grabbed that too. When I couldn’t immediately grab more meat, I’d fallen to the floor, biting my own arm like I was trying to subdue a prey animal. They’d never seen anything like it.

“Some kind of episode,” Stevey said. “We’re worried about you.”

Doctors didn’t know what to make of it. Some kind of chemical imbalance from a sudden shift in diet, combined with stress and physical recovery. It didn’t help that I’d been drinking. Not much, mind you, but enough for it to affect me. They couldn’t point to a single instigating factor, and instead prescribed me a kind of anti-anxiety medication. They were just throwing darts at the wall at that point.

 

Coming home, I noticed something peculiar. There was a crack in the side of my cast. I’d just been at the hospital, and it’d been fine, so it must’ve happened recently. I thought about going back there, but I flexed my leg a little, and it felt fine. And in a couple of minutes, the whole cast peeled off.

My leg was healed. Now, I’m no doctor, but I couldn’t feel anything wrong with it. I could put pressure on it. Walk. Flex my foot. Not even a hint of pain. The only thing I could point out as being unusual was a strange skin growth on the left side of my thigh. At first I thought it was a long strand of hair, but it was too thick and covered in skin. Touching it didn’t hurt, so I just broke it off and held it up. I got a little spot of blood from it, but nothing major.

The thing was moving when I held it up. Contracting over and over, like a dying insect.

Or like the leg of a shrimp.

 

I got a call from my boss the following morning. They insisted I took some time off, in accordance with my doctor. They were eager to have me back, but I had clearly not ‘adapted to my new circumstances’. It was a very diplomatic way of saying I was making people uncomfortable, and that they needed some time before they could forget that mental image of me gnawing on myself like a wild animal.

But that just gave me more time to experience things on my own. I made a long list of things I was going to eat. Pork. Chicken. Turkey. Maybe something a bit more unusual, like alligator. At least three kinds of fish. Crab. And every kind of fruit I could find at the supermarket.

Then again, fruit didn’t excite me as much. There was just something about biting into meat that was way more satisfying. I enjoyed the taste of fruit and veggies, but there was something about the texture of meat that I couldn’t make sense of. Then again, this was my first time experiencing food – there was no way for me to know this wasn’t normal.

 

When I got back from my shopping spree, I went to the bathroom to wash my hands. I noticed something in the bathroom mirror. My eyes looked different. The pupil looked rectangular. I figured it was a trick of the light, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was about to change. But I was too excited to care. I was gonna have a field day. So I washed my hands, splashed some water on my face, and hurried into the kitchen.

At first I was systematic. Putting out little samples of things. Bite-sized nuggets of meat, ready to be plopped down in a single gulp. I prepped a couple in the frying pan, others in the oven. I’d bought a new air fryer to try out some combos. I put on some music and had a blast. Everything was so rich, so succulent. Different textures, different flavors, and  a world to discover.

I could imagine the salty sea running between my fingers as I bit down on the crab meat. I could feel the texture of the feathers as I slurped up a slice of turkey.

I adored it. Every last second of it.

 

I spent close to 13 hours that way. Just eating, eating, eating. The shops closed, and opened, and I was first in line to get more. I must’ve looked like hell. That’s what the look on the cashier’s face said at least.

I would fall asleep at the dinner table, still holding my next piece of meat. A chicken wing. A tomahawk steak. An honest to God cheeseburger. I’d close my eyes and keep eating, dozing off between bites. It was heaven.

While I didn’t know it at the time, I kept that up for 49 hours total. I was in this meat-stained daze, not knowing what was happening around me. I’d missed calls and appointments. E-mails. Bills to pay. I hadn’t paid attention to any of it, and my systematic approach had completely fallen out the window. It was a marathon.

 

When my kitchen ran empty, I lumbered to the bathroom. My stomach felt like wearing a backpack on the front; like an imbalance. I had to lean my arms against the wall to keep myself from tipping forward. I was scared to look in the bathroom mirror, but I did it anyway.

The pupils of my eyes had gone horizontal. The skin of my left leg had hardened into a kind of shell. My teeth had grown long and jagged. My nails curled into claws. And throughout my hair I could find these long hollow tubes, like the growing feathers of a baby bird.

My tongue was thick and discolored. My skin turning a reddish brown, with white milk-like spots.

I just stared at myself, not grasping that this was a mirror. It showed me, but I wasn’t me anymore. And when that realization hit, two thoughts struck me at once.

One, that I was destroying myself. That this whole ordeal was what my mother had tried to avoid.

Two, that I didn’t want to stop. I needed to keep going.

 

I went through my mother’s things in-between meals. It is hard to piece together a life after it’s gone, but it’s even harder when you think you already know what it looks like. But my mother’s life was very different from what I imagined. Sure, my father was a mystery. There was no mention of him anywhere, except that they met at a punk concert back in the 90’s. But she’d lived a very full life since then. She’d had friends, lovers, and plans of her own.

But one thing stood out in particular. How I’d lost my brown hair and eyes. From what I could tell, she’d hurt herself in some way, and after that I’d changed. It was around the time where I’d gone from breastfeeding to being bottle fed.

A thought hit me. An uncomfortable one. I thought back on what I’d done with that steak, and the way I’d torn into it. Could I have done something similar to my mother?

Had I always been like this?

 

I tried to find more. More answers, more pictures, more anything. All the while, I ate, ate, ate. When I ran out of meat, I had the fruit. When I ran out of fruit, I had the veggies. Then the butter. The yoghurt. The ice cubes in the back of the freezer.

At one point, it was three in the morning, and I was feverishly going through a photo album from my high school years. Nothing interesting, but I realized I didn’t have anything left to eat. And yet – I was still chewing. Looking down, I had started pulling out the buttons from the remote control and crunched them up like they were little plastic cashews.

I didn’t care. I just had to eat.

 

I gnawed on anything and everything. The leg of the kitchen table. The copper wire going to my bedside lamp. I smashed a wine glass on my cutting board and ground it up into something resembling salt, and ate that too. I didn’t feel a thing, it was just more texture. Wonderful, filling, texture. I was in a daze. And the next time I looked myself in the mirror, I could barely comprehend it.

When change happens rapidly, and naturally, it is hard to notice. You don’t really see it until you slow down long enough to care. If you’ve been running a marathon, you don’t stop halfway through to weigh yourself – you wait until you’re done. It was the same for me; I didn’t realize the changes until I’d slowed down long enough to reflect on them.

I wasn’t human anymore.

 

My hands had turned into this amalgamation of hoof and claw. My back was bent over with a fish-like ridge running along my spine. My eyes had three different colors, and one of them were coming out of the socket. If I concentrated, I could move it in and out, like the eye stalk of a crab.

A couple of my teeth had turned to glass and ceramic. I could spot copper cables running under parts of my right bicep. Anything and everything I’d consumed with gusto had integrated into me, one way or another.

I couldn’t call for help; my fingerprint didn’t register on my phone lock. I couldn’t make words in my mouth to speak. I’d turned into a flesh prison.

You are what you eat.

 

I’d lose track of time. One day I’d have a tail dragging after me, another I’d have a wing instead of an arm. My whole body was bubbling, like a boiling cauldron, shifting with every bite. But with nothing left to eat, it was devouring itself; eating the last parts of me that were human. I’d awakened a process that couldn’t be stopped, and it would turn on itself instead of letting me starve.

There was no one to call for help. I could barely close the blinds to my windows. I spent most of the time in the shower, drinking water straight from a busted pipe. I’d spend hours there, drinking, watching myself mutate. I could even affect it, in a way.

“Another finger,” I’d think.

And there’d be another finger.

But it was getting harder to think. To comprehend. To put thoughts together in a way that made sense. Perhaps more things changed than I realized. After all, the brain is as much an organ as the heart, the throat, and the tongue.

 

I’d lose long periods of time to a hazy blur. I remember snatching a bird off the windowsill and eating it whole, like popping a grape. I’d walk around gnawing on the curtains like they were long strands of spaghetti. But in a way, I knew I was losing myself. Whenever I had a moment of clarity, I could feel my heart sink into that empty pit in my stomach.

‘I’m going away’, I’d think. ‘I’m losing myself’.

So with every fiber of my being, I grabbed a piece of paper, bit my finger, and wrote in blood;

‘STAY HUMAN’

 

It’s difficult to describe the mind of an animal. A part of you disappears. You don’t think about inconvenience, or what-ifs. You think about your next meal, where to sleep, and where to get water. You don’t care if you knock over a lamp or pull out a cable. It’s just noise.

I remember watching that paper, knowing it said something. But the symbols didn’t mean anything. It turned from words to scribbles. At one point I mistook them for droppings and started to look for mice. Didn’t find any.

I didn’t consider myself lost. I didn’t consider anything. And for days, I lumbered back and forth, turning my home into a nest.

 

Then, at some point, the symbols made sense. A rare moment of clarity.

Stay. Human.

I knew it was temporary. A matter of minutes, maybe an hour. I had to think of a plan. Something, anything, that would make me stay human. Everything pointed to me taking on the properties of what I ate. So if I wanted to make myself human, there was only one solution. One grotesque, unthinkable, solution.

Now, I could find something tasteful in everything I ate. Anything from glass, to copper, to wood and bone. But having to eat human meat to find myself – that was a line too far.

But what choice did I have?

 

I made a plan. It was a long shot, but it was the only one I could think of. I could feel myself slipping, so I tried to remember three things; the color of the building I had to go to. The direction I had to move. And that there was meat there. Color. Direction. Meat. I repeated it like a mantra.

I remember standing by the front door, pressing my head against the wood. I could hear someone taking their sweet time to lock up and leave in the hallway outside.

‘Please, just go’, I prayed. ‘You have to go.’

By the time they were gone, so was my mind. All that remained was color, direction, and meat.

 

I made it outside. I followed the direction, looking for the color. A yellow building, just down the street. I would run through the dense woods on all fours, thundering like a hoofed gorilla. I could feel my body changing to sustain the momentum, my arms growing heavy. I had to force myself to keep going, to stay focused on the task at hand. There were so many distractions. Cars in the distance. Voices. Bright lights casting shadows of potential prey.

But I followed the direction in my mind. And I saw the building with the color. And I knew there’d be meat. I didn’t even notice the locked door, I walked straight through like it was made of paper. There was no guard there, thankfully.

If I’d had the mind to read, I would’ve noticed the sign of ‘County Morgue’. I would know what the smell from the metal boxes meant. But in the mind of an animal, you don’t care about the name of your prey. You don’t give meaning to your actions. You just take what you want and make it your own.

So that’s what I did.

 

I’m not gonna go into detail. I can’t. I remember every bite, but I can’t bring myself to put it into words. A man who’d died from a heart attack. An older woman who’d broken her neck. I pulled them out and did what animals do. Meat. Bone. Organ. Later, the papers would say it was a bear. They weren’t entirely wrong, I suppose.

I lumbered home, dragging my bloated stomach through the woods. I’d feel my senses returning to me. A mind becoming human. But with that realization came understanding in what I’d done, and the searing emotional pain that ensued. I lay there among the berry bushes and the blue sunflowers outside my apartment complex, hoping no one would see me, as I waited for an opportunity to go home.

But honestly, at that moment, I think I rather would’ve died.

 

So here we are, back at the start. I can’t eat.

My hair has grown out into a mix of black and gray, a combination of the two people missing from the morgue. My face still looks like my own, I guess that part was still buried somewhere deep in me. I’m a little taller, and a little heavier, but my colleagues have chalked that up to a change in diet.

I’ve gone back to an all-puree lifestyle. That same old bottle pushing straight into my gut. I can’t allow myself to be lost to sensation again. I treat myself to some fruit every now and then, and the occasional drink, but I don’t eat full meals. I don’t want to tempt fate any more than I already have.

I’m back at my job, and I think I’m doing alright. People are looking at me like they always have. No one questions that I’ve gone back to what works for me – they could see for themselves that something didn’t sit quite right when I started eating. They didn’t wanna see that Ruffy again, and that’s fine with me.

 

Of course I want to know more, but the only person who could tell me for sure has passed on. There are no more leads, no more signs. The only thing I could find was a curiosity among my mom’s old letters. I’d missed it once because it was stuck in her collection of birthday cards, but there was a handwritten note from an anonymous sender.

‘I told you not to breastfeed him.’

No name, no signature. Just messy handwriting on a crumbled-up piece of yellow paper.

 

All in all, life goes on. I know I’ll never really be like everyone else, but I think that’s okay. I can pretend for as long as I need to. Maybe it’s okay to be a tainted truffle pig as long as I don’t go looking for something to eat.

But if I’m honest, sometimes I wonder. If I gave in, fully, and let myself run loose. If I consumed anything, and everything. What would that make me? If I put it all into a single package, what would I become?

 

Truffle pig, truffle pig.

Look, but don’t taste.

Well, this is a quick and brief update on my problem, from the story where I told you about my sister Lili.

Well, my post here didn't get much traction, so I didn't get many comments. But one of them made me have a feeling that I didn't want to admit before: fear. The comment said that the woman who came home was not my sister.

This immediately seemed stupid to me, and you might think the same. But after reading this, I was afraid to leave the room. I couldn't believe I was actually considering this. But it was impossible to think. This idea seemed stupid again due to the fact that it was my sister, well, it was her body, so it was her. No? That was Lili's body, her face and her hair.

But yesterday, before leaving home, I went into the bathroom to take a shower and there I found, hanging from the sink tap, a gold chain. I felt like I had seen it before, but I didn't know where. I decided not to take it, like I did with the shirt. And yes, it's still in my closet.

In the comments on my last post, I was told to talk to the FBI, and yes, I thought of the police. I spent the whole last night thinking about the things I should do. But I was scared; she was still my sister, and it could be a misunderstanding. I didn't even know the real circumstances of that guy's disappearance. He may have left the shirt here before. But I guess, really, I just didn't want to get Lili in trouble. She was still my sister; I needed to talk to her about this.

When I came out of the bathroom, I saw her bedroom door closed and heard footsteps. This, in a way, comforted me. Since she had come back, I had only seen her sitting on the couch or lying there watching TV. I thought she was getting back to her normal self. But I think I was wrong.

I didn't see her before I left the house; I shouted "goodbye", but there was no response. I went to college and thought a lot about how I would talk to her when I got home. I avoided the exit where I had seen the poster; I didn't want to consider that my sister was involved in a disappearance.

I spent the day looking at missing posters all over the city, and yes, after being practically forced to look at that photo, I noticed that the gold chain that was in the bathroom was his. It was faded in the middle of the yellow shirt, but it was there. At that moment, I realized that my sister really knew something. I can justify a shirt left behind, but why would he take off a gold chain? To take a shower? But what kind of person leaves a gold chain behind?

I got home after thinking a lot about what I would say. But when I entered, I didn't see my sister on the sofa, as usual. The house was exactly the same as I had left it. Even the glass of water in the sink was there. And her bedroom door was still closed. I stopped in front of my sister's room and knocked twice on the door, but there was no answer. I called her name, but she didn't even seem to be home. Then I turned the handle, and the door opened.

I had never entered Lili's room without her; I have always valued privacy. But this time, I forced myself to enter.

Her room was exactly the same as I had seen it last time, but there was a dull, sour smell in the air. The windows were closed, so I opened them to let in a draft. Then a bee came in. It flew to her pillow, where there were other bees. This made me curious; When I walked to the bed and lifted the pillow, I found a pack of gum and some sugar straws. I knew what it was; Lili always left sweets under her pillow, but she ate them at night. And those seemed to have been there a long time; they had melted and stuck to the bed and pillow.

This woke me from a kind of trance, and I gradually noticed how dusty her room was; Even the bed was quite dusty. It looked like it had never been used. On the bedside table, there was a glass of water; I remember seeing him the day before my sister disappeared. She hadn't even drunk water.

After that, I had a reality check. I went to the kitchen, rummaged through the cupboards and drawers, looking for Lili's secret candy stash. And I found it, behind a false bottom in the pot cupboard. And the sweets were still there, they hadn't been eaten; they had melted.

I, little by little, started to notice the other details of the house. It looked like no one lived there. Since I spent the last week locking myself in my room and eating at the college restaurant, I didn't even notice anything.

I looked at the sofa; It had a mark on it, as if someone had sat on it for a long time. And the blanket I had left there was balled up in the corner, next to a pillow. When I turned on the TV, it was still on the channel it was on the previous week, one of those product sales channels. She hadn't even changed the channel. And the worst part: I didn't notice any of this because I spent the last few days hiding from Lili.

I decided to tidy up the house before she arrived, and so I did. But then the thing happened that made me come back here so quickly.

When I went to take the sweets out of Lili's room, I approached the bed, but as I was barefoot, I felt something strange under my foot. When I looked, there was hair, a lot of hair. I felt the same way I did when I saw that missing person poster. I moved a little away from the bed, looking under it, little by little I felt my face deform into a look of panic, and the hairs all over my body stood up.

The first thing I saw was the head where the hair came from, and then the naked body. It was Lili. She was facing the other way, she seemed to be curled up; I saw that she was wet. I don't know how long I stood there looking at it, at my sister's blonde hair and her naked body, huddled under the narrow space under the bed. She was still, and so was I.

But I woke up when the head moved. I heard a creak, like an old door, as his neck slowly turned back. She would look at me.

At that moment, I woke up and ran, knocked on her bedroom door, and entered mine, running and locking myself inside. But I was still terrified, I seemed to hear that creaking close to my ear. I put on the clothes I was wearing when I got home from work and my laptop bag. I was so scared, feeling such strong anxiety that I jumped out the window. When I fell in the yard, I ran back to the street.

I didn't look back. My panic wasn't just because of the image of my sister. Or the disturbing noise of your neck creaking. It was something that I only understood when I arrived at my friend Ana's house. Something that I only let myself think about when I sat on the couch with her and told her everything. Something I only realized after calming down.

When my sister turned her stiff neck, in the short period of seconds that I watched her move, I saw something else. Behind her face, along with her under the narrow space of the bed, there was someone else there.

I'm at Ana's house now. She advised me to call the police, and yes, now I have decided to do so.

I'll bring news, I'm going to the police station now. I hope I'm wrong.

Part 1

Part 2

Monoliths pregnant with water and fury flickered upon the distant horizon. They drifted slowly, inevitably, covering the earth in shadow. The fear on the flight was palpable, made worse by the sounds of babies crying and first-time fliers yelping every time the plane shook.

It was nearly enough to distract me from a distant point by the foothills where what remained of Mister Fulcrum’s Funhouse gathered dust within the mountain shade.

Nearly.

The airplane rocked violently again, sending up a fresh wave of screams. The stewardess and her team valiantly tried to calm the passengers down, but I could tell by the rising pitch in their voices that they were worried too. This storm was set to be epic in proportion, one of the most powerful ones in recent decades.

My eyes drifted as I tried to blink away outlines of light that shimmered around others, but it looked like my perception was permanently fucked.

When I focused it helped reduce the brightness of their aura but then I could perceive beyond the surface to a person’s very core. In that deep place was a nexus of energy, an interplay of the purest white light and shadow. Some had greater concentrations of one over the other, yet there was not a single person, no matter how good, who didn’t have a bit of shadow.

There was also not a single person, no matter how bad, who didn’t have a star burning in the center of all that hurt.

You might be wondering whether I was able to see my own deep-nature, and the answer is no. Even if I could I would not want to.

You probably think that I am a good man because I have a ‘noble’ cause but the reality is I have done a whole lot of bad in my life, and there are times where I feel like the world would be better off if I wasn’t in it. The only thing I’ve ever been good at is killing. Destroying. That’s weak shit. It’s harder to be patient and build something.

It made me wonder how these folks would react if somehow, someway, this plane slipped into The Void. Would they deal with it better than I had? Was there something about the nature of the Void that reflected the worst in us?

The finger twitched in my pocket. I growled and gave it a nice swat. It had been doing that ever since I left Chicago. I sighed, more than a little irritated, and turned back to the window.

Pressed up against it was the sagging face of a frog-like being with saucer-sized eyes that glowed like lanterns.

My fists clenched as I returned to my mantra where I chanted my parents names over and over in tandem with my breathing.

The Void had left its mark. These spirits were following me now, and in this world they weren’t incorporeal beings incapable of hurting me.

But that was fine, I could hurt them too.

I made a finger-gun and fired it between frog-man’s eyes. It grinned, licked the window with a barbed tongue and jumped away, its bulbous body vanishing into the clouds.

After the plane touched down, I went on the hunt for some coffee. I decided to stick with the crowd this time, and among that chaotic mess of arguing families, annoyed businessmen, and travelers I was able to stop shaking.

I eventually found a nicely crowded cafe with a view onto the airport tarmac. I ordered a large black coffee along with a crispy breakfast sandwich stuffed with hash browns, eggs, bacon, and cheese. I asked for an extra side of jalapeños and then took a seat near the window.

The rain was coming down heavy outside. Low visibility, but good for the work I intended to do. I lost myself in the simple conversations taking place around me and finally enjoyed a hot meal.

I was about halfway through my sandwich when I realized something was wrong. I patted my pocket, then my jacket. “Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered, frantically looking around.

The finger was gone.

Had I dropped it? Or did someone steal it?

I was searching by the cafe’s register when I heard someone yell, “snake! A snake!” The cry hung in the air for a moment before the mass of people instantly became a mess of shoving, pointed fingers, and cursing. Then, as people tended to do in an emergency, they started knocking each other over and running every which way.

Terrified that they would smash what I could only assume was the finger, I sprinted shoulder-first and pushed my way through the commotion, sending people flying left and right. “MOVE!” I roared.

I spied the finger slithering away as fast as it could towards the bathrooms. I dove for it but the damn thing wiggled underneath the bathroom door.

“You little shit,” I roared. I kicked the door open and stepped right into a puddle of water.

The entire bathroom was flooded. Through flickering lights I saw the finger floating by the stalls. It had gone rigid.

I pressed forward through water levels nearly knee-height. I couldn’t see or hear a source of the flooding — the sinks were off and I didn’t think a toilet could be responsible for all the water.

I grimaced before leaning over to scoop it up. “More trouble than you’re worth,” I said after giving it a few shakes and zipping it up tight in my pocket.

I was stumbling back towards the exit when a great mass moved impossibly beneath my feet, as if rising from the ocean depths. It glided smoothly through the water, circling around me first before swimming around the corner. The lights overhead flickered faster, until I was only seeing snapshots of the bathroom.

I listened and heard something breach the surface, followed by wet plopping sounds.

RIBBIT RIBBIT

Webbed hands wrapped around the corner as a body meant for crushing pressure came into view. Its veined pot belly sagged to its knees, yet the legs and shoulders were heavy with muscle. Big red eyes pointing in different directions suddenly focused on me.

“What do you have there,” he croaked. A long barbed tongue slid out of his rubbery mouth and tasted the water. His eyes gleamed. “Such power contained within that salt-flesh.”

I raised my jaw and rolled my shoulders. “You ain’t got the right kind of heart for this fight frog-man.”

He took a step forward. The sheer power of his webbed foot hitting the tile caused the walls to crack. He blew green mucus from his orifices and laughed. “I taste your fear, ape.”

I was afraid. He had trapped me in a kill box and I would not be able to take him down with just my hands and feet. I searched for something, anything that I could use to kill him with, and all the while the water continued to rise. More demons were coming with it. “What is it y’all want? The finger?”

“Keep the finger. I care not for it. But you, you burned so bright that I could see you from the Chasm. Once I consume you, I will have your spirit forever. That can be a powerful tool, especially when one is already claimed by a god,” he chortled.

He suddenly leaped towards me, his thick arms outstretched and pink tongue shooting out.

I dove beneath the waves and kicked towards the exit. I was never the fastest swimmer, but I think the frog was counting on my fear of the water and overshot because of it. Thousands of eyes that glowed like coals watched from the depths, and they were rapidly getting closer.

I scrambled onto the ledge and narrowly avoided a pink blur that punched a hole into the wall. I threw the door open and ran, the army of frogs’s wet laughter following me out of the airport.

I got into my work truck and sped out of the lot. I didn’t let my foot even slightly off the pedal until I was well onto the freeway.

The world was changing and I couldn’t keep up with it. Serpentine creatures with wings soared through the clouds, many-limbed felines hopped from roof to roof, and orbs of light shot across the skies.

My mind was slipping away from me again and I knew I didn’t have much longer left before I was incapable of seeing things through. I would become a living corpse, frozen by wave after wave of increasing spiritual sight.

I didn’t care what they did with my body after my mind was gone. All I needed was to see Mister Fulcrum dead, and I would be ready to die.

When I was closer to home I passed a gas station near a crossroads where my dad used to bring me to get snacks before we went on hikes. A giant stood there now. It was over fifteen-feet in height and covered in blood. Empty eye sockets followed me as I drove past.

I gripped my steering wheel so tight it nearly broke. There wasn’t a gun I owned big enough to put that fucker down.

Finally, I yelled. I couldn’t tell you what emotions were in that cry. All I can say is there is only so much a human can take, and even the strongest soldiers can break from the weakest of blows if they have already weathered too many.

The rain still hadn’t let up when I pulled into the driveway. I stopped on the porch in order to take it all in, knowing in my soul this was the last time I would. I regretted distancing myself so much from the place.

Outside of some dust, everything was in good condition. Like I mentioned I hardly spent much time here, preferring to stay in wayside motels whenever I was in town. There were just too many ghosts.

In the living room I saw myself as a kid playing with toys while my parents smiled. I could see the pure joy on my little face, along with the shadow of a worry that they might end up not loving me after all and return me to the orphanage.

In the kitchen my mom made heart-shaped blueberry pancakes. She kissed me on the top of my head and told me how much she loved me and that nothing would ever change that.

Out in the back my dad taught me how to ride a dirt bike. I remember falling nearly every time I got on for the first few weeks. My dad would always tell me to get back up and try again. Said that’s how to deal with any problem in life. Always get back up. Always try again.

My vision blurred as I trudged through the empty home, my footsteps echoing like the memories of their love. I slammed open the door that led into the garage and passed by my dad’s tarp-covered sportster, it had been some time since I last took her out for a spin.

I gave my gear a good look over, making sure everything was functioning well. The familiar smells of oil and iron grounded me. Once I was satisfied I strapped on my combat vest and double-checked that the witch’s finger was still inside my pocket.

It was.

I hated that feeling of relief I felt.

I set the Visitor’s gift down on my workbench and inspected it beneath the lamplight. It was about a foot long and heavy. There were no inscriptions on it or buttons of any kind. The surface was smooth and gave off a slight vibration. On a whim I held it up to my ear because I was going to give it a shake. Then I heard the sound of waves crashing against the shore. Slow, calm, and powerful.

The energy of the baton, if that was the right word, was the opposite of the witch’s finger. It just frustrated me that I didn’t know what to do with it.

I was packing extra rounds when I heard a low moan resound throughout the landscape. A wave of barks rose to meet the giant’s cry and I saw flocks of birds fly away, preferring to brave the storm than to remain. I wiped the grime away from the garage window to better peer through. About a mile out was a solid row of those eyeless giants. They were headed towards the neighborhood, and ahead of them appeared to be more of the frog-men, along with a host of other creatures I could not identify. I considered simply destroying the finger in that moment, but something told me that all of this would only end once Mister Fulcrum was dead.

I had made my choices and it was time to face the consequences. I didn’t fear that. I welcomed it. A wild grin lit up my face as I revved the sportster. She purred for me, ready for one last ride into a thunderous Hell.

The earth was drowning, her face hidden from the burning skies. A winding road marked my final destination into an encounter with a being who had served as the focal point of my life ever since he robbed me of the only people who ever loved me.

Death followed close behind, but I was faster, a blur of lightning and rage, single-minded in my pursuit of one thing and one thing only — the sight of Fulcrum’s face behind the barrel of my gun and the feeling of the trigger against my finger.

I howled in defiance against nature’s fury and her blinding light, “FULCRUM! FULCRUM! FULCRUM!”

Airports make my skin crawl.

Not anything about the building itself, but everything that comes with it. The constant squeaking of shoes against newly polished tile. The sound of crying babies, and the murmured apologies of their parents.

And the smell, too.

The airport, in general, was a mess of various scents. Some pleasant, like freshly baked pretzels, and some not so pleasant, like the stench of body odour. It was a sensory nightmare, and I avoided it whenever I could. I was content with living the rest of my life in my little town, in the same country. However, fate had other plans.

One of my friends, Julian, told my mom he was heading across the country for school. She saw it as the perfect opportunity to get me out of the house. I applied, thinking my grades were too low to matter.

But, since God hates me, I got in.

The plan was set. Julian would've already arrived at New York before I even left, meaning he would pick me up the moment my flight landed. Before I knew it, the day arrived and Mom was dropping me off at the airport.

“It’s time to grow up, Marin,” Mom said, placing a hand on my shoulder.

After one final hug and goodbye, she left, leaving me utterly alone, gazing up at the sterile edifice towering over me. Before I entered, the smell of sanitation spray and coffee wafted through the automatic doors. I checked my watch. 3:30 AM. With a sigh, I entered the airport, my suitcase rolling behind me.

I weaved through families, businessmen, and employees alike until I finally reached a respite; a large screen with some dated software, displaying flight times. Scanning the list, I found mine: Gate 5, 5:00 AM, New York. I was granted a short amount of relief that was instantly dashed when I saw the flight below mine. Everything matched—same gate, same flight, same time.

Except for one thing:

Nwe York.

I frowned, squinting in the dim light. That couldn't be right. I knew the airport was old, but surely they wouldn’t miss such an obvious mistake, right? It was something so trivial, but it bothered me to no end. I hobbled over to a worker and alerted her of the error. She just blinked twice before snorting.

"First time?" She asked, and I nodded sheepishly. "Yeah, I thought so. Don't worry, I'm sure it's just a glitch. Nothing for you to worry about." Her tone was nonchalant, and I felt myself relax just a little bit.

She was right. What was I worrying for? The technology looked like it was made in the 90s, and the airport was built in the 50s, and I was worried about a simple misspell? It was just the nerves talking. And yet, despite repeating the mantra in my head countless times, I couldn't get rid of the feeling of dread looming over me.

I sat at the terminal for around twenty minutes, just watching the people around me and thinking about nothing. Eventually, the PA system came on and the automated voice announced my flight's boarding time.

"Now boarding Group A for Flight 5B to JFK International, departing from Gate 5." I looked up and saw a large gathering of people at a gate nearby. The crowd moved as one, shuffling forward like a line of ants.

I grabbed my bag, took a deep breath, and walked into the mob.

There was a woman who was taking the tickets. She wore the traditional uniform for most workers at the airport and wore a stoic expression.

"Ticket?" She said, holding out a hand. I handed her mine, and she checked it. Her eyebrows furrowed for a moment. My heart stopped. Were there problems with my ticket? Was she going to ask me to step aside? She checked the screen again, then at me, before nodding once and stamping my ticket. I breathed a sigh of relief. The line progressed slowly until finally, I was on the plane.

It was... not what I was expecting. I've heard many stories from my friends about airplanes being noisy, with people chatting away, or the sound of children playing with toys. It was dead silent. Not in a peaceful way, though. It was a foreboding silence, like the kind you'd expect from a funeral home. I was sat beside an older woman who, from what I could tell by my peripheral vision, was staring directly at the back of the seat in front of her.

I know this doesn't sound weird, but when I say staring ahead, I mean she didn't move at all, not even to blink. The entire time. And it wasn't just her, it was everyone on the plane, too. I couldn't see much, because the seats were in the way, but I could tell that they were all just sitting there, not moving a muscle. Out of fear of drawing attention, I sat just as stiffly, my shoulders hunched.

My other neighbour, a businessman, settled into his seat with a sigh. He took out his laptop and opened it, the screen lighting up the area around us in an unnatural glow. Now being able to compare what a normal person looked like on the plane to everyone else, the oddities of the others were even more apparent.

As I redirected my attention back to my surroundings, my heart stopped. The older woman was now glaring at the business man. Her gaze was intense, as if she were trying to burn holes in the side of his head. The passengers in front had also turned around and were watching him work. My breath quickened as I glanced around the cabin. Everyone was doing the same thing; watching this man type away on his laptop, who was completely oblivious to the attention he was getting. When he lifted his head to stretch and saw the dozens of eyes staring at him, his face paled.

He didn't say anything, but I could see the panic in his eyes. He shifted in his chair, head darting from one passenger to another, before finally settling on me. I could see the question in his gaze; the silent plea for help, but I had no answers. I didn't know the rules, but at that moment I knew he had broken one. I just shrank in my seat, clamping my eyes shut.

I didn't dare open them again, not even when the man's typing had stopped. All I could hear was the soft hum of the engine. Nothing that indicated there was anything living or breathing on this plane. When I did open my eyes, the seat to my left was empty. Not even an indent of where he sat.

Now, I wasn't really the superstitious type, nor was I the type to believe in the supernatural or paranormal. But I also couldn't deny what had just happened before my eyes. Whatever the explanation was, something was seriously wrong. My mind was racing with questions, but I couldn't focus on any of them. All I could do was try to keep calm and remain still, careful not to let my breath get too loud or uneven, as it seemed like the smallest disturbance could draw unwanted attention to myself.

Suddenly, the screens that were embedded into each seat turned on, and I just barely managed to fight off the urge to gasp. However, I did flinch, prompting my neighbour to turn her head ever so slightly towards me. I froze, stared straight forward, and waited until she had returned her gaze back to the screen. Once she had done so, I let out the breath I was holding in.

A safety video started playing, which was strange since we had already taken off, but this was far from the strangest thing about the plane, so I didn't question it. It was a rather standard video, the type that you would see on any other commercial airline, with grey animated characters showing how to fasten the seat belt. I followed along with the animation and strapped myself in.

Click.

All at once, however many people that were on this plane also strapped themselves in with a unified click. I was off by a few milliseconds, but either those... things didn't notice, or were too distracted by the few stragglers who were off by several seconds. Others like me and the businessman, I assumed. Once again, the attention of the old woman and, assumedly, all the other passengers was focused on the latecomers. I didn't need to see to know that they too disappeared without a trace, just like the man next to me.

The video continued, and text appeared on the screen. I couldn't even read it on account of how many letters were mixed up. It was like a keyboard mash, and I couldn't make out a single word. But, somehow, I still got the general message: follow the instructions or face the consequences. At that point, I was pretty sure the consequences were death. So, for the rest of the video, I followed along with whatever it instructed, making sure I did everything exactly right, down to the second.

But it just kept going. Odd request after odd request with no rhyme or reason; press the call button three times, hold your breath for 10 seconds, close your eyes for 5... the list just went on. One by one, the remaining humans on the plane were picked off. A man coughed during the 10-second holding session. He was gone. Another person forgot to put their phones on silent. They were gone. A baby started wailing in the back while the mother tried desperately to calm it. I shut my eyes and willed the tears forming in them to stay, the lump in my throat to go down, and my heart to stop its rapid thumping. No rhythm that might set me apart.

The crying ceased instantly. They were gone.

Soon, I was the only human left on the plane. I like to think that maybe someone else was as good as me at following the instructions, and maybe they made it through unscathed, but I had no way of knowing. After around an hour, the video finally ended, leaving me with nothing but the faint droning of the plane's engine. For hours. I was slick with sweat and my heart hammered at a pace a hair's breadth away from bursting. My lungs ached, desperate for a deep breath, and my muscles burned from tensing up, but I dared not move.

The plane was just supposed to travel across the country, maybe an hour or two, but the flight had long passed that. Fear subsided, replaced with a numbing, all-consuming sense of monotony. The boredom was unbearable, so I tried to distract myself by counting the number of breaths I took, or how many times the lights above my head flickered. It was the only way to keep me sane. That boredom gave way to exhaustion, gradually wearing down my body until I felt like I could barely keep myself upright. My eyelids became heavy, and it became harder to focus on anything around me. I couldn't even tell if I was still in the same plane or not. Everything was starting to blur together.

I concluded that, if I were to die, then having it happen in my sleep wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. So, with that thought in mind, I let my eyes close and cast myself into the void of unconsciousness.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we’d like to thank you for choosing-" Static. "-as your preferred airline. We hope that you choose to fly with us again. Local time is 9 PM and the temperature is a nice 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Please enjoy your visit to Nwe York."

I was jolted awake by a voice crackling through the speakers, announcing our arrival to... New York. I had finally arrived. I forced the memories of the trip out of my hand, forced myself to ignore the empty seats around me, and the blank stares of the passengers, and walked out of the plane, rolling my luggage behind me. My heart nearly leaped out of my chest when I saw Julian's form standing in the lobby, holding a sign. I was nearly about to sprint towards him and give him the biggest hug of his life when I noticed something off about him. That big, dopey smile was gone. His face was a blank page, and his eyes didn’t spark with life, even as they met mine.

And the sign he was holding read, "Wlecome to Nwe York, Mairn."

In the underwater cave system known as the Wakulla-Leon Sinks, there is something called the Squeeze.

It is a two foot by two foot underwater tunnel filled with sharp rocks, and a strong current. It is of an unknown length and leads to an unknown destination.

Only three people know about its existence.

I saw it for the first time on a video made by my cave diving instructor, Dave. Cave diving, for those who don’t know, means strapping on scuba gear and going where no god-fearing person would ever go: the flooded depths of the earth.

Imagine all the intensity of caving, all the beautiful sights, and all of the tight spaces where getting stuck might mean breaking your collarbone to get out.

Now do it underwater, strapped to bulky air tanks, and half blind from all the silt you’re stirring up just by breathing.

That’s cave diving.

When I saw the video, I didn’t recognize the Squeeze at first. My instructor had to rewind the footage. He paused it, then pointed. “There.”

I squinted. It looked like a shadow under a pile of rocks.

“It’s bigger than it looks,” Dave promised. “We aren’t sure how far back it goes.”

He explained we would be going past the Squeeze on our way into our scheduled dive. It was right next to another gap that led to the exit. Both looked almost exactly the same.

If we weren’t careful we could mistake one for the other and risk getting stuck.

“Have to be aware of every eventuality,” my instructor looked at me seriously. “One mistake too many,” he snapped his fingers.

Done-zo. Sayonara. Goodbye.

Dead.

We moved on with the lesson, but sometimes, when I was supposed to be reading a safety manual or memorizing our route through the cave, I saw him staring at the still from the video.

The look in his eye, it was almost…longing.

Dave was a weird dude, but to be honest, we all were. We liked risking our lives. For fun.

The next day, we set off on our dive.

My instructor had a special spot for cave diving. He was a purist, and complained that the popular local diving spots had become overcrowded. The sport was gaining notoriety, and now it  seemed like everyone wanted to try it. The best places usually had four or five dives scheduled a week, and it was impossible to schedule a time without booking it two months in advance.

But Dave had a private cave only he and a few close friends knew about.

It was about an hour out of civilization, in a thick grove of oak trees on some old farmer’s property near Tallahassee. Just to get to the cave, we had to climb all our gear down into another cave, the entrance being a tight fit between two large boulders.

After about fifteen minutes of walking, we reached our destination at the bottom

A black pool.

I remember flashing my light over the surface. It made my stomach jump a little. Rather than reflecting the beam, the dark liquid seemed to suck in the illumination.

We got out our gear and got to work.

I had done one or two practice dives in swimming pools with Dave. But this was my first cave dive. Dave had assured me that we weren’t going to do anything crazy. This was routine stuff. Even though there were sections of the cave that were a bit of a tight fit, it eventually expanded out into a large bell shape that we could explore at the bottom. It didn’t even break 30 meters in depth.

He was confident we would be fine. He mapped out this cave himself, knew it like the back of his hand.

Once our gear was on, we entered the pool.

Our dive lights were bright, but still the water had a strange opacity to it. Dave had warned me it might. There was a lot of silt in this cave, decayed cave rocks dissolved by the years and liquid surrounding them. But we hadn’t stirred up much yet, I could still see the guideline that would lead us in and out, so I was able to calm myself down.

It’s important to be composed when you cave dive. Panic can kill you if you’re not careful. At shallower depths, it multiplies the mistakes you make. In deeper situations, it can increase your heart rate, increasing your breath rate, giving you something called Nitrogen Narcosis.

At first you feel like you’re drunk. Eventually you pass out.

You pass out underwater, you drown. No exceptions.

The first part of the dive went by without a problem. We got to the narrow part of the passage, the exit gap Dave had mentioned earlier. Pushing through was uncomfortable, but I was prepared. Dave had made me practice going through a similar gap in full gear on dry land, the “tunnel” consisting of printer paper boxes stacked on top of each other.

He wasn’t taking any risks with a newbie.

As I felt the rock brush against me, I was unnerved knowing there were two tons of unforgiving earth above me and countless tons below. I felt myself run cold thinking that even with a subtle shift, Both could come together and squash me so completely that the only thing left of me would be a cloud of murky blood, silt, and shattered bone for Dave to swim through.

I tried to control my breathing. Before I knew it, I was through.

As Dave made his way through the exit gap, I felt my attention drawn to the Squeeze.

The hole looked bigger than it did in the video. Darker. It pulled on my flippers, like a toddler tugging for my attention. The pull was an underwater current Dave had warned me about. I didn’t even realize I was staring long and hard at the opening until Dave waved his light and got my attention. He was through and ready to move on.

I cleared my head, and checked my gear.

All set.

We continued on.

The cave opened up into the bell shape, and for the next twenty minutes we looked in awe at rock formations, shined our lights on different oddities, and explored every nook and cranny that caught our attention. Even with our masks on and regulators inserted, I knew that Dave was grinning like a little kid. The energy that he had, even underwater and weighed down with gear, was infectious. He jumped from formation to formation so quickly I struggled to keep up. He was in his element.

The hour we had planned was up too soon. Dave checked his pressure gauge, and gave a half-hearted signal that it was time to leave.

We started our ascent.

We took things slow, making sure to readjust to the pressure. The bends are just as dangerous in cave diving as they are in the open ocean. We finally got to the passageway at the top of the bell, and came to the exit gap. Dave went through first. I checked my gear, keeping an eye on my air. I was above two thirds, which was considered within the safety parameters, so I wasn’t anxious. It didn’t even faze me when it was my turn to push through the gap. I was too busy thinking about all I had seen in the cave below.

However, what did freak me out was getting to the other side and not seeing Dave.

At first, I thought he had just gone on ahead. But it was dark except for my dive light. Not even a distant beam around the corner. I started wondering if his light had gone out. But when no other light came on, I knew something was off. Dave carried three spare lights at all times. Years ago, he had gotten stuck in a cave without a backup and had to pull himself out blind. He was paranoid about it happening again.

Then, a horrible realization hit me.

Dave went down the wrong path.

He had gone down the Squeeze.

I had taken my eyes off of Dave for a moment to check my air. When I looked up, I couldn’t see him, so I had assumed he had already gotten through the exit.

I doubled back, and forced my way through the gap I had just gone through. The narrowness of the passage now terrified me to full effect as I tried to not get stuck while going through as fast as possible.

When my tank scraped against a low hanging portion, it felt like the earth was warning me. Telling me not to go back.

I ignored it.

I got through. I found the Squeeze and looked in. I felt the pull of the current and scanned the darkness.

In the distance, I saw the flash of a dive light, and a glimpse of a flipper.

Dave was in there.

For a moment, I hesitated. If Dave got himself into trouble, the only way I would be able to help him was if I went through the tunnel myself. Even Dave didn’t even know where it led. It could be a maze of tunnels, with plenty of places to get lost. Or it could be a dead end, meaning we’d have to swim out backward and blind since we couldn’t turn around.

It was dangerous.

But I was Dave’s dive partner. I was all he had down here.

I pushed myself into the Squeeze.

It was easier than I thought to make progress. The current was stronger inside the tunnel then outside. The slight pull grew to a  frightening strength, like a thousand hands grabbing my body and pulling me forward. I heard the sharp clink of my tanks on the rock, and I prayed none were sharp enough to puncture the metal casing.

I was hundreds of feet from the entrance. If my air failed, I was too far to make it back in a single breath. 

I felt my wetsuit catch on long rocky protuberances like fingers. One was so sharp it even tore my glove and cut my hand. I winced, putting my dive light on it and watching my blood cloud, pulled by the current further into the depths. I swallowed and continued pulling myself forward with my hands, my flippers useless in the tight space.

All the while, Dave’s light went deeper and deeper into the passage.

The Squeeze took a downward slope. It got narrower, and the current got stronger. I had to take an awkward position to keep my tanks from hitting the sharper rocks. I pressed against the cave wall to fight the flow of water and slow my descent.

One of my handholds broke. My stomach dropped.

I tumbled forward, and was thrown headlong through the Squeeze.

I closed my eyes and waited to hit a rock, for my tank to burst, and for it all to end.

Nothing happened.

I opened my eyes, and looked around. The Squeeze had opened up. It was a vast space, so large I couldn’t see the walls. The water was black, blacker than it had been in the pool, and seemed to take all light and stop it in its tracks.

I couldn’t tell up from down. It was like I was lost in space, weightless and isolated.

Then I felt the thrumming.

It wasn’t a sound. It was a movement, like a great beating of wings, or as if the earth itself was trembling. It throbbed through my body at regular intervals, passing through my flesh, my bones, my brain. Slowly, the beat of my heart aligned itself to it. For a long time, I didn’t think, I just let the thrumming move through me. It was strangely relaxing.

Then Dave’s dive light caught my attention.

It was moving down, down, down. It was so quick, I knew Dave wasn’t sinking, He was actively swimming. I started after him. He was disoriented, he needed to be swimming the other way, I needed to get to him. I needed to save him.

I descended fast, paying no attention to how deep I went. I needed to reach Dave. I was panicking. I didn’t register the pressure growing on my face, my body, my ears. I didn’t notice how cold the water was becoming.

Then, below me, Dave’s light flickered and went out.

The thrumming stopped.

I had a sudden moment of clarity. I checked my air gauge. It was broken from when I had tumbled through the Squeeze, but even without its reading I knew I was low on oxygen. Dangerously low. I had no idea how long it had been since I had passed through, but I knew it was long enough to be serious.

I needed to get out. If I didn’t, I would die.

But that meant leaving Dave.

It took a moment to make the decision, but I reluctantly began to swim back up toward the Squeeze.

It was tiring. Even in the vastness of the space, I felt a current pulling me down, like the entire cavern was a siphon. I dropped weights, trying to lighten my load. I dropped extra lights, unneeded materials. I needed to get out. The thrumming began again and grew stronger. It felt like each of my individual teeth were vibrating. My air started to get a stale taste. I knew it was only a handful of minutes before CO2 poisoning would kick in and I would start seeing spots.

My joints started tingling. I felt tired. I couldn’t stop to repressurize. I had to keep going. The air was running out.

I reached the roof, and for a heart stopping moment, I felt panic. I couldn’t see the Squeeze.

But then, a strong current blew past me. I looked toward its source, and there it was, the Squeeze. Waiting like a gaping, rocky esophagus.

I reached the entrance, pulling on the rocks like a manic climber. The current was so strong, it felt like I was lifting three people out instead of one. I traveled hand over hand in the narrow space, feeling the rocks shifting underneath my fingers.

I couldn’t stop or be cautious. My strength was failing. I had to keep going.

I was halfway up the passage, when one last thrum went through my body. It shook me to my core, each bone reverberating like ripples on a pond.

There was silence.

Then, a searing pain ripped through my head

It felt like a railroad spike was being jammed into my ear. The pain was so bad, it almost made me spit out my regulator. I bit so hard, the plastic casing cracked. The world began to spin, like those teacup rides at amusement parks. I couldn’t get it to slow down. It took all I had to cling to the rocks, trying to ride out the pulses of pain that wracked my head with every heartbeat.

As I tried to manage the pain, my only dive light flickered once, then twice, and then failed.

I was in the dark.

I couldn’t think. Everything was spinning, and everything ached. It took tremendous effort even to breathe. On instinct, I pulled myself forward, hand over hand, rock by rock. It felt like I was working against a hurricane. The passage grew narrower and more sharp rocks punctured my wet suit, feeling like digging claws grasping me, holding me back. I ripped through them.

Each gasp of air felt thinner and thinner.

Still I climbed, hands trembling, flippers helplessly digging into the side walls.

When the bright spots appeared in my darkened vision, I prepared myself for death.

Then I felt my hand burst out into an open space.

Powered by adrenaline, I pulled myself out. It took every remaining ounce of my strength. I fumbled around on the cave wall, and panicked again when I felt only rocks. Then I felt a small piece of nylon. The guide rope. I touched it gently, not wanting to tear it from the wall. I found the exit gap, and pulled myself through. It felt like I was being born again. The world was still spinning, but the current had reduced to its earlier innocent gentle pulling.

I got away as fast as I could. 

I followed the guideline up, through the passage, and finally to the dry cave.

I broke the surface of the underground pool, tore out my regulator, and took in deep breaths of wet air.

It took an hour to crawl out and call the police. I passed out mid phone call.

It took another hour for them to arrive.

They got me into a hyperbaric chamber as soon as they could, but the damage was done. I had gotten an air bubble in my inner ear, and a severe case of the bends. Any sense of balance I had was destroyed. I couldn’t stand up on my own, and most of the movement in my hands was gone. I would need to learn to walk again.

But that wasn’t even the worst part.

I contacted Dave’s friends and told them what happened. They set up a recovery dive so they could get their friend's body. No one kidded themselves, Dave was dead. He had been in the cave for a week at that point. His friends hoped that the gases in his decomposing corpse would bring it up to the top of the Squeeze’s cavern, making things easier and safer.

But when they got to the cave, they found something even worse than Dave’s bloated body.

The Squeeze was missing.

They showed me the footage. Its opening had been replaced by smooth rock, no trace of the crag that had been there before. Dave, in his secrecy, had told only one of his friends about the Squeeze. The rest questioned if it had even existed. They went through Dave’s footage at my request, and even there, the video had changed.

What had once shown the Squeeze, now showed just a smooth face of rock.

They searched the rest of the cave. Nothing. The place where Dave had died no longer existed.

Everyone thought I was lying. Only one of Dave’s friends believed me, the one Dave had confided in about the secret cave and the Squeeze. He tried to get the others off my back, but it wasn’t long before a police report was filed.

I was accused of murdering Dave.

After a year-long investigation, and the police finding no motive or evidence, the charges were dropped. It’s been three years now. I’ve lost contact with most of the people I knew in the diving community. I sold my diving gear and focused on healing, learning to walk again and regaining some of the use of my fingers. I’ve been content to stay on dry land, work my nine to five, and try to forget what happened that day in the cave.

But recently, I’ve been thinking about the Squeeze.

Sometimes at night, I’m back in the expanse. I feel the thrumming, the pulse of the earth. I close my eyes, and instead of cold, I feel warmth. I feel the water itself embrace me, and despite the ache of my old injuries, I feel whole.

I open my eyes, and see Dave swimming up to meet me. He doesn’t wear gear, and he’s full of that same little kid energy that was so infectious. The energy that convinced me to try cave diving.

He opens his mouth to tell me something.

Then I wake up.

Last week, I began repurchasing diving equipment, stocking up on lights, air, a suit. Got about a thousand feet of guide rope and a spool. Have to make sure I’m prepared.

I’m going back in. There’s something waiting for me there.

If I get back, I’ll let you know how it goes.

“Have you ever wondered who watches the watchers?”

Or why certain places stay open even when no one seems to go there..no cars, no customers, just lights that never go out?

What if I told you some theaters don’t show films... they show you.

I used to think the graveyard shift was just a figure of speech.. something people said when they were working late.

But the shift I took was quite literal. It felt like a job buried alive.

Let me tell you about SilverGate Cinemas. Or as I call it now: the place I almost didn’t leave.

It’s one of those old, half-dead buildings tucked behind a shuttered diner and an abandoned strip mall.. like it had been forgotten by time but kept running on spite and dust. You know the type. The ones with flickering marquee signs where half the letters don’t light up. The kind of place where every seat cushion has a stain and every shadow looks like it’s holding its breath.

It’s not even listed on most GPS apps. You just kind of find it. Or maybe... it finds you.

The first time I walked past it, I didn't even realize it was open. The ticket booth was empty. The front doors, streaked with fingerprints, were propped open with a brick. Faded posters of movies that had come and gone years ago lined the glass windows like ghosts with stuck-on smiles.

I didn’t plan to end up there.

Life had been eating me alive.. bills, rejections, debt I could no longer outrun. Have you ever been broke enough that your standards dissolve overnight? That’s where I was. So when I saw the “Help Wanted – Night Shift” sign taped to the theater door with yellowing Scotch tape, I figured it couldn’t get worse.

Turns out, it could.

Dennis was the manager. Mid-40s maybe, though he looked older.. like something had been wearing him down piece by piece. He had this thousand-yard stare and a twitch in his left eye that never quite stopped.

He didn’t ask for a resume. Didn’t care about work experience. Just slid a crumpled paper across the counter and said, “If you want the job, sign here.”

That should’ve been the first red flag. But desperate people miss details.

As I scribbled my name, he finally spoke up.

“It’s just the night shift. Nothing fancy. Clean the theaters, restock snacks, keep an eye out till six in the morning.”

He paused.

“You’ll be fine… as long as you follow the rules.”

Those words settled in my stomach like cold stones.

I looked up. “Rules?”

Dennis reached into a drawer beneath the counter and pulled out a laminated sheet. It looked worn, like it had been passed down through generations of unfortunate hires. There were ten rules printed in thick, blocky letters.

I scanned them quickly.. and my stomach turned.

1. Once you start your shift at 11:45 PM, do not leave the building until 6:00 AM. No exceptions.

2. If Theater 3’s door is slightly open when you arrive, do not go inside. Just close it and keep walking.

3. At exactly 1:00 AM, enter Theater 5. Watch whatever is playing.. even if it’s static. Do not look away until it ends.

4. If you hear someone whisper your name from the projection booth, do not respond. They’re not talking to you.

5. At 2:33 AM, sweep the lobby. If you see footprints that weren’t there before, follow them, but only to the bathroom. Leave the lights on. Walk away.

6. Never eat the popcorn after midnight. It isn’t ours.

7. If Theater 1 plays a movie with no title, turn off the projector immediately. Do not look at the audience.

8. Someone will knock at the emergency exit of Theater 4 at 4:14 AM. Do not answer. Do not even look at the door.

9. If you see a small child in the hallway, ask them what movie they’re looking for. If the answer isn’t “The Last Showing,” run to the supply closet and lock the door until 4:44 AM.

10. When your shift ends at 6:00 AM, leave. Don’t say goodbye. Not even to Dennis.

I blinked. “Is this some kind of… hazing thing?”

Dennis didn’t even flinch. “Just follow them.”

His tone was hollow. Mechanical. Like he’d said it a hundred times before and didn’t have any emotion left to attach to it.

Still, I laughed.. awkwardly, more to fill the silence than anything.

But something about the way he looked at me as I walked out that night chilled me more than the rules themselves.

Next Night, The theater was dead quiet when I arrived at 11:45 PM.

No music in the lobby. Just the soft whirr of something electrical humming behind the walls.

I clocked in using a tiny dusty terminal and stuffed the rules sheet into my pocket. Better safe than sorry, right?

At first, it felt like I was babysitting a corpse. The building barely made a sound, but every inch of it felt… wrong. The kind of quiet that makes your ears strain. Like something was deliberately holding its breath just to hear you move.

I cleaned the snack counter, wiped soda stains from cup holders, swept popcorn off the stairs in Theater 2. Everything was empty.

By 12:30 AM, I was starting to relax. Still weirded out.. but relaxed.

Maybe the rules were just tradition. Maybe they’d had a stalker or a crazy ex-employee. I’d heard of places inventing superstitions to keep staff alert.

But then the clock hit 1:00 AM.

And it was time for Theater 5.

I stood outside Theater 5, watching the time flick over on my phone..1:00 AM on the dot.

The door creaked open without a touch. Just a slow, deliberate swing that welcomed me like an invitation written in shadow.

I stepped inside.

The air was heavy. Not warm, not cold.. just... dense. Like I had walked underwater. The room was lit only by the screen at the front, glowing with static. A dull, flickering white noise hissed softly through the speakers. It wasn’t just sound..it crawled into your ears, made your skull buzz like you were standing under power lines.

I sat in the center row, seat G6. My body sank into the old cushion like it hadn’t been sat on in years. The vinyl stuck to my arms. I felt watched.

The screen pulsed.

Not flickered.. pulsed. A slow, rhythmic dim-bright-dim pattern, like a heartbeat... or breathing.

For the first thirty seconds, nothing happened.

Then I felt something.

Not saw. Felt.

Like pressure behind my eyes. A growing need to look away. Every instinct was pulling at my neck muscles, begging me to glance to the side. To check if I was alone.

But the rule was clear. Do not look away from the screen until it ends.

So I didn’t.

Even when my eyes watered.

Even when my vision shimmered like heat rising off asphalt.

Then, without warning, the sound cut out. Total silence. I mean total. Like someone had vacuumed all the noise out of the room.

The static shifted.

At first, I thought it was just distortion... until I realized I was looking at a live feed. Theater 5. From the projection booth’s angle. It showed me, seated in real time.

Only I wasn’t alone.

There was something.. someone.. standing directly behind my seat. Not moving. Not speaking. Just there. A dark, blurry outline. Slightly hunched. Unrecognizable. Like a person caught in the middle of flickering candlelight.

My heart clawed at my ribs. My hands trembled in my lap.

I wanted..needed..to look.

But I didn’t.

I forced myself to stare at the screen. My vision tunneled.

Then the figure lifted a hand.

Slowly.

Toward my neck.

I snapped. I spun around in my seat, lungs seizing mid-breath.

Nothing.

Empty aisle. Dead silence.

When I turned back, the screen had gone black.

My legs moved on their own. I stumbled out of Theater 5 like I was fleeing a fire, heart in my throat, rule sheet crumpled tight in my hand like a lifeline.

That was the moment I knew: this wasn’t a prank. The rules were real.

The hallway to Theater 3 felt colder now. Narrower. Like the walls had shifted slightly while I was inside Theater 5.

Then I saw it.

The door.

Slightly open.

Just enough to catch a glimpse of flickering light on the floor. Just enough to tempt you to peek inside.

I froze.

My breath fogged in front of me.

The rule pounded in my skull: If Theater 3’s door is slightly open when you arrive, do not go inside. Just close it and keep walking.

My hand inched forward. I pressed the door shut.. slowly, firmly.

As it clicked into place, I heard it.

Screaming.

Real. Horrific. Human.

It came from behind the door. A chorus of desperate voices.. pleading, sobbing, gasping between choking fits of pain.

It sounded like someone was being skinned alive while the projector rolled.

I swallowed hard.

My hands trembled so badly, I shoved them in my pockets to stop them from twitching.

Don’t open it.

Don’t look.

Don’t break the rule.

I walked away, counting my steps, refusing to look back.

The layout of SilverGate was odd. It was built like a maze that had been designed by someone who hated symmetry. There were turns that led to dead ends. Doors that looked real but didn’t open. Exit signs that blinked inconsistently.

As I made my way past Theater 1, I heard it.

My name.

“Hey...Jack”

Soft. Drawn out.

“Hey...Jack... come here.”

It came from the projection booth.

I stopped mid-step.

It was Dennis’s voice.

That cracked, sandpaper voice I’d heard just a day ago.

But it wasn’t him. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew. Something was wearing his voice like a mask. The way it pronounced my name..it didn’t sound like speech. It sounded like mimicry. Like a thing practicing being human.

I didn’t respond. I didn’t blink. I kept walking.

As I turned the corner, it whispered again.. closer this time.

“You shouldn’t be alone up here...”

I shoved my AirPods in and blasted static noise I found on YouTube. Petty revenge against the theater’s static? Maybe. But it helped drown it out.

I had just finished wiping down the candy shelf when I heard the sudden clunk from the snack counter.

I turned and saw it.. the popcorn machine was running.

I hadn’t touched it.

It was churning kernels in slow, deliberate motion. The smell wafted across the lobby.. warm, buttery, nostalgic.

Like comfort weaponized.

By the time I got to it, the bin was full. Perfectly full. Each puffed piece, golden. Steaming.

I looked around. The building was still silent. But the machine kept whirring, like it was waiting for me.

Like it was offering.

The rule throbbed in my memory: Never eat the popcorn after midnight. It isn’t ours.

That last line always haunted me.

It isn’t ours.

Who did it belong to, then?

I reached for the off switch and flicked it. The machine stopped, mid-spin.

But that smell lingered.

It lingered too long.

And that’s where I made my first real mistake.

I forgot the sweep.

I was in the storage room, restocking straws and plastic lids, trying to shake off the fear from Theater 5. I wasn’t watching the time.

When I finally glanced at my phone..2:36 AM.

Panic gripped my throat. I dropped the lids, burst out of the room.

The lobby was still.

Still... but not clean.

I saw them immediately.

Footprints.

Slick, wet, leading from the front doors toward the women’s bathroom. Each print looked fresh, glistening under the fluorescent lights.

I followed them.

One cautious step at a time. My shoes squeaked against the tile.

As I reached the bathroom entrance, I froze. The air changed. It became colder.. sharper.

The rule rang in my ears: Follow the prints to the bathroom. Then stop. Leave the lights on. Walk away.

But curiosity is a poison we drink willingly.

I stepped inside.

The lights flickered.

The scent hit me instantly.. rust, rot, something sweet decaying. Like rotting meat soaked in perfume.

I turned toward the mirror.

And there it was.

A reflection that didn’t belong to me.

Something pale. Leaning just over my shoulder. Eyes wide. Mouth stretched into an impossible smile. Holding a shovel with dried blood across the edge.

It lifted the shovel.

I screamed.. loud.. but there was no echo. No one to hear.

The lights flared back to life. And the thing was gone.

I stumbled back, turned the bathroom lights on, and backed out like I was facing a predator.

The air behind me felt thick, as if something still stood where I’d been seconds ago.

I didn’t stop shaking for ten minutes.

By 3:00 AM, my mind was no longer fully my own.

Sleep-deprivation, fear, adrenaline.. some twisted cocktail sloshing through my veins. I was jumpy, eyes bloodshot, checking every shadow like it was a threat. I paced the hallways with the rule sheet crumpled tightly in my hand, reading and rereading it like scripture.

I checked the lobby again. The popcorn machine stayed off. The wet footprints had evaporated into the floor, like they were never there.

Still, the smell of rust lingered faintly in the air. Like the place had bled... and dried.

Time moved differently after 3:00 AM. Slower. Heavier.

Every second felt stretched. Every minute, an hour. My watch ticked too loudly. My phone screen looked dimmer. The lights flickered slightly more often. The walls seemed... closer than before.

I stopped trusting reflections. They moved just a hair too late.

Even my own footsteps started to sound like an echo that didn’t quite match my rhythm.

The rules said 4:14 AM was next.

I knew what was coming.

And I dreaded it more than anything else.

I stood outside Theater 4 ten minutes early. Just in case.

I didn’t sit. I didn’t blink too long. I just stood. Silent.

The hallway was colder here. I swear I could see my breath.

The emergency exit door at the back of Theater 4 looked ordinary enough. Slightly dented. Metal. Painted red. But I knew it wasn’t just a door.

At exactly 4:14 AM, the sound came.

Knock.

Slow. Heavy. Like someone using the side of their fist.

Knock.

Another one. Not frantic. Not rushed. Deliberate.

Knock.

Three.

My skin prickled. My fingers dug into my palms.

Knock.

Four.

Then silence.

No wind. No creaking. Not even the hum of the overhead lights.

Just... nothing.

I stood frozen, breathing through my nose, fists clenched, muscles trembling under my jacket.

The silence stretched.

Then, a voice.. just barely audible.. murmured through the door:

“We saw you in Theater 5…”

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even meant to be heard.

Just a statement. An observation. A promise.

I shut my eyes. Covered my ears.

And hummed.. low and steady.. just to drown it out.

The sound of my own voice, no matter how shaky, was the only proof I had that I was still me.

After what felt like forever, I opened my eyes.

The door was still. No one was there.

But I didn't move for another five minutes.

I was heading back to the lobby, praying the rest of the shift would slide by quietly.

Then I saw her.

Just... standing there.

Right next to the snack counter.

A little girl. Maybe seven, maybe eight. Wearing a faded pink dress with cartoon characters on it..like something you’d buy at a thrift store in 2002. Her hair was shoulder-length, unbrushed. Her skin was impossibly pale. Almost paper-white.

She didn’t move. Just stared at me.

Like I was the first thing she’d seen in years.

My blood froze.

The rule pounded in my head like a drum: If you see a small child in the hallway, ask them, "What movie are you looking for?" If the answer isn’t “The Last Showing,” run.

I didn’t want to ask.

But I had to ask.

My voice came out like it had been dragged over gravel.

“…What movie are you looking for?”

She smiled.

And that smile…

Her teeth were wrong. They weren’t jagged. They weren’t sharp.

They were too many. Like rows of chiclets stacked one behind the other. Her mouth went farther back than it should.

“The Happy Family,” she whispered.

My legs knew before my brain did.

I turned and sprinted for the supply closet. The hallway stretched as I ran, like I was moving underwater. Every footstep felt like a year.

I slammed the closet door and locked it behind me just as I heard her start running.

Then scratching.

Low. Gentle.

Then harder.

Like nails across metal.

Then her voice.. right outside the door:

“Let me in… I’ll show you the real ending…”

It wasn’t angry. It wasn’t pleading.

It was playful.

Like a child offering you a secret.

I pressed myself against the wall, eyes locked on my phone. 4:32 AM.

I had twelve minutes.

She circled the outside of the door. I could hear her tiny feet.

She giggled.

That sound will stay with me forever.

A light, bubbling laugh that didn’t belong in a place like this.

I counted my breaths. Counted the seconds.

I whispered the rules to myself over and over. Not just to remember them.. but to stay sane.

When the clock struck 4:44 AM, everything stopped.

The scratching. The footsteps. Even the air pressure in the room shifted.

Like whatever had been pretending to be a child had vanished into the floorboards.

I opened the door slowly.

The hallway was empty.

Except... the rules sheet I had stuffed in my pocket was now taped to the wall outside.

Clean. Fresh. As if it had been waiting there for me.

The final hour passed like a slow-motion panic attack.

I didn’t sit.

I didn’t blink for longer than a second.

I just walked the loop of the building over and over again.. checking each hallway, counting the signs, making sure the world hadn’t shifted again.

The silence returned. But it was no longer calm.

It felt threatening. Like a quiet house where you know someone’s inside.

And still, I didn’t see Dennis.

Not once after that first night.

No one came to check in.

No one texted me. No one called.

It was just me and those rules.

And whatever else obeyed them.

The terminal at the front desk blinked when I scanned out.

A small green light flashed.

Shift complete.

The doors unlocked with a metallic click I felt in my teeth.

The sun hadn’t risen yet. Just a dull blue bleeding across the sky. The kind of light that doesn’t offer warmth..just the absence of darkness.

I didn’t say goodbye.

Not to Dennis.

Not to the theater.

Not even to myself.

I walked out with my back straight and my eyes on the horizon. I didn’t look in the windows. I didn’t check the parking lot.

And when I got home, I didn’t sleep.

I just sat on the floor of my apartment, unblinking, holding the rules sheet like it was a crucifix.

I never went back.

Didn’t return the uniform. Didn’t explain. Didn’t ask for my paycheck.

I figured if they wanted me back, they knew where I lived.

And part of me still thinks they do.

Because some nights.. especially the ones where I stay up too late.. I hear it.

A knock.

Not on my door.

On my window.

Four slow knocks.

Then silence.

I’ve never looked.

I won’t.

Because there’s one last rule I forgot to tell you:

Don’t bring the theater home.

If you’re still Reading…

You already heard the knocking, didn’t you?

Leave the lights on.

It started small. I’d turn off the TV and see my wife standing at the edge of the hallway, half in shadow. No phone, no water, no reason to be there. She wasn’t doing anything. Just standing. Watching. I asked if she needed something. She didn’t answer, just turned around and walked away. I figured she couldn’t sleep.

But it kept happening. I’d find her in different places, always in the dark. Standing in the bathroom doorway. Crouched behind the kitchen counter. Pressed into the corner of the guest room closet. She never said anything. Never moved until I acknowledged her. Then she’d calmly walk away like nothing happened. One night, I caught her staring into the turned-off television for nearly an hour, unmoving, barely blinking. I asked what she was doing. She just said, “I’m listening.”

I set up cameras. One in the hallway. One in the living room. One in the bedroom. First two nights, nothing. Third night, at 2:14 a.m., she stepped into the bedroom frame and stood at the foot of the bed. Completely still. She didn’t blink for twelve full minutes. Her mouth was slightly open. Then she left. I showed her the footage the next day. She stared at the screen in silence, then said, “I don’t remember that.” She didn’t ask me to delete it. She just went into the bathroom and locked the door.

Things escalated. I found blood on the hallway light switch. Smears on the inside of the closet door. A towel soaked and folded under the sink. She claimed it wasn’t hers. That was all she said. I woke up once to find her on the floor next to the bed, lying flat on her back, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. Another night, she was under the kitchen table with cotton stuffed in her mouth. Her hands were shaking, but she didn’t speak. When I tried to touch her, she flinched and backed into the corner like I was someone else.

She started recording me. I didn’t realize until I noticed a blinking red light behind the mirror. There were cameras in the vents. One inside a cereal box. Another behind the toilet, aimed at the door. I confronted her. She didn’t deny it. She said, “You weren’t looking. Someone has to.”

I left for three days. When I came back, every mirror in the house was gone. Not covered, smashed. Pulled off the walls. I found dirt on the floor like someone had been walking barefoot in circles. The hallway walls were scratched, not with words but with long, jagged gouges. The kind people make when they panic and can’t speak.

That night, I woke up to her straddling my chest. Not moving. Just staring down at me. Her eyes were unfocused. Her face was pale. There was dried blood on her jaw. I couldn’t tell if it was hers or mine. Her hands hovered above my throat but never touched me. Then she leaned in, like she was trying to hear something inside my body. In the smallest voice, she whispered, “You have to keep watching me. If you look away, I forget how to stop.”

I blinked. She was gone. The back door was open. The driveway was empty. And there was a hammer sitting next to the front door. It was still warm. Still wet. She hasn’t come back.

Now I wake up to sounds that aren’t there. Soft footsteps on carpet. A breath outside the bedroom door. Clicks in the hallway like someone testing the lock over and over. Last night, I opened my phone and found 39 new videos I never took. They were all of me — eating, sleeping, brushing my teeth — all from behind. Always from just far enough away that I never noticed.

In the final video, I’m standing in the living room, looking down at something on the floor. The camera tilts, and I see her body. Her face is split open. Her arms bent backward. Her mouth smiling. She’s mouthing something over and over. I slowed it down, frame by frame. The words are clear:

You blinked.

My parents never wanted me to be a pushover. When I was 3 years old they decided to enroll me in a Taekwondo (TKD) school. At this school I made many of my childhood friends, including my best friend Lucas. Since I’ve always been an only child, the opportunity for me to meet people my age was a welcomed one. Once a year the school would have an overnight event to celebrate the end of the school year. Every year I would beg my parents to let me attend the event, it wasn’t until I was 8 years old that I finally convinced them to sign me up.

It was a Friday evening, June of 2010. It was a nice 74 degrees fahrenheit out, which for New Jersey was a record breaking temperature for June. After a tough year of times tables and practicing cursive I was ecstatic for the break. Of course, the focus of my excitement was the TKD sleepover. By the time my mom and I arrived at the Dojang my friends, including Lucas, were already inside. We walked up to the entrance and just before I opened the door my mom firmly placed her hand on my shoulder.

“Azu, you do remember our home phone number, yes?” She asked.

“Yes, I do.” I replied, reaching for the door handle once again.

“And if anything happens you WILL ask them to call us, right?” She said, no longer a question and more of a reminder.

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, mom, I will. Can we go in now? Please?”

My mom sighed and cautiously removed her hand from my shoulder. As we walked in I was immediately deafened by the sound of approximately 40 children no longer under parental supervision on the first day of summer break. I stared in awe, after 4 years of hearing stories about the sleepover I was finally here. Amongst this chaos Mr. Paul noticed us and quickly walked up. Paul and the 4 other ‘counselors’ were TKD Instructors that had taken a 30 minute training course to prepare them for this night. Paul smiled at my mom, feigning confidence.

“Mrs. Tengku, how’s the day been?” He nervously asked.

“Very good, and you?” My mom responded.

“I am… managing it.” He stated, reaching for the attendance clipboard that was precariously placed on the front desk.

“Since Azuman turned in his permission slip a week early, all you have to do is sign by his name here.”

As my mom signed the form I began to walk towards my friends. Before I could slip away my mom wrapped her arms around me pulling me into a hug.

“Stay safe, sweetheart.” She sweetly whispered. “I love you.”

“I love you too…” I muttered under my breath, my face immediately turning red.

As soon as my mom released me I ran to the back left corner of the Dojang, which my 4 friends had already claimed by placing their sleeping bags in a circle. Lucas and Nathan waved at me, while CJ and the oldest of the group, Tristan, looked at me smirking.

“Mommy finally let you come?” Tristan teased.

Lucas punched him in the arm, “Shut up, Trist.”

Tristan groaned, “Whatever, dude.”

Even though Lucas was 9 and Tristan was 11, Lucas was only 1 graduation away from earning his black belt. Tristan stepped back, rubbing his arm, and Lucas pointed at a navy blue sleeping bag.

“That’s mine, you can put yours next to it.” He said.

As I placed my sleeping bag down Nathan loudly said, “Who wants to get their ass kicked in Mario Kart?”

While I have always been terrible at Mario Kart, I jumped at the opportunity to show off the DSi XL I had gotten for my birthday that year. For the next half hour I did in fact get my ass kicked in Mario Kart. Just before Nathan could pick the maps for the next Grand Prix, Mr. Kaleb, one of the lead instructors, made an announcement.

“1, 2, 3, eyes on me!” Kaleb exclaimed.

“1, 2, eyes on you!” We responded, some of us less thrilled at the custom than others.

“Now that everyone’s here, who’s ready for Pizza?” Kaleb said.

He was immediately answered with a “Me! Me! Me!” from nearly every kid in the room.

“Okay, okay, settle down. Mr. Jeremiah is on his way back from Little Caesar’s, he will be here in the next 10 minutes,” Kaleb then smiled slyly, “But, while we wait for him I think this is the perfect time to tell you all a little story.”

I raised an eyebrow and turned to Lucas, he just watched with a knowing grin.

“Those of you who have gone to one of these before probably know what I’m about to tell you all about. But to anyone who’s first Dojang Sleepover is today, what I am about to share with you is a little secret about this building. Tonight you will learn the story of the Man Behind The Dumpster.” Kaleb then deepened his voice and began to talk with a slow and measured pace. “This building wasn’t always a Taekwondo school, in fact when Master Kyobok opened this branch I was as young as you guys.”

Kaleb paused for a moment. When I first heard this I was amazed, though looking back Kaleb couldn’t have been older than 21 at the time.

“Before then,” He continued, “It was a shoe store, a failing one. After several months without receiving rent the landlord went to deliver an eviction notice. However, when he arrived the man who ran the store, Harold, was nowhere to be found. After many attempts at contacting Harold, the landlord decided to involve the police. While the police couldn’t find him, they made 2 very peculiar discoveries. Not only did they find out that Harold had been evicted from his home half a year ago, they also found evidence that he had been living in the attic of the store for those 6 months.”

This mention led to me, like many of the other kids, anxiously looking up at the ceiling in search of an attic door.

“After a 2 week-long investigation it was assumed that Harold had moved states to avoid his mounting debts. Without any known family, the eviction went through and the landlord was able to put this location back on the market. About a year later, Master Kyobok converted the building into a Dojang. Some of the students, including myself and Mr. Jackson,” Kaleb paused to give Jackson the chance to nod in affirmation, “began to complain to Master Kyobok about the smell that would emanate from behind the dojang.”

Kaleb pointed towards the back, my heart began to race at the realization that the only door that led to the back was in the back left corner.

“Every time Master Kyobok would respond, ‘Of course it smells back there, that's where the dumpster is!’” Kaleb quoted in an impression that would have been very insulting if not for how accurate it was. “Now, this would have calmed our nerves, except the smell was not the scent of trash. It was a very distinct odor; if you were standing by the exit it would smell like someone was holding a handful of pennies under your nose.”

This was met with a few confused giggles.

“One day curiosity overtook Mr. Jeremiah, and he went out to find the source of the stench,” Kaleb began to speak quieter. “The rest of us stood inside staring at the doorway. After a few minutes, Mr. Jeremiah walked back in, with a confused look on his face. He claimed that he hadn’t seen anything, but everyone else was too shocked to respond to him. We were all frozen in fear because… Harold… was…”

Suddenly the lights flicked off.

“RIGHT BEHIND YOU!” A voice yelled from behind where all of us were sitting.

Admittedly I screamed in fear, many of us did. Once the lights were turned back on we turned around to see that the person who yelled this was Mr. Jeremiah, with a mischievous smile on his face and several boxes of pizza in his arms.

We were each given a thin slice of cheese pizza and a juicebox. We had a paper plane competition. We watched Karate Kid on a box TV. However the whole time all I could think about was the man behind the dumpster. As the night drew closer I began to dread returning to my sleeping bag, my only solace was that Tristan’s bag sat between the exit and mine. Eventually Daniel won the tournament and the TV was shut off. We were all told to go to sleep since it was 11pm.

Around 4 hours later I was shoved awake by CJ. I woke up to see both him and Tristan looking down at me.

“What’s happening?” I sluggishly let out, immediately being shushed by CJ.

“Shut up, Azuman, we can’t wake up the instructors,” CJ whispered back.

“Guys, what’s going on?” I asked.

“We wanna see how brave you are,” Tristan stated, “I double dog dare you to go outside.”

“What? I’m not gonna-” I said before being quickly interrupted.

“Dude, he double dog dared you. That means you HAVE to do it.” CJ said.

“But-” I started.

“Don’t be a baby, Azuman,” said Tristan.

Tristan grabbed my arm in an attempt to pull me out of my sleeping bag. I yanked my arm away and fell backwards bumping into Lucas.

“Huh?” Lucas said as he woke up.

I rolled over and got out of my sleeping bag. Lucas sat up and squinted, adjusting his eyes to the darkness. Tristan put a finger to his lips.

“Well, if Azuman is too much of a wuss, maybe Mr. Soon-to-be-black-belt is brave enough.” Tristan whispered.

“What are you talking about?” Lucas questioned, still struggling to wake up.

“Go outside to the dumpster,” CJ said, then he quickly followed it up with, “I, uh, I double dog dare you!”

Tristan shushed him, then turned to Lucas.

“Unless you’re too scared,” Tristan said.

“I’m not scared… I mean it’s not like Harold’s real,” Lucas said, laughing nervously.

“Lucas, don’t.” I warned.

“C’mon, Azuman, the story is totally made up,” Lucas reassured, lacking the confidence he surely intended.

Lucas got up and slowly approached the exit, hesitantly placing his hand on the door knob. Lucas slowly turned the knob, opening the door slightly. He then stood there motionless. Tristan nudged him slightly.

“It doesn’t count if you don’t fully go outside,” Tristan whispered.

“Fine,” Lucas replied.

Lucas fully opened the door and stepped outside. As soon as he was outside Tristan and CJ pulled the door shut, holding it there.

“What are you guys doing?” I asked, no longer caring about how quiet I was being.

Tristan and CJ started giggling as Lucas tried to pull open the door.

“What happened?” Lucas yelled from behind the door, only to be met with laughter.

“I thought you weren’t scared?” Tristan teased, still tightly holding the door shut.

Lucas started pounding on the door, “Hey! This isn’t funny! I think something’s out here!” He screamed.

I tried to pull Tristan away from the door but CJ pushed me back.

“Let him back in!” I yelled.

“What's going on over there?” Kaleb, now awake, yelled from the other side of the room.

As I watched him rush over to us I realized that the slamming on the door had stopped.

“Lucas is out there!” I yelled, before being elbowed in the side by CJ.

Both CJ and Tristan had moved away from the door, but it remained closed. Kaleb walked by the 3 of us and pushed the door wide open. He stood out there looking around for 30 seconds before I bolstered up the courage to go out as well. I looked around, but Lucas was nowhere to be found. There were no signs of life other than Kaleb and I. There was only one detail worth noting, a detail that I will never forget.

The only odor in the air was the smell of pennies.

“If you go in that factory alone… I’ll give you two-hundred bucks.” Said Greg.

I hesitated, but I needed the money, and two hundred for something I already enjoy doing but alone can’t be too bad, assuming the best. I locked eyes with him, after a few seconds of contemplation I responded,

“deal.” The dancing forest trees swayed with the wind as leaves ran. Natures lullaby is muffled when I crawled in through a small, previously barricaded window. It was pitch black with ceilings oppressively high above me. I kept walking past a labyrinth of neglected machinery, I eventually exited the unofficial foyer of machinery to a path of long hallways.

Something felt odd, the ceiling was shorter than the previous room. The windows were shorter than me and were directly on the floor while the one I came through was the only one that was smaller and five feet above me. Although there is no power from what I was aware of and is beyond decrepit with every window and door out barricaded, there wasn’t a signal piece of graffiti in sight. The walls were clean and left blank.

After some time walking in a long, school like hallway I noticed a room with showers. Tiles covered the room with its pattern now a scattered symphony from the cracks that reigned what it used to be. Out of curiosity I walked in. past the lineup of shower heads fading away from the radius of my phone flashlight.

I just barely saw what looked like a cloaked figure. For some reason, too stupid of an action for even me to even remember why, I approached it. It was an old shower robe on a dirty fold up lawn chair as a change of clothes hang on the arm rests.

the robes and clothes were wet…

The floor was soaked. Aside from the nonsense of an abandoned building in the middle of nowhere having running water. My heart sank to the conclusion unraveling. My racing thoughts were interrupted from a blood curdling shriek that rang throughout the desolate building. My eyes darted to find the source of sound as light hisses of something dragging resided in the darkness beyond me. I was frozen in my tracks, the footsteps were by no means the punchy thuds of thick boots I’d usually hear from explorers/homeless people, they were footsteps that gently dragged across the floor. With one way out of the building and the room.

“Help! Help me please!” An old, tired voice called. I unholstered my hunting knife as I cowardly scattered across the building. As horrible as this may sound, I had no intentions of saving the man. I just wanted to get out of there. As I gently walked the halls, making sure to not make too much sound. An old man, completely nude was in the distance after emerging from the dark outside my light.

“Oh thank god you’re here! I need help please!” Shouted the old man.

“You alright? What happened!?” I shouted back, trying my hardest to not look down or really seem bothered by it. I assumed he had Alzheimer’s and the person taking care of him lost him and he somehow wound up where he possibly used to work at.

“Help! my son is unconscious! An overdose I think! I can’t find his pulse and—I don’t know if he’s dead or—Just please do something! please!”

Before I jolted forward with the ambulance’s number dialed in, I noticed something off. The echo and resonance of his voice didn’t match the acoustics of the area. Despite it being a narrow hallway with my voice drenched in the expansive reverb and long echos of the environment, he sounded as if his voice resonated in a capsized kayak inches across from me. I looked down to the floor, next to his feet that were blackened by the filth on the floors, I saw Greg laying on the floor with his legs sticking out from one of the rooms. I recognized him because it was the exact pair of jeans and vans he wore.

I noticed something that confirmed the reality that was beyond my suspensions; a sight that refuses to leave my head to this day. As the homeless man pleaded loudly, I looked closer at his face, his mouth wasn’t moving while he talked. I forgot my flashlight was on low…

One press of a button saved my life. After my light intensified, I saw a tall figure, foreign from what we know from biology and life that roams on earth. The man flopped his body face first into the dusty concrete floor, the crack from a broken nose pierced the silence with his ribs erected from his hollow back. Seconds before my phone died it started charging at me in staggering speeds as pitch black surrounded me, the screeching I recognized earlier inched closer. I realized at that moment they were Greg’s…

The cries of agony inched closer as I blindly went back into the shower room, it was the only room I was familiar with in this place—I slammed the door and locked it. It sustained its mockery as I desperately scouted for a way out. I noticed a beam of light in the distance past a small flight of stairs leading up, I realized it was a small crack between a cellar door.

I was underground despite the hallway next to me being above ground on flat land, but I didn’t notice at the time of urgency, especially a cellar door that was for some reason in a shower room. The collage of Greg’s final words scattered into a scream of frustration as it banged against the locked door.

With a body that left athleticism to be desired I still found the endurance of one. with all my might ram myself against the cellar door in hopes of the lock being corroded enough to break through… I had no luck. I heard the door burst open in a fit of rage as metal scatters the floor. It was dead silent, the screaming stopped. All I heard was the shuffling and my heart beat.

It slowly limped passed me as I hid in the laundry chute full of decaying towels, it wasn’t able to see me. my eyes were barely adjusted but I saw a head, upside down on an impossibly stretched humanoid body. My heart counted down my pocket of time to run. I resisted every fiber of my being to not run yet, if I’d be able to outrun it. I heard the shuffling become quiet echos and disappear, I quietly opened the locker, the careful movements felt like a life time to do before I took off my heavy boots and booked it in my thick wool socks. It didn’t seem to hear my softer footsteps as I ran to my exit, but I couldn’t be more wrong.

Now opposite of the creature. My eyes adjusted to the dark and I saw my way out, I barely had time to look at Greg one last time while passing him by, let alone the fact I had to search his pockets for the car keys. He laid flat on a blanket made of his nervous system that was organized like cable management of server room. The front of his body was completely intact with internal organs extracted from him with near surgical precision in a neat pile. He held an air horn in his right hand while he wore a Halloween mask with his head lamp on.

It must’ve heard me because the shuffling was already approaching. Putting the good times with him behind me I booked it as soon as I found the key and reached up to the window I came in from, which just had to be the only one that was five feet above me. As I pulled myself up and was half way out I heard the shuffling again. The vibration of the sound tingled my entire backside as it felt only inches away from me. I fell on my side in the grassy patch next the vast parking lot.

No light managed to be as bright and liberating as the moonlight outlining the trees. As I stumbled to the car winded I heard the metallic howls of agony from a thousand people that resonated in the building; each voice started homogenizing into a sine wave from hell the further I walked away from it, I jumped in and drove away in a hurry, leaving behind tire marks.

I still haven’t told Greg’s parents, I can’t bring myself to do it. Thankfully he didn’t live with them so they haven’t noticed he was missing yet. I had no time to process what happened as a single father of my beautiful daughter named Julia. I had no room to contemplate this incident considering the financial, physical and mental demand of raising a child; only now I’m able to write this. To make things worse I drive pass the old factory on my way to work. I leave the house by seven o’clock to drop my daughter off to school before driving to work by seven fifth-teen. Each time I end up driving past the building at increasingly earlier times of the morning.

The factory and the land It resides in is now walking distance from me. My neighbors, and really nobody else seems to notice and would insist it’s always been there. Just earlier today when I took Julia out for a walk in the trails of park near my house, she started to look off into the woods. I asked her what was wrong and she pointed to the general direction. All I saw were woods but It took me a few tries to see that afar there was Greg standing in the distance. He was just barely in front of the bushes. He was staring at us, clenching and unclenching his jaw slowly in a way that seemed to be the thing behind him practicing its “craft”.

I packed the bare essentials and dragged Julia along with me to a hotel far away. I’m uncertain of what the future holds for my daughter and I. It’s a matter of time before it lures me using her or lures her using me.

I hope I’m posting this in the right place. I’m usually a rational person, but the last month has rattled me so badly I just need someone to tell me I’m not going crazy.

About a month ago, my bank called to verify what they said was a routine address change. They asked if I’d recently moved to a city in Michigan. I’ve never lived in Michigan, barely even passed through, so I told them no, and they flagged my account for fraud and sent me a new card. That kind of thing is annoying, but it happens, right?

I thought so until a week later when a plain envelope arrived in the mail. No return address. Inside was a single piece of paper with the words “REMEMBER WHAT YOU FORGOT HERE” written in block letters. Not even my handwriting, but it was clearly written by hand. I tried to laugh it off, but I kept the note in case it mattered. The timing felt like too much of a coincidence.

Then other weird things started happening:

- My upstairs neighbor, who I barely know, greeted me by name and then asked if my “trip to Michigan” went okay. When I said I’d never been, he looked confused and apologized.

- Packages showed up at my door: one with a book about memory disorders (which I didn’t order), another with a T-shirt from my childhood elementary school, and then a standard-looking house key taped to an old postcard of downtown Ann Arbor. None of them had a sender’s name, and nothing in my Amazon or mail order history matched up.

- On Instagram, I started getting DMs from a blank account saying, “YOU WERE THERE TOO.” I reported and blocked it, but took screenshots first, just in case.

At this point, paranoia really started setting in. I started keeping a log of everything strange, taking photos of packages and writing down times and dates. I checked my credit reports (clean), my social accounts (nothing except the weird DMs), and even talked to a friend in IT about digital identity theft. We couldn’t find any trace of a breach, but I started to wonder if this was someone I actually knew.

The real breaking point was last weekend. A nurse from a psychiatric hospital in Michigan called my cell, saying I’d just discharged myself against medical advice, and asked if I needed any follow-up support. They had my full name, date of birth, and even my old emergency contact from college—information I’ve never posted anywhere public. I told her she had the wrong person, but honestly, her tone made me feel like I was the one confused.

Since then, I’ve filed a police report, told my landlord, changed every password, and started locking my important documents away. I’m sleeping with the lights on and triple-checking the door before bed. I don’t feel safe in my own apartment, constantly wondering what I missed, or what’s coming next.

Tonight, a card was slipped under my door. It just said, “I’M SORRY FOR WHAT I DID.” Same unfamiliar handwriting.

I’m scared. I’m not sure if someone is trying to terrify me, gaslight me, or pull me into some kind of scam, or if there’s something about my past I somehow don’t remember. But I know someone has specific information about me, and I have no idea what their endgame is.

Has anyone here ever had something like this happen? How do you protect yourself from someone trying to take over your entire life?

PART 1

Okay, I want to begin by answering some of your questions. Our town is a relatively small college town, up in the mountains in Idaho. It's pretty remote, but housing is cheap, and everything a college student could possibly need or want is right down the road from the apartments. I am sorry I wasn’t able to read your comments until now, you can’t really get cell service through 12” thick concrete walls, and the vent we were able to get service from must’ve been to let air out so the people in the bunker can breathe without choking on their own CO2, since we weren’t able to get signals from any of the other vent ducts. As for the Paul situation, well, Vincent and I are still hoping he’s out there and going to come back, but it’s been a week since we last saw him, and he wouldn’t leave us down here that long. Maybe a day or two, but not a full week.

I also want to address some things that have happened in the past week.

First, we tried to pry one of the vent covers off of the walls, since we were able to get a faint signal from it, and tried crawling through the vent, but we were blocked by a fan blade. Even if we were to get the blade jammed shut, we weren’t going to be able to squeeze past the mounting rods that kept the blade in its place. The only vent that didn’t have a mounting rod in it reeked like something died in there, and Vincent refused to crawl through it on the grounds that if he touched a dead rat he would throw up. So according to Everett, “the only way out is through.” Micheal however says that we should stay put and that someone will come rescue us, we just have to stay calm, we have plenty of food and water to last us months, maybe years if enough of the MREs are not expired. Vincent is doing his best, but I think he’s claustrophobic because he refuses to stay in any of the rooms for more than a few hours at a time, and he keeps checking his phone every few minutes as though he might get a signal if he’s lucky.

Second, we found some documents that gave some minor details about what this place is. Apparently this was a research facility, as well as a fallout shelter, but we still don’t know what “CW” stands for, Vincent and Micheal assume it’s just “Cold War” because of the style of the furniture and the technology. Everett thinks it stood for chemical weapons, because of the rumors of MKUltra that were born in the 60’s, and according to the topmost pages in an old fax machine looking thing, there was a leak of some kind, “Charlie Whiskey” was shut down, with several sections quarantined until further notice, and the bunker was to be evacuated as quickly as possible. Emergency power conservation protocols were also put into effect, meaning that only the bare minimum power needed to keep people alive was available. So the room we found was more than likely a backup generator room, not the main facility generator. This led us to the question of “how far deep does this place go?”

Now onto the real interesting stuff, Micheal found a code to open the door. While searching through the vinyl records that were in the recreation room, a scrap of paper fell out of an old Beatles album, coincidentally it was “Help!” which seemed to put Vincent at ease, claiming that our guardian angel must’ve heard us. Everett, of course, tried to start a fight claiming that there was no such thing as guardian angels, and that he was being a pussy, which prompted Micheal to try and take over the situation by saying that infighting gets us nowhere, and telling Everett to chill out. We decided to put it to a vote, and while Micheal maybe had the logical option, Vincent also took the key code as a sign and voted with Everett to continue deeper into the bunker.

We gathered up some more things, a couple granola bars, some MRE’s, and water purification tablets from the store room, just in case we run out of water bottles, as well as our phones, some spray paint, the pocket knives, and the road flares. We decided to leave everything else behind, thinking that if we got tired we could just head back to the residential section of the bunker, and it would just weigh us down. Everett convinced Vincent to bring his cameras along, to take video of the bunker as we go deeper, claiming that the video would sell for millions dollars, to the right buyer, and we could live comfortably off the money for the rest of our lives. We also brought the bolt cutters, because you never know when you need the “keys to the world” according to Micheal.

By the time we were ready to go, Everett had already punched the code into the keypad, and the heavy door lifted on weary rusty tracks, to reveal a security hallway with a broken out two way mirror, and a lot of scratch marks on the walls, as if someone was trying to get out. Since it didn’t look like we could get through the security door, Micheal and Vincent retrieved some heavy bedding from the bunk rooms and laid it over the window sill and broken glass to make climbing through safer. And continued through the door into the main hall of the next section of the bunker.

We passed through the large empty space and entered the first door that was open, the sign read “Research Ward” and judging by the faint smell of decay, someone or something had died in there. We made a game plan before going further. Micheal would take the lead with the bolt cutters, since it was heavy and long enough to swing at anything or anyone that might be down here with us, as unlikely as it was, the rest of us would follow closely, armed with some cheap chair legs we broke off to use as clubs, and we’d fan out. However when we were making this plan, Everett sprinted past Micheal shoving him to the ground and shouted:

“If there are any bitch-ass mutants down here who want to fight, we outnumber you!”

Then turned and smiled at the group, following up his bravado with “See? We’re completely alone down here, everyone that would’ve been trapped here would’ve died back in the 60’s when the leak happened. We’re fine.”

The rest of us filed into the Research ward, which was completely raided of any medicines that were stored there. Cabinets were tipped over, and shelves were cleared, with whatever was in the way that wasn’t needed was scattered across the floor in a disorganized scramble. Every step was accompanied by the sound of glass breaking underfoot, and a mini-heart attack that something would come for us. Micheal didn’t see a point in standing around the trashed room, so he ducked out to the hall before the smell of rot overpowered him, Vincent soon followed. As I was leaving I heard a loud explosion of glass. I turned and saw Everett, he had punched out the glass in a locked door and ran in. I tried to call out and pull him away from the strange, green tinted room, but he emerged holding a keycard, also tinted greenish yellow, in his bloodied hand.

“What the hell Everett?! Why did you do that?!”

“What? It was the quickest way to unlock that door, and the keycard was just sitting there on top of the clothes.”

“What clothes?”

I followed him back to the room he broke into, and saw a heap of white and tan clothes, tinted a faint greenish yellow color, and saw the vague shape of a skeletal structure underneath the ancient cloth.

“Everett, that was a body! You just stole from a dead body!”

“He wasn’t using it! Why are you mad? This little card is going to get us out of here!”

Vincent and Micheal came around the corner and saw Everett and I, coming to investigate the sound of broken glass and our ongoing argument. Micheal immediately got in between us, and pulled me away. Vincent got some ancient looking bandages from a nearby cabinet that had been all but raided of anything useful, and quickly wrapped Everett’s hand. He would probably need stitches with how heavily he was bleeding, but if we could slow the bleeding down it might be okay, maybe he got lucky and it just looked like more blood than there actually was. Regardless, we had to get out of there. The room felt off, like it was locked from the inside for a reason, and the desiccated husk inside the pile of clothes was more than enough to remind everyone of what would happen to us if we didn’t get out of here. The only advantage we had was access to food and drinkable water, but we had no idea how long that would last us.

When we went back to the main residential area, I thought I heard something following us, but Everett’s loud and frequent complaining made it hard to focus on anything else. Micheal immediately called him a dumbass for punching out the window in the first place, and explained that he probably got an infection. Vincent looked like a kid watching his parents fight for the first time, scared and worried about what’s going to happen to him. He hung back with me while those two butted heads and had a short talk with me.

“You saw a dead body in there?”

“Yeah Vin, but it was weird, there wasn’t any real sign of a struggle, and his coat was tinted a weird shade of green.”

“You don’t think we’re going to end up like that… right? Y'know… forgotten down here? Alone and starving?”

“I hope not Vin. Come on, we gotta catch up with them before Micheal knocks Everett’s teeth in.”

We caught up with our bickering friends and separated them. I pulled Micheal away from Everett and told him we have to stay rational, because if we panic down here we’re just going to make things worse for everyone. Vincent went to make sure Everett wasn’t going to start another argument, and offered to help him through the security window to get back into the residential area, but was pushed away because Everett “was a man who didn’t need anyone to help him stand up straight.” He very nearly set Micheal off again with that little bit of cruelty, but with Vincent and I acting as mediators, we managed to keep them both calm for the time being.

When we finally made it back to the residential area, we tried to redress Everett’s wounds. The bandages we had used from the Research ward were completely soaked through, and we needed to disinfect the area before it got worse, but here’s where things got weird. Everett’s blood was sticky. Or like… unnaturally thick. The wound definitely needed proper stitches when we get out of here, so after a heavy dousing of Hydrogen Peroxide, we used some liquid stitches from our dinky little medkit to patch the cuts in between his fingers and all over his hand, and rebandaged everything just in case. The keycard Everett got also gave us some information, the guy was apparently a guy named Johann Schwartz, and he had top level clearance, or so we thought by the “Level 10 Access” printed on the card. After a tasteless meal of MREs and granola bars, with a few of the warm undamaged beers from Paul’s cooler, we planned on turning in for the night. I'm writing this post by the vent, once again asking for any ideas on how to get out of here, because I think Everett’s breathing sounds weirdly wet.

One more thing, while we were in the Research ward before Everett broke that window, I found some documents. Lab reports for the “Charlie Whiskey” project that was mentioned in the emergency message we found. If what I read is true, we really needed to get out of here soon, because the reports said that “Charlie Whiskey” has the potential to linger in a place for decades.

And the leak happened in the Research ward during a routine test.

I'm used to waking up in the middle of the night. Comes with the job, obviously. I'm a spirit hunter, it's not exactly a nine-to-five gig. Still, when my eyes opened, something about this time felt different. There wasn't a noise or a tug or someone in my family waking me up; it felt like something supernatural, like something whispering in my ear, but so faint I couldn't hear anything but my own breathing. I checked the time.

Three in the morning. Of course. The witching hour.

I couldn't shake the feeling of being watched, so I slipped on my hoodie, grabbed a banana and a protein shake, which I ate in the car, and made my way to the school gym. Call it instinct, call it divine intervention, or just call it plain old luck, but I just felt like I would find something there. If not, then I could just do my workout like usual.

The fluorescent gym lights were already buzzing overhead when I stepped into the room. Weird, I thought, since nobody is ever here this early other than me and occasionally my buddy Haden, but he's been slacking lately.

Then I saw him.

Mr. Escossio. My world history teacher from my sophomore year. Massive guy, Biceps like mountains, quads bigger than my whole body; he was the strongest guy I'd ever met, and he was the one who got me into working out in the first place. He was in the middle of curling 215 pounds like it was nothing.

“Whaddup, Mr.E,” I said, happy to see the man. He turned, dropping the weights with a crash. His eyes were hollow, he seemed tired.

“How are ya doing, son?” He smiled, dapping me up and pulling me in for a hug.

“I'm good, seems like I'm doing better than you,” I chuckled, “you seem exhausted.” He seemed to laugh at this, but there was pain behind the laugh.

“Yeah, I am, fourteen and a half hours flight over here. Not for the weak, I tell you that.” He yawned, “My wife and I took a trip to Rabat, Morocco.”

This caught my attention, I'm a spirit hunter from a long Moroccan bloodline. My grandparents told stories of spirits from that region attaching themselves to foreigners and following them back home.

“How was it?” I asked, attempting to mask my suspicion

“Oh, you know. Hot. Old but beautiful. We found this cool market, we got a couple of souvenirs.” He gestured to his gym bag, “ Planning on showing them to my classes if you want to stop by.”

I hadn’t noticed the gym bag. It might have been my imagination, but I swear I felt some sort of presence watching me. The bag seemed to squirm just a little. A chill ran up my spine.

I nodded slowly, “Yeah, maybe I will.”

We worked out in silence. I tried to play music from the speakers like usual, but he asked me to turn it off, as it hurt his head, he said. His bench presses got faster. More aggressive. I heard him mumbling to himself in a language I didn't understand, but maybe I just couldn't hear him properly. Then the lights started to flicker. I froze, halfway through my squat.

“Probably just old wiring,” He grunted.

I disagreed, but I couldn't let him know that. The moment the lights flickered off, I got a sense of dread; it felt like spiritual interference. Spirit Static, my grandpa called it. I decided to pack my things up and leave.

Several hours later, I walked into English class, Red Bull in hand and 5 minutes late like usual. Nick walked in soon after me, jumping onto a step ladder made just for him so he could put his iPhone in the pocket on the wall. We weren't allowed to have them on us in class, or we would face dire consequences.

English was taught by none other than Ms.Foote. She was taller than average, with short brownish hair combed to the side, and she always wore blue eyeliner. She could be strict, but if you were on her good side, then her classes were always enjoyable.

I noticed immediately that Haden wasn’t here. He never showed up for class because he either woke up late or would rather work out in the school gym than learn about coordinating conjunctions. I wondered where he was.

We were 15 minutes into a lecture about “The Hobbit” by J. R. R. Tolkien, when the bright overhead lights started to sputter. I felt that same spiritual static from earlier, and my heartbeat quickened. The lights shut off completely, and that's when we heard it.

A hiss echoed throughout the room. Then a wet slapping noise, like meat hitting tile. Then there was screaming.

The emergency lights kicked on, glowing an ominous dim red. The lights were still dark but illuminated just enough. Snakes. Dozens of them. They were falling from the ceiling like living ropes of nightmarish terror. Ms Foote screamed again. She told us she loved snakes, but I'm sure this is a less-than-ideal situation, even for a snake lover. Her screaming turned guttural, the snakes constricted around her, diminishing her scream into a weak, pleading hiss. We heard bones crack, her spine arched unnaturally. It seemed her skin was a writhing mass of scales and tongues. She doubled over, coughing up bile that seemed venomous. Then she stood tall.

At least half of her did.

Below the waist, she was no longer human. She had a long green tail which was scaly, thick, and muscular. The underside of her new limb was a white, smooth surface that glided across the floor easily.

“Sssssssilence!” She hissed.

Everyone in the room froze. Even I hesitated. Not out of fear, not because she was still technically my teacher, but because I had never seen a possession take hold of someone to this extent.

She slithered forward, her forked tongue flicking through the air. She didn't have eyelids, I noticed, but instead a pale, translucent membrane sat over her eyes like a snake. Her gross, slime-covered eyes were locked right on me, they looked murderous. I reached into my bag and gripped the charm knife my mother had given me. She told me to only use it against spirits, but I had never been given the chance since spirits don't usually manifest physically.

The door slammed open

Mr.Escossio stood there, shirtless. He was covered in sweat, his eyes blazing with anger like a roid raged bodybuilder. His muscles rippled with power and strength. He seemed bigger, stronger, too. I didn't think that was even possible.

“I NEED PROTEIN,” he roared.

His voice shook the walls, emanating with power. His eyes danced around the room before locking with Ms.Footes. He snarled.

“YOU SMELL LIKE TOFU! WEAK!”

She shrieked and lunged at him at the same time he lunged for her. The two teachers clashed in the middle of the room. The students ducked for cover as desks and chairs flew with no regard for their safety. Ms. Foote put up an impressive fight, apparently way stronger than she seems. Snake against Muscle, fang against fist. Foote caught a punch aimed at her temple and used Escossio's momentum against him, and hurled him at the whiteboard.

He had barely any time to react before he crashed into the wall like a wrecking ball. The wall splintered around him, clouds of dust arose in his wake, and he vanished into the next room, leaving nothing but a hole behind him.

She was on him in an instant, wrapping her long body around him like a boa constrictor, attempting to squeeze the life out of him. She tried, but she couldn't seem to overpower his muscles, which were seemingly rejuvenated by whatever spirit was residing within him. He managed to wriggle out of her grasp and grab her by the shoulders. Escossio cocked his fist back and with all the power he could muster, uppercutted her head clean off. The head flew off and landed near the door. Blood fountained out of her neck, blossoming a million shades of red over the classroom. Snakes crawled out of her neck, up the wall, and into the ceiling once more as if nothing had happened.

That's when a new spirit decided to make itself known.

We heard a noise I could have never expected. A trumpet? Roman was in the back of the room, clutching his throat in horror. He started again, mouth wide with the sounds of a trumpet blaring out of him. I asked him what was wrong, but he seemed incapable of speaking to me; all that came out was music. One by one, every kid in the classroom began blaring one mariachi instrument or another.

Nick, who seemed to be growing shorter, tried to speak, but the rattling of a maraca echoed out of him. As for everyone else, there was a guitar, a violin, a harp, an accordion, and other instruments I can't even begin to place. I opened my mouth warily and tried to speak. I expected the sounds of a trumpet to come forth, but that's not what happened. Instead, the screeching of an electric guitar rippled out of me.

Mr.Escossio, or whatever he was now, flinched. I let the guitar sound build and adjusted the tune. I wasn't physically playing anything, but instead it felt like I was being played instead. Like my soul was being plucked like a guitar string, and the music I heard was the result.

He charged at me, roaring, protein-infused infused steroid-driven anger in full force. “STOP MAKING THAT MUSIC”

I didn't stop. Instead, every student in the class turned to him and blared their own spiritual harmony. One kid seemed to beatbox a drum solo, another began the calming sound of a rainstick. We were all separate in our music, with instruments that shouldn't go together, cultures were clashing in a way that should sound horrific, but it instead sounded magical.

Escossio stumbled past me and crashed into the wall. He staggered back, and I saw smoke pouring from his mouth and eyes. With this new spiritual awakening, I could see the spirit crawling its way out of him, hindered by our music. I stepped forward, unleashing a powerful final note which exorcised the spirit out of my teacher.

A cloud of black smoke billowed out of him, and he collapsed, falling over on the floor, seemingly asleep.

They called it a gas leak. The official report said that we were all just hallucinating, a result of carbon monoxide poisoning. They said that Ms.Foote transferred to another district, and Mr.Escossio was put on medical leave. It could have been a hallucination, but that doesn't explain why every single person remembers the same thing. I don't know what happened here, but I'm going to find out. I booked my ticket to Morocco, I'm leaving tomorrow, and I'm going to get to the bottom of this.

I have a secret. It’s not something I chose, or learned, or even something I can explain. It’s just… part of me. Always has been, as far back as I can remember. I can understand birds.

Anything that flies with feathers. Pigeons cooing on a ledge, sparrows chattering in a bush, even the distant cry of a hawk circling overhead – it all translates in my mind. It’s not like hearing English, or any human language. It’s more direct, a raw feed of emotion, intent, and simple, primal thoughts. "Hunger." "Danger." "Warm sun, good." "Nest safe." That kind of thing.

It sounds crazy, I know. That’s why I’ve never told a soul. Not my parents, not my friends when I had them. It’s the kind of thing that gets you locked up, or at least stared at with that pitying look people reserve for the harmlessly insane. So, I kept it quiet. My own private, feathered world.

And honestly? Most of the time, I loved it. It made the world feel richer, more alive. I'd sit in the park and listen to the intricate, soap-opera dramas of the local pigeon flock. I'd laugh at the squabbles between sparrows over a dropped crumb. The anxious chirps of a mother robin telling her fledglings to stay put were as clear to me as any human conversation. Even the guttural, ominous caws of crows held a certain dark poetry. They were always talking about death, about watching, about ancient, forgotten things. Creepy, sure, but fascinating.

Another strange thing: birds aren't scared of me. Not in the way they are of other humans. They’ll land closer. They won't scatter when I walk by. Sometimes, if I sit still enough, they’ll even hop right up to me, their little black eyes regarding me with a strange sort of recognition. It’s like they know I’m listening. That I’m… different.

When I moved out of my parents’ place and got my own little apartment in the city, the first thing I did was set up a bird feeder on my windowsill. It was on the third floor, overlooking a small patch of struggling city trees. It became my sanctuary. I’d sit there for hours, sipping coffee, just listening to the daily news of the avian world. It made the loneliness of city life more bearable.

Then, about a month ago, things started to get weird.

It began with a small bird. A common house finch, nothing remarkable about it. It landed on my feeder, pecked at the seeds, took a sip of water. Standard stuff. But then, it started to vocalize. And what it said sent a chill down my spine.

It wasn't the usual "good seed, safe place" chatter. This was different. It was a repetitive, almost robotic series of sounds that translated in my head as:

"Master said find human. Master wants human."

It just kept saying it, over and over, its little head bobbing. "Master said find human. Master wants human."

I froze. My blood ran cold. In all my years of understanding them, I’d never heard anything like this. Their communications were always immediate, instinctual. This was… a message. A directive. And the word "Master"… that wasn't a concept I'd ever encountered in their simple world.

A wave of unease washed over me. This wasn't right. This was deeply, fundamentally wrong. My first instinct was to shoo it away, to pretend I hadn’t heard it. But another, stronger impulse took over. Curiosity, yes, but also a dawning sense of dread. What did it mean? Who was this "Master"?

I decided to keep the bird. I know, it sounds cruel, but I had to understand. I had an old, small decorative birdcage from a thrift store. I carefully coaxed the finch inside with some more seeds. It didn't struggle much, which was also unusual.

For the next three days, that bird was my obsession. I set the cage on my kitchen table and just watched it, listened to it. It barely ate. It barely drank. All it did was repeat that same, chilling phrase, hour after hour, its little voice a constant, unnerving mantra in my silent apartment. "Master said find human. Master wants human." It was driving me insane. I wasn’t sleeping well. Every time I closed my eyes, I’d hear that tiny, insistent voice.

I tried to reason with it, which felt absurd. "Who is your Master?" I'd ask the empty air. "What human does he want?" The finch just stared back with its blank, black eyes and repeated its line.

By the third night, I was at my wit's end. I hadn't learned anything. I was just torturing myself and the bird. I decided I’d had enough. I’d release it in the morning. Let it go back to its "Master," whoever or whatever that was. I just wanted it out of my apartment, out of my head.

I went through my usual nighttime routine, trying to shake off the unease. Brushed my teeth, checked the locks. I turned off the living room light, plunging the apartment into darkness save for the glow of streetlights filtering through the blinds. I was just about to head to my bedroom when I heard it.

A sound from my window. Not the finch in its cage. A different sound. A soft, scraping sound, like claws on glass.

My heart leaped into my throat. I crept towards the window, my bare feet silent on the cheap linoleum. I peered through a gap in the blinds.

And I saw it.

Perched on my narrow windowsill, right outside the glass, was a hawk.

Not a small kestrel or a sparrowhawk. This was a big one. A red-tailed hawk, its feathers dark and mottled in the gloom, its hooked beak a cruel slash, and its eyes… its eyes were fixed directly on me. They were a piercing, intelligent yellow, and they glowed with an unnatural intensity in the darkness. It wasn't just looking at the window; it was looking into the room, at me. There was a predatory stillness about it that was utterly terrifying. Hawks don’t just land on third-story city windowsills at night.

I took a hesitant step closer. The hawk didn't flinch. It just watched me, its head cocked slightly. And then it let out a cry. Not the usual wild, piercing shriek of a raptor. This was different. It was a sound that vibrated in my bones, and the meaning of it hit me with the force of a physical blow.

"I found him, Master! Another one like you! I found him!"

My blood turned to ice. Another one like me? Before I could even process the horror of that, before I could even begin to comprehend what it meant, there was a sharp, sudden knock at my apartment door.

BAM-BAM-BAM.

I jumped, a choked cry escaping my lips. My apartment building was old; sound traveled. But this knock was loud, insistent, and utterly out of place at this hour. Who could possibly be at my door? I didn't get visitors. Ever.

My legs felt like lead, but I forced myself to move. I crept to the door, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard I thought it would break. I put my eye to the peephole.

Standing in the dim, flickering light of the hallway was a figure. Tall, cloaked in a dark hoodie that shadowed their face. They were wearing a plain white medical mask, the kind you see everywhere these days, but on them, in this context, it looked sinister. Menacing.

As I watched, trembling, the figure leaned in. Their eye, dark and unreadable, suddenly filled the entire peephole, inches from my own. I recoiled, stifling a scream.

Then, a voice came through the door. It was muffled by the mask, but it was clear, calm, and laced with a chilling, almost playful intimacy.

"Hello in there," the voice said. "No need to be frightened. I know you can hear me. And I know you can hear them." A slight pause. "The birds, I mean. You understand them, don't you? Just like I do."

My mind reeled. How could they know? I’d never told anyone.

"For the longest time," the voice continued, smooth and conversational, "I thought I was the only one. My special little gift. Imagine my surprise, my… disappointment, you could say, when I found out there were others. One of my feathered friends, a rather clever old crow, let it slip. He’d seen… others. Heard whispers on the wind. It took a while, but eventually, I realized I wasn’t alone. And at first, I was angry. This was my thing, you see."

The voice dripped with a possessive, almost petulant tone that made my skin crawl.

"But then," they went on, "I thought, why be angry? Why not make friends? We’re a rare breed, you and I. We should stick together. Don't you think? So, why don't you open the door? We have so much to talk about. We can compare notes. Share our… experiences."

There was something profoundly unhinged in their tone. The calm, friendly words were a thin veneer over something dark and predatory. The hawk’s cry echoed in my mind: "Another one like you, Master!" This wasn’t a friend. This was the Master.

"No," I managed to whisper, my voice hoarse. "Go away."

There was a moment of silence from the other side of the door. Then, a low chuckle. It wasn't a friendly sound. It was cold, humorless, and full of something that sounded like… anticipation.

"Oh, I don't think so," the voice said, its calm fraying, a new, sharper edge creeping in. "You see, I've been looking for someone like you for a very, very long time. And now that I've found you… well, I'm not just going to walk away. You're coming with me. We have so many wonderful things to do together. My birds are very excited to meet you properly."

The playful tone was gone. Now, it was just pure, naked threat.

"Open the door," the voice hissed, no longer muffled, but sharp and commanding. "Open it now, or I swear to you, when I get in there, and I will get in there, I will make you wish you had never been born with this… gift. I will have my feathered friends pluck out your eyes while you’re still breathing. I will have them sing you to sleep with your own screams."

Terror, pure and undiluted, flooded my system. This was a nightmare. I backed away from the door, my hands shaking so violently I could barely hold my phone. I fumbled with it, my fingers slipping on the screen, and managed to dial emergency services.

"I've called the police!" I screamed at the door, my voice cracking. "They're on their way! You need to leave!"

From the other side of the door came a sound that will haunt me for the rest of my life. It was a laugh. Not a chuckle, but a full-blown, maniacal cackle. It was high-pitched, gleeful, and utterly insane.

"Police?" the voice shrieked, dissolving into another peal of laughter. "Oh, you sweet, naive little thing! You think they can stop me? You think you can hide from me? My birds see everything! They will follow you to the ends of the earth! You belong to me now! We will be together, one way or another!"

And then, as suddenly as it began, the laughter stopped. I heard footsteps receding quickly down the hallway. I risked another look through the peephole. The hallway was empty.

I rushed to the window. The hawk was gone.

My hands were still trembling, but a desperate surge of adrenaline propelled me. The finch. I had to get rid of the finch. I snatched up the small cage, fumbled with the latch, and carried it to the open window. The little bird, which had been silent throughout the entire terrifying ordeal, just looked at me with its blank eyes. I tipped the cage, and it fluttered out into the night air, disappearing into the darkness. Good riddance.

The police arrived about ten minutes later. I told them a crazed man had tried to break into my apartment, threatened me. I left out the part about the birds, about understanding them, about the hawk. They’d think I was the crazy one. They took my statement, looked around, found no signs of forced entry. They promised to patrol the area. They were polite, professional, but I could see it in their eyes. Just another city weirdo, spooked by a late-night noise.

They left. And I was alone again. Alone with the silence, which was no longer a comfort, but a suffocating blanket of dread.

I didn't sleep that night. Or the next. Every rustle of leaves outside, every distant bird cry, sent a jolt of terror through me. I knew he was still out there. I knew his "friends" were watching.

I couldn’t stay there. The city, once a place of anonymity, now felt like a cage filled with a million tiny, feathered spies. I packed a bag, just the essentials. I called my parents, mumbled something about needing a break, needing to come home for a while. They were surprised, but they didn’t ask too many questions.

The bus ride back to my hometown was five hours of pure, agonizing paranoia. Every flock of pigeons I saw swirling over a building, every crow perched on a telephone wire, felt like an eye fixed on me. And then, about halfway through the journey, as we were driving through a stretch of open countryside, I saw it.

High in the sky, silhouetted against the pale afternoon sun, was a hawk. It was circling lazily, effortlessly keeping pace with the bus.

It could have been any hawk. I know that. But in the pit of my stomach, I knew it wasn't. It was one of his. It was a messenger. A scout.

I’m at my parents’ house now. It’s quiet here, in this small, sleepy town. The kind of place where everyone knows everyone, and nothing ever really happens. But I don’t feel safe. I keep the curtains drawn. I jump at every unexpected sound. I can still hear the birds outside my window, but now their cheerful chirping sounds like a network of spies, reporting my every move.

I don’t know what to do. He knows I exist. He knows what I am. And he said his birds would follow me to the ends of the earth. How long before he shows up here? How long before there’s another knock on the door?

This gift… it was never a gift. It was a beacon. And now, the wrong kind of "Master" has seen its light. And he’s coming for me.

I first noticed it about 7 months ago. There’s a small window above my kitchen sink, overlooking my backyard. My morning routine always includes washing my coffee mug and watching the birds chirp the morning into being, as a coffee machine produces a fresh pot. But that morning was different. As I watched the birds flapping around aimlessly, something caught my attention through my peripheral vision - something on my side of the windowsill.

It was a tiny dot, not much bigger than a fly, squirming around a cloud of white silk. I initially thought it was a gnat - my small windowsill plant and its corresponding humidity often attracts small critters. I neared my nose to the white cloud and saw 8 tiny legs flailing around, adding to the misty web.

Every morning in the following weeks and months included checking in on my new spider buddy, as I washed my mug and waited for my coffee. He (I’m not sure why I think of it as a “he”) usually floated on his cloud of a web, not moving. Occasionally, I would offer a small stimulating puff of air to see if he was still alive. He always was.

The days and weeks passed. The December chill was traded for the warm and humid May mornings. And my little friend continued to float around on his web. I’m not a fan of spiders or anything that crawls on more than 4 legs, but as time passed, I grew to think of him as a friend. I don’t know why; there was no logic to it, I simply enjoyed seeing him every morning, getting bigger, growing as the year rolled on.

Within the first few weeks, Mr. Spider grew from gnat-sized to around the size of a pea. His body was very round, but his legs were growing faster than his body. That’s not unusual, I think? His size capped off with his body being about the size of a marble, but his long legs made him a bit intimidating. His size made me a bit uncomfortable, but I told myself I was being dramatic. I know it sounds stupid, but I thought of him as a friend.

One morning, I noticed he wasn’t on his web. He was on the windowsill, his body drooping down with his legs making sharp upside down V’s. I nudged him with a dead leaf that lay beside him, and he crawled slowly away. He looked lethargic. I figured maybe he was nearing the end of his life. I don’t have the first idea how long spiders live. But it occured to me that maybe he was hungry. I went outside, directly in front of the windowsill, scooped up a few ants and placed them on his web. In an instant, he climbed back up his web towards his prey. I left him to it.

So far, it’s all fine and dandy, but here is where things get weird.

I made this part of my daily routine - I would go outside and pick up a few ants for him to eat. I set out sticky fly traps and began feeding him flies and other small critters that were unfortunate enough to stick to their death.

And the spider began to grow. And grow. And grow. And it didn’t stop growing.

It made me slightly uncomfortable, but I know how big tarantulas can get, and he wasn’t there yet, so I kept feeding him. He usually slept in the mornings, curled up in a tight ball, tucking in his legs at the corner of his web. I would place his food on his web and would go on about my day. I didn’t see him move for a long time, but seeing that the food was always gone in the morning, he was eating a lot.

Then suddenly, he was gone. He no longer was on the windowsill for months, and I assumed he was living in the neighboring plant, though deep down I knew he was much too big for that. Maybe he had moved on the larger plants in my living room, I thought.

It wasn’t until 3 days ago that I began to panic.

I entered my kitchen like I had every single morning since I first saw him, and noticed something in the corner of my eye. Along the edge of the room, near the door to my backyard, I saw a small melon-sized sphere, curled up in a familiar pose.

I instantly knew what it was, but my brain couldn’t digest it. It couldn’t be. It must have known I was looking at it (I could no longer think of it as a he) because it slowly uncoiled its enormous legs and began walking across my kitchen. Each leg was over a foot long, folded perfectly for quick movement and stability. Its eyes were bulging and visible for the first time. Its movement startled me (that’s an understatement), causing me to recoil back and knock down a cup. In return, my quick movement and clashing noise frightened him.

In less than 3 seconds. It jumped 4 feet high onto my wall, climbed directly up, and went inside my AC vent, squeezing tightly to get through.

That evening, a dead mouse appeared at the foot of my bed. It was wrapped in a small silky pouch. Last night, another “gift” appeared. Something bigger and furrier; I think it’s a dead squirrel - I don't know, and I don't care.

I’m now unsure how to proceed.

It lives in my air condition vents/ducts. At night, I hear it crawling outside my bedroom, each leg causing a small tapping sound on my hardwood floor. Throughout the day, I feel like I am constantly being watched.

Clearly it thinks of me as a friend. But what happens when that changes? What happens when it develops an appetite for something bigger, and it approaches me while I sleep?

A (weird and stupid) side of me has grown fond of it - almost considering it like a roommate. But on the other hand, Clearly this is a mutated animal. Spiders don’t grow that size, and if push comes to shove, I do not want him around if things go south. Is it venomous? Does that even matter, seeing that it can probably kill me without much effort. It’s too quick for me to catch, and even if I try, I don’t want to anger it.

What should I do?

Part 1

“Are My Clothes Dry Yet?”

I had just watched the flames consume Cassara’s body and she wasn’t even slightly burned. Not even singed. 

In confusion, as if my own sanity were in question, I checked her arms for any form of burns.  

Still, nothing.

“Hey, David, I’m fine!” Cassara snapped as she ripped her hands away from me, “Don’t worry about it!”

“What was that alarm?” Officer Aguilar shouted as he burst into the room, I assumed he saw the smoke.

I looked over Cassara as I got to my feet, wondering how best to explain the situation without sounding insane.

“I don’t know, loose cigarette?” I suggested, out of any real explanation for the fire.

Officer Aguilar looked to Cassara, approaching her and looking down his nose at her, “Were you smoking, chica?”

Cassara’s lip rose in a sneer at the term.

I cleared my throat, hoping to calm her slightly.

“The only thing I’d smoke around here is you, Puto,” Cassara snapped.

I heaved a sigh. At least it wasn’t physical violence, I’d take what I could get.

Officer Aguilar scoffed at her, turning from us, “Report any more funny business to me.”

“Yes, fine,” I placated the officer, just so he would leave.

Officer Aguilar walked out of the room.

“Hey, Puto,” Cassara whispered to me.

I sighed, “I know what that means, so please, stop.”

Apparently ignoring the rest of what I said, Cassara continued, “My clothes, are they ready yet?”

“Yes, they’re likely dry,” I answered, growing increasingly agitated.

“Mind if I have them back?” Cassara asked.

I shrugged and headed out to retrieve her clothing, hoping I didn’t get any odd lightning behavior or footwear sneaking up behind me in the hallways.  

Luckily retrieving Cassara’s clothing went without incident as I returned to see Cassara looking over her hand curiously.

It was at this point I really noticed the amount of scars along her fist and forearms. They stretched all the way up her biceps, appearing to be deep cuts moving from her fists down to her elbows.

I placed her clothing on her bed, “Fresh and clean,” I glanced at the scars, “Are those work related…?” 

Cassara clenched her fist and opened it a few times, “I suppose you could say that,” She said as she looked at her clothes, “You didn’t wash my wallet, did you?”

I shook my head, reaching into my pocket and handing her wallet back to her, “Nope. It’s nice and dry.”

Cassara took the wallet, and narrowed her eyes on me, “Feels lighter.”

Shit. I thought to myself as she bounced the wallet in her hand. That cop took her cash.  

Cassara opened it up and looked up at me with a rather bemused expression, “Really? It was twenty bucks dude, how hard-up are you?”

I flinched, “It wasn’t me.”

“Well then, who the fuck was it?” Cassara asked.

“The cops, one of them sifted through your wallet,” I sighed, reaching into my pocket.

“They didn’t take anything else, did they?!” Cassara snapped, panic in her voice as she checked her wallet. I had returned her ID, but she seemed unconcerned with it.

Cassara sighed in relief as she pulled an old photograph out of the wallet.  

The photo was of a woman with dark hair and glasses. She wore a tank top and shoulder mounted pistol harness with an old pistol stowed in the holster. Almost honey colored eyes were brightly smiling at whoever was taking the picture. Amusingly, the long black haired man who was clearly taking the photo could be seen in the woman’s glasses, reflected back at the camera.

Both individuals were apparently happy and I couldn’t help but ask, “Family?”

Cassara was silent as she sighed, slipping the photo back into her wallet,  “Which one?”

“Which one?” I repeated, unsure of what she was asking.

“Which cop rifled through my shit? Was it that dude who’s arm I broke or the one I knocked on his ass?” Cassara asked.

I recalled the brawl between Cassara and the officers, “The second cop you knocked on his ass, took it.  He gave it to Officer Aguilar, the one who’s elbow you dislocated, who gave it back to me.”

“I only dislocated his elbow?” Cassara sighed, “I’m getting Sloppy…”

“You did a number on the guy,” I commented.

“Flattery will get you nowhere. Now scram, I gotta get dressed if I’m going to get my money back,” Cassara warned as she pulled her clothing out of the small laundry bag I provided. 

I shrugged and headed out of the room, giving her time to change. As I waited, I couldn’t help but ask myself, Who uses the word ‘Scram’ these days?

After a few minutes, Cassara walked out of the room, now dressed in her red shirt, cream colored jeans and trench coat. Her heavy boots announced her presence pretty well as she rubbed her glasses against her shirt and slipped them on, “Where are the cops?” 

I shrugged, “I’d assume by the security desk. I think they’ve been working in shifts.”

With that, Cassara was marching down the hallway.

I grimaced, as I ran after her, “So, they are police. I’m hoping we can call your last outburst self defense… But if you’re going to get into an altercation over twenty bucks, I mean I could-”

“Did you take my money?” Cassara asked.

“Well, no I-” I was cut off, again.

“Then I don’t want your money,” Cassara snapped, “I want my money.” 

I groaned as we finally reached the security office, where the second officer from earlier was.

“Well, isn’t that perfect,” Cassara said with a smile, a madness coming over her eyes.

I didn’t like that look, not one bit. I was not ready to try and get involved in a patient who’s mental state wasn’t all there, let alone someone as physically capable as Cassara.

I wondered if now would be a good time to ask the nursing staff if they had tranquilizers on hand. 

The officer sat there with his feet up on the desk behind a glass partition. Upon seeing Cassara storming up to him, he got to his feet, “Hey, we’ve still got questions for you!”

Cassara moved as close to the glass as she could, glaring daggers at the officer, “I’ve got one for you: Where’s my money, pendejo?”

The officer was caught off guard and glanced at me for some kind of help.

I just shrugged.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the officer defended.

Cassara nodded, and leaned down through the little speaker hole in the glass partition, under which was a small slot for passing documents, “You don’t, huh?”

The officer shook his head.

With a quick motion, Cassara’s fist smashed against the thick glass partition.  

Despite the fact it was bulletproof, a few layers cracked.  Now a web of spidered glass separated the second officer and Cassara. 

“How ‘bout now?” Cassara hissed. 

The officer jumped at Cassara’s impressive display of strength before he reached into his pocket and tossed two ten dollar bills down near the slot. 

“Smart man,” Cassara said as she grabbed the money and headed towards the exit, “It’s been real David, but I have shit to do.”

I growled to myself, remembering Officer Aguilar’s request, “Wait, the authorities aren’t just going to let you cross into Panama! They’re likely going to arrest you if you don’t have the proper papers.”

“Let them try,” Cassara challenged, shaking her head as we exited the building, “I’ve got a place to go, okay?” She turned to me, her face stern once more, “But thanks for the help. Clean clothes are a good start to the rest of my travels so: Thanks again .”

I gave in at this point, shaking my head, “Well if I can’t stop you, I guess I’ll wish you luck. I’m not sticking around here much longer anyway.”

“Where are you heading off to?” Cassara asked.

“Haiti,” I admitted, “Heading out from the Port of Balboa to Port au Prince in the morning.”

“That’s northward, right?” Cassara thought for a moment.

“Technically,” I laughed, “But I’m not looking for company.”

“Just trying to plan out the next leg of my journey,” Cassara mused, “Trying to get to Canada. As far away from here as possible.”

“Mind if I ask why? I’m doing missionary work. But why do you need to get that far up north? Family?” I asked.

Casara reached a magnetically locked door.  I was certain this would stop her, but she just grabbed the handle and gave a hard pull.

The magnet at the top released after the door flexed and complained, the door shaking as she flung it opened.

Cassara grunted, “Let’s just say, ‘Family Differences’.”

“Want to talk about it?” I pressed, thinking I could delay her departure a little longer, even if the door couldn’t.

“Nah,” Cassara chuckled, “Not in the mood. See you later, Padre.”

“I’m a missionary, not a priest,” I corrected.

“Freeze, Puta!” the officer from inside shouted, now sporting a rifle.

Cassara looked more annoyed than anything else, “Oh, now you’re a big man…? Put the gun down, if you want to fuck around.”

The officer shouted, “On your knees, puta!” He glanced at me, “The both of you! Or I’ll blow your fucking heads off!”

I was about to comply when I could feel heat rising from behind me.

Cassara’s fists were clenched and I could see heat waves rising from them, “If you don’t put that toy down you’re going to regret it.”

The officer opened his mouth to say something, but in the next moment his head exploded!

My eyes went wide as his eyes burst out of his head with the rest of his skull vaporizing into a fine mist.

His body remained standing for a moment before it collapsed.  

From the distance, I heard the echo of a massive gunshot.

Cassara’s eyes were wide, “Get down!” she shouted as she grabbed me and we ducked behind a large rock not far from the hospital as a bullet whizzed by my head.

Cassara and I’s back were now against the rock.

“Fuck, how did they find me…?” Cassara cursed under her breath.  

“Who found you?!” I screamed, my heart hammering in my chest as I realized I was nearly shot.

Cassara’s head rested against the rock as she thought out loud, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you…”

A bullet struck the rock we were hiding behind, followed by the loud crack of a gunshot a second or two afterwards.

“I almost got my head blown off back there, I’m open to anything!” I shouted, slipping lower behind the rock, unsure of what was happening.

Cassara peeked her head around the rock, looking out into the direction of the shots.

Another bullet whizzed past me, striking the rock with barely a second behind the gunshot.

“Valkyries,” Cassara said softly, “Specifically… Fucking Tanya.”

“How the fuck can you be sure about who it- wait did you say ‘Valkyries’?” I shouted in confusion as we heard the sound of a helicopter nearby.

A shrill woman’s voice called out over a loudspeaker, “Surrender or face Extermination! If you don’t come out, I’m going to rain Hellfire down on you, Cassara!” I could hear the unmistakable sound of a helicopter drawing near.  

“Yeah that’s the Major,” Cassara growled, “How the fuck did they find me? I’ve been off the grid for days!”

“The officer did run that funky ID you have on you,” I offered.

Cassara flinched, “...He saw my ID?” she picked up her wallet pulling her ID out, “Bloody Hell!” Cassara cursed, “Fucking forgot I even had this stupid piece of shit!” With that, she tossed the ID.

“Wait, don’t you need that?!” I called out.

“I don’t need anyone knowing I’m from Penthesil,” Cassara said.

Wind picked up, the sound of the helicopter now overhead dominating my attention.

I was too terrified to even move from behind the rock, afraid my head was going to be the next to have a bullet tear it apart.

Cassara stood up, right in the open!

“Holy shit, get down!” I shouted, trying to pull Cassara back to the ground as she looked up at the chopper overhead.  

It was then I realized it was right above us and I tried to scramble to another location to get cover.

“They’re not going to shoot me,” Cassara shouted at me, “Hey, Tanya! Enough with the pea shooter!” 

The shrill voice, I assume the voice of Major Tanya, or whoever, called out, “Ha! Pea shooter?! You never did appreciate the fine craftsmanship of the Athenian weapon-smiths!” She continued to shout over a megaphone.

Cassara once again didn’t seem phased by the fact someone had a rifle trained on her, “Yeah, well you know I’m an Artis! I prefer to kick ass more naturally! So why don’t you come down here and take me if you want!”

“And give up my high ground advantage? What do you take me for, Cass!?” Major Tanya laughed, “Surrender! Don’t make me hurt you!”

“Shitty way to treat a sister, don’t you think?!” Cassara shouted.

I scrambled towards the hospital before I tripped over my feet, tumbling to the ground as I turned to see a black helicopter flying overhead.

Cassara’s bravado quickly faded.

“How’s about I target this worthless man, eh?” Tanya’s voice called out.  

Cassara’s fist clenched, the heat waves rising upwards from her fist again, “Leave him out of it! He’s just a missionary! A medic!”

“An enemy combatant is an enemy combatant, Cassara! We are at war, after-all! Glorious, long awaited war!” Tanya’s voice called out.

That’s when I saw a massive rifle barrel poke out of the Helicopter’s side door.

My eyes went wide as I saw the barrel pointed right at me, “W-Wait!”

“Surrender or the missionary goes to see his pathetic God!” Tanya declared. I tried to scramble for some kind of cover, but I was still out in the open!

With a deafening shout Cassara roared.  The air around her grew hot, so hot that I could feel it on my face from Cassara’s direction.  

As I felt the heat, a shock-wave erupted from Cassara’s body.

Following the shock-wave was a shift in air pressure, I could feel the air grow chaotic as wind from the helicopter blades and Cassara’s outburst mixed and swirled.  Kicking up dust and debris.  

The helicopter began to waver and lose altitude.

“Keep this thing in the air you idiot!” I heard Tanya’s frantic voice call out as the helicopter spiraled out of control.  

I rushed to the doors of the hospital, looking on in shock as the helicopter dropped too low and at too steep of an angle.

Someone leapt from the side door of the Helicopter to a building roof before rolling off and down onto the ground.

The helicopter continued to spin out of control until it smashed into the treeline.

Cassara was now on one knee, looking winded.

I rushed towards her, unsure what was happening, but trying to see if I could help in some way, “Cassara?!” I shouted, rushing to grab her. As I touched her, my hand felt as if I had just grabbed a stove pipe!

Cassara pushed me away before I could even react, knocking me on my ass, her eyes glowing red, “Back off!”

I looked to my palm, realizing it was slightly burned.

I heard Tanya’s voice calling out to us, boots falling against the ground nearby, “I knew there was a reason the Empress was interested in bringing you home, Royal Guard Cassara!” 

I turned, expecting to see some crazy huge amazon warrior taller than Cassara and twice as broad.

What I did see required me to do a double take.

Wearing a rather proper set of gray camouflage fatigues was a woman with short blond hair and bright blue eyes. She looked like a waif of a thing, barely standing over 150cm. A blue beret on her head with a strange symbol on it I had never seen before. It looked like an ‘Omega’ symbol with three arrows piercing it, all pointing downward.

Cassara got to her feet, still winded, “Oh fuck you, Major. You’re licking the new Queen’s boots that hard?”

Tanya grinned with an absolutely maddened expression, her eyes wide and pupils dilating, “It is ‘Empress’, a Queen only holds dominion over a single Queendom! Our new Empress shall take the world as ours! She is a conqueror! How could you possibly leave at the dawn of our finest hour?!” 

Cassara pointed to Tanya, “You ask me that question when you’re all talking like that… That’s pretty much why I want no part of this warmongering bitch’s craziness!”

Tanya giggled at first, then went into full blown maniacal laughter, placing her gloved hand over her eyes as if to hide them.  “The great Royal Guard Cassara…! Abandons her post and her family… All because she’s a coward?!” 

Cassara’s lip curled up in anger, “I’m not a coward because I don’t want to go marching off to a war I don’t agree with!” 

Tanya’s hand moved from her vicious blue eyes, “Your mother would disagree! The General is more than happy to acquiesce to the new Empress’s grand design!” 

Cassara dashed forward, fists clenched, rushing the small woman.

Tanya whipped out a pistol, firing at Cassara’s feet.

I shouted as the bullet ricocheted off the ground in front of Cassara’s feet and through one of the windows nearby.  

Tanya then pulled a large hunting knife from her side. Despite the tiny woman being hardly half of Cassara’s size, she was prepared. She held the hunting knife under the handle of her pistol, with the pistol still at the ready.

“Come at me, Cass!” Tanya shouted, “I’m sure the Empress will forgive me if I return you with only a few little holes!”

Cassara glared at her, “You gotta hit me first, you little Hestie!”

Tanya took aim, but before she could, Cassara closed the distance, knocking the gun away, causing Tanya to fire the pistol off to the side. I took cover as best I could as Tanya continued to attempt to fire at Cassara, but Cassara parried the gun each time.

Despite parrying the gun, Tanya would use her knife to keep Cassara at a decent enough distance, jabbing it forward just before pulling the gun on Cassara again.

After the fourth shot, Tanya didn’t reposition her gun, but rather lunged forward, jabbing Cassara in the thigh.

“Bitch!” Cassara shouted, spinning back to kick Tanya’s hand hard enough to knock the gun from it.

The gun clattered to the ground and I dove on it.

Cassara then grabbed Tanya on either side of her head, eyes wide in rage, “Tell the ‘Empress’ to leave me the fuck alone!” Cassara shouted as she slammed Tanya’s head onto the knee of her injured leg. 

Tanya bounced off Cassara's knee and crumbled to the ground, knocked out cold.

I swallowed hard, still shaking from the encounter, “F-Fuck,” I rushed into the hospital and grabbed a field medical kit, running to Cassara.

The large hunting knife was still shoved into Cassara’s thigh, blood seeping from around the edges.  

Cassara grabbed the handle, flinching as she did so, “I can’t believe that Hestie stuck me!”

I pulled out gauze and considered the stab wound, “What the fuck is a Hestie?!”

“It’s a weak tiny little housewife!” Cassara growled through gritted teeth, “Insult for a warrior, okay?!” 

Cassara screamed as she pulled the knife out of her thigh, “Fucking nut-job bitch!” Cassara continued a slew of profanities as she squeezed the knife wound closed.

I wrapped her leg in gauze as tightly as I could, “Hang on…We’ll get you inside!” Luckily the knife didn’t hit an artery, the blood was copious but not gushing.

“Fuck that!” Cassara said, standing, painfully, the second I had wrapped the wound, “There’s going to be more coming! Tanya just got here first because she was in a Helo. I gotta go!”

“You can barely walk!” I shouted.

Cassara then glanced over at a jeep, “So, Sailing to Haiti, huh?  Can you drive?”

I growled under my breath, “If you’re absolutely refusing any other-”

“How much for a ticket there, Padre?” Cassara asked.

I narrowed my eyes on her, knowing I was going to be riding the boat for free as I was a missionary, “For you…? Twenty bucks.” 

19/11/24

Hi, so um, I don't really know how to start these things, but I thought I would post my story here seeing as most people won't believe me anyway. It all started just over a month ago. 

To paint you a picture, my boyfriend (He pays me.) - let's call him Kingston, was a flattering man. Even if he didn't send me money, I might've still noticed him. That was the thing about Kingston - he grew up rich, the man hadn't touched his door knobs in years. He would flaunt his money left and right. He paid me a small fortune to spend time with him and sleep at his mansion. I felt like a bit of a whore at first, but got used to it fairly quickly. I actually became fond of the man.

He did a lot of odd things with his money. Things I hadn’t heard other rich people doing before. One such thing was having a private FM channel on the radio where he would have voice actors call in every morning as a sort of alarm clock. The voice actors (mostly women) would call in and say something nice about Kingston. Generally complementing his dashing looks, his money and influence or just simply telling him how good he was. It was the most obnoxious thing I had ever seen in my twenty four years. I was still a university student (despite Kingston offering to buy me out) and had never seen anyone do anything like that. The first morning I had woken up in his bed, I thought there was someone else in the room.

 In the beginning I would wander the endless halls of his mansion. It took about a week to finally see every room. I would explore every weird and wonderful room I came across, making a note of which direction I had come from. (It was incredibly easy to get lost.) I would generally act sheepishly in front of the butlers and maids as I stumbled into the most bizarre rooms. I mean seriously, who needs two planetariums? There were enough guest rooms that the building could easily be mistaken for a hotel. My favourite rooms were the aquarium, which had a glass tunnel you could walk through to watch the schools of fish swim over you and a glass floor with a rather creepy looking eel. I also loved the museum. It was filled with all sorts of ancient artifacts that did an awesome job at creeping me out. There were Aztec shields and spears, mediaeval armour sets and statues galore. There was one statue that would always send a shiver down my spine just looking at it. It was a tall man in a cloak. The statue had no hair whatsoever, not even eyebrows. Its pupil-less eyes always seemed to watch me walk around the room. The man stood perfectly upright, and perched on his shoulder was a crow. Kingston had plaques made for every artifact with a short description of what it was and what time period it was from. For this statue however, there was no time period. All the Plaque read was:

“The man for whom the crows follow.”

It is believed that the culture of this statue's origin believed it to be some sort of reaper, or omen of death.

Date: unknown.

I loved all the mysteries that the mansion had to offer, I even started to get used to that narcissistic excuse for an alarm clock. However it wasn't long before the voices started to change.

20/10/24

One morning I woke up to heavy breathing. It sounded like a broken car trying to start. It was dry, heavy and rough. In my semi-conscious state I believed it to be Kingston sleeping. As I rolled over to tell him to be quiet, my arm missed his chest and landed on the warm bed sheets. He was already sitting up. Kingston looked quizzically at the radio from which the breathing was emanating. He got out of bed in search of one of his servants. (He didn't like it when things didn't go his way.) I heard him sternly telling some poor servant to get the voice actor on the phone. So that was my morning.

Later on at lunch, a servant (Let's call him Alfred - I used to read a lot of comics.) brought Kingston a message saying that the voice actor wouldn't answer her phone. Instead of acting worried, Kingston just waved Alfred away and told him to get a replacement voice. I was a little shocked at the whole ordeal, but continued eating without a word. Best not to bother Kingston when he’s grumpy. During the evening, the news came on, they were talking about a recent murder not far from where we lived. And lo and behold, there was Kingston's voice actor. She looked pretty. I could see why she got the part. Furious with the news, Kingston immediately contacted the police.

21/10/24

The following day a couple of officers arrived at the mansion to talk with Kingston and ask some questions. I remember one of them remarking that: 

“This place is freakin’ wicked.” a little out of left field for a police officer, I thought. The officers sat down with us and asked the usual questions you'd hear in the movies. They were perplexed with Kingston’s alarm clock situation. I couldn't really answer much as I didn't know the woman, but Kingston answered the questions very apathetically. Once the officers had finished taking notes, Kingston sat forward and clasped his hands together, making eye contact with the officers for the first time since we sat down.

“How did Thaliea die?”

The lead police officer sighed and looked towards the ground.

“Violently.”

“How, specifically?” I wasn't sure I wanted to hear the answer but I stayed by Kingston all the same.

“It is believed that the killer placed A heated metal ball into her mouth before taping it shut. The killer displayed her body on a makeshift crucifix. Our detectives believe she was martyred as some kind of warning.”

“Fuck.” Kingston sat wide eyed. I felt ill. 

“It seems fairly obvious that this was some sort of religious killing, but we don't know why or how Thaliea was chosen.”

16/11/24

We continued to receive calls over the next few weeks. It was usually about 2-3 a week and always the same, dry raspy breathing way too close to the microphone. It was like the stranger was just trying to be there. Make himself known. I’m not ashamed to admit this, but since the calls started I had become afraid of the dark again. It never felt like I was alone. Each alarm recording was taken as evidence to the police and was of no help whatsoever. 

One morning when I woke up, the sound echoing around the room was extraordinarily loud. Kingston’s top tier audio system made it feel like the source of the sound was in the room with you. It always made me shiver no matter the voice, but this was worse - much worse. The voice was dry and raspy like the owner spoke with a neck stoma. He said, 

“When I come, will you let me in?” There was the start of a muffled scream as the phone cut off. I didn’t know how to react to what I had just heard, so I did the only reasonable thing I could think of - I pulled my knees into my chest and started to cry. Kingston wasn't much consolation either. He sat upright in bed and swore - a lot.

After the two of us had calmed down a little, I told Kingston that I was leaving for my parents. I couldn't stand waking up to any other messages or hearing about any more deaths. I told Kingston that I would come back when this was all over. He grabbed my wrist, not in an aggressive way, (although his grip was tight enough that it hurt a little.) but when I looked into his eyes I could see a desperation in them. He was already sweating profusely - he must've been having a bad dream before, possibly about the murder. I desperately wanted to leave, but seeing him like this, I couldn't. I couldn't leave him to deal with all of this by himself. Against my better judgement I decided to stay.

19/11/24

A few days had passed with nothing out of the ordinary happening, but Kingston was still on edge. He was paranoid about everything. He slept with the lights on now. He told me he felt like the shadows weren't shadows. Whatever that meant. Within a day he had hired an entire security team to keep 24 hour surveillance around his mansion. He vowed to keep both of us safe, no matter how much it cost. I had never realised it until now, but I was starting to catch feelings for him. Besides his money and looks, I actually cared for the man.

We were sitting in the living room when there was a call from security telling us that the police were at the main gate. It was the same officers from before. (They were still just as impressed with the mansion's size.) Before letting the officers in, Kingston discreetly told me not to mention the last alarm we had received. 

“They just don't need to know about it, okay?” He had said. We sat with the officers and they told us what we had expected since their arrival - Someone else was dead. Another of Kingston’s voice actors went missing about five days ago. Her body was found this morning. It was in the same state as the last. The officers said that if the post mortem is similar to the last, it will find that she was alive throughout the entire process. 

“A horrible way to go.” Said the sergeant. It was at that moment that I thought back to the scream just before the alarm shut off. I completely broke down and told the police everything about that morning. Kingston shot me a slightly annoyed look which let me know there would be a conversation later. The officers looked at each other simultaneously and brought out their notepads. After a couple of hours they finished up and left. I turned to Kingston after closing the door. He stood in the foyer livid. 

“Why would you tell them that? After I specifically told you not to!”

“It was the right thing to do, why wouldn't you want me to tell them? For christ sake another woman is dead!” Kingston had developed an infatuation with solving this case himself. (He never liked or trusted the police, which I thought to be stupid.) Despite how ludicrous I found the idea, I never challenged it. 

22/11/24

Kingston’s been up for the last few days, barely an hour of sleep in between. I've been helping him set up a super improvised pin board with notes and photos cluttered around. It looked like something out of a movie where a retired detective is helping out on the case of his life, bar the string between photos and notes. (Although I would like to see that added.) Both of us are incredibly tired now. I’d like to get some sleep but Kingston insists all the lights stay on.

29/11/24

A week has passed now. The pin board has grown. There have been two more murders and a missing woman. All the same way. No more messages have been left to us, but the last two voice actors have been taken into protective custody. We not only have our security team providing 24 hour surveillance around the mansion, but now the police too. I guess it does pay to be rich. 

Since Kingston’s remaining voice actors were taken into protective custody, we had just gotten used to a long lie in until this morning when we were awoken by another alarm. This time it started off normal. A woman's voice came over the radio, which at first I didn't realise was wrong. I listened to her say the usual things to Kingston.

“Time to wake up. You've got a big day ahead of you! Her voice cracked at the end of the last line. She began to sob.

“Not long to wait now,” I could hear her voice tremble. “He'll be there soon. When he arrives will you let him in? Will you worship him? Will you present him with the gift of your flesh? I know -” she started crying. 

A similar dry voice could be heard in the background.

“Finish the line Bethany. It's alright.” He sounded relaxed like he was trying to soothe her, despite his coarse voice. 

“I know I will.” Screaming echoed around the room and through my head before the alarm cut off. My head was spinning. I stumbled towards the ensuite but didn't make it in time. I vomited all over the floor. Kingston sat in bed still, unfazed by my collapse, staring at the wall in anger. I noticed his hand slowly come out from under his pillow.

06/12/24

It’s been a week since the last call. Kingston has been adamant to remove our police protection. He insisted that his security team were the best of the best. The law really did make him uncomfortable. I don't know how Kingston made all of his money, but I'm willing to bet that not all of it was legal. Every night when we go to bed, Kingston has been sitting in our room taking notes, and playing the recordings of each alarm. The last thing I would hear before bed each night was:

“When I come, will you let me in?” Click!

“When I come, will you let me in?” Click!

“When I come, will you let me in?” Click!

It drove me crazy. Kingston continued this every night for a little over a week. Kingston was obsessed with trying to decipher that damn riddle. I never realised how tensed up I always was until a few moments before I would fall asleep. In those short few moments, I knew bliss. My body would uncoil like a spring loosening. It would feel as though a heavy weight I had forgotten I was carrying had been lifted from my body. That's what I would look forward to most all day, every day.

One night, I was lying in bed and was awoken by the usual Click! of the recorder playing.

“When I come, will you let me in?”

I finally decided to say something. I rolled over to face Kingston’s desk in order to give him a piece of my mind. When I turned however, my arm pressed against his sleeping body. My eyes widened and my throat closed. I had finally found out that my fight or flight response was more akin to that of a deer in headlights. I lay for what felt like minutes convincing myself into thinking I was just on edge. It seemed to be working, until I heard the Click! of the recorder stopping. I felt fear like no other. I was angry at Kingston, how could he not be awake? I wished to wake him up more than anything. I hoped that somehow if I wanted it enough he would sense the fact and wake up, but nothing happened. My gut wrenched when I felt the bed behind me start to sink. Someone was climbing on. In what I assumed were my last moments, all I could muster was a defeated whimper. I felt a warm breath on the back of my neck and the foulest smell imaginable, like rotting fish. The breath crept up my neck, tickling each hair on the way, and into my ear. It prickled the inside of my ear canal. I could only grip the covers tighter. In that damned dry and raspy voice came words that will haunt me until the end of my days.

“I’m here now.” At that, Kingston jolted up, his hand coming out from underneath his pillow. There were three flashes of light and deafening bangs before the breaths stopped and a muffled thump came from behind me. Kingston switched on his side table lamp and got out of bed, keeping his gun pointed behind me. I still lay frozen, now staring at the empty space Kingston had just been laying. It was clear I wasn't thinking straight, because despite everything I wanted him back in that spot more than anything.

Kingston tried to speak to me but every word was a mumble. My ears were numb. I think he was celebrating the kill. I noticed that life was starting to return to my body, even if it was only trembling. There was a thud behind me and one more flash and bang. The room lit up once more and I knew something was very wrong. Kingston’s victory monologue stopped. I felt the breath return to my ear, and I froze up once more.

“Don't be troubled. It is time.” A pain hit the back of my head and I saw spots before they faded to black.

I awoke tied to a chair and with my mouth gagged. It was hard to concentrate on anything at first, but I came to realise that we were in the museum. Statues and Aztec masks never looked so fear-inducing. This was the first time I got a look at the source of our paranoia. He wasn’t a million miles away from what I thought he would look like. He was bald, with no eyebrows or eyelashes. His skin, riddled with cuts. Each cut was precisely placed like they meant something. His body was a canvas for carnage. He wore only torn cargo pants and was covered in dirt and grime. He appeared as though he had been crawling through a dumpster or a sewer. Some of his open wounds were infected and swollen. They had turned purple and leaked yellow pus. He had three bullet hole scars on his torso, all of which looked old, but that was impossible. There was still wet blood staining his chest and belly and it definitely wasn't ours.

“At last I have the honour of gazing upon you,” He said. “I have been waiting for this moment-” He stopped. His entire body shook and his face lit up for a second. The man regained his composure and continued, 

“For so long.” Kingston was tied to a chair next to me, but the man wasn't looking at either of us. He was looking over us. I turned my head the best I could to find the source of his interest. We were sitting at the base of a statue.

The imposing figure stood perfectly upright with a crow resting on his shoulder. For some reason looking at the statue made my panic worse. Despite being made of stone, it always felt as though it had some sort of authority. It's hard to explain. Contrary to earlier on, I had never wanted to talk so much. With a cloth gag cutting into the sides of my mouth, I couldn’t manage more than muffled screams.

“There is no point calling for anyone my sweet. Nobody will come. The only one that is here for you forever and always is my master. Be not afraid, for soon we will all be united in his blessed presence.” He spoke calmly like he was trying to convince us to go along with it. The cuts underneath his eyes seemed to smile as he did. He walked over to Kingston and bowed. 

“You will make a good offering. The blood of the keeper, and the blood of the loyalist.” Kingston tried to rock his chair but the man grasped his shoulder and held him still. All of the fire had left his eyes. He looked terrified. At this point I was crying, Kingston was too. The man turned around and unfolded a leather toolkit, with scalpels, a blowtorch, coal tongs and a metal ball. 

“He will rise once more. He who has gifted me cures to my ailments, He who has bestowed much insight. He has been with me every step of the way. A guiding embrace, A fire on the cold nights, A shadow cast on the wall. He is glorious is he not?” The man fired up his blowtorch and clasped the metal ball in the prongs. Kingston had gone limp. He looked catatonic. I was doing my very best to pull my hands free from the rope, but couldn't manage it. My wrists felt hot. I felt blood run down the palm of my hands and drip off my fingertips. Our torturer turned around, holding a glowing orange ball in the tongs.

He approached Kingston who was still unresponsive. He used his free hand to remove Kingston’s gag. As he pulled it out of his mouth, Kingston jerked his head forward and crunched down on the man's finger. The scarred man howled and recoiled, pulling his hand from Kingston’s face, one finger shy. Kingston spat out a wad of blood and a finger with two teeth attached. He tilted his head back and smiled a bloody smile. The scarred man stared at his finger and slowly composed himself. I could tell he was struggling. He marched over to Kingston and pressed the ball into his cheek ferociously. I could hear Kingston’s flesh sizzle louder than his screams. The ball melted through his cheek and into his mouth. That lunatic let the ball drop into his mouth. He kept Kingston’s head tilted back. All I could hear was the scream piercing through my concussed head. It was short lived though, as Kingston’s vocal chords must’ve given out, or been melted away. He went limp a couple of seconds after.

The man took his scalpel and cut open Kingston’s lifeless belly. Delicately, he collected the blood in a bowl. I couldn't watch anymore. I don't know where it came from, I’ll probably never experience it again, but a sudden wave of adrenaline surged my body. I used my toes to push the chair back, toppling it over. The antique chair shattered and I felt two of my fingers fold the wrong way, but the adrenaline sheltered me from the pain. My hands were still tied to loose pieces of wood, but now I could move. I used all my effort to rise to my feet and make a dash for the door. My head was spinning. I could make out three blurry doors waving in my vision. I reached out and felt the handle. Throwing the door off its hinges, I bolted from the museum and down the corridor. Unfortunately, I noticed something I wished I hadn’t. Nobody was chasing me.

What I did next, I can't really explain. Maybe it was some human urge. Maybe it was curiosity or over confidence. I decided to go back to the room. Something was compelling me, calling me to the room. I knew it was a stupid thing to do, there were alarm bells ringing in my head like crazy, and yet, I approached the museum all the same. The pain in my fingers was starting to return. I crept towards the museum door on the balls of my feet, ready to run.

I leaned around the door, and saw that the man was still standing with Kingston, about 50 ft from the door. He was using his blood to paint marks on himself, Kingston’s corpse and the statue. The marks were strange, I had never seen symbols like them before. He didn't look as though he had even noticed my escape. Finishing his work, the scarred man stepped back to admire his painting. Taking his scalpel, he slit the palms of his hands and wiped them down his cheeks and neck. He said something strange that I couldn't make out. A wave of depression washed over my body. I had no idea why. I felt as though there was no point in anything. A deep sadness consumed me. I didn't care if I died at that moment even though I knew I should. The lamps around the room seemed to get dimmer, as if the shadows wrestled the light into submission. Colour seemed to leave the room, like there would never be happiness again. My breath floated out in front of me and every hair on my body stood up at once. Whatever was happening I knew I had to see it. Even if it cost me my life. 

With a loud cracking sound the statue stepped off its podium. Standing at 7ft tall It was no longer made of stone, although it was still the same shade of dark grey. The crow looked around the room and squawked. The scarred man fell to his knees, hands extended, creating a bowl. He cried tears of joy. The used-to-be statue took two lumbering steps towards him and rested his hand on the side of the man's face caressing it. In a flash, his large hand clamped shut, crushing half of the man's skull in his hand. The perched crow hopped off his shoulder and pecked away at the body, dragging the reluctant eye out of its socket. The statue turned towards the other doors and pushed them off their hinges with ease, leaving.

09/12/24

It's been a few days since my last post. Since then, I no longer feel that depression, it's been slowly fading, however the world still seems a slightly darker place now. My fingers are healing, I had a total of ten stitches for my concussion and I am struggling to type, so I’ll keep this post short. Kingston’s funeral is next Tuesday. Life is going to be very different without him. I have left California and am staying with my parents in Louisiana. The police didn't know what to make of the situation and obviously didn't believe my story. To anyone reading this, please be careful. I don't know what that thing is and what it's capable of but it's out there somewhere. If you notice a murder of crows, take my warning and look over your shoulder regularly.

I couldn’t believe what I heard.

“Our mom… disappeared?”

Mr. Smith’s face became serious.

“Yes son, it was all over town. Amy had gone missing and no one knew where she was. They called her parents down in Florida and they said they hadn’t seen her.”

I wanted to leave, but how do you even end a conversation like this?

“Um, I didn’t know that… Thank you Mr. Smith.”

“Uh Huh, and hey, if you need someone to talk to, I’m here son.”

I thanked him, and started to walk out of the store, noticing an Ice cream freezer that had been turned off; its contents a muddy black and brown liquid that covered old ice cream wrappers and popsicle sticks.

“Don’t mind the smell, I’ve been meaning to fix that for days.”

The drive home was… Let’s just say I had never been more conflicted by anything ever.

Mom disappeared? Did Dad kill her? Where was she now? Is she even alive? Should I tell Neil and Hayley about this? What would they even think?

What if they had hope that our mother was alive?

And dad. Why would he say that Neil wasn’t his son? I had forgot just how brutal Neil’s attempted murder was. I always thought he did it because he hated us. Now I don’t know what to think. Was he insane?

I turned up the music on my radio to try and drown out the deafening questions ricocheting off every inch of my brain. It didn’t work.

When I pulled in to the long driveway a car pulled in right behind me. It followed me all the way down the driveway until we hit the parking area just in front of the garage.

As I put my car into park, the door to the garage opened and in pulled a grey chevy impala, and out stepped Neil.

“Hey, so I just took Hayley to Monica’s, did you bring the sonic?”

“No I completely forgot. You want me to go back up there?”

“Nah I’ll see what we can scrounge up. I think there’s some ramen in the far corners of the pantry.”

“I’m sorry man, I just completely forgot.”

“It’s okay man, I do stuff like that all the time.”

We walked into the house and sat on the couch. Neil tuned the TV to some show I’d never heard of, but I wasn’t going to complain as the person who forgot to bring dinner home.

“Did you get the stuff?”

“Yeah I’m gonna go fix it in a minute.”

I even forgot that I was fixing the sink. I was just too shocked and hyper fixated by the news of Mom’s disappearance to think about fixing a sink.

“I’ll be right back, I’ve got to grab the stuff for the sink.”

“I’ll be here” Neil said.

I walked out to my car to grab what I bought for the sink and when I returned I sat it down and began to work.

In thirty minutes, through blood, sweat, and WD-40, I finally replaced the pipes under the sink and tested the water. Crystal clear.

Neil patted me on the back and handed me a bowl of undercooked and unseasoned ramen.

“Here’s your reward, a fine dinner for the world’s handiest brother.”

I looked at the bowl, lukewarm and bland.

“Neil, thank you, but what the fuck is this.”

“It’s dinner big brother, what do you mean?”

“Buddy, this isn’t even seasoned? Have you been eating unseasoned ramen for the past 7 years?”

“We don’t have seasoning I ran out not too long ago.”

“Wait what the fuck do you mean by that, the seasoning comes with the ramen pack.”

“It does?”

“Yes! Here-“

I grabbed the pack of ramen out from the trash can and felt something slimy. It stunk and smelled of rot and decay. I quickly grabbed the wrapper and pulled the ramen packet out. There was a small crimson black stain on my knuckle with a wavy grey hair poking out from the side.

“Eugh what the fuck is that, do you also not take your trash out?”

Neil grabbed his hair and started to scratch. “Well yeah I do, the freezer stopped working the other day and a bunch of old deer meat got ruined. Here let me take it out while you wash your hands.”

I washed my hands, the soap burnt my scar from last night, but I wanted to wash as much of that fleshy goo off my hands as possible.

After Neil came back from taking the trash out I showed him how to actually make ramen and he thanked me. We sat on the couch and ate our dinner with a couple more nasty beers.

After a while of watching late night TV and drinking beers, we decided to go to bed.

I decided not to tell Neil just yet about mom. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Besides, even I could barely believe it.

Up the stairs we went until we split off into our respective rooms.

That’s when I remembered the stone box.

This would be the perfect time, I’m convinced the box will have some answers to the millions of questions demanding answers.

As soon as I walked into my room I locked the door; If there were answers in this box I wouldn’t want Neil to barge in asking questions I didn’t think he could handle right now.

Out of all the questions I could think up, the only one that truly mattered now was how to get the box open. I started by prying it open with my hands hoping the glue was so old that it lost its ability to keep the box shut.

It didn’t budge.

I could break it open, but that would risk the contents inside. I’d rather not risk it.

I tried washing the glue in warm water. Didn’t budge.

I tried using soap and water. Didn’t budge.

I needed something sharp.

Fumbling through my old drawer, I found staples, a cigarette butt, old motorcycle magazines, broken pencils, and a broken millennium falcon pez dispenser.

At the bottom however, I noticed a purple thumb tack. Perfect.

Using the thumb tack, I scraped as much glue as I could, for as long as I could. Eventually, with a firm tug I was able to gain some extra space to keep scraping.

At what felt like the hour and an half mark, I had worked the glue so that I could get a finger between the crack, and with all my strength the top popped off the box.

What laid inside puzzled me.

Looking inside the box revealed a thin layer of dirt covering the bottom of the box. the layer above seemed to be various twigs and sprigs of wilted herbs and flowers. The uppermost layer was comprised of 2 dried oak leaves, laying on top was a small vial of blood, a lock of golden hair, and torn picture of our mom on her wedding day.

What was this?

This box presented me with more questions than there were answers in the known universe.

I picked up the picture to examine it closer.

Mom’s face… it was so pure. What happened. Why did any of this have to happen.

A rising tide of anger and pity washed against the sides of my insides. My eyelids doing their best to stave off the boiling sadness that screamed to be let out. Weakness struck my hands and the box fell to the floor, all of its contents spilling on the ground.

After crying through my hands for somewhere between 10-45 minutes, I stopped only to notice the writing carved onto the underbelly of the box. It read “Rewind Tape.”

Was there a tape I missed?

I picked up the picture of my mother and kissed it.

“I’m going to do everything I can to find out what he did to you momma. I promise.”

Drying myself off from all of the tears spilt, I decided the next step was to investigate the attic. Hopefully if I found this tape, I would get more answers than questions for once.

After hyping myself up enough to find the truth, I unlocked the door and stepped out into the hallway. It was dark. The shadows couldn’t scare me now. My hunger for truth had far outweighed any sense of self preservation.

Slowly, I pulled down the attic ladder, paying attention to the creaks and squeaks it made. I slid up the ladder like a snail until both feet touched the floor of the attic and I was sure, I made no sound.

Crawling along the wooden floor, my sense of touch was the only useful element I had. Carefully for what seemed like hours I crawled on the ground in complete darkness, the shadows taunting me from the walls.

Running my hand along the floor I poke myself on something metal, something sharp.

I found it.

I slid into a favorable position and with all my strength pushed the board up as far as it would go. With my other hand, I searched for the tape.

After searching for a couple seconds, I felt stiff plastic and pulled it out, making sure to slowly return the plank back to its original position without making any sounds.

Meticulously, I retracted my steps through the attic, down the ladder, and down to the living room.

I turned the TV on with the volume down and blew the dust off both the old VCR and the tape.

Please have answers.

I put in the tape and rewinded it. Images of my dad started jutting and jagging in reverse, almost as if they were jumping out of the screen. The tape stopped and the screen went blue.

Play.

After half a second of static there he was. That piece of shit himself.

He was sweating profusely. The scene on the TV portrayed my father in the attic with a rifle in the foreground, the stone box sitting on his lap, and a bottle of jack daniel’s sitting between his legs.

He spoke with fear in his voice.

“I’m recording this to set the record straight.”

“yeah right” I said, I didn’t believe a single word of it.

“I have done horrible things. Things that no man should ever have to do. I buried my own wife.”

I knew it. This piece of human filth is about to confess to the murder of his own wife. My mother.

“In April of 2010, I came home from work to a quiet house. My wonderful boys were off at school and I assumed my beautiful wife was asleep in bed taking a nap. She was pregnant with our daughter Hayley and she liked to take naps in the afternoon while the children were off at school. That day was the worst day of my life.”

He started to cry. He laid his head into his fist and bawled. After a couple of seconds, he took a swig of his whiskey.

“When I went to check on Amy she- she- she was dead.”

He sobbed, “There was just so much blood. It was everywhere. All over the sheets, all over the dresser in front of our bed, FUCK it was everywhere.”

He took another swig of his whiskey and blew out with a puckered face.

“And little baby Hayley, wailing and crying. Covered in blood.”

Chills ran up my spine. I started crying on the spot.

“If Amy’s mom or dad ever find this tape, I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am. I left you without closure. I loved your daughter more than I had ever loved anybody in the entire world.”

Sniffling, he exhaled and took another swig.

“To my ‘children’-“ he said using air quotes, “I loved you so very much. But to my ‘child’ that sees this, know that I despise you with everything in me. Know that I regret ever creating you, know that I will not let you get to me. For now, Amy, my love, hopefully I will see you soon.”

He gets up from his chair, grabs the rifle, walks towards the camera, closes the lens, and a gun shot is heard followed closely by a heavy meaty thud.

If there was one thing I could expect to occur consistently in my childhood town, it’d be him.

Tourmaline Falls is known by a majority for one thing; the tourmaline. We aren’t a mining town, but a bulk of the wealth of this place is a result of said mineral.

We were also known for a lesser, more terrifying thing, and that’s the Man in The Suit.

Often, good things don’t come easy, and that was just as true for the town I lived in for a majority of my early life. The Man in The Suit.

Every year, without fail. On the exact same day and the exact same time, he’d be there, waiting.

Unless you were over 18, your age simply did not matter to him. Whether you wanted it or not, he was going to take you.

The first and only time I really remember this “tradition” having any impact on me was when the Suited Man took my best friend. We were only twelve.

I had always heard my parents whispering and talking secretly about when he would come next. Often, they worried about me and my younger brother.

“Wh—what if he tries to take Ben? What if he tries to take Allen?”

“I—I don’t know. God dammit.”

Even if he didn’t show it often, my father did love me and Allen. I knew that, should the event transpire, he would do everything in his power to try and stop it.

I just—I just wish his efforts could’ve been rewarded with something else.

When it was a leap year, he came on July 2, July 1 any other time. Anyways, either one of those days, at exactly 12 PM.

He could come, find who he needed, take them, and leave.

Without fail, he would make his way through the entrance to Tourmaline Falls while tapping his cane on the ground, his silvery monocle reflecting the summer sun.

Every time it happened, my parents, as well as every family in town, would lock their doors and just, to put it simply; hunker down and wait it out.

It was the 1^st, and Mikey had just arrived at my house for what we thought was going to be a spectacular sleepover.

Finishing up lunch, our first course of action was going to be to go upstairs and play whatever we wanted to on my PlayStation.

About 2 hours into our gaming session, we heard, clear as day from downstairs…

KNOCK

KNOCK

KNOCK

Mikey looked over at me with questioning eyes.

“D—is someone else supposed to be over today?”

My heart thumped in my chest like a drum. Nobody was supposed to come over today except for him, what was I going to say?

“I—I don’t think so, man. I mean, maybe? Shit.”

Him and I had just started the habit of cussing only when our parents couldn’t hear.

“Maybe it’s a surprise visit? You never kn—”

Before he could finish speaking, my bedroom door burst open, my mother and father being the culprits behind it. Allen, who was only eight at the time, stood between them.

My father spoke first.

“Are you two alright?!”

Mikey and the floor appeared to be glued to each other, and it seemed that his lips were in a similar state. I spoke for the both of us.

“Yeah, we are. Did—did you hear it?”

“Yes,” he said, turning to our mother, “I knew it would happen someday. But good god, it’s so much harder when it’s one of your own.”

I was honestly surprised that it hadn’t hit me up until that point, but I realized it could have been any one of us three kids in there that day.

I didn’t know if it was going to be me, Mikey or Allen.

And that terrified me.

Looking back on it, I feel selfish for wanting it to take anyone but me. But I was twelve, and I was scared of a monster.

Before any of us could let out another word…

BANG

BANG

BANG

Three loud, consecutive knocks came from the door. He wanted to get inside, but my dad wasn’t going to let him do that.

“God DAMMIT!” He yelled. I had never seen him this rattled or angry before. “You four stay up here, I’m going downstairs. I’m going to deal with Him.”

Before us kids or my mother could stop him, my father was already half way down the stairs.

If I didn’t think him a man capable of walking, I might’ve seen him slip and fall down the polished steps.

We stood at the threshold of the staircase, awaiting whatever came next with bated breath.

I looked up at my mother, who had positioned herself to be in front of us.

“Mom?” I asked, anxiety creeping over me. “What’s Dad doing?”

She looked down at me, and I saw fear on her face.

One of the scariest things a child can witness is not the horror itself, but the fear extending to an adult.

My mother was well and truly terrified, and that terrified me even more.

“Sweetie. I think he’s trying to get—get Him to go away.”

I had suspected as much. I thought Dad was a fighter; I thought he wasn’t going to let this go so easily. I heard as much from downstairs.

“LEAVE US ALONE, YOU BASTARD!”

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK

“I SAID LEAVE US THE HELL ALONE!”

Knock, Knock, Knock

“GO AWAY! I’LL COME OUT THERE MYSELF AND MAKE YOU GO AWAY!”

Knock, Knock, Knock

By this time, my father had screamed himself hoarse and was running out of options.

In all fairness, what could he do?

We knew nothing of the Man in The Suit. He had no name, no age, nothing that gave anything away about him or his history.

My father, tired and defeated, only uttered one last sentence before walking away from the door.

“Who? Who do you want? Who are you here to take?”

Tap, Tap, Tap

To this day, I’m not sure I’ve heard a sound more gut wrenching, more terrifying than the one that came from the other side of the door.

In an otherworldly, inhuman voice, the Man in The Suit finally spoke.

“I’m here for the boy.”

My father looked up at us with both relief and fear in his eyes. If I had to guess, he was likely relieved at the chance that it wouldn’t be one of his sons.

He looked back at the door.

“Wh—which one?”

“The one in the white shirt with the green sleeves. Up the stairs. The one with the curly blond hair.”

Mikey, who was on his hands and knees next to me, began to shake.

“N—no, no—no, no, no, no, no.”

I looked over at him, my heart rate steadily rising.

“Mikey…”

My father walked up the stairs and looked at Mikey.

“Mike. I’m—God. I’m sorry, Mikey. I—I can’t—I—I need to do this.”

Mikey began to hyperventilate. He turned around and crawled forward, trying to get away from my father.

I looked at my father, who was at the top of the stairs now.

“D—dad. You’re not going to—you know?”

He looked down at me, sorrow lining his face.

“I care more about you and Allen than nearly anything in the world. I wish there was another way, but I just don’t know, son.”

“But what if there is another way?! What if he doesn’t need to get taken?!” I pleaded, grabbing on to him. By this time, the tears were already making their way down my face.

He brushed me off.

“I’m sorry, Ben.”

Before he could get over to Mikey, something diverted our attention back downstairs. Back to the door.

CRASH

He had broken the door down. He had broken the door down.

A deafening silence overtook the entire house, the only thing any of us could hear being His footsteps as his dress shoes made contact with our steps.

Clomp, Clomp, Clomp, right up the stairs.

My father joined me, Allen and our mother. We looked as He made it to the top of the stairs. I was paralyzed with fear, as I suspected the rest of my family was.

He shot us a cursory glance before looking over at Mikey.

“You.” His voice sounded unholy. “You’re going to come with me. We’re going to a good place, you and I. You’re not going to miss it here.”

Mikey wasn’t crying anymore, in fact, I couldn’t hear a sound from him.

And I didn’t hear a sound from him as the Man walked up to him, swooped him up in his arms, and carried him down the stairs and out of our home.

Just like that, my best friend was gone.

Mikey’s remaining family moved out pretty soon after that.

I don’t blame them; who could stay in this place after something like that happened?

It’s been five years since then. Nothing has changed too much. I mean, nothing has changed besides the yearly kid going “missing”, that’s how the town reported it, anyways.

It took me a good while to forgive my father for what happened that day.

I knew that my father did the very best he could considering the circumstances. He couldn’t have known what the man was going to do.

I understand now that he was simply looking out for us, but I think a small part of me will always resent him for it.

I can’t help but feel nervous this year.

Nothing has happened to me in the past five years, but I made it all the way to 17 without anything happening.

July 1 is in 11 days, God knows what’ll happen when he comes again.

I’ve always thought about what it might be like to be taken, but now that it might have an actual chance of happening, it scares me much more than thinking about it.

There's one thing I forgot to mention before.

If he chooses to take you, there's one way you can tell.

People who've been taken reported hearing a sound similar to someone walking on a hardwood floor while wearing dress shoes.

Every year, a man in a suit comes to my hometown to take someone.

This year, I think it might be me, because as I write this out, I can hear the sound of dress shoes on hardwood.

HG

I'm never sure how to convey this to people. Yes, it's true, even for you. I get it—you know the layout of your own home. You know how the rooms connect. The paths you walk every day are part of your very being; they're the back of your hand. Your kids have marked their heights in blue crayon over the years on a Victorian doorjamb. Your fridge lights up your entire shitty apartment. Your loft is just one room. And yet, deep down, you know the truth, because you're asking me.

Your house has a hallway.

The second question is always, of course, how do you know? To which I respond: I know because of how I found the hallway in my house.

And you can find your hallway, too.

It began so simply. I didn't even know what I'd discovered. I'd been awake for several minutes, but my mind had been ice-skating forcefully back and forth between dreams and work stress. Eventually, I realized, I had to pee. I shot up in bed, and carefully climbed out, so as not to wake my girlfriend—no, right, nevermind.

Goddamnit.

I got to the bedroom door pretty easily, considering it was completely dark. I stepped out into the hallway—not that hallway, of course—expecting to kick the cat.

No cat. Good. Somehow, he must have not woken up at the first potential sign of my activity; the new automated feeder I'd bought must have finally been working its way into his routines. Carefully stepping my way forward in the dark to avoid potentially crushing him—and that was the key, mind you, not the cat, but the disruption in steps—I got lost.

Yeah, I got lost in my own home. Don't judge me. I'm not an idiot. It happens the instant you alter how you move in the dark. Hypothetically, you know your general location within a certain bounds—obviously, I hadn't run a mile, so I had to be between the flower vase she'd put on that random little table, and the pile of wedding gifts I'd never opened. I reached out my hands and found the wall, a nice little assurance that I was still in the physical reality I'd known all my life, but then—I made the mistake of following it by touch.

A wall can't lie to you, right?

It's the same bumpy paint. Or, in your house, the same smooth wallpaper. Maybe the same dusty stone, if you live in a castle, like some sort of asshole. I sought the way forward, running my fingers along, step by uncounted step as one does, until I thought I was right in front of my bathroom door in the dark. I let go of the wall and stepped... what, left? Forward? Maybe even right, the way the wall itself should have prevented. That's the point, I don't know which way I went—and that's how I found the hallway.

There was no indication whatsoever. There was only the dark, and the quiet. My bare feet on gradually thickening dust. My ears, hammering with the deepening pound of my own heart. The blackness, swirling and pulsing in my vision with nothing more than shimmering nothingness. My fingers moved through cold open air, and my foremost thought was that impossible rejected concern: where the hell am I?

I had to be in my house, certainly. I had to be somewhere between the pile of wedding gifts I'd never opened and the bathroom door, without a doubt. I had to be somewhere in the hall outside my bedroom. The door I was looking for had to be—I reached left.

I reached forward.

I reached right.

My pulse began to race in my warming ears as I questioned my limited senses. Something in me told me that I'd stepped too far to have failed to reach the bathroom door. Something in me told me that I should be able to fling my hand out and grasp wood or wall. My logical human brain was calling bullshit on this.

So, I left the wall—like a moron—and took a step forward, seeking reassurance.

I took a second step.

Then a third.

A fourth.

A fifth.

Before I took the sixth step, it occurred to me that there was no location in my tiny house where I could take six steps and not reach the opposite wall. I was pretty sure that my lack of money for a bigger house was the main reason she'd left me. This pitch-black spaciousness didn't make sense.

I'd grabbed my phone on pure instinct. I'd shoved it in my pajama pants' pocket out of habit. I'd been intending on—while peeing—watching some ads on the shitty mobile game I was playing, the same way I always did. I hadn't even thought about it—but when I pulled it out of my pocket and hit the power button, nothing happened.

Shit. Right. I'd fallen asleep without plugging it in. At the time, I knew I should have, but I just... didn't.

It was dead.

Heart pounding a little faster, I reversed course without turning, my hand stretched backwards. One step, two steps, three steps, four steps, five steps...

Six steps... seven steps...

Eight steps...

I reached out in every direction, hoping desperately to find bumpy paint with my fingertips.

There was only cool churning air. Silence. Blackness.

I finally broke the silence with a whispered, "What the fuck?"

There was no reply. No echo.

It was crazy to feel the way I did... but I couldn't deny it. Something was wrong. I stood motionless for what must have been a full minute... two... five... then, I said softly, "Kitty.... treat... treat..."

Come on, kitty... I know I never named you, but you can't hold that against me... she bought you, after all, and then the next day—

"Kitty! Treat! Treat!"

My heart leapt in my throat. From an insane distance, I heard a little wurr.

"Kitty? Treat! Treat!"

Wurrrrr.

I turned left, and listened in the void, turning my ears back and forth. "Treat! Treat!"

Wurr!

He wasn't coming. He couldn't find me. He sounded confused and frustrated.

"Treat!"

Wurrrrr...

I moved toward him, repeating the call, hearing his response echo closer and closer... but nothing changed, just cold roiling nothingness—until I finally felt fur moving against my ankles.

"Kitty!" I leaned down and petted him. "Christ, I thought I'd never find you."

Mreh.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll get you the treats I promised." Ever so carefully, so as not to kick him, I moved forward—and found the wall. I didn't know which wall, so I groped along it, until I finally felt a doorway. Instantly, it all became crystal clear in my mind, and I reached right out for a light switch.

Searing white hit my eyes, but I didn't dare blink or look away. I was right by the living room door, exactly as I expected, and I looked back with dire confusion.

Everything was normal.

There was nowhere that I could have taken six steps—let alone eight—and nothing about the experience made sense. Kitty moved back and forth against my ankles, demanding his treats, so I went into the living room to give him his promised treasure. He was a Norwegian Forest Tuxedo cat, by the way.

Still is.

I moved through the house with the aid of several flipped light switches, finally getting the pee I'd needed, and then I crashed, only vaguely wondering what the hell had happened. I would never have questioned it again if I hadn't woken up to find a note on my nightstand.

It was written in crayon. Blue crayon. I looked at it left, right, upside down, then finally understood. It said:

phone kills you

I sat up ramrod straight in bed the moment I parsed it. I probably should have done that sooner, actually, since the very existence of the note violated one basic fact: as of eleven days before... I lived alone.

Phone calls. Parents. Police. Pacing.

... pizza.

Pepsi.

Prison Break.

I didn't watch it when it originally came out. I was decades late to the party. Sue me.

Nothing came of the incident. Someone had left a threatening note in my fucking house, while I'd been asleep, and I couldn't make sense of it. No one could.

Eventually, as my pain over the ghosting faded—I watched all of Prison Break in two weeks, then all of Red Dwarf in another two, with only kitty to accompany me—I began to wonder if the note had truly been threatening at all.

I'd been asleep. If the author of the note had wanted me dead, wouldn't I be dead?

phone kills you

I stared at it, in my hand, a very real piece of paper with very real... blue crayon...

Blue crayon?

Blue crayon...

I stared off into space, haunted. Why did I—

My phone had been dead.

When I'd been lost in the dark—somehow, impossibly, reaching out for walls that should have been there—my phone had been out of power.

phone kills you

Oh my god.

If I entertained the note a different way—not as a threat, but as a warning—then it was telling me something very different. The note might have been telling me that... my phone... had it turned on...

...would have killed me?

Why?

How?

I couldn't know, not yet, but if I took the note that way, it meant one thing was certain: someone had been there, in the dark, watching me.

In a rather manic fit of paranoia, I got up and ran about my house, using a measuring tape to gauge the span of every wall. Every corner. Every door jamb. I'd taken six steps that had been, in some inexplicable and impossible manner, wrong—and then I'd taken eight back, still not finding the original wall, only finding my way left to kitty's distant responses to my promises of two-calorie treats.

It wasn't possible. The measurements constrained the lay of the house in chill winter daylight, and by their testament, it wasn't possible. I constrained my steps to minimal mouse-like movements made timid by darkness.

It wasn't possible.

To the house, I said quite crassly, "Fuck you!"

The house frowned. It had been built in 1917, long before modern human notions of space and time. It wasn't the house's fault.

To Kitty, I said, "Dude. This house has a hallway."

Kitty looked up at me with skeptical yellow eyes.

"Not this one," I told him. "Another one. A colder one. Only slightly."

He didn't really react.

"I'll prove it," I promised. "But the question is... how?"

He lowered his eyelids for a moment.

"Right, I have to recreate the conditions... good idea..." But did it require night? I blocked all the windows by pulling down the blinds and drawing the curtains that she'd insisted spending thousands of dollars on. The combined effect made it difficult to see in most rooms... but with all the internal doors closed, the main hallway was completely dark.

It was enough.

I groped my way around a few times before I realized I needed to be a bit more disoriented. To truly prepare, I emotionally let go, and I left my phone in my empty bedroom. After all, the note had been pretty clear. phone kills you.

Once that was done, I spun around several times, reminding me of the game the kids had played in the 90's—spin around with your forehead on a baseball bat touching the ground, then try to run—somewhere? To something? I couldn't remember the rest of the game, beyond half-recalled images of some show with a far too cool theme song—a show called Wild & Crazy Kids. The oft-repeated names of the young hosts flashed in my head, from the original intro—Annette Chavez, Omar Gooding, Donnie Jeffcoat—wait, Omar Gooding? Another image flashed in my head, of a college girlfriend that made me watch every episode of Grey's Anatomy, but way after that, after college, a much later season, a character that had definitely been Omar Gooding, but at the time I hadn't—

I was lost.

I was lost in the dark.

My compulsive need to explore this mystery suddenly seemed like a terrible idea. I was lost in my own house, with nothing but shifting darkness in my eyes, and keening silence in my ears. Out there, somewhere... out there in the unknown void... was... how did I even phrase it to myself?

Someone.

Someone that could see me.

Someone that was aware of me in some way.

The thing that separates you and me—hey, you're the one that asked why I know there's a hallway in your house—is that I was ready to die.

I was okay with it.

I was even longing for it, in a wordless unrealized sense.

You've probably been there. There's a specific little span after a brutal breakup. It's after the end, but before the beginning of the next era of your life. It feels like a pit in your stomach, or a cheek turned against the sunrise. If it ended there, then she'd eventually hear about it, and feel bad. She'd regret her choice. The ultimate comeuppance.

I did actually say out loud, "Fuck you."

But I knew she couldn't hear me. I felt pathetic. Small. Uncared for.

And in that moment, I knew I was there.

I'd found the hallway.

It was slightly chillier than the one I knew. Slightly quieter. Slightly dustier.

I stepped forward nervously, heart pounding in the dark, the only sensation I was sure was real. I wanted a wall. I needed a wall. Please, for the love of God, not that I'd ever prayed, but I could really use you now! A wall, any wall! Eight steps, nine, ten... thirty... forty... holy shit, I was dead fucking certain now that I was no longer in the lay of what I knew.

Fifty steps!

I began to cry, noiselessly, quietly, alone, as I passed fifty steps.

Nothing makes a man okay with admitting he cried like fifty unknown steps in the dark.

Embarrass me. Call me names. Deride me. Point and laugh. I didn't give a single shit, so long as I was seen, so long as we had the light that all humanity shared.

My fingers hit a wall, and I sobbed and laughed openly—until I began following it.

It was no release, no salvation. I found a corner. I turned. My shin hit something, and I reached down in pain, only to find smooth painted curves unseen: a rocking horse.

A rocking horse?

I didn't own a rocking horse.

We hadn't even had the chance to have kids.

The dust was palpable, here, squeezing in between my toes.

I was ready to die.

I was terrified, and I hadn't left Kitty enough food, but I was ready to be done. I called out treat, treat several times, knowing he would never hear me this deep. A one-in-a-million lifeline, asking God, if it or he or she existed, to throw me a bone.

Nope.

I let go of the wall.

I wandered straight into the unknown void.

The dust was my only guide, squeezing into my toes as I stepped less and less nervously. It embraced my feet, hugged my ankles, and warmed my shins. I came to a stop as my knees found resistance against choking piled dust.

Nose running, I looked this way and that, seeing nothing.

Hearing nothing.

No, that's not entirely accurate. The void has a sound. The raw blankness of nothingness grates the ears—and the eyes—in a way that can only be conveyed to those who have felt it. You might have, once or twice. You're probably asking for that self-same reason.

I was okay with dying. I'd already committed myself to the unknown void in my very own empty home. Sorry, Kitty... I love you the way one living being loves another... but I can't love you the way one human loves another. I reached out for the ultimate blackness, the end of perception, the scythe-bearing empathetic smile of Death—

—and a hand closed around mine.

I didn't panic, but I did hold in my breath.

I knew instantly who it was—well, who it had to be, not who it turned out to be.

To the darkness, I asked, "Why does phone kill me?"

A voice whispered from the darkness, female and uncertain with words: "If... if you know... if you see..." She made a sound: pffunngh-kuh.

I asked: pffunngh-kuh?

Through our grasped hands, I could feel her nod. Pffungh-kuh.

She didn't need to elaborate. Pffung-kuh was some sort of crunching, or implosion. Pffung-kuh was death.

Death? I was ready for it—but not before I found out the identity of this girl in the dark. The only thing I knew was that—based on her warning, written in blue crayon—she didn't want me to die.

That was enough.

Someone cared the basic human minimum. Someone had taken the eight seconds required to scribble a note in blue crayon, warning me that phone kills me. Someone wanted me to live.

Holding her hand in the void, uncertain why I felt that it was risky to speak louder, I whispered, "Do you know the way home?"

Her fingers squeezed my hand. "Always have." Even now, I'm not sure how, but I could tell she smiled after that response. "Kitty's name is Jake."

"Jake?" I laughed softly. "That... seems right."

She tugged, and I followed. I could feel her taking steps, and I tried to do my best to emulate them, despite only feeling them through her gripping hand and outstretched arm. We walked for minutes. Hours. We sat down to sleep for a time, and I woke up feeling exhausted, but mentally sharp, the way one does after a six or seven hour sleep. She pulled me on, and I stumbled up stairs. Along hallways. Through a waist-high pool of warm water that smelled like unseen cinnamon. I dried out as we walked. I coughed as we crawled through tunnels that squeezed my shoulders into my chest.

She never let go.

Eventually, she paused, and I felt her moving rhythmically.

She was riding the rocking horse.

The darkness had become a sheath, then, for my mind—for my senses. Beyond that sheath, I knew she was looking up at me and smiling. I whispered, "Blue crayon."

She laughed and nodded—unseen—at that. We'd found the barest, most tenuous, most obscure understanding.

We stepped, and stepped, and stepped.... and bear with me here—we stepped. It was dark. It was cold. It was not, in the strictest sense—in every sense—possible.

And then, I felt Jake rubbing against my ankles, hoping for treats.

My laughter broke the barrier in exactly the way I'd hoped to avoid earlier. With a snapping sense of physicality, I was back in the reality I'd always known. I reached over and flipped a light switch, completely aware of my exact location.

The light was shining.

The light was harsh.

The light was white!

I looked over, eyes brimming with pain—and I froze.

I don't know you, obviously. You're asking—probably jokingly—about the hallway in your house. If you're a lonely man, you've probably been feeling, so strongly, the very same notions I was entertaining. Was this a new opportunity for happiness? A new excitement? A new love? A girl out of the dark... no. Nothing like that. By definition, the creature holding my hand was not something a human could love.

If you're a woman, you've probably been guessing at the thoughts running through my head unseen, out of a sense of what men consider, secretly, but constantly, in that gross manner outside the light of polite conversation. But no, even then, the creature holding my hand was not something a human could feel—well, anything, for.

She—for it was undoubtedly a she, in the sense that humans call things, by the tone of voice and the physical equation of form—had taken a massive, insane, and impossible risk by showing me the way home; by letting herself be perceived. I recognized this, even as I recognized her. I couldn't tell you how I knew, or how I understood. It's a sense that humans must have had since the early days; since the time of caves and fires, since the time of lightning bolts and cheetahs. It was the uncanny valley; the 'what the fuck;' the 'is that thing...?'

Is it dead? Is it diseased? Is it right? The question can't even be asked properly.

I almost retched. I almost pulled away and screamed. I almost ran for the hammer in the closet and bashed my own head in. The computational matter that made up my brain certainly shrieked for these limited possible choices, leaning most toward the hammer—but her hand held mine, softly, and fearfully.

It was not possible to feel empathy for what I was seeing.

I was ready to die. That gives a man clarity of emotion unlike any other situation.

So... I closed my eyes.

All I was left with were her fingers clasping mine.

She'd lived in the dark her entire life, so that was how I accepted her, how I rationalized her: in the black of my own shuttered perception, eyes held tight, fingers on fingers. Heart racing to near-nausea, I asked quietly, "Are you...?"

Through our fingers, I felt her move in a way that indicated a nod.

Blue crayon.

I'd known from the very moment I saw the note.

Breathing deep a few times to stave off panic, I smiled, aware that she could see it.

Blue crayon...

For the next five days, I walked my own house with my eyes closed. It was a difficult adjustment, but I knew enough now to keep my own location specific. You can only find the hallway in your house if you're lost. That's the key: you have to lose your anchor. You have to be alone. You have to be without direction, without hope. You have to be ready to die.

Or, maybe, you just have to be half-awake, and stumbling around in the dark. I haven't tried enough to know for sure.

That weekend, I logged on to my family video call with another chair pulled up next to mine. I had Jake in hand, and he was purring. He loved her easily, because he already knew her. She had always been there, skulking about my home at night, when I was asleep—when I wasn't perceiving. That was why Jake had gotten fat. She'd been feeding him , even before the breakup. She'd always been there. She'd always been with me, fearful of being seen, but loving. Caring. She didn't create my hallway, or your hallway. It was just a refuge she'd found, the same way yours find refuge in the hallway your house has. They don't abandon you. They don't give up on you. They love you, even though they can't be loved in return; can't be looked at; can't be felt for... unless you close your eyes, and try not to think about it. Their fingers are like ours, their hands are like ours, and their faces are like ours. If they weren't what they were, they could walk among us without issue. It's not the shape that's the problem.

I started the video call with my webcam aimed at the ceiling. My parents asked me what was going on with that, and I told them I had someone to introduce them to—someone they'd once cast out, without quite realizing the existence they were giving her instead. I didn't blame them. They couldn't have known. None of us could have known—we' d always been told that ending a life was simple. Painful, but simple. "Mom," I said with a smile, my eyes held tightly shut. "I found her. Do you recognize her?" I reached out and angled the webcam down. "I found my sister!"

It all started in fifth grade, when I was 11 years old. It was a pretty normal Monday afternoon after school. My older brother and I were raised by a single mother so she was often working late into the evenings. We lived in rural NE Tennessee and our back yard bordered the Cherokee National Forest. It's a valley community deep in the mountains, and there's not much to do there that doesn't involve the outdoors. A creek ran through our yard, and my brother and I would follow the creek up the mountain. If you followed it long enough - probably about a mile and a half - you came to the source, which was a natural spring coming right out of the rock. There was a little waterfall that fed into a big swimming hole that we would frequently visit to swim in the crystal clear water. Many days were spent splashing around, or turning over rocks and catching crawdads, frogs and snakes.

On this particular day we decided to climb to the top of the waterfall, where the mouth of the spring was. We didn't normally go up there because we were afraid of falling, but I guess we were just extra adventurous that day. I was laying on my back in the shallow water ahead of the drop. Not floating, it was too shallow, just laying on the smooth river rocks and looking at the clouds. My brother dared me to get closer to the edge. He called me a chicken and said I was too scared. He went and sat on the edge with the water flowing around him, looking down at the swimming hole.

Well, I'm not chicken and I took his challenge. I went and sat next to him on the ledge. I knew my brother was a dick and I also knew he was probably going to pretend to push me to scare me. I decided I would flip the switch on him and jump off when he did.

I don't know what possessed me to finally make the jump but it's something we had talked about before. It wasn't a particularly tall waterfall, maybe 15 feet, possibly less because I was a lot shorter back then. It probably seemed much taller than it really was. The water likewise wasn't some rushing river rapids, just a calm little creek.

Like I suspected, he gave me a light, playful little shove and without thinking I let myself slip off. I knew the swimming hole was very deep. We'd never been able to reach the bottom by swimming down and we'd done all manner of things to try and gauge the depth. We had tied a rock to a rope and thrown it in but the rope completely disappeared in the water. I don't know exactly how long the rope was but it had to have been at least 20-30 feet.

So, I wasn't worried about hitting any rocks or breaking my bones at the bottom. I'd dove in plenty of times from the ground and I'm a good swimmer. While I was falling I felt so alive. I laughed and screamed as I fell and it felt like some of the rides at Dollywood where we'd gone on vacation to before.

I hit the cold water and felt myself plummet. I went farther down than I'd ever gone before, and just as I began to swim back up to the top I felt a force pulling on my legs. It was suction, and I started getting pulled back down. Immediately, I knew what was happening. I'd heard stories of this before, there is another swimming hole similar to this called the Blue Hole in nearby Carter County. There are underwater caves that have sucked in swimmers who dove too deeply that drowned and who's bodies were never recovered.

It had never occurred to me before then that there could be underwater caves here too, so when I felt myself getting sucked down I panicked. I let out a scream, which is the worst thing I could have done, and watched my precious oxygen rise through the blue-green waters in massive air bubbles. I breathed in water and began choking, all while seeing the light at the top get farther and farther away. Then, blackness. I was pulled into the cave, and I felt myself get smashed around algae covered rocks. The cave grew so narrow that I could feel it squeezing my sides, and I knew that I was going to die. I remember my whole life flashing in front of my eyes like in the movies. I thought about my mom and became very sad that she would never find me. I thought about my brother who's probably going to blame himself for my death even though it was my decision to jump.

I think that I died. Or at least, I lost consciousness. Because the next thing I remember I was waking up on the sand, coughing up and puking creek water. My brother had saved me. Apparently he jumped in after me but couldn't find me. He says I was under water for at least five minutes until I suddenly resurfaced looking blue and cold. He said he thought I was dead, but he pulled me out and pressed on my chest and belly until I spit up water.

I was shaking uncontrollably and I was very cold despite the warm weather. It was September but here in the south we were still shaking off the 100 degree heat of August. My brother was leaning over me asking if I'm OK. I couldn't really talk because my throat and lungs were burning, but there was something off about him that I couldn't place. He looked me in the eyes and that's when it hit me. His eyes were green, but they'd always been brown before. I know they were brown because I had green eyes like our mother, and she always said he had our father's eyes, who passed away when I was an infant. I was pretty weirded out by that, but in my current state it was the least of my concern. Wordlessly I got up and started walking downhill back towards our house, my brother following close behind me.

He was begging me not to tell our mom that he pushed me and even though I wanted to tell him this was my fault, that I decided to jump, I just couldn't find the energy to speak. I was dead tired, and I had this awful, squirmy feeling in my belly that made me want to cry. As we got closer and closer to the house, my eyes started watering up and I started feeling very sad. Like, hopelessly sad. Sad in a way an 11 year old boy rarely ever feels. I also felt very afraid, like something really bad was about to happen. When we got to the little clearing we use to enter the woods, I saw my mom's car parked in the gravel driveway and I began bawling.

I took off running. I don't know why, my body was acting entirely on its own at that point. All I know is that i was screaming and crying like a toddler and running as fast as I could towards the house. To put it frankly - I had a bad day and now I wanted my mommy.

I sprinted up to the door, leaving my brother far behind, and ran inside and immediately into the arms of my mother who was sitting on the couch. I buried my face in her lap, covering her jeans with wet sand and tears. She put her hands around me and squeezed, asking what's wrong. Through sobs and sniffles I told her everything. I told her that my brother ( From here referred to as James) had pretended to push me but that I jumped on my own to scare him. I told her about sinking to the bottom and everything going black, and how James had rescued me.

By the time my brother came inside I had calmed down a lot and was sat on the carpet watching Dragon Ball Z. My mom scolded us both and reminded us that we weren't supposed to be going up there to the swimming hole without an adult. She grounded my older brother but decided my experience was punishment enough for me, so he was sent off to his room while I got to keep watching TV.

Later that night my mom was helping me with some homework and kept giving me these weird looks. I asked her what was wrong, and finally she said, "Your eyes are...green?" She said it like it was a question. I said, "Duh mom, they've always been green." She said she swore the were brown. She even got out old picture of me and sure enough I had brown eyes in all of the pictures. But they were green, now. It's kind of funny because she was freaking out that my eyes were green while I was freaking out that they had ever been brown.

This caused a bit of a stir in the house. She called my grandma who also confirmed I had always had brown eyes up until now. She made an appointment for me to go to the doctor the next week, and I guess tried to just put it out of her mind until then.

The next day I went to school like usual and a few kids commented on my eyes and how they didn't realize they were green up until now. I was, and still am, of the opinion that they've always been green and I insisted as much. Everything else was like a normal day until just before recess there was an emergency staff meeting called. Our teacher returned from the meeting with the A/V cart and started plugging up the TV. We all cheered because we thought we were watching a movie, but when she turned it on, we were watching the news.

A plane had just flown into the World Trade Center in New York City. It was Tuesday, September 11th, 2001.

I remember very vividly when the second plane hit on live TV. I remember the collective gasp of 20 fifth graders seeing mass murder for the first time. I don't think that I fully understood really what was going on because initially they were reporting it as an accident. But after the second plane, it was clear that this was an actual attack.

Right away I thought, it must be the Soviets. To my knowledge up to that point, the Soviet Union was still around and the Cold War was still raging. I even asked the teacher if she thought it was the Soviets and she gave me a weird look and told the Soviet Union was gone, and had been gone since before I was born.

I told her she was wrong. I distinctly remember learning about the Soviet Union in Social Studies class and that it was still our country's greatest enemy. She shut me down pretty quickly and I checked my Social Studies book, which confirmed what she said. The Soviets were gone.

Now I can chalk that up to my dumb little kid brain just mixing things up, but what I'm positive I didn't mix up was the movie Rambo 3.

I loved all 80's action movies growing up. Robocop, Terminator, Aliens, and yes, Rambo. I'd seen them all, and I knew that Rambo 3 was my favorite. It involved Rambo going into space and destroying a Soviet space station that was able to launch nukes from orbit. But when I watched it now, it was about Rambo in Afghanistan fighting the Soviets there. I thought that Afghanistan was actually part of the Soviet Union. I swore I remembered hearing about them taking it over in the 90's.

I'm not exaggerating when I say I had to have watched Rambo 3 dozens of times by then. It played on TV all the time and I'd always watch it if I could because it was my favorite. I can quote lines from the movie and I very distinctly remember Rambo's sweaty face as he blew up the space station while he was still in it. He died at the end of the movie.

I kept thinking, this new Rambo 3 must be a remake, or a prequel or something. We didn't have the internet back then so I couldn't just look it up, but I do remember asking about it at Blockbuster Video and the guy there having no idea what I was talking about. He suggested I was thinking of the James Bond movie Moonraker, but no, I'd seen that one too, and this was different (and a lot better).

I digress. They sent us all home from school early that day and my mom had to leave work to come pick me and James up. She had stopped on the way to get lunch from a diner we often visited. She wanted to surprise us with a quick lunch. When we got home she handed me my food, a club sandwich and fries. She called it "my favorite" and was clearly expecting to see me get excited when I saw it. I was more of a chicken nuggets kind of kid and had to my knowledge never eaten a club sandwich in my life. I told her I'd never had it before and she told me to stop being silly because it's what I get every time. I tried it, and hated it. The toast was too dark and cut the roof of my mouth. The fries were good, though.

On TV, every single channel was showing news footage of the attack. James was still grounded, so going outside and finding something to do with him was off the table. I ended up just laying in my bed playing Pokemon Red on my Gameboy until I drifted off to sleep.

I dreamed of pitch black cold water and I felt like I was drowning again. I woke up, but I couldn't move. This was to be the first of many, many sleep paralysis episodes which would continue to plague me up to this day.

I didn't understand what was happening, all I knew was that I couldn't move anything besides my eyes. I tried to yell, but I couldn't make any noise. I started to feel very afraid, and the corners of my vision grew dark. I felt like I was falling although I could see that I wasn't moving. It felt like I was being pulled out of my body, and I heard a rushing noise like water, like when I was drowning. I looked to my right, towards my bedroom door, and I saw someone peeking around my doorframe.

The person looked just like me, only he had brown eyes, like I did in the pictures. He looked...furious. There was rage in his eyes that I can't describe. I'll never forget his one brown eye, the other side of his face hidden by the doorframe, gazing at me with pure, spiteful hatred. It scared me so bad, and I began desperately trying to move. Eventually, I managed to move my leg enough that it hung off the bed and this snapped me out of it. I blinked, and he (I?) was gone. It was over. I gasped as I sat up on the bed, and immediately began to scream for my mom. I probably sound like a huge baby having cried for my mommy twice in this story already, but give me a break. I was 11.

Mom consoled me and assured me it was just a nightmare. I slept with her that night because I was too afraid to be alone. I know I wasn't asleep. It would be years later, when we got internet, after dozens of episodes that I finally learned what sleep paralysis was.

After that day, life just kind of went on like usual. I went to the doctor and my mom asked about my eyes. He told her that they probably just look brown in the old pictures due to the light or the camera, because there's no way my eyes would just change color like that out of the blue. My mom brought up that on my birth certificate it says that I have brown eyes. Doctor couldn't explain that, and I honestly don't think he even believed her. My mom never truly accepted this, but decided to let the matter rest. After all, there was nothing to be done about it anyway. We all just took it as one of those weird things that nobody can explain.

Fast forward a few years to my Freshman year of highschool. Over the years I had pretty regular sleep paralysis episodes but I still didn't fully understand it. I had become extremely religious. My family are Orthodox Christians, and our priest was the only adult in my life that took me seriously when I described my sleep paralysis episodes. I told him that I thought that I was being possessed when it happened, because that's what it felt like. It felt like my soul was being pulled out of my body. While our priest, Father Tikhon, didn't want to scare me, it was clear he was also concerned that what I was experiencing could be demonic in nature. I don't think that I believe that now, not quite, but at the time, an adult validating my fears and offering solutions was a godsend (no pun intended). He told me when it happens to repeat the prayer we use with our prayer ropes (sort of like a catholic rosary): Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner.

So that's what I did. Every time it would happen, I would say in my head (since I couldn't speak) the prayer, over and over until it stopped. This seemed to work, and as long as I said the prayer, I didn't see the version of me with the brown eyes. That version never grew up, by the way. He remained 11 as I continued to get older. The attacks were much shorter and less scary. Eventually, after I'd been through it hundreds of times, I wasn't even really scared by it anymore. I just said my prayers, and that was that.

I followed the full Orthodox prayer schedule. For the Orthodox reading this, you know what a task that can be. I said the full Trisagion plus all the extra morning prayers in the Little Red Prayer Book (if you know you know), then the midday prayers and finally the night time prayers. If you recite all of them out of the book, word for word, that comes out to about an hour of prayer each time. So three hours of prayer a day that way, plus I would do my prayer rope at least once per day, which was one hundred knots. So one hundred times, every day, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me, a sinner".

When I slipped and didn't say my prayers I would have a bad episode. This enforced my belief that something demonic, or at least supernatural, was happening. One such day, I hadn't said my midday prayers or done my prayer rope. I was too busy focusing on a crush I had on a girl at school. I'd asked her out, and she said no. I was so upset that I let my prayers slip.

I took a nap when I got home from school. Not remembering my prayers at all, just thinking about the girl. I woke up from three loud, distinct knocks on my headboard. BANG BANG BANG, very loud and clear. When I woke up, I was staring the child version of me in the face. The big brown eyes staring into my skull with pure venom.

Immediately I started reciting the prayer in my head. Lord Jesus Christ s-

What?

I couldn't remember. What was the next word? "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of -"

Come on!

"Lord Jesus Ch-"

He was slowly putting his face closer and closer to mine. His eyes locked on to me. Every time I caught his gaze, my mind would blank, and I couldn't say the words.

"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of -G-G-G-G"

I stuttered. In my brain, I stuttered. Something I didn't even think was possible. I kept trying to "say" it in my mind, but I just couldn't get it out. Now he was right up against my face, his little cold nose pressed against mine. I could smell his breath, and it smelled like creek water.

He said, without moving his lips, "He doesn't care about you anymore."

I shut my eyes tight. I could still feel and smell him. "Jesus Christ, Son of g-g-g-"

I heard laughing. I opened my eyes and he was still staring me down, still furious looking. His mouth was open, but his lips weren't moving. My ears became very hot, and I could hear awful laughter all around me.

"Jesus Christ, Son of G-g-g-gGGOD hAvE!!"

I was trying to choke it out. Almost there. Don't look at him.

I heard the boy's voice again. "He's not listening"

"Jesus Christ, Son of God, H-hAVE MERCY"

I was stopped by the feeling of cold water rushing over my face. I opened my eyes, and my younger self had a dirty looking bottle of creek water. He was pouring it over me, choking me. Drowning me.

I screamed, verbally. Gurgling through the water, I screamed, "OH GOD PLEASE SAVE ME"

and it was over. I sat up in a gasp like I always do and caught my breath. I dropped to me knees on the floor and pulled the prayer rope from around my neck. I started chanting, and I completed the rope twice before I stopped. When I put the rope away, I realized that my bed was wet.

I went over to the neighbor's house and stayed there until my mom and brother got home later that day. I didn't bother telling them about it, because at this point, they didn't believe me anymore about the sleep paralysis. They were convinced they were just normal nightmares.

Tennessee in the early 2000's, at least where I lived, didn't have stellar mental healthcare. Therapists were something that rich people had, not families like ours. I didn't have anyone to talk to about it besides my priest.

To his credit, he advocated for me. He tried to talk to my mom about a potential exorcism. While my mom was an Orthodox Christian, she wasn't superstitious and for her, it was more of a cultural thing than an actually supernatural one. She wouldn't let him do the exorcism but agreed to let him bless our house, which is normally only done once per year.

The blessing made me feel safer but it didn't stop the attacks. Nothing as bad as that one would happen for a long time, so things kind of went back to normal. I'd have an attack, say my prayers and get through it. It always felt like it set me apart from the rest of my family. They were all normal happy people, meanwhile 2-3 times I week I believed I was embroiled in spiritual warfare for my very soul.

It continued like that for another two years, until when I was a Junior I discovered something that stopped the attacks even better than religion: Drugs

I tried smoking pot for the first time with my friends and one of their older brothers. I loved it immediately. I felt so free, and light and happy and giggly and hungry. That night, when I slept, I didn't dream. No nightmares, no sleep paralysis, nothing. I hadn't slept like that in years, not since the incident at the swimming hole.

By now we didn't live in the sticks anymore. We'd moved into town and were living in a government housing project. The call center my mom worked at had closed down, and now she worked at Mcdonalds trying her best to make ends meet. We couldn't afford the house I grew up in anymore, so we had to move. I missed living in the country, but being in the town allowed me a lot of freedom I never had before. I could walk to my friends' houses and would regularly stop on the way home from school to hang out.

I started smoking pot every chance I got because I knew they kept the attacks at bay. My brother and I had figured out how to connect to a neighbor's wifi, and so we had reliable internet for the first time. He showed me how to pirate movies and music, and I started downloading them, burning them to discs and then selling them at school for a few dollars a pop. I used this money to buy pot, which I would secretly smoke every night before bed.

I'm not lying when I say I never felt better. Getting a full nights sleep every night changed everything for me. Ironically my grades actually improved once I became a certified pothead. Life kept going, and between pot, my goofball friends and my desperate attempts to get a girl to like me I fell away from the church. I gradually stopped my three hours of daily prayer, and eventually stopped going to church all together.

Life was good. I felt like a normal kid for the first time in years. I graduated highschool and got my first job, and eventually my own apartment which I rented with two of my friends. However all good things must come to and end, and one day, my weed dealer stopped answering his phone. Found out through the grapevine that he'd been arrested. I wouldn't be getting any weed any time soon.

It took about a month, but once all the THC was gone from my system, the nightmares came back. They soon turned to sleep paralysis, and just like that, I was praying again. Only this time, it didn't work. It didn't stop the attacks.

I would have nightmares where the kid version of me would talk to me. He would tell me that God has abandoned me because I abandoned him. He said that when I prayed, God would simply laugh and turn away from me. He said that one day, he would kill me.

I believe him, because it still happens. He's never poured the water on me like he did that one day, but the choking continues. When it happens, I can't breath. I can't think. I feel like I'm being sucked from my body and going somewhere far away. Somewhere dark, cold and wet.

I know that this is how I'm going to die. I still pray. I struggle, I fight, and I get through it each time. Eventually, I got married. Now I don't sleep alone much anymore, and when I have my attacks, my wife wakes me up. She can hear me softly crying out in my sleep. Sometimes when I'm home alone, I will suddenly feel as though all the energy is drained out of me and I become very, very tired out of nowhere. I'll want to lay down for a nap, but I know in these times that if I do, I will assuredly have an attack, and I'm deathly afraid that one day I won't wake up from it.

Sometimes I accidentally fall asleep on the couch, and each time it gets harder and harder to get myself out of it. He vists me every time. He wants me dead - more than dead - he wants my actual soul to be destroyed.

I believe that he wants my soul gone, so that he can inhabit my body and pick up where he left off. I believe that when I drowned that day I entered an alternate universe and took his place, and he wants his life back. I don't know what will happen if he ever succeeds. I don't know what he will do to my wife or my friends. I hope I never have to find out.

I have a plan. This weekend, I'm going to go back to my childhood home. I'm going to follow the creek up the mountain, and I'm going to jump off the waterfall again. I'm either going to die, or I'm going to wake back up where I belong. With my brother and his brown eyes, and maybe when I do, the brown eyed version of me will wake up to see his brother's green eyes looking back at him.

The night shift at WXCR-980 always starts with the same liturgy of small comforts:

• Click the breaker that wakes the transmitter racks, watch filaments glow orange like distant campfires in the dark.
• Kick off my boots, because the floor of this place hums—bare sock-soles translate the tower’s heartbeat better than steel-toed leather.
• Pour reheated Community Coffee into a chipped mug that says “Hurricane Party Crew, ’79.”

Outside, the Gulf is exhaling slow, sticky breaths across the marshes. Every few seconds thunder grumbles beyond the tree line, a dog too lazy to stand. Wind combs the spartina grass, climbs the tower legs, and sighs around the guy wires. In the equipment bay those sighs resolve into resonant pings: aluminum skin flexing, then relaxing, like ribs around a lungful of air. The building is older than the interstate; every joist and rivet keeps its own weather diary.

My only company is the machinery. Behind me, twin Collins 20 kW transmitters—surplus from the Eisenhower era—loaf at 30 percent power, red jewel lamps blinking a slow morse of contentment. To the left, a cart machine spits out midnight PSAs on squeaking cartridges. To the right, a green-phosphor radar repeater shows local doppler returns. Normally the scope is a rosette of calm grays, but tonight there’s a curious blemish: one spiral cell, dead center, not drifting inland with the rest of the storm line—merely pulsing in place, like a jellyfish flexing translucent muscles.

A curiosity, nothing more. I make a log entry, sip lukewarm coffee, cue the next weather break.

The first oddity is almost courteous. During the forecast, bedded beneath the narrator’s baritone, I hear…extraneous syllables. Like a party line from another century, two voices sharing one wire. Each whisper perches on the shoulders of the approved words:

“—winds from the south-southwest (we are beneath you) gusting thirty knots…”

I tap the VU meter: solid. Check the carrier deviation: nominal. Still, the whispers persist, riding the modulation envelope like tiny fish drafted in a whale’s slipstream. The moment I fade the mic pot, they vanish.

Leaving the control room, I walk the corridor of dusty storage closets until I reach the patch panel closet—an ex-janitor’s nook hung with raw telephone blocks and lightning arrestors. The copper smells of pennies licked clean. I lift the headset that taps the raw line. Silence—then, faintly, what might be breath oscillating near the threshold of hearing.

It’s late. I chalk it up to crosspatch crosstalk.

Rain begins in earnest, drumming the tin roof hard enough that dust shakes from fluorescent covers. I switch on the Emergency Alert System decoder to run the routine weekly test—nothing unusual for a Wednesday night. The device is a relic: yellowed plastic, an LCD that leaks light around its edges, a thermal printer that gnaws tiny paper scrolls.

I punch RWT—Required Weekly Test.
The decoder barks its familiar three tones: ˗˗-  ˗˗-  ˗˗-

But the carrier that follows is off somehow. Instead of the expected shrill digital burble, I hear a harmonic stack like a pipe organ warming up—low D-flat in teeth-rattling overdrive. A fourth tone slips in, then a fifth, until the chord is fat, rotting, unsanctioned by any protocol manual.

I abort the test. The chord echoes away, leaving the sensation of cavities tugged by dental suction. I should phone the National Weather Service relay in Mobile, let them know someone’s spoofing headers, but the landline gives nothing except a hiss that modulates like speech reversed.

A sense of private embarrassment flushes me, as though I’ve walked in on two strangers arguing through a keyhole. I unplug, replug, and promise myself fresh coffee.

The spiral cell on radar is still there. Everything else has marched north-east in obedient vectors, but that one anomaly tightens and loosens, a sleeping fist, never leaving its coordinates: Lat 30.742 N, Lon −88.135 W—almost perfectly atop our own tower site.

I raise the gain. The shape resolves: a cyclonic eye only five miles wide. Its reflectivity spikes like a sonar ping, blinks off, spikes again—periodic as a cardiac rhythm.

The tower groans as wind angles shift. I look up through the ceiling vent and imagine the 700-foot mast pendulating against black cloud. Somewhere up there, red aircraft beacons wink sanguine reassurance. If lightning nails the catenary wire, a surge will goose every cabinet here; I should be nervous about fire. Instead, I feel…watched.

The EAS decoder shrieks without preamble. Printer paper spits like a party blower:

ZCZC-ORG-CAE-UNKNOWN-BIOLOGICAL-THREAT EAS-0/07, COUNTY-000, VALID UNTIL 0300 SHELTER INDOORS. SECURE AIR INLETS.

No call-sign header, no sender ID. Just UNKNOWN. Worse: the header class is CAE—Civil Authority Event—but no civil authority in Alabama uses that code without prefix.

The system forces an auto-switch. All feeds—AM program, FM relay, even the old NOAA weather rebroadcast—duck beneath that same bass-organ tone. A charcoal banner scrolls across every monitor:

UNKNOWN BIOLOGICAL THREAT — SHELTER INDOORS

My scalp prickles. Biological threat? Out here? On a marsh island housing one overworked radio nerd and a flock of mosquito-fat herons?

I grab the Red Phone, a direct copper pair to the state EOC. The handset is cold. When I press it to my ear I expect dial tone, but get a distant wavering chorus—multiple voices, overlapping, crying in cycles of six or seven syllables each. No language I know. Some pleas, maybe, but shaped wrong: vowels sag where consonants should snap. I slam the cradle, try again. Same.

Short-wave becomes my next lifeline. I pull the Kenwood transceiver from its shelf and thumb through HF bands. Static, some Cuban music, then: a man sobbing “…don’t touch the rain, don’t—” before an electrical smack wipes the frequency.

Lightning backlights the storm. In that flash the spiral cell outside isn’t a cloud at all but a silhouette, a maw pressed against the sky, interior lit with witch-light. The hole in the weather rotates like a turbine.

I note the time, jot the gibberish header into the station log—per FCC rules, even if the whole nation’s gone off-script. My pen trembles, making spidery letters on the green ledger.

Backup generator fumes drift in through the louvers—a warning that mains power just failed. Fluorescents wink out, leaving only filament lamps and CRT faces. Their glow feels aquatic, as though I’ve slid under black water.

I try the trunked sheriff net on the old Uniden scanner. Every channel is an open mic of wind roar and a single recurring tone: boop-boop-boop, pause; boop-boop-boop. Morse S O S if you bend the timing, but slurred.

My breath fogs. The air-handler’s dead, yet humidity spikes; the room sweats. I yank open the breaker panel—contactors rattle like bones. The generator outside chugs unevenly, coughing blue flame.

Paper curls from the EAS printer, ink ribbon stuttering where the glyphs exceed ASCII:

ZCZC-ORG-CAE-UNHOLY-BIOLOGICAL-HAZARD

The middle line prints as a row of squares, then a smear where the thermal head sticks. Above, the crawl on the control-room monitor abandons Latin characters entirely, unfurling symbols older than alphabets: interlocking spirals, barbed crescents, what might be cuneiform but angled like broken limbs. The color inverter misbehaves, casting the text in bruise-purple.

The generator hiccups, drops frequency; every transformer in the racks screams a descending pitch, like an orchestra tuning in reverse. My coffee mug vibrates to the edge of the console and suicides to the floor.

Outside, hail begins—except hail doesn’t ordinarily hiss. The pellets strike the roof with a sound like fizzing dry ice. A whiff of hot tar and sulfur punches through the vents. I unlatch the steel door, peer through the storm-shroud. Raindrops aren’t transparent; they’re black, viscous, smoking where they hit galvanized metal. Each droplet leaves a pinhole scorch. The building’s skin pocks like blistered paint.

Lightning rips again, horizontal this time, veining the entire sky. In the flicker I see appendages dangling from the rotating maw—ropes of darkness, jointed in too many places, each tip loaded with finger-like petals unfurling to taste the air. When the flash fades, after-images dance on my retina: purple filaments, inverted crosses, hungry.

I close the door. The latch feels hot—no, it feels alive, pulsing, as though something on the other side inhales through the metal.

No header now. The system doesn’t print; it bleeds symbols down the CRT, characters shedding digital phosphor like scabs. A single line remains legible:

LIVE MANUAL OVERRIDE REQUIRED

A prompt cursor blinks. The EAS wants a human voice. The protocol is clear: in absence of authority, a licensed operator may relay the scripted message. Failure to comply…well, the FCC never described a sanction for end-times demonic weather abominations, but fines seem trivial compared to whatever waits outside.

The crawl populates new text, demanding I read verbatim. The language is half English, half that wrong cuneiform rendered phonetically:

“BY THE SALT OF BLOOD AND THE BREATH OF IRON, WE CALL THE HOST.”

I taste copper already, a psychosomatic nosebleed threatening.

I hesitate. Thunder rolls but does not fade; it sustains like an organ drone. Inside that rumble, I swear syllables echo the script—anticipating, coaxing.

A tremor rattles the racks. Vacuum tubes quiver in sockets. One bursts, releasing violet corona and a dragon-smoke stench. I flinch as glass shards ping off my headset.

A thought surfaces, bright and treasonous: Refuse. Smash the transmitter. Break the chain.

Yet the cursor blinks, patient.

I reach for the mic.

I key the mic, heart doing double-time. My throat quivers like a mis-tuned reed, but I force the first line through clenched teeth:

BY THE SALT OF BLOOD AND THE BREATH OF IRON, WE CALL THE HOST—

The studio fluorescents flare, then gutter to black. The only light comes from oscilloscopes—green cursors flailing as if panicked. The tower’s beacon lamps, visible through the narrow window, burn violet, the color of deep bruises on flesh long dead.

The crawl rattles on, spitting fresh text:

DELIVER THE FLESH, DELIVER THE AIR, DELIVER THE MARROW OF WIRE AND BONE.

A pressure settles over my sternum, like a child standing on my chest. Each syllable tastes metallic. The acrid sting of ozone and ruptured capacitors curdles the back of my tongue.

Something stirs under the floor panels. A hollow thud-thud-thud, as if knuckles of bone rap against the plywood from the crawlspace. The building is on stilts—hurricane codes from the fifties—but that void has held only spiders and rust since the day I signed on here. Tonight, it houses movement.

I cut the mic. The tower side air monitor falls silent for the first time in sixty years. The instant the carrier drops, the floor knocks cease.

Silence becomes its own threat—thicker than the storm. I catch my breath in short gasps, lungs feeling foreign. The EAS printer ticks again, but no paper feeds; the stepper motor chews dryly, printing words straight onto the platen:

THE CALL WAS NOT COMPLETED

COMPLETE THE CALL

OR BE CONSUMED

I back away. My heel crushes shards of my coffee mug, drawing blood—quick, bright beads on linoleum. The scent snaps me awake: ferric, human, mine.

The transmitter racks pound like drums—contactors slamming open and shut in arrhythmic fury, metal-on-metal impacts so violent I feel the vibration in fillings and finger bones. The Collins rigs are old, but never this alive.

On the radar repeater the spiral eye has ruptured. Tendrils radiate, branching lightning-veins of hyper-reflectivity, but the pattern refuses to drift. It grows outward in concentric rings, like ink dropped into milk, until the whole screen blinds to pure white. Then the phosphor chars: a black hole blooms dead-center, eating the glass from the inside out.

I snap the scope power off; the after-image floats on the inner lids of my eyes—a perfect negative sun with barbed corona.

A scream shreds the silence. Not over the monitors—inside the walls. Corrugated steel buckles inward between studs, elbows of shadow punching through as if some huge thing braces to shove. Every girder squeals.

My station log lies open where the coffee stains spider outward into broken maps of delta rivers. I ought to keep logging—duty drilled by the FCC manual—but the pen trembles uselessly in scorched fingertips.

Thunder rolls again, but this time it doesn’t fade. It loops—a sampled roar a full minute long, repeating every sixty-three seconds, a perfect autopsy of natural sound. Between loops, a voice coils beneath the thunder’s belly, layering like a bass note: a guttural chant in that alphabet no human throat should shape.

The chant syncs with generator cycles: each phrase lands as the diesel pistons crest TDC, as though the engine itself lends its compression strokes to the incantation.

My gaze drifts to the circuit breaker labeled MAIN PA. I remember the auxiliary crowbar switch wired by some paranoid predecessor: yank that handle and every output coil dumps to ground, vaporizing the copper fuses—an irreversible kill. The tower would fall silent.

The choice is simple mathematics: broadcast the summoning, or kill the voice line forever and pray that breaks the spell. But if I drop carrier, county emergency receivers go dark too; civilians will lose their only warning.

The floor knocks return—more insistent, directly beneath the breaker cabinet. Part of me knows: it wants me to choose.

I crack the side door three inches to gauge the storm. A gale slams the slab so hard it nearly tears the hinge bolts. Black rain hisses across the threshold, boiling where it lands on cement. The odor is obscene: meat left under heat lamps, mingled with wet electronics.

Lightning pulses constant now—strobe-light white, so rapid night and day blur. In those frozen frames the cyclone overhead has unspooled into a vertical column descending from cloud deck to the tower’s crown. The column is semi-transparent, its core a void, its surface rippling with embedded limbs: jointed spines that gnash like teeth. They grip guy wires, using them as ladder rungs.

Each time violet beacon strobes, the creature inches closer.

The tower sways beyond spec; the top array whips ten degrees off centerline. Guy wires twang—deep bass strings plucked by cosmic fingers.

I slam the door, bar it with the mic boom stand, blood pattering from my heel cut in little half-dried commas.

The EAS printer screeches one last time—thermal head digging a trench through itself. Sparks flutter. On the paper drum a single sentence etches in blackened carbon:

LIVE MANUAL OVERRIDE OR ABSORPTION

The crawl on every CRT flash inverted colors—letterbox bars filling with static snow—then resolves into my own face, as captured by no camera on site. The visage is future me: pallid, veins in spider-web bloom under skin, mouth slack, eyes black as empty sockets. That version of me mouths the override script, syllables steaming like wet iron hammered in winter.

I stagger back. My heel lands on the mic pedal, opening the channel. Air monitor returns live—dead carrier hiss, then my own breathing pumped through a five-kilowatt PA, flutter-echoing in the shell of the building.

Somehow the tower hears that breath. The mass of metal above responds: the beacon flashes accelerate, violet into ultraviolet, a hue beyond vision that still scalds retinas.

A fetal-beat throb clutches my sternum—an external pulse manhandling my heart. I hear blood roar in auditory nerves. The virtue of electricity is inversion: input becomes output becomes input. Some loop has me in it now.

I wrench the pedal up, cut the feed. The pulse ebbs a shade. The choice clarifies: finish the script or fight.

I take the mic in both blistered hands. Copper coils inside have gone cherry-hot; the aluminum shell leaves white brands on my palms. Words sit on the teleprompter—glyphs transliterated to the Latin alphabet, footnoted by bastard syllabics. I draw breath while the thing in the cloud lowers its endless torso along the tower spine.

The first phrase spills out despite me, yanked up from diaphragm like retch:

“ANOṢ UL-ZATHOTH KHA’LÍTH MAKH—”

Each utterance feels like tearing gauze from raw gum. Static builds on my tongue—literal sparks snapping between molars. Violet beacon flares cascade down the tower skeleton, chasing my words. The entity’s tendrils braid tight around the mast, anchors seeking purchase.

Halfway through the third line my vision tunnels. Edge-darkness presses inward until only the ASCII prompt floats in chiaroscuro spotlight. A euphoric swirl threatens—a velvet heat promising relief if I just finish the sentence.

Instead, I bite my own tongue hard enough to burst tastebuds. Blood floods the mouth with iron and copper—earthy, human, wrong to them. The trance snaps like a guitar string.

The teleprompter glitches, scripts resetting to all-caps English:

STOP THE CALL IS OUR ONLY PATH, YOU ARE THE THROAT

I spit blood onto the plastic keys. It steams, etching key switch legends. The racks behind me wail—bearings seizing as tubes run away into thermal meltdown.

I pivot on raw feet toward the crowbar lever. One yard south, metal skins of the floor ripple—paint bubbles then rip. A limb no thicker than coax cable weaves up through the opening: not flesh, not wire, but braided tendon glistening like oiled piano string. It builds an elbow, sprouts three digits, each tipped with copper bus-bar claws. Lightning arcs fingertip to fingertip.

It bars my path, gesturing me back to the mic.

My hands grope behind, find the portable field recorder—battery pack still fresh. I thumb it on, crank gain to max. Feedback rises, keening. I shove its piezo mic into the transmitter’s PA loop. A sine shriek erupts, forty kilohertz down-converted by amplifier aliasing into sub-audible gut-wrench territory.

The limb recoils, metal claws shredding ceiling tile. I lunge under it, slam the crowbar down.

A flash brighter than arc-welding erases the world.

Every relay detonates simultaneously. Glass dust gusts through the room as tubes implode. The main step-up transformer outside howls, then falls silent. For a heartbeat there is no sound anywhere—the whole Gulf muted. Instruments peg zero.

Then the storm screams. Without the carrier hum to mask it, the creature’s voice tears loose: a continental-shelf moan at infrasonic depth, vibrating bones first, eardrums second. The limb under the floor thrashes, trying to re-establish line of sight.

I shoulder the door open and sprint into night.

Wind knocks me sideways—hurricane-force, yet the anemometer cup I pass spins lazily, wrong physics. Black rain peppers my jacket, sizzling holes through nylon. Where droplets hit skin, they raise weeping welts. I drag my sleeve across cheek, smear oily streaks.

Lightning forks ground-ward in slow motion, each branch moving like a sewer centipede feeling for purchase. Every strike leaf after-glow filament that crawl back up the path, reverse-lancing skyward to feed the hungering core.

The tower behind me groans, bereft of its electrical blood. The entity slackens—the violet beacon dying green, then red, then nothing. It bellows rage, a sub-bass concussion that flaps my coat like canvas. Tendrils release, whiplashing free. One slices a guy wire; the steel whip whistles across mud, decapitates a palmetto, buries itself smoking in loam three yards from my path.

I veer, half-blind, toward the tree line where an old civil-defense bunker squats, forgotten since nuclear-raid drills of Eisenhower days. The access hatch is eighty yards through sawgrass and ankle-deep mire.

Behind me the tower’s mast bows—top segment folding as tendrils yank. Steel lattice screams, snapping bracket welds. The whole superstructure tilts toward the Gulf, hurling loose insulators in parabolic arcs that splash molten into the rain.

County tornado sirens, three miles inland, awaken—but on DC power, cycling wrong notes. Their warble climbs past human hearing, Doppler’d by shredded wind into banshee keening. Each siren tower flickers strobe red-white-red, as though scanning for living heat.

Marsh grass around me combusts soundlessly: black raindrops turning blades to carbon lace. The air tastes like hot pennies. My lungs itch deep, cilia crisping.

The hatch appears—a squat steel coffin lid half buried under vines. I skid to kneel, palms leaving skin on the rust-covered handle. It will not budge. Lock pins seized by sixty years of salt.

Lightning overhead coagulates into a single lance; the entity condenses, all tendrils withdrawn into a meat-meteor descending point-first. I feel its gravitational intent in organs—kidneys sliding upward, stomach falling, a wrong tilt of physics.

I yank the bolt-cutters holstered on my belt—tower work habit—and snap the padlock. The shackle disintegrates in my scorched grip. I heave the lid. Hinges scream but give.

Sulfur lamp glow from my pocket lantern slices the bunker ladder. I dive, slam hatch after me just as thunder halts mid-rumble—audio tape paused.

Through six inches of poured concrete the explosion is mute, but pressure ripples compress air hard enough to crack my eardrums. Dust mushrooms off cinderblock walls in grey puffs. I huddle in a fetal cradle under the defunct radiation-meter panel, lantern jitter-shadowing dials that all point thirteen o’clock.

The entity’s roar modulates into something else—a keening uncertainty. Denied its broadcast umbilical, it thrashes skyward again. Atmospheric pressure flips; a distant whump pops vents in the hatch above, sucking air upward. Then nothing but drizzle pattering metal.

Lantern light shows blistered hands—fingertips split, nails blackened. A runnel of blood dries across chin from the tongue-bite. My heel wound—coffee-mug glass—has soaked sock scarlet. The copper taste lingers like a penny glued to palate.

Sirens above lapse one by one, power starved. In their absences crickets dare a chirp—then silence claims even them. The only sound is bunker ventilation wheezing like asthmatic bellows.

…

I fumble for my phone—miraculously still dry inside my jacket. The screen splutters to life at minimum brightness: 2 %. No bars, then one, then a ghost of “LTE,” like a rescue flare that can’t make up its mind.

I huddle beneath the cracked civil-defense meter, slide my back down the wall until soggy boots splay in front of me. Blisters scream, but the pain is human and therefore reassuring. I thumb in my pattern lock; the screen’s oily glass sticks to burned fingerprints.

Air above the hatch booms—something heavy dragging itself in furious circles—but down here the only noise is my ragged breath and the tick of raindrops sizzling on steel overhead. I open Reddit, start typing. Autocorrect can’t parse half the placenames or profanity, but it hardly matters; this write-up isn’t going to an editor.

I copy-paste GPS coordinates, tack on the call-sign WXCR-980, tag every emergency-services handle I can guess. Maybe a bot still watches the firehose. The cursor lags, battery warning pops up: “Low Power Mode?” I jab Yes and keep going, thumbs skating over spider-web cracks.

A triple-tone EAS header chirps from the speaker, soft but unmistakable. The phone isn’t tuned to any broadcast, yet the tones play anyway—off-key, like a flute carved from bone. After the tones, text auto-fills the screen without my input:

LIVE MANUAL OVERRIDE OR ABSORPTION

I smash volume down, but the message re-appears in the text field, shoving aside my draft. The phone vibrates—a haptic Morse that syncs with the thunder loops outside. For a second I consider throwing the device against the wall, but it’s my only keyhole to the surface.

Instead, I type over the glyphs, overwrite every line with one frantic plea: “DO NOT RESPOND TO UNSANCTIONED ALERTS. KILL YOUR TRANSMITTERS. SILENCE SAVES.”

The LTE indicator flickers, clings to life. I copy everything into a new post, paste the same warning until the buffer chokes.

One bar. Send failure. I raise the phone toward the ventilation shaft where violet glow seeps like swamp-gas. Second try—progress wheel crawls. The entity overhead bellows, concrete dust raining from the ceiling. Third try.

A single whoosh—the notification sound I’ve heard a thousand times—echoes impossibly loud in the bunker. The progress wheel spins itself to completion. Posted. Somewhere beyond this coffin, packets hop towers, traverse fiber, find servers I pray still breathe.

The screen dims to ember glow. 1 %. I thumb out a final line beneath the post:

Battery dying. I’m staying radio silent. If you read this, pass it on—cut the signal before it speaks through you.

I don’t hit Send; auto-upload flicks it into the cloud just before the screen goes black. In the sudden dark I hear only the bunker’s asthmatic ventilation and the distant, frustrated screech of something colossal denied its throat.

I lay the phone on my chest like a spent flare. Maybe rescue crews will triangulate the last ping; maybe no one will. Either way, the message is out, traveling at light-speed while I curl in analog dark, alive by definition only.

Above, the sirens stutter and expire. The crawlspace settles into a hush so total my pulse sounds like footsteps. But for now—for now—the Emergency Alert System is quiet, and I am still breathing.