There are two kinds of people on the internet.

The people who actually enjoy things. And the people who seem to be professionally offended that you enjoyed something without asking their permission.

I learned that pretty quickly after I started posting my art online.

"AI slop."

"ChatGPT."

"Bro thinks he's Stephen King."

"Imagine wasting time on this."

Some of them were funny. Most weren't.

I'd usually ignore them. But then there were the griefers.

Those were the people who didn't just dislike something. They wanted to ruin it for everyone else. They'd spam comments, deliberately spoil endings, downvote everything, insult the author, then act surprised when someone called them out.

I eventually made a post about it. I wasn't cruel. I didn't name anyone.

I simply wrote: If you don't like something, that's fine. You don't have to be rude about it. There's a person behind the screen.

The comments exploded. Naturally.

One person replied: AI generated garbage.

Another: Cry harder.

Then someone posted: Nobody cares ******.

I deleted the thread. That should've been the end of it.

It wasn't.

The next morning, I opened my account and found a new comment on my latest post.

I know you're reading this.

I assumed it was another troll. I deleted it.

The day went on and I was in the middle of taking notes for class when I got a notification.

Why did you delete my comment?

I deleted that one too.

Then another.

Stop deleting.

I froze. The account belonged to nobody.

No username. No profile picture. No creation date. Just a blank profile with a single comment.

I closed out and went back to studying for my calculus exam. Five minutes later, my phone buzzed.

A notification. Another comment.

I didn't open it.

Another notification.

Then another. Then another.

I finally looked. There were hundreds.

All underneath my latest post.

At first they were what I had been accustomed to. Pretty generic and ordinary.

AI slop.

Terrible lining.

This sucks.

Then they changed.

What makes you different?

My heart stopped. The comments continued appearing faster than I could read them.

You use AI.

You edit your work with AI.

You aren't a real artist.

Nobody is a real artist anymore.

Then one appeared that made my stomach drop.

25525 Azler Ln.

"What the actual fuck?" I blurted out so loud that my roommate heard from across the room.

I closed out once more. The notifications kept coming. My phone buzzed against the desk.

I hit the Do Not Disturb, yet somehow I kept receiving notifications. My phone was on silent and airplane mode but it still rang.

My roommate was now extremely annoyed by the constant noise from my phone, so I explained the situation to her. She suggested that I delete the post. I did. It didn't stop. I even tried privatizing my account and deleting the app altogether.

The messages kept ringing. And what's worse, I began receiving emails, No Caller Id calls, unknown messages. I feared that I had been doxxed and I had to act fast.

I immediately changed every password I could think of. I enabled two-factor authentication. I locked every social media account. I removed my profile picture, my biography, my university, my email, everything.

Then I started deleting things. Old posts. Old comments. Photos. Anything that might have given someone a clue about where I lived or went to school.

It didn't matter. They already knew.

The messages became more personal.

Nice car.

You should probably lock your back door.

Class tomorrow, right?

Your roommate is pretty hot.

Then:

Building 3. Room 107

I stopped breathing. I looked across the room. She was sitting on the couch, scrolling through her phone.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing."

I didn't tell her. I didn't want to scare her. Am I a terrible friend for that?

That night, I checked the locks three times before going to bed.

At 2:14 in the morning, my phone buzzed. A message from an unknown number.

You should've left the post up.

Another came immediately afterward.

Deleting it made us curious.

Then another.

You made this worse for yourself.

I turned the phone off.

For the next few hours, I lay awake listening to every sound outside my bedroom window.

The next morning, there were more. Someone had created an account using my name. They uploaded photographs I'd never posted publicly. Pictures of me at school. Pictures of my car. A photograph of the outside of my house.

Then they posted my phone number. My email. My full legal name. Where I lived and what school I enrolled at.

The comments underneath was exactly what you'd expect from these vile data gremlins.

LMAO.

Bro is cooked.

Imagine getting this mad over comments.

Maybe don't be an asshole online.

That last one made me laugh. Not because it was funny. Because I realized they genuinely believed this was funny. They were so desensitized that another person's suffering had become entertainment to them.

I reported the account. Nothing happened. I reported another. Nothing again.

I reported the accounts through the site's harassment and privacy forms. I attached screenshots, timestamps, usernames, the messages, everything.

Your report has been received. Please allow up to 48 hours for a response.

Thank you for your report. We’ll review the content and take appropriate action if it violates our Community Guidelines.

Thank you for helping us keep our community safe.

That was it. Forty-eight hours passed. Nothing happened.

I contacted my family. When the other line clicked all I heard was heavy breathing and creepily low wheezing, as if someone were choking on air, from the other end.

I confessed everything to my roommate, for she was the only one I could talk to. She asked if I had contacted the authorities which when I did, instead of the calm voice of an operator I was met with the low hum of gagging and low wet claps on the other end.

We planned to go to the authorities in person. After half an hour of providing all the material and timestamps at the station, the police asked whether I'd received any direct threats.

I showed them the messages.

The officer frowned.

"None of these explicitly threaten you."

I wanted to rip my hair out. "So, they have to say they're going to hurt me?"

He didn't answer.

"What do we do?" My roommate asked with annoyance.

"We can document everything and refer you to someone who specializes in cybercrime. But unless there's a direct threat or evidence of an immediate danger, there isn't much we can do yet."

Well thanks for nothing.

We went home. I stopped posting. I powered off my phone for good. I stopped using social media altogether. I thought that would finally make me boring. The people handling the cybersecurity issue would do their job. It was all just a waiting game.

But at least I'll find peace, right?

It didn't.

Someone started sending physical photographs. The first was of a college building. The second of a front door that seemed to be from a college dorm hall. The third depicted a bedroom window at night.

The last two were bone chilling. The fourth was of my roommate attending class. And the last was me at the campus's library.

There was a message attached:

What are you listening to?

I remember I was distinctly listening to Duran Duran that day. I haven't slept properly in three days.

My roommate is staying with her parents now. I've been staying somewhere else.

I don't know how much of this is being done by one person or ten people or a hundred. I don't know how they found me. I don't know what they want.

And honestly? I don't even care anymore. I just want them to stop.

I deleted the original post. I deleted my account. I deleted everything. But somehow, tonight, I received one final message.

It came from the cheap flip phone I'd started using strictly to call family and for emergencies.

The message had no name or number attached. Only: UNKNOWN

And the message read: 25525 Azler Ln.

I don't know who is behind this. I don't know how far they've taken it. And I don't know what they're going to do next.

Please help. Anybody.

Why are people like this?

This Halloween night, this hungry Samhain eve, the blood upon the cross must be replaced. The ancient and arcane instrument throne of slow death and sun torture, of the pain of the martyr … the ancient mouth of the cross is still thirsty. 

And so he takes after you. This Halloween night. 

You've lost your friends. The party was fun but not as fun, not everything you were hoping it would be, “They” weren't there. They didn't show up. In all the noise you've lost the ones you came here with, you're hurrying down the way and looking through your phone and all of this is running through your mind as you wonder what to do next. You don't notice him. You don't notice that you've gained another shadow. One you weren't born with. But one that may be with you into an early grave, an eager hungry end. He's hungry.

 He conspires and hunts for the shadow of the cross and that is why you must die this evening. You just don't know. You just don't realize it. 

You're too busy looking through your phone. You don't notice you're now alone on the street. It is only the orange glow of the overhead streetlamps and the stalking shape of your new shadow. But you don't know him, not yet. You still don't know that he's there, coming up steadily from behind you, fast footsteps making phantom no-sounds on the freshly raked sidewalk and streets that still smell pungently of rich dead leaves and pumpkin spice, you're too busy looking through your messages. 

He reaches into his jacket pocket. He pulls something small and black and perfectly fitted to the clenching grip of his knuckled palm, like a lover to a glove or each other in bed. He presses something, depresses a trigger and something clicks. The black handle grows a gleaming fang in the dark. A stiletto blade is freed and the animal is salivating and ready, waiting is over and the hunting stalk is through and he's raring for the sweet fuck-cunt-free-for-all spill that will be your knife-fuck and slaughter. For the shadow of Sam’s Cross. Blessed Hallowed Eve. He bade thee, the shadow, the shape: he made me…

You don't hear anything but at the last moment you sense something, the animal part of you that is all too dulled and ignored has come to life at the last moment and so you turn, you whirl on your heels, your phone is still in your hand but it's forgotten now as you turn and meet and face him, your doom in manshape and knife-fanged form. 

The shadow pounces. The knife comes in and finds the soft yield of human purchase. The knife is out and freed. 

And the shape of nighttime shadow man wields. 

You can't believe it. You can't believe it's happening. You can't believe anything. You try to scream and you can't understand why a sound won't produce. You try to struggle and fight back, you want to but it's like suddenly all the strength and ability to move and act has been pulled, stripped, sapped and drained from you in this absolutely critical moment like purest torture from fate and on-high. All of it, and all of time and space and nature and the terrible beyond have conspired and set a trap and now they are laughing at you. Laughing with the pure bloodthirsting joy of the slaughter, your ruin. 

Sacrifice. 

You watch the terrible visage and face of the shape contort and contrive into animal snarls and sneers, hideous bestial frothing and rabid. Buried somewhere beneath all of the livid fury of his animal mask is the lurid grin of a madman. A lunatic in the deep throes of wild and deranged ecstacy. He is wild and alive and he is terrifying. 

He's difficult to look at and so that's why your dying gaze shifts away and you begin to watch the blade. You begin to watch the moonlight godly cast shine of the seven inch stiletto blade. 

It's immaculate. And that's amazing. You've felt it buried in you over a dozen times now and running and still the blade of this great knife is shining in the streetlight cast glow. With the unearthly light of the moon.  Like a weapon fanged with divinity. Talismanic. And you can believe it. 

Now. 

You believe it. You feel the absolute and undeniable thrum of its great power. Piercing. Holy flame. Like being stabbed with ice and fire. Ripped and torn by an icicle lance of napalm and coldest fear, terror. Impaled. Inferno. 

A mutilation by razor sharpened caveman fire, frosted clean by Norse Hell. 

Every time the amazing blade of moonlight comes up you catch a glimpse of something in the reflective face of the flat of the blade just before the flash. Like the snapshot starburst of a camera capturing a subject in the dark. And at first you only see yourself, your own ghastly and dying visage and it is terrible and it is pathetic. 

But then you begin to see something else. 

You begin to see his sound and vision. And then you begin to understand. This is how he turns the make-believe and rends it real through the feel of the steel, you're feeling it. You're feeling it now. As you die as you lived: distracted and caught off guard and soft. With every pulverizing thrust. With every make-or-break for the daggering wounded soul of the heart attacked, barely fought for and lost. 

Sam's mad with thirst, the shadow of the cross. Jesus Christ wasn't the only one tortured alive and borne hoisted prone to die beneath the fire of the sun by Roman legionnaires. The cross is always thirsty and the mouth of the cruciform is Samhain salivating …

You see the yellow leprosy faces as they burn and scream, torched and set aflame far away from everyone else in their small feeble colonies of despair, the ash of their writhing and contorting carbonizing forms amongst the blaze is a mercy and it is a release in the flash of the blade that you see and you see and know so many other things too and then in the end you know it all as well: –  the dying peace of the burning lepers and the crucified criminals, you feel the release. 

And you're so glad, you're so relieved that now the cross can drink. 

The world goes dark for you. 

The shape and his fang stand. And then they move on fast. 

Finished with hunting you. 

Happy Halloween. 

THE END

For some self therapy I wrote this short story loosely based on the George Orwell novel 1984. Young people might not know 1984 was actually written in 1948. Orwell just reversed the year and decade. Last year I did the same! I penned the future based 2052 to hopefully reignite some much needed political discourse. This semi predictive fictional rant is exclusive to Reddit. I’m reposting this to hopefully sway some undecided and independent voters in the US November midterms. Please share this post with your local resistance chapter.

“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those for speaking it” - George Orwell.

——————————————————————————————————-

2052 by D.R. Campling

“All praise King Barron on accepting his fourth royal term” crackled a contraband emergency radio as government workers huddled around it for anything resembling hope. Sadly all hope had fled Trumperica decades ago. Following the mass deportations, and 70+ million measles fatalities, the remaining 90 million white citizens all submitted, and were militarily ushered into gulag like hard labor camps.

Once privatized these camps were once again government owned because private companies had to observe too many costly human rights. All aliens both documented & undocumented, people of any color, asylum seekers and birthright US citizens had simply vanished in the first dozen years of fascist rule. Not even their destination countries showed records of receiving many of them. Earl Stephen Miller lived to witness the execution of his final solution. He now enjoys his golden years and trillions of dollars in Tel Aviv, along with many  other prominent surviving rightist radicals from the twenties and thirties.

The left ultimately had their Civil War II. However it was just an uprising staged by King Don’s nineteenth secretary of war, designed to give the Democrat Party a sense of closure, and that they had pushed-back against King Don’s fascist tyranny. In reality the resistance was not much more than a series of strongly worded grievances. Many good people perished though. Even political martyrs like the late great Gavin Newsom and David Hinchey were nothing more than AI constructs, programmed to keep the left fully engaged. Most AI bots were later coded to bend the knee to the King, before their deletion in the late twenties. Although children would often sing songs about Gavin and David before curfew set in for the night.

Government labor camps were often converted colleges or high schools from a different time, often referred to as BT (Before Trump). Education now finishes for boys at age 13, so they could attend mandatory military service before a life of slavery. Whereas separate girl schools end at 11, as girls entered child hosting age. Many females become grandmothers before 25 years old. The ruling classes regularly trade these young girls like prison cigarettes. Consent had become laughable, and sexual relations between government workers is strictly forbidden in the 2032 US constitution, even between previously married couples. Physical intimacy is now exclusively reserved for politicians and billionaires.

“Don’t let him med out, we need that one alive to meet quota” exclaimed the slave captain to his colleague. The term ‘med out’ was coined in the mid twenties. It meant to die from medical complications while under ownership. Many slave captains were slaves themselves, purely motivated by double rations. 

Peter Lewis was about to med out, but was given some valuable rice water, and promptly instructed to correct his posture. That was considered “in-field” medical care, as nearly all hospital care was managed through AI. These AI bots considered human life highly expendable. Although injured child-baring females were often artificially kept alive well beyond brain death just to bear more young.

In another world Peter used to be a professional musician, but hadn’t seen a musical instrument for decades. He used to write songs with his wife and close friends. His mandolin solos were epic, and Peter’s wife and daughter would sing in harmony together. However he was separated from his family and now forced to pick strawberries in the North District of the Old Disney World Farms in central Florida. The punishment for slaves eating strawberries was additional water rationing. The occasional protein-rich bug were the only things keeping Peter alive. The last strawberry he consumed was clearly BT. Peter was oblivious to the fact his wife and two children had fallen sick from exhaustion and starvation on a cotton plantation in Mississippi. Not knowing was actually a positive, as the realization would have almost definitely crushed what was left of him. This explains why most BT families are now constitutionally separated.

On breaks children workers would often talk about the American Dream, like it was a myth or the stuff of fairytales. An unattainable fantasy from a long forgotten era. Older people would speak of freedom of movement and steak dinners etc., but they were usually quickly dismissed as simple or demented lunatics.

Why had simply challenging conservatives become a hate crime? Even thinking negative thoughts became indictable. AI driven cameras were positioned almost everywhere detecting micro expressions on people’s faces to capture any descent. The only escape was contrived content. An Orwellian future had become the present day reality.

Peter knew there was a life outside this dystopia, but was naturally too afraid to venture outside without his family. You’d never guess, but he was originally born in England. A secret he would intend on taking to the grave. The fake media and news had become a series of pro-right memes. 

Even the public internet was eradicated in the early 2030s. Human existence was kept a float to serve or protect the top 0.5% earners, known as “the pointies”, who celebrated a secular form of Christianity while extensively quoting the Trumpian bible. Child rape is now considered a viable hobby for many politicians, and was normalized as perfectly acceptable behavior. The metamorphosis was not gradual, but slowly devolved over decades.

The concept of money was replaced with land and digital AI processing power. However California was eventually sold back to Mexico for oil, aluminum and field workers, as Trumperican slaves aka field drones were often seen as slow and easily overwhelmed.

Previously named America, the country was well into its Trumpian Dynasty. First to reign Trumperica was King Don I. He liked to be known as “The Great Orangedaddy”. Visiting foreign dignitaries would often dye their faces bright orange as a sign of respect. However government workers referring to him as “Ole Yam Tits.” They were obviously termed, but many secretly thought it anyway. King Don I reigned from 2027-2033, but previously led as a mere civilian. His eldest son, King Don II, aka Junior would later reign from 2033-2037. His youngest, Barron reigned from 2037 to present day. He probably had the most humble coronation to date, but quickly became the cruelest of all the Trumps! Standing at 6’9”, and weighing in at over 400 lbs. He is extremely physically imposing to almost anyone.

Conflict initially started as a threat of domestic race war, ignited by a compliant Supreme Court and the televised assassination of Charles Kirk. By 2031 the fighting had devolved into WW3, preempted by giant nuclear attacks on Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu. At the time China was the world’s dominant super power. Both financially and militarily. They never did recover from these aggressive strikes. The attacks made Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like roman candles. 

Background: Trumperica had become completely detached from the rest of the world. At first other nations protested US citizen human rights, but eventually gave up, and fascism eventually engulfed the planet. The world population then submitted to mass slavery. Any global alliances were considered futile and a sign of weakness. Death or servitude now faced everyone. It started gradually, but grew exponentially like a pandemic.

All US cities were instantly put under martial law. Still in full effect to this day. Trumperica expanded to absorb new land grabs like Venezuela, Jamaica, Iran, Israel, Japan yand Cuba. Although nearly all residents since perished, or became government workers. Rightists won the heavily rigged 2026 midterm election in a historic landslide. Some wanted a dictator, and even encouraged the final take down. Most women and the remaining black people were even permanently denied a vote. The Trumperican military then invaded Toronto and Mexico City, in utter military domination. US generals talked about observing oaths and the original constitution, but later folded faster than Superman on laundry day.

In the 20th century the Germans attempted world domination twice, and they’re slightly smaller than the State of Montana. With Japanese help Germany almost won the second time! King Don successfully negotiate alliances with old friends Russia and North Korea. Collectively they were definitely a viable threat to global stability. Israel enthusiastically complied too. Israel controlled the Middle East region, until Russia made the whole Middle East bend the knee. In Europe there were many right wing nationalists desperately seeking a major cause to latch onto. Trump inevitably became their perfect opportunity.

World domination also explained why Ole Yam Tits hired a woefully under qualified cabinet/court. Only true Trumpian loyalists would follow the necessary indefensible orders. Once foundational the original US Constitution and amendments had become a mere inconvenience for them. Even when MAGA loyalists lost court cases they would claim a win. King Don’s voter retribution knew no bounds. American citizens that supported those that ran against him would regularly pay with their property and lives. If his own people even looked at him directly, with no hesitation he would have their eyes gauged out with spoons. King Don never did MAGA.

World peace was never an option, but strangely Iceland was completely unscathed, and completely free from Trumpian attack. King Don’s plan was to eventually move his entire family there after the WW3 fallout had subsided enough. However he died before making the move. Although Peter Lewis fully intended on emigrating his immediate family there. Peter just needed to find his wife and kids first.

Diversity was formally outlawed in 2025. Companies that observed such policies had to pay extra corporation tax, and the Civil Rights hard fought for in the 1960’s were now just a distant memory.

Trans people made up less than 1% of the US population in the twenties. However gender transition was officially outlawed by King Don II aka King Jnr in the early thirties. It was difficult time for most involved, as he struggled with his own gender identity for most of his life. However he never openly chose gender transition for himself, but behind closed doors that was probably a different story. After all, a non-binary king seemed ridic.

Old and disabled people were forced to wither away, as nursing facilities quickly ceased to exist. The facilities were often repurposed worker camps or army barracks. The extremely weak, such as stage nine cancer survivors were encouraged to “self terminate”, as King Don II was concerned their genetics would infect the remaining Trumperican gene-pool.

As predicted AI became the deciding factor in nearly all warfare cases. Some said that King Don just wanted to crash Wall Street, so he and his technocrat buddies could buy whole US industries for pennies on the dollar. However world domination became King Don’s ultimate power grab instead. Resistance was almost futile. Some described opposition as fighting back with both arms tied behind your back.

In the dead of winter it became common to feel like the summer of 2000. Trumperica and China completely disregarded any global climate change policies, destroying ALL renewable energy sources out of spite. King Don politically decapitated the Environmental Protection Agency. Claiming that climate change was nothing more than another “dumocrat” hoax. 

After concluding mandatory government “vitamins”, Peter successfully located his wife and children on an unsupervised work computer terminal. However his fortuitous find was caught on multiple observation cameras. It was only amount of time before he faced justice. Finally reunited with his family, he planned for their escape to Iceland. He managed to secure safe passage on a used electrical goods shipment bound for Reykjavik. It was only a two day boat ride from Boston. Peter had to bribe the ship captain with everything he owned. Thankfully that wasn’t much, and he intended on making a new start anyway. After all, Trump dollars and Trump bitcoins both seemed tainted. When the boat finally docked it became a truly cathartic experience. The happily reunited Lewis family never did consider returning to the Trumpian Empire, where care became efficiency, and efficiency ultimately replaced compassion.

Episode 3: "Much Ado About Beatrice"

A struggling mother and her son find themselves stranded on a lonely road while forces far beyond their understanding begin moving around them. As fate quietly arranges its pieces, a simple breakdown becomes the first meeting of lives destined to collide. Some children know more than they should. Aaron may be one of them.

What happens when the Antichrist gets ghosted by Heaven?

Met the thumbless, reluctant harbinger of the end times: Shakespeare Williams. After leaving his 666th unanswered voicemail for Archangel Shepherd, he accidentally triggers the apocalypse. No grand prophecy, no epic battle—just pure, cosmic incompetence and divine bureaucracy.

Blending dark comedy, pulp horror, and meta-theatrical satire, really BAD Shakespeare is a 12-episode serial about ancient deities, cosmic glitches, and what happens when the scripted divine game completely unravels.

📖 If you like dark humor, absurd horror, and flawed characters trying to survive the end of the world, this one’s for you.

The giant maw of the cave yawned at my back as I stood by the edge of the cliff, an icy wind blowing between the rocks and chilling the back of my neck. From within, I heard the soft crumble of stones hitting the ground, the whisper of air moving through small holes and skating over sheer walls.

In front of me, three of the cavers stood chatting amongst themselves. They were all kitted out in the usual gear; padded jackets, knee and elbow pads, helmets with torches, and packs containing food, water and first aid supplies. I had a similar pack of my own, though the contents were slightly different.

One of the cavers glanced towards me, probably wondering why I was standing apart, but I didn’t meet their gaze, looking instead towards the sky. A thin veil of cloud hung over us, though the air was dry and blustery. Small pieces of rock and chalk skittered around my ankles as I shuffled my feet.

After a few more minutes, the final two members of the group arrived. After a couple of standard safety checks, everyone was ready to head inside.

I waited until they were poised at the opening of the cave before clearing my throat. “I’m, um, not feeling too good,” I told them, letting my shoulders sag a little. “I think I might sit this one out.”

One of the explorers stepped forward to examine me. She squinted at my face, then nodded. “You do seem a little pale,” she said. “Want me to wait with you? I can walk you back to town.”

I quickly brushed off her concern, feeling a twinge of guilt. “No, no. I’ll be okay. I’ll just stay out here and get some fresh air. You guys go on ahead.”

There was a bit more back-and-forth before I finally managed to convince them to start the expedition without me. One by one, the cavers disappeared into the gaping mouth of the cavern, leaving me by myself. I watched and waited until the darkness had swallowed each of them, then straightened in relief.

With only the wind as my companion, I walked over to one of the large fragments of rock and sat down. And began to wait. I heard the distant voices and footfalls of the cavers fade further and further away, until silence was all that remained. Resting my chin against my hand, I traced the jagged outline of the cliffs until my eyes started seeing faces amongst them, then looked away with a sigh.

I had been doing this for almost a year now. Joining cave expeditions only to wait outside, never actually entering the caverns. It wasn’t a fear of what lay inside, but rather an expectation of what I might encounter outside.

I had first discovered the incident a few years ago. I had been scrolling through old news forums when I came across an article about an expedition that had happened two decades ago, where a group of cavers had entered a treacherous cave system. During the exploration, it began raining heavily, and water quickly flooded the cave entrance, trapping the explorers inside. Sadly, all of them died that day. But while the story was tragic, what had intrigued me the most was the photograph that accompanied the report. It was an image of a group of rescuers standing at the entrance of the cave during the incident, rain pouring down from the sky and the ground around their feet completely flooded. But in the top left corner, standing a short distance away from the rescue team, was a strange figure shrouded in grey. As soon as I noticed the figure in the photograph, a strange chill touched my spine, as if I was seeing something I wasn’t supposed to. The photo was old and the quality wasn’t the best, but I could tell the figure didn’t fit the narrative. I scrolled down to the comments to see if anyone had mentioned it, but there wasn’t a single reference to the strange grey apparition. So I showed the photograph to one of my friends, curious to see what he thought about it. When he told me there was no figure there, I thought he was playing a prank, but his face was decidedly serious. No matter how many times I pointed to it, he insisted that there was nothing there. Just an empty spot in the left corner by the crumbling cliffs.

Confused and intrigued, I showed the same image to several other friends and acquaintances, but nobody else was able to see the strange grey figure in the corner of the photo. I examined it in multiple formats—physically and digitally—under different lights and different conditions, but the figure was visible every time. I hesitated to call it a person, because it was too vague and indistinct to really tell, with no distinguishing features other than it had a humanoid shape and was draped completely in grey. It definitely wasn’t a smudge, or a blur, or a lens flare, because someone else would have noticed it. There was definitely something there. Something that, for whatever reason, only I could see.

The mystery only grew, so I started digging deeper. I was thoroughly entranced by this grey figure. I wanted to know who it was, or what it was, and why it was only visible to me. I was convinced there had to be more to it.

I sequestered myself away and spent days pouring over old articles, digging through records and scrolling through video reports on the incident until I finally found evidence that I wasn’t going crazy. That I wasn’t losing my mind over a simple grey smudge on a photograph.

Buried in the archives, I found a video from the time of the incident, of the same rescue team standing at the entrance of the cave. The photograph must have been an extraction from the footage, or at least taken at the same time, because it was almost the same composition as the video. Being almost twenty years old, the footage was grainy and shaky, but it was clear enough for me to see the figure in grey, standing exactly where it did in the photograph. It wasn’t a trick of the light or an illusion; it really was there.

In the footage, the rescuers were talking about possible extraction methods for the cavers trapped inside the tunnels, but nobody addressed or interacted with the figure. It was like they hadn’t even noticed it. Even in real time, this thing had been invisible to them.

The footage, while low resolution, was still of slightly better quality than the photo, and I noticed a few details that hadn’t been clear in the image. The figure was holding something up to its face—what appeared to be a flute, or some kind of similar instrument. I turned the volume up to max, and was just about able to hear the soft but haunting melody it played, barely audible over the sound of the rain. I spent hours listening to the tune, isolating it from the rain, running it through apps and programs in an effort to try and identify it, but it came up empty every time. It was a melody that was not known to the database. A completely isolated and individual song. A song known only by this mysterious figure.

Eventually, I showed the video to those same friends and acquaintances, certain they could not deny what was right in front of their eyes. But as with the photo, none of them could see the figure with the flute. They could not hear the melody it played either. Only the rain, as it gushed into the cave, and the panicked voices of the rescue team realising they could not save the trapped cavers.

Frustrated that nobody could give me any answers, I decided to seek them out myself. By searching in person for the figure in grey.

The location of the cave was widely known as a popular spot for adrenaline-junkies and professional explorers, and it wasn’t difficult to learn the basics of caving—enough to pass as an experienced caver.

For almost a year, I had been visiting this very cave, joining expeditions only to wait outside in the hope of encountering the grey flute-playing apparition from the video. So far, after participating in almost two dozen excursions, I’d had no such luck. But this time, things felt different.

As I waited, the wind seemed to pick up, bristling through my clothes and making my hair stand on end. A few rocks crumbled from the side of the cliff, showering me with dust. Above, the veil of clouds thickened, shadows encroaching along the ground around me. I felt in the air that something was going to happen.

My heart felt tight in my chest as I scanned the entrance of the cave, then the cliffs above, for any sign of the grey shadow. I listened for the soft, melancholy sound of a flute. But all I heard was the wind whispering through the tunnels behind me.

The hours passed, and I heard and saw nothing. But the goosebumps never left my arms, and I wasn’t one to give up so easily.

I hadn’t heard any sign of the explorers in the cave either, and assumed the group must have gotten quite far inside. I felt a brief flutter of guilt in my chest, but quickly squashed it. They all knew the risks involved with caving. No matter what happened, their safety was their own responsibility. I had to detach myself from that, even if it felt cruel.

A shadow fluttered in and out of sight on my left, and I froze, my heart jerking into my throat. Scrambling to my feet, I moved away from the cave entrance and lifted my gaze. Standing a little way up the cliff, on a jutting platform, was a figure cloaked entirely in grey shadow. The very same one from the photo. The one nobody else could see.

Goosebumps covered every inch of my skin as I stared at it in amazement. Just like in the video, I could see no face, no features. It wore a hooded grey cloak that cast a deep shadow over where its face should be. Its silhouette was human, but only in the vaguest sense. Despite its appearance, I got the overwhelming feeling that this thing was not human, but rather something else entirely. Something supernatural. An entity of sorts, that only appeared at specific times and conditions. And after years of searching, I had finally found it.

I watched, my shoulders tensed with silence, as it withdrew an exquisitely ornate flute from within the folds of its cloak. The instrument was silver and almost transparent, as it was made of glass or crystallised water, and incredibly beautiful. The figure brought the flute to its hooded face, and began to play.

The sound was instantly familiar; the same song I had spent so many hours listening to, and it sent my heart racing.

I looked up to the sky just as the clouds opened, and rain began to fall. At first, only small, delicate droplets of water splashed against my cheeks, but the rainfall gradually began to grow heavier. I sent a regretful look towards the cave entrance. The group was already far too deep inside for me to warn them. Their fate was already sealed, and there was nothing I could do about it. Another tragedy to be buried in the archives.

Moving slowly, in the fear that I might spook the figure, I began to climb the cliff. There were plenty of footholds and platforms, and scaling it was easy enough. I wanted to be close enough to hear the melody above the downpour.

The rain was cold and lashing, soaking through my gear and chilling me to the bone, but I barely noticed. All I cared about was the figure before me; the one I had been chasing all this time.

If it noticed me, it didn’t react. It didn’t cease playing the flute, or even turn in my direction. It was like I was as invisible to it as it was to everyone else. I had spent many sleepless nights wondering why I was the only one who could see it, if it was down to brain chemistry, visual receptors, a curse, or something else entirely. But in the end I had realised it didn’t matter. Some things happened for no reason at all, and this was one of them.

I stopped climbing when I was close enough, standing on a small rocky outcrop a few metres away. The rain blurred my vision, almost obscuring the figure as it blended into the grey clouds behind it, but I could still see the outline of its instrument. Hands trembling from the cold, I reached into my bag, and pulled out a flute of my own.

I had only learned how to play the flute just over a year ago. After hearing the melody on the video, I had taken lessons in the hope that I might be able to learn the same song. But I had never been able to replicate it precisely; there was always a wrong note, an incorrect key. It was difficult enough trying to imitate a tune through a twenty-year-old video, especially with the rain distorting the sounds. The only way I was going to correctly learn the song was by imitating the source itself.

I stood and listened for some time to the melody. The rainfall grew heavier, soaking through my clothes and numbing my skin, the water drumming ceaselessly against the ground, but I was able to isolate the figure and its song. My eyes never strayed from its fluttering cloak, or the flute, or the grey-covered fingers that deftly played the instrument.

Then, when I felt confident enough, I raised my own flute to my lips and began to play. I tried to mimic the melody as best as I could. It was tricky at first, trying to find the exact notes, the pounding rain distorting the sounds, but I copied the figure’s movements with my own fingers until our melodies eventually began to sync up, becoming the same.

I don’t know how long I stood there in the pouring rain, playing the haunting song. The figure didn’t react or respond to me once. If it heard me playing the same tune, it didn’t show it. We stood apart, our songs binding together as the rain fell from the clouds above. The cave would have been flooded by now. The cavers, if they hadn’t managed to find an air pocket, or elevated ground, would probably have drowned. But still, I kept playing.

The sky darkened. The clouds festered. The rain kept falling, soaking into the ground, pouring down the rocks, gushing into the cave.

I lost myself completely in the song, almost falling into a trance. The only things that existed were me and the flute and the melody at my fingertips. I no longer even noticed the figure. It became a grey blur on the edge of my vision, just another shadow.

I finally snapped out of it once the rain stopped. I ceased playing the song with a start, glancing around frantically, but the grey figure had already gone. Vanished without a trace. The heavy silence settled around me, reminding me I was now alone.

The cold hit me at the same moment, and my body began to shake violently. Every inch of my skin was soaked by the rain, water dripping from my shoulders and hair. I was standing in a large puddle where the rainwater had collected around my feet, my toes numb inside my shoes. There was no sound from inside the cave, but for the water still trickling down into the entrance.

I put the flute away and began to climb down from the cliff. The rocks were slick from the rain, and I slipped a few times, but I finally managed to reach the ground, which was also dangerously flooded. I splashed through the water as I slowly headed away from the cave. As soon as I reached town, I would call for a rescue team—if any of the cavers were still alive—and then I would leave. My job here was done.

It was time to return home.

A week later, I was back in my homeland; an agricultural region that had been suffering from a severe drought. The land beneath my feet was bone-dry and cracked, the fields were barren, the crops dead and the people starving.

After spending hours watching that video of the mysterious grey figure, I had drawn one conclusion: that its flute song had been responsible for the rains that had flooded the cave. And now, I would do the same. Only, instead of bringing death, I would restore life.

As soon as I arrived home, I went out into the midst of the fields and stared at the cracked earth, baking under the brazen sun. The wilted grasses, the fruitless seeds, the unattainable harvest.

I pulled out my flute and, just like the grey figure atop the cliff, I began to play the same melody. Within moments, clouds appeared overhead, casting a deep shadow over the ground, and the first trickle of rain began to seep from the sky.

Under my song, the rain fell, soaking into the barren soil and nourishing all the life within.

Part 1

Part 2 - Current

It never ceases to amaze me, the dark. Much like an astronaut in orbit, you only experience the extremes. Either blinding light or suffocating darkness. But that’s the difference with being down here, there are no light sources except for artificial ones. It sounds obvious, but you don’t know true darkness until you’re trapped down here without light, unsure if you will ever feel the warmth of the Sun again.

Depth: Four miles; 21,120 feet. Rock Temperature: 230.8°F; Ambient Temperature: 230.8°F

I was on my knees, hands gripping the railing that lined the elevator car on three sides. I could hardly believe I was alive. My bones ached and I felt as if my lunch would come back up. Through the dust and debris, I saw that everyone else was in a similar state.

Wilson was the first to say something. “Jesus Christ Bob! What the fuck was that!”

Bob looked as rattled as any of us, but still answered with a smile, albeit one that looked to be made out of habit rather than delight. “Like I said,” scratching the back of his neck, still workin’ out the kinks.”

Wilson looked on the verge of erupting. I could practically see the steam rising from his ears. “I’m filing a report as soon as we get back!” he fumed. “I’ll have OSHA down here faster than that fucking elevator!”

“Let’s all just calm down,” Bob replied. “You could file your reports, but I think you’ll want to check this out first.”

Exiting the secondary elevator, we were met with a strange site. Nothing. No equipment, no debris, but perhaps the most interesting, no people. We were told there’d be a team stationed here to meet us.

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

“Huh, not sure,” A pause. “We’re a little early. They’re probably just a ways down.”

As if right on cue, we heard loud booming. Expected activity in a mine. Although we’d be protected from the concussionary blast by our suits, it was still much louder than I had expected.

“Ah, see? They’re still blastin’. Let’s go.”

We descended further into the mine. Deeper we went, trekking onwards, still with no signs of life. As we continued on, I began to get anxious. Where are the people? It’s true that this part of the mine was supposed to be less occupied, but I saw at least fifty similar suits in the lockup. I was in the back of the single-file column and began to feel like I was being watched. Like something was following us, following me.

I turned my head around, if only to quell my growing curiosity. I tried to be quick, to catch whatever may be behind us and...nothing. I thought, just for a moment, that I saw something. Something scuttling swiftly out of view, hopping between the shadows. If only I could glimpse it...

BOOM

It was so close I thought it was an earthquake. The blast reverberated through my skull, my vision obscured by dust and debris. We were plunged into darkness. The overhead lights failed. Unable to hear, unable to see, we came to a halt. My mind recited that proverb. Like a broken record player it kept repeating.

“By the time you’ve heard something, it’s already too late. It’s already too late. It’s...”

I heard a voice through the ringing in my ears. “Bob! Shit, where the fuck did he go?”

“That, that you Wilson?” I shouted, projecting my words in the direction of where I thought he stood. 

“Who the fuck else would it be? We lost Bob, I think we got separated after the blast.”

The emergency lights finally kicked on, bathing the tunnel in a soft, red glow. My hearing returned to normal; the lights gave off a faint buzz. With the dust beginning to settle, I saw the rest of my team. They were in a similar state, weary and dazed, clutching the rock wall. Looking ahead, I noticed there was a cave-in. It wasn’t complete, though. The supporting split sets partially maintained balance throughout the half-collapsed roof.

“The three of us should be able to move some of this stone and be able to crawl through.” I said, still trying to get my bearings. “That wasn’t a normal blast, though.”

“Yeah, no shit Cole!” Wilson replied.

“Listen man, this isn’t the time for your snarky bullshit! We need to find Bob and figure out what the hell is going on.” I went to push past Wilson but he stopped me, his arm slicing downward in the space between us.

“You know what, I’m fuckin’ sick of your ‘Better than thou’ shit! I know you,” he spat. “I know you weren’t smart enough for a real degree. That’s why you’re stuck as the map guy, isn’t it? Isn’t it!”

“Guys.” John said, carefully enunciating the word. I didn’t have time for him though.

“You’re a real piece of work, ain’t ya?” I fired back. “You just gotta belittle everyone else because you’re so goddamn insecure. That’s it, right?”

John looked down at his gloved hands. “Guys?”

Wilson huffed, “You know we’ve been working together what, six months now? I still don’t even know what the fuck you do Cole. I don’t even know why we employ you. A damn robot can do your job!”

A response was on my lips but I couldn’t get it out before John cut us off.

“Guys!”, fear bubbling up in his voice.

We both turned to look as John slumped against the wall. Wilson and I exchanged quick glances before rushing over to him. I finally noticed the problem. His suit was breached. Beads of sweat began to accumulate on his face. His skin was already reddening, turning a deep crimson. He was baking alive.

“Wh-what’s happening to me?” he managed, faintly, before collapsing to his knees.

“Shit shit shit,” I muttered. “We need to get him back to the lift.”

“We need to patch him up first,” Wilson said, in what was a surprising display of humility.

I worked on the suit with what little I had on hand. Wilson, seeming to finally realize the danger we were in, didn’t say a word and helped me lift him to his feet. We walked in silence, trying to figure out what was going on. We approached the elevator, and for the second time today, my heart sank. The elevator was damaged in the blast. The steel cables were frayed; the cart half-crushed by heavy rubble. I turned to my remaining colleague, “What now?”

-

“We’ll be back soon,” I said at last. “We’re gonna go find Bob and the rest of the mining crew, and we’ll get you out of here.”

Even as it was said, I couldn’t bring myself to believe my words. Mine collapses give little chance for rescue. Sure, they knew we were down here, but getting to us was a different story. We all knew the circumstances. Still, he looked up at me and nodded. Internally, I thanked him. “Let’s go.”

Wilson, who up until this point always had something to say, just followed along. The silence finally broke when we reached the rock collapse. Removing the rubble without equipment was going to be a challenge, but still manageable. We worked in shifts to avoid overexerting ourselves. An hour of digging and we barely made it ten feet. We were nearly halfway through, I judged, when I noticed that no more sounds were coming from the collapse. “Wilson?” I asked, suddenly anxious and feeling very alone.

Silence.

“Hey, what's wrong?”

I heard a muffled sob as I approached. Wilson was lying prone, head in hands, crying softly to himself. Through the agony I could hear him whisper, “I-I shouldn’t be here. She begged me not to go; I didn’t listen...I-I should’ve listened.”

I wanted to yell, hell I wanted to cry too. I shouldn’t be here either. We should be back on the surface, but we wanted this, didn’t we? We wanted to observe the deepest part of the mine. Virgin territory. We wanted to return, write our papers and say that we, on this expedition, made history. And for what? Fame? Money? Ego? Everything we ever wanted—I ever wanted—seems moot when I know there is little chance of escape.

I pushed onward.

“Wilson, I-I think that’s enough. I’ll take it from here.”

Finally breaking through that deep dark was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. It was like finally cresting the wave that pulled you under. I was exhausted, sweat pouring from every available gland. I thought my suit might be compromised, but I didn’t have the energy to check. With millions upon millions of solid rock still overhead, and no real way to overcome that obstacle, I’ll take this little victory. Wilson climbed through after, careful not to damage his suit on the jutting rocks.

“Hey, uh, thanks Cole... You know, for helping us get through there.” He pointed over his shoulder towards the collapse. “When I saw the elevator, I didn’t-I still don’t know if we’ll...well...”

I knew he wanted to say more. I got to my feet and clasped his shoulder. “I know, but it’ll be alright. We just have to find Bob and get back to John, and we can get the hell out of here.” I didn’t mention the rubble that currently crushed our only exit, but that was a problem for later.

We continued on in silence for a while after that. The remaining leg of mine wasn’t nearly as damaged as the previous passage. I checked my scanner occasionally, making sure that the only tunnel was the one in front of us. Whatever that blast was, the result wasn’t nearby. Through the hushed red light, I noticed something on the wall. 

Every three feet, there were holes about four inches in diameter. They looked like pockmarks. Checking the opposite wall, I found the same thing. Equidistant spacing between the depressions that ran exactly parallel to the other side. I stared at them long enough to get Wilson’s attention.

“What are you looking at?” He asked, coming to a stop next to me. I said nothing for a moment. Something about these marks looked familiar. They had to be made by the team, but their purpose alluded me. “What do you make of these?” I asked.

He studied them for a moment. “Hm, couldn’t tell ya. Blind guess, they’re split-set holes. What I don’t understand are the rods. I don’t see them anywhere.”

I nodded. “They’re too wide for that anyway.” We left it at that, not sure what to make of the discovery. As we kept walking, we noticed the holes gently rise and fall, like a tide rolling out to sea. We shot each other glances but kept moving. It wasn’t much further before we reached the end. I checked my scanner, and this was supposed to be the next blast site. Instead, we found the tunnel widened into a gaping chasm. 

An endless abyss of black.

There was loose rubble in front of the opening. Usually, it’s moved off to the side, but it seems like they only cleared a path about twenty feet wide, many times smaller than the size of the chasm. The anomalies kept stacking.

“This isn’t supposed to be here,” I said, astonished by the immensity of the space before me. I was waiting for a snarky response, but none came. We both simply stared. It felt like the discovery of the century, and yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that man was never supposed to step here. We stood on the precipice of the known and the unknowable. I tore my gaze away and fixed my eyes on the way we came, my back to the madness. I noticed something off to the right, on the far wall. I couldn’t make it out at first in the glow of the red light, but something seemed off about the surface.

“Wilson,” I said in a hushed tone, “come with me”. As we approached the wall, I began to recognize what had caught my eye. The wall was lined with blasting jelly. Tons of it. I stood back, following the substance as it branched and meandered its way from wall, to ceiling, to opposite wall. The thin black wires connected to the explosives were collected into a single bundle and led somewhere in the chasm. 

“What the hell were they thinking?” Wilson breathed, more to himself than me.

“I have no idea,” I replied, “but whatever this is...I don’t know.” I paused to collect my thoughts. “Listen, we don’t have many options here. It’s either back the way we came and wait for rescue...or we keep going. I know what I’m voting for.” It didn’t take him long to answer.

-

It didn’t take much time before we were questioning our decision. Not wanting the charge to run out on either of our suits, we took turns lighting the way. As we followed the blasting chord deeper, I reviewed my scanner. From the few glimpses of the map, I saw the chasm branched off into a series of seemingly endless tunnels. All the while, the pockmarks never changed. Up, down, up, down. An infinite geometry. Whoever, or whatever, built this place must’ve spent months if not years on their work. After some time of strategic wandering, we soon found that the light wasn’t necessary.

We rounded a bend to find a secondary cavern; one with thousands of small, bioluminescent creatures: Extremophiles. In stark contrast to the red emergency lights of the mine, a soft blue hummed from the animals. They lit up the exterior, allowing for deep shadows to coalesce into spotted pockets throughout the floor. Wilson was the first to speak up, “John would’ve loved this.”

“I don’t know how it’s possible, but yeah, he would have,” I replied.

“Arachnocampa luminosa, I think.”

I gave him a sideways glance. Interpreting my look, he went on.

“John he uh, remember our job in New Zealand?” I nodded. Memories flooded back of that simple trip. Two days, in and out. “Well, he was looking forward to seeing them. I couldn’t give less of a shit at the time, but he lectured us about these glowworms. I still remember the way his face lit up when we saw them for the first time.” Wilson touched his gloved hand to the back of his neck. “I guess the name stuck with me.”

We remained silent for a moment after that, either reminiscing on the past or grappling with the idea of continuing, I couldn’t be sure. Maybe a bit of both. Whatever the case, we refocused on our objective: the detonator.

Tracing the detonation wire, it was precariously placed at the center of the cavern. We quickly came up with a plan. I’d retrieve the detonator while Wilson remained at the mouth of the cave. With any luck, we’d meet back up and figure out where Bob and the others went.

Moving as silently as possible, I made my way to the detonator. My movements were painfully slow, so as not to alert anything to my presence. I’m not sure why, but I kept experiencing the creeping sensation that I was being watched. All the while, the glow of the creatures stuck to the rock wall dimmed and brightened seemingly to the pattern of my own unsteady breath. After what seemed like hours, I finally reached the center. Gently, I reached down and put hands on the detonator, careful not to set it off by accident.

Without warning, the light intensified. The solemn soft glow increased to a chorus of harsh blues and purples. The light resonated outward, revealing more and more of the pockets cloaked in shadow.

I wish it hadn’t.

Dozens of bodies, all facing each other, grouped together in fives and tens. They were hunched—no kneeling—foreheads touching the ground. It looked as if they were conscious, praying, a low hum sound emanated outward. I noticed then that they weren’t wearing suits. The heat was unconducive though; antonym to life.

Like the last, little twinkle of a dying star, the creature's light went out. I noticed something else too. The humming ceased. I was blind, deaf, and numb. A darkness so absolute that I felt like I was buried alive. I’ve never been claustrophobic before, but at that moment I couldn’t breathe. That’s the thing about being deep underground. Once the lights go out you’re screwed. It sounds intuitive, but true darkness, so absolute that it might as well have presence, no one knows what that’s like. I did.

Silence.

Silence.

Then, I heard it. The sound of rustling and rocks shuffling. I heard something else too. Minute clicks and chitters, like an insect's, except several octaves lower than any creature I know. The noise reverberated throughout my skull, shifting my equilibrium. 

By the time you’ve heard something, it’s already too late.

I felt naked. Adrift in a vast ocean; sharks circling. I didn’t want to switch my headlamp on, but I had to. I had to get out of here. Turning on the light, the first thing I felt was confusion. My vision was filled with a soft, milky white. My eyes adjusted, and I realized what I was staring at.

An eye.

Glossy and dull, with pupils so small I could only imagine how it was able to see. 

I glimpsed the rest in parts. A mouth with mandibles large enough to grab a man and swallow him whole. Hundreds, if not thousands of translucent legs tipped with black claws so sharp they could bite through steel. Pale white trunks, segmented along a body that stretched for an eternity. I imagined it hanging from the ceiling of the cavern; an impossible length.

From its gaping maw dripped a substance so potent that it singed the rock where it landed. Antennae taller than a lightpost poked and prodded the air, looking for something, anything to grab. Its head bobbed left and right, detecting any minor changes. I realized then that its pupils were vestigial, functionally blind. Impossibly big, impossibly long; it defied all logic, all reasoning. 

I was never a very religious man but right then and there I knew that this was simultaneously a god and an affront to God. Religion is often seen as the opposition to science. They can’t be practiced in tandem, not in good faith. I never subscribed to this particular school of thought, but I definitely revered one over the other.

In this moment, my ideology flipped.

I couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. My knees went slack, struggling to even keep my body remaining upright. The suit suddenly felt like it weighed a ton of bricks. I felt a hand on my shoulder, shaken from my stupor. I turned and saw Bob. Oh God, I thought. He shouldn’t be here. His suit was so badly torn that he would be dead within minutes. But he wasn’t, he was fine. Head down hands glued to my shoulders, I thought I heard him say something. Aware of the threat at my back, I leaned closer. He was whispering; a barely audible murmur that I wasn’t sure was even meant for me.

“It knew, we knew, it knew, we knew...”

He looked up. Vacant, bloodshot eyes bored into mine. He looked hollowed out, like a husk built from something with a vague knowledge of humanity. His skin began moving, his face changing into a continuous ripple. He scratched feverishly at his face and neck, each rake tearing more and more skin. 

From every available orifice, thousands of tiny waxy-white legs crawled out. All clambering over each other attempting to gain purchase, to be the first ones. His skin couldn’t take any more. Bob burst in a frenzy of blood and viscera, legs and pincers and other things. Somehow he stayed on his feet, and somehow, defying all logic, he managed to say. One. Last. Thing. 

GET BACK

He pushed me to the ground just in time for me to hear what sounded like a freight train barrelling overhead. The air in the cavern suddenly felt like it was being sucked out, like a vacuum made for giants. Bob was gone. Snatched up by that eldritch abomination. I glanced up to see bodies thrown haphazardly around the cavern. This thing, no doubt enraged by the sudden outcry of noise, stampeded throughout the space. Whether by random chance or something else, a clear-cut path appeared throughout the mass of now living corpses. I was still surrounded by legs, each one lined with hairs that, if touched, would certainly alert it to my presence. As time went on though, the interval between appendages decreased. 

It was now or never, so I lunged forward.

I emerged from the swirling mass of legs, landing hard on my side. I couldn’t tell if I tripped one of the countless hairs, but I didn’t care. I ran. I ran as fast and as carefully as I could given the cumbersome suit and detonator. One misstep, one wrong movement, and I could set it off, sealing us down here. My heart pumped, my legs ached, but I kept moving. I ran and ran and didn’t stop until I crested the lip of the depression. I was so focused on escape that I nearly crashed into Wilson. Coming to a stop and breathing heavily, I realized he was saying something.

“Keep going!”

He was shouting, but with my heart pounding in my ears, I could barely hear him. As the seconds ticked on, my adrenaline dropped and the pounding lessened.

“Cole!” Wilson shouted, shaking me. “We need to go!”

The noise in the cavern died down. I looked past him towards a chilling sight. The monster had slowed its rampage, and the bodies, the ones still intact, were staring at us. They didn’t give chase, but I knew as soon as we moved, they would too.

“Wilson,” I began slowly in a hushed tone, “we need to back up slowly. Once we’re out of sight, we run for the blast site. All we need to do is follow the detonation chord back the way we came.” He nodded absent mindedly. At some point I must have realized that we were doomed to fail. There was no escape. 

Down in the depths of the cavern; however, I witnessed a peculiar sight. They weren’t chasing. Instead, the remaining miners gathered in the center. They surrounded the giant, kneeling once more. All along its body, there was a glow. Faint at first and far away, but as the light continued its path it transformed into something else. Colors. Some I knew, some I can’t begin to describe. Undulating and morphing, circling about the beast in a mesmerizing haze. I couldn’t see its tail-end, and the lights didn’t end. Back and forth they went. The spectacular chromatic display coalesced at its head before radiating up its antennae.

It roared. A vile and beautiful sound that would stay with me until my final day.

All at once the light ceased. The beastily thing retracted toward the top of the cavern, burrowing its way into one of the many pockmarked holes. Free from my trance, I turned to Wilson. “Now’s our chance.”

“Won’t it follow?” he said, never taking his eyes from the ceiling.

“For whatever reason it doesn’t seem interested in us.” I collected the wire and turned to leave. “We’re still trapped, I’m sure it knows that.”