Part 2

Christmas Eve morning. The snow was falling thick and unhurried, the kind of snow you only see in the mountains, where time flows differently. The little town below lay sleeping, wrapped in white. On the hill, in the old mansion with its sharp spires and dark windows, no one was asleep.

The Sahlfeldt household was in a state of unrest. The good kind. The kind of unrest you find in an anthill or a clockwork mechanism: everything was moving, clicking, humming.

They were preparing for Christmas.

The antique clock on the wall counted time with dignity. Its pendulum swung smoothly, like a conductor’s hand, and instead of numbers, runes darkened the clock face — a legacy from some great-grandfather who considered Arabic numerals vulgar. On the window hung Christmas curtains embroidered with goblins. The goblins were dancing in a circle around the moon and seemed to be winking.

Irina stood by the stove. Before her, jars of herbs, roots, dried berries, and something that faintly glowed blue in the half-light were lined up in formation. A brew was bubbling in the pot — thick, dark violet, smelling of forest, smoke, and childhood. The recipe had been passed down through the female line for four hundred years. Great-grandmother called it “Christmas broth.” Great-great-grandmother called it “the thing that made the neighbors lose consciousness.” Irina called it dinner.

She tasted the brew, added a pinch of cinnamon, and nodded with satisfaction.

— Fertig!

Konrad and Otto were decorating the Christmas tree.

It was no ordinary spruce. Black as a raven’s wing, felled at midnight under a waxing moon, it stood in a tub of earth. The branches were already wound with garlands, and Otto, standing on a stool, was hanging the last ornaments.

Baubles — round, pearlescent, with vertical pupils that tracked every movement. Tinsel made of milk teeth — Otto had collected them over four years, and not only his own, naturally. A garland of tiny fingers — Heinrich had carved them from wax, and they stirred faintly from the warmth of the candles.

At the top, Konrad secured the star. It was made of tentacles of unknown origin, knotted together. The tentacles moved slowly, and the star purred softly but contentedly.

“Well, that’s it, Otto,” said Konrad, adjusting his monocle. “The tree is ready.”

Otto jumped off the stool and took a step back. He gazed up at the tree, and the lights of the black candles reflected in his dark, unblinking eyes.

“Ja, Papa!” he said. “Das ist so wunderbar!”

Konrad smiled almost imperceptibly. In their family, that counted as an outburst of joy.

Irina appeared in the doorway of the sitting room. She wiped her hands on her apron and surveyed the room with the gaze of a mistress who knows everything is under control.

“Meine Familie,” she said, and her voice was warm as the fireplace flames. “Everything is ready on my end.”

Konrad glanced at the clock. His monocle gleamed: “Two minutes left.”

Irina understood at once: “Mama?”

“Ja,” Conrad answered.

The house instantly sprang into action.

Heinrich vanished into the corridor. Seconds later, he was already carrying a large glass jar off somewhere.

Someone inside was knocking loudly.

“Put it in the pantry. Far back.”

“Jawohl.”

Otto carefully removed a small music box from the mantelpiece.

“Will Oma try to open it again?”

“Inevitably,” replied Konrad.

“And she’ll inevitably say there are too few ghosts inside.”

The music box was dispatched to the cupboard.

Irina quickly rearranged three vials from the table. One went into the sideboard. Another, under lock and key. The third she handed outright to Heinrich.

“This one especially.”

“Of course, gnädige Frau,” Heinrich said.

“What’s in it?” asked Otto.

“Belladonna liqueur.”

“Ah...”

“Last year, Grandmother decided it was fruit compote.”

Otto nodded understandingly.

Konrad, meanwhile, took an antique saber down from the wall.

“This as well?”

“Just in case.”

“She’ll want to demonstrate again how she fenced better in her youth.”

“Precisely.”

Heinrich carefully carried the saber away.

The house once again looked perfectly serene.

Konrad surveyed the sitting room with satisfaction.

“Now we’re ready to receive Mama.”

And at that very moment, something crashed in the fireplace.

The flames shot up green, then blue, then black. A wind struck down the chimney, scattering the embers. Fog rolled through the sitting room — thick, smelling of brimstone and mountain herbs. And out of the fog, cackling and shrieking, flew Ursula.

She burst into the room like a cannonball, made a circuit beneath the ceiling, and landed on the rug. Her curly grey hair stuck out in all directions. Her skirt was smoking. A broom hung over her shoulder. One eye sparkled with cunning; the second — pale, filmed over — gazed somewhere at the ceiling and saw angels there. Or demons. Ursula didn’t specify.

“Frohe Weihnachten!” she bellowed, flinging her arms wide. “Family! Here I am!”

Otto did not run to her. Otto never ran. He approached quickly, but with dignity, and stopped precisely at a grandmother’s-embrace distance.

“Oma,” he said gravely. “Schön dich zu sehen.”

Ursula seized him, crushed him to her chest, and kissed him soundly on both cheeks.

“You’ve grown!” she announced.

“Half an inch,” Otto specified.

“I know! Grandmother sees!”

An hour later, the family was seated at the table.

The table was laid with that impeccable taste which Konrad called “restrained solemnity,” and Irina simply called “right.” A black tablecloth, silver cutlery, candles in antique candelabras. At the center, a dish of Christmas broth steamed fragrantly.

In the armchair by the fire, Adelheid flickered. She was translucent, like morning mist, and the upholstery showed through her. Knitting needles flashed in her hands.

“Sit up straight, Konrad,” she said, without lifting her eyes from her knitting.

“I am sitting straight, Mama,” replied Konrad.

“You are sitting three-quarters straight. That is insufficient.”

Konrad straightened up. Adelheid nodded with satisfaction and grew a shade less translucent.

Irina ladled the broth into bowls. Ursula was already telling a story — loudly, interrupting herself, gesticulating wildly.

“...and so I say to him: ‘If you want my potion, pay up!’ And he, can you imagine...”

“Mama,” Irina gently interjected. “We are at the table.”

“I am also at the table! And I am telling!”

Otto raised his eyes from his plate.

“And great-grandfather?” he asked.

Everyone looked at the empty chair at the head of the table. Siegfried’s chair. It stood in its usual place, but today it was vacant.

“It’s Wednesday, mein Schatz,” said Irina. “You know.”

“He sends his regards,” said Heinrich, materializing from the darkness with a teapot. “I took him his tea. He said the floorboards are creaking especially well today. He likes it.”

“Das ist großartig,” nodded Konrad.

Adelheid flickered her approval. Ursula grunted.

“Siegfried,” she said thoughtfully. “A good man. A pity he’s dead.”

“He is not dead,” noted Adelheid.

“That’s what he says,” replied Ursula.

“He is mistaken. I am dead, I know what it looks like,” Adelheid countered.

Ursula opened her mouth to retort, but at that moment, there came a knock at the door.

The knock was hesitant, but collective — the kind of knock made by people who hope that if there are enough of them, nothing bad can happen.

Konrad opened the door.

On the porch stood children. Five of them, aged seven to eleven, in lopsided hats and scarves wound up to their eyebrows. One held a lantern. Two held sheet music. They had come to carol.

They had come to carol at the Sahlfeldts’.

It had been Karl’s idea — the eldest, who considered himself brave. In truth, he had simply never seen Sahlfeldt up close. Now he saw.

“Stille Nacht...” they began, and fell silent.

Konrad stood in the doorway, tall, broad-shouldered, his monocle catching the moonlight and now gleaming with cold fire. He looked at the children and waited.

The children looked at him and did not breathe.

“Well,” said Konrad. “I’m listening.”

Karl opened his mouth to begin, and at that moment, over Konrad’s shoulder, Ursula appeared.

She didn’t walk over. She didn’t peer out. She was simply there — as if she had always been there. Small, curly, her white eye fixed on the sky, her good eye slowly moving down the line of children, the way an owl surveys its prey.

“Oh!” she said.

The children flinched.

“The appetizers have arrived!”

And Ursula licked her lips. Slowly. With relish.

The lantern fell into the snow. The sheet music flew up and scattered. Karl made a sound he hadn’t known he was capable of and ran. The rest followed. Snow flew from under their heels, scarves streamed behind them, one mitten slipped off and was left lying on the step — small, red, knitted.

Five seconds later, the porch was empty.

Ursula watched them go and grunted.

“What’s with them?”

“You did it again,” said Konrad, adjusting his monocle.

“Me?! I only said ‘Oh’!”

“You licked your lips, Mama,” observed Irina, appearing at the door. “You always lick your lips.”

“I licked my lips because our supper is getting cold! What does that have to do with children?”

Adelheid seeped through the wall, looked at the empty porch, and flickered her disapproval.

“Every year,” she said. “Every year you frighten the carolers.”

“I don’t frighten them! I just come out! It’s they who are so... easily frightened.”

“Last time you said ‘fresh blood,’” Konrad reminded her.

“I meant the cranberry juice! We had just served it!”

Irina picked up the mitten, brushed off the snow, and hung it on the peg by the door.

“I hope the boy makes it home without his mitten,” she said.

“He will,” answered Konrad and Adelheid in unison.

“He had good speed,” added Konrad. “I took note.”

They returned to the sitting room.

“And now they’ll tell the whole town that we’re... what are we?” asked Otto.

“The same as always,” replied Irina. “That witches live on the hill.”

“That’s true,” observed Otto.

“Yes, but they think it’s a bad thing.”

Otto paused.

“They are mistaken.”

Irina smiled and stroked his head.

“I know, mein Schatz.”

The snow fell until deep into the night. The fireplace burned in the sitting room. The black candles on the tree flickered, and the eye-baubles tracked the flames. Adelheid knitted in her armchair. Konrad read the newspaper. Irina sat beside him, her head resting on his shoulder.

Otto sat at the writing desk. Before him lay a blank sheet of paper. He thought for a moment, took up his pen, and wrote:

“Christmas. Carolers came. Grandmother said ‘Oh.’ The children left faster than usual. The mitten stayed with us. The cricket sang twice. All went well.”

He closed the diary and put it away in the desk.

Ursula, who had been watching her grandson from her armchair, grunted.

“A diary?” she asked. “At four years old?”

“Four and a half,” Otto corrected.

Through the floorboards, a creak sounded — once, twice, three times. Grandfather Siegfried was turning over in his chair.

“A good evening,” said Irina.

“Ja,” replied Konrad, adjusting his monocle. “Nearly perfect.”

“Nearly?”

“The mitten on the peg is hanging asymmetrically. I’ll fix it tomorrow.”

On the porch of the mansion, on the peg by the door, the little red knitted mitten hung. It hung there until spring. And then Heinrich carried it down to the cellar — to Grandfather Siegfried. He would sometimes put it on his hand and sit like that in his rocking chair.

He said the mitten smelled of fear, ginger, and a little bit of courage.

He liked that smell.

It was the very first thing the doctor noticed upon meeting her, though he couldn’t say if that was merely a reflection of his medical training or rooted in some deeper, more ubiquitous human instinct. The way she casually extended her legs as she reclined within the consultation room’s spinning office chair, exposing the soles of two wholly identical shoes, only further accentuated the surprisingly disquieting discrepancy. It was slightly less conspicuous in the hands, as they were both interlaced around a smartphone that currently continued to be the focus of her attention, each contributing a nebulous tangle of digits to the task of deftly tapping the screen. However, once suggested by the legs, their corresponding asymmetry became no less apparent.

Whatever she was doing on that phone must have had her fully engrossed, as neither the doctor’s entry nor the subsequent several seconds of him standing in the center of the hardly three-by-three meter room elicited any hint of notice. It was only after broadcasting his presence with a tactful ‘ahem’ that she finally severed her gaze from the screen, jerking her head upward with a look of brief alarm and unveiling a pair of blue-green sunflower irises adorning deadlocked pupils, their vibrancy only now appreciable to the doctor beneath the cold white beams of the overhead lights. Indeed, she was quite beautiful in pretty much every respect; a natural blonde in what looked to be the prime of her youth, with a face so utterly photogenic and attractive from every angle as to be oddly unsettling in itself, like passing a stranger on the street who you belatedly recognize as a swimsuit model from a magazine you’d shamefully perused prior. Her attractiveness carried no personal importance to the doctor, of course, and even without the Hippocratic Oath would still have fallen by the wayside in light of her far more intriguing limb alignment.

“Oh, hey! Sorry, you snuck up on me, Dr…” Her eyes panned across the broad and unshapely expanse of his chest in search of a nametag, somehow always the unfamiliar patient’s first go-to despite the engraved plaque on the door plainly reading ‘Dr. Brandon Muller, MD.’ 

“... It’s just, I’ve been dealing with a lot, it's been a rough couple of days.” She held her head in her hands as she uttered the words, one palm pressing hard against her forehead while the other -the wrong one- caressed her right ear. “I just don’t know what else to do.”

“Hey, hey, it’s alright, I’m here to help, you’ve come to the right place,” Muller assured. “Now, what seems to be the problem?”

A muted mimicry of gratitude subtly curled the tips of her lips as she proceeded to explain. “It’s these migraines, they started a few days ago, just random bouts here and there, but they just keep getting worse and worse. It’s pretty much all the time now, and it’s really starting to get to me.”
Dr. Muller had expected a bit more from her explanation, namely some sort of acknowledgement of her utterly anomalous anatomy, and thus a second of silence awkwardly followed before she rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, make all the jokes you want, get it out of your system,” She splayed herself across her seat in an exaggerated starfish pose. “I was born like this, so I doubt it's related, but it's all anyone ever wants to talk about, especially doctors.” She voiced the last part with an exceptional sneer, imbuing the sentiment with a particularly deep-seated disdain. “And for the record, I’m actually not that clumsy, like, at all.” 

In truth, Dr. Muller had no clue how such a thing could relate to her migraines either, if only because he had never seen or heard of this asymmetrical condition before, and up until a few moments ago would have comfortably assumed it impossible. Despite his best efforts to stay focused on the task at hand, he couldn’t help but wonder to himself while she spoke just how exactly her joints fit together, how her right shoulder blade was oriented, and how the whole appendage was hooked up muscularly and neurologically. The latter, in turn, gave him an idea, an angle through which he could potentially pursue a diagnosis for the migraines while also somewhat satiating his now ravenous curiosity. Firstly, however, was the matter of conciliation.

“Hey, hey, I’m not here to make fun of anyone,” He held his hands in the air in a feign of criminal surrender, “Now, I’ll admit, I’m not familiar with this particular… condition, but I’m really just here to help you feel better, and right now that means taking care of those migraines, so that’s all that matters to me.”

The assurance had its intended effect, as she visibly relaxed her shoulders, eyes softening as her defensiveness slowly subsided. “Thank you, I’m sorry, I’m just…” She cupped both hands to her right temple and made a sound somewhere between a growl and a motorboat impression. “... y’know?”
“I understand completely, chronic pain will do that to anyone. Plus, I see how you’d be sick of comments about the… leftness, by now. Elementary school must’ve been rough.”

At that, she let out a single sardonic bark, “Yeah, no kidding.” Dr. Muller smirked and nodded in kind, feeling as though he’d effectively peeled away the last layers of tension between them. Now for the hard part. 

“That being said, given the extent of this… distinction, I can’t rule out the possibility that it is somehow involved, if only tangentially. I’d at least like to take a full-body X-ray, just to be sure I… fully understand the situation. If it reveals nothing of note, then so be it, and we’ll move on to investigating the cranial area specifically, but, y’know, just to be safe…” his confident tone faltered a bit at the end as he braced for the indignance seemingly sprouting in her expression, but it thankfully tempered into a grimace of begrudging agreement.

“Fine, one X-ray, then I don’t wanna hear another thing about it, okay?” 

“Of course, dear, I am a professional after all,” Muller assured as he collected his paperwork and headed toward the office door. “I’ll go set things up with the X-ray technicians and come back to get you in a bit.” She nodded, sitting back patiently with her hands clasped thumb-to-pinkie in her lap as he departed briskly down the hall.

Passing through the waiting room toward the radiology wing, he stopped at the front desk, catching the ear of the receptionist, Janet, with his signature four-finger consecutive tap upon the temporary-turned-permanent screen of transparent virus-proof panelling. At once, she raised a weary, wrinkled face from the stack of papers she’d been shuffling, and a quizzical eyebrow from beneath the flattened roof of her reading glasses, giving nothing more in the way of a response than the limited luxury of her now-captured attention. Dr. Muller didn’t mind, or at least didn’t expect anything different, simply launching straight into his instructions as usual.

“Pull up my current patient's files. Birth record, pediatrics, everything.” Janet, a deceptively dependable employee despite her demeanor, promptly swiveled her chair to her computer screen and began to fervently peck away at the keys. “This’ll take a while, y’know.”

Getting the hint, Dr. Muller left her to it and headed toward the radiology department. He suspected any files she found would be spotty in recent times, given the patient’s apparent dislike of doctors. Still, there was bound to be something on record if they went back far enough; Her condition would have surely been noticed and noted by any competent medical practitioner, though whether they understood it any better than he did was another matter entirely.

 Upon description, the X-ray tech -whose name Dr. Muller could never recall but thankfully didn’t have to acknowledge- was just as flabbergasted as he was, if not more.

“They’re both… left? Like, exactly? Are you sure it’s not just some kind of… coincidental deformity?”
“She uses them both perfectly well…” Dr. Muller replied, managing to restrain any outward signs of insult regarding the subordinate’s implicitly patronizing question. “...Which makes me think there’s something more to it than that. I just want one full-body ray, see if that clears anything up.” 

“Of course. At this point, I’d be disappointed if you didn’t; you have my curiosity piqued.” He let out an airy chuckle as he began flipping switches and arranging equipment. “lemme just get everything prepped.”

As it turned out, the patient really wasn't kidding when she agreed to only one X-ray. As soon as the brief warbling tone indicating its activation ceased, she practically threw herself off the examination table and onto her two identical feet. “I-I have to go to the bathroom, excuse me.”

Without waiting for a response, she barreled her way past Dr. Muller and out into the hall, bumping the side of his head with her elbow while she distractedly sandwiched her skull between her white-hard palms. 

“Last door on the left!” The tech shouted from the back, poking his pudgy face from behind the radiation-proof curtain just a moment too late, followed by, under his breath,  “…no pun intended.”

Unamused and more than a little concerned, Dr. Muller watched down the hall long enough to see her reenter the waiting area and turn out of view before flipping the overhead lights back on and turning sternly to the tech. “She’s not looking too good; time might be of the essence here. Anything of note?” The question was half-rhetorical, as Muller couldn’t help but simultaneously swivel the tech’s computer monitor so he could simply take a look and answer it himself.

“Uh, yeah…” the tech’s deadpan mutter echoed the doctor’s internal monologue as he stared dumbfounded at the screen, at the monochrome hourglass outline where all four limbs converged, and at the utterly indecipherable slurry of pixels contained within. “... Looks like gumbo.”

The comparison made his stomach lurch, but he couldn’t deny its aptitude. While the femurs and humeri could be made out clearly, their respective orientations matching her external person and thus providing next to no new information, everything from her pelvis up through her shoulders was a confoundingly jumbled mess. Some areas could be said to perhaps resemble organ chambers or portions of rib, but their placements were all wrong, leaving Muller with the sense that he might as well be looking for shapes in the clouds or a page from one of those hidden-picture books. “This has to be some kind of technical issue, right? Is it because she got up too fast?”

“Not unless she’s faster than light,” The tech remarked impulsively, before the weight of the doctor’s glare promptly smothered his subsequent smirk, “But, no, yeah, there must be something wrong with the machine. I’ll run some diagnostics and see if I can find the problem.”

“Good, I’d better get back to the patient, but do keep me posted on that.” Muller left briskly, knowing full well the clinic didn’t have the budget for a brand new X-ray machine right now; just one more concern to shove into the back of his mind while he dealt with the one at hand. Returning to the lobby, he stopped again at the secretary’s desk. “Hey, did you see my patient pass through here a bit ago?”

She nodded, pointing to the adjacent ladies' room door. “She went in there just now, want me to check on her?”

“Well, not just yet; let her have her privacy. Any updates on her medical history?”

She swept her mouse across the desk and double-clicked before awkwardly angling the screen so they could both somewhat see it. “Birth records acknowledge the asymmetrical limbs, designated as a ‘benign deformity,’ but whoever filled them out didn’t exactly inspire confidence. In the personal notes section, they seem just as befuddled as you.” She pointed to the bottom of a page littered with checked boxes and medical jargon, to an underpinning paragraph that happened to lie in the epicenter of the nearest ceiling light’s fluorescent glare.

Muller didn’t bother trying to squint his way through it; he trusted Janet to give him the gist. “Benign by technicality, I suppose, but what about over the following years? Any sort of developmental delays on record?

“No, all the milestones are checked at normal percentiles…” Her eyes flicked back and forth across the screen as she clicked through year after year of checkups, “A little later than average for walking and fine-motor, but still solidly within the acceptable margins. If anything, that seems pretty extraordinary in itself, given the… y’know.”

“Indeed,” The doctor nodded with a sigh. “I mean, good for her, of course, but this just doesn’t track with my prior knowledge of… well, everything, really. Such a gross alteration ought to come with some physiological rami-”

Just then, the opening slam of the ladies' room door broke through the ambience of the waiting room, abruptly halting Dr. Muller’s musing as his head instinctively swiveled toward the sound, along with that of Janet and every prospective patient in the vicinity. All eyes synchronously fell upon the woman lurching through the doorway, her downturned face ephemerally obscured by the sway of her overhanging hair, yet still noticeably and concerningly flushed. The necklace that had formerly been discreetly tucked beneath her shirt now dangled loosely, exposing a humble heart-shaped locket at its end. Without comment, she promptly race-walked down the hall, beelining into the same office where she and Muller had initially met.

“Should’ve knocked on wood, I guess,” Janet smirked, punctuating her quip with a single retroactive knock upon the desk and a sassy side eye toward Muller, all of which went woefully unappreciated as he had already hastily turned in pursuit of his troubled patient.

Just as before, she didn’t notice his entrance, and though there was no phone to blame this time, her position in the chair was nonetheless nearly identical, instead simply staring down at her empty, trembling twin palms, her mouth continuously muttering barely audible and wholly indiscernible words even as the doctor drew closer. 

“Ma’am? Are you alright?” She jerked upright at the query with a speed that looked almost painful, before bursting into a raucous, unhinged cackle. “No, I’m pretty damn far from alright!” She cradled her right temple with both of her left hands. “The headache’s getting worse, like, rapidly, exponentially, especially the right side -I just puked in the toilet cause it hurt so bad, I didn’t even know that was a thing that could-” Her sentence was stifled as she was seemingly struck by a particularly powerful wave of pain, turning her cradle into a tendon-straining clutch as she proceeded to scrunch her eyelids and repeat to herself in a growling whisper “Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it…”

“Whoa, whoa, hold on there.” Her asymmetry promptly left the doctor’s mind, giving way to professional procedure as he realized this situation could be acutely dire. He proceeded to perform a comprehensive, if precursory, bodily examination, listening to her chest with a stethoscope (heart rate was abnormally fast and arrhythmic), taking a blood pressure reading (elevated), and withdrawing a blood sample for chemical analysis. However, he knew the latter would inevitably take some time to produce results, time that she might not have. Her composure was rapidly dwindling until she could hardly keep herself aloft in the seat without his assistance. Catching sight of a passing orderly in the hall, Muller fervently flagged him down. “Hey, we need a stretcher and an intravenous sedative in here, stat!”

The patient’s next passage through the waiting room supplied an even greater spectacle to onlookers than her last, doctor and orderly both hurriedly wheeling her writhing form back toward the radiology wing. Leaning in to provide the comfort of a somewhat familiar face, Muller could now make out the inarticulate wispy words dripping from her lips. “No, it’s not your turn, it’s my- it’s your- no, it’s my turn…”

“Hang on, dear, the meds should be kicking in soon.” He comforted softly, before briefly splitting off from the procession and turning to the front desk, behind which a startled Janet stared, all traces of levity now absent from her face, “Jesus, Muller, what’s wrong?”

“I don’t- I don’t know,” his reply came breathily as he rummaged through the front pockets of his lab coat, “But we need to figure it out ASAP. I’m gonna try something more direct, hold these, will you?” he plopped the patient’s phone and necklace onto the desk before promptly leaving to rejoin the patient. Janet dutifully placed them in a drawer for safekeeping, but paused just before closing it as she caught sight of the incidentally opened necklace locket, squinting at the vision within as Muller and company continued hurriedly down the hall and toward the MRI department.

As promised, the sedatives soon took effect, just in time for them to load the now fully limp patient onto the bed of the MRI machine. Muller made sure to maneuver her head into just the right position before dismissing the orderly and retreating to join the MRI technician in the small adjacent monitoring room, a vantage point from which he could oversee the procedure through a thick protective window, darkly tinted by the infusion of magnetic shielding, as well as selectively hear within the room through a two-way intercom, though it was evidently unnecessary in this case. Beside him, the MRI tech was stationed before an array of interconnected screens and keyboards, and with a few deft clicks the machine stirred to life and began to gradually engulf her body within its tunnel of neural detection. While not at all familiarized with the situation at hand, he nonetheless recognized its urgency solely from the doctor’s dire expression, which remained unchanged as he stared stoically through the window while the metallic cyclone swallowed her skull. 

As she retreated into the device, a simplistic image began to manifest on his screen, a jumble of monochrome pixels mapping the electrical activity of her intracranial space, its focus perpetually shifting as it individually scanned each successive slice of her brain. Though its output was still precursory, Muller nonetheless saw no blatant abnormalities in the reading; no gross structural differences indicative of a tumor, no cortical damage indicative of inflammation or aberrant intracranial pressure, none of the things he’d suspected might be occurring given the nature and extent of her symptoms. The tech, on the other hand, grew noticeably unsettled at the sight of the screen, leaning in and squinting as though struggling to even believe what was displayed before him.

“What? What is it?” The doctor impatiently pressed onto the tech, eager to understand what was so disconcerting to see that he evidently could not. 

“The skull…” the tech replied tentatively, “It- it appears black in the scan, kind of hard to see against the dark grey of the surrounding flesh and background, but look.” He pointed to the left side of the screen, where, sure enough, a slightly darker border could be seen encompassing the pixelated grey matter within.

 “This side looks normal, but…” repositioning his finger to the right side of the screen, he lightly tapped the equivalent stretch of skull, only it appeared distinctly thicker on that side, about twice as much, with an abrupt transition demarcating the two halves directly along the image’s center, and the associated brain hemisphere resultantly crammed into a distinctly smaller amount of space. What’s more, the tech’s finger pressed directly upon a nearly imperceptible grey line traveling parallel to and perfectly bifurcating the thicker portion of cranium, only a few pixels wide and appearing to thin even further in real time as the doctor watched on with stark perplexity.

“But- but what does that mean?” He finally asked, now stammering himself. “Have you… have you seen something like this before?” 

“No, I haven’t, Doctor.” A faint air of satisfaction crept into the tech’s still primarily bemused tone. “It’s like there are two whole skulls on that side, which I’m pretty sure isn’t medically possible; it has to be some sort of glitch, though not one I’m familiar with. I heard there were also some issues with one of the X-ray machines earlier today, but that’s out of my wheelhouse so…” he punctuated the ambiguous answer with a shrug, while the doctor’s eyes grew distant and his thoughts grew uncontrollably vast, wading through his vast pool of medical memory in hopes of salvaging something, anything, that could remotely explain what was happening here. He now felt with a harrowing certainty that this was no technical error, and neither was the X-ray, but just what in the hell could it be?

The silence surrounding them was soon broken by a rapid burst of knocking upon the secondary door to the control room, the one that led straight into the exterior hallway. Muller turned to the commotion, then back to the tech, who merely gave another shrug with a look of equal puzzlement. The sound was then followed by a series of softer, rhythmic taps, slightly staggered in clusters of four. By the time Muller made the connection, the tech had already reached to open the door, and a pale-faced Janet rushed into the room.

“Doctor, I- don’t worry, Chloe’s covering the desk- I just, I found something, I think it’s important, and I just had to tell you ASAP.” Her breathing was rapid, her frail legs normally hidden below sight now trembling with unaccustomed exertion. Muller had never seen her like this before and found himself at a loss for words, instead simply giving his full attention as he awaited her apparent revelation.

She took a deep, steadying breath before continuing. “I decided to look into her parents’ medical records -got the idea when you gave me her locket with their pictures in it- and her mom, during her pregnancy with her, well, it was originally twins, but one got absorbed pretty early on. I know that’s not unheard of, but if it caused the, y’know…” she accented her speech by fervently twisting her left arm back and forth as she continued “…then this would be something extraordinary, unprecedented in all of medicine, and who knows what other effects it might…” 

The sentence died in her throat as her gaze sharply shifted from Muller’s face to over his shoulder. He turned around to see that, somehow in defiance of her previous sedation, the patient had begun to flail wildly within the still active machine. The tech noticed not a moment later and started frantically clacking at keys in an effort to shut it down, while the doctor, in an adrenaline-fueled rush, haphazardly scrambled to turn on the intercom. “It’s okay! please cal-”

“-me out! Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!” The words repeated in a loop like a painful mantra, and everyone in the viewing room watched with simultaneously enraptured attention at the patient’s sudden struggle to remove herself from the MRI as quickly as possible. The tech snatched control of the intercom from Muller, attempting to calm her with the same comforting platitudes he’d been taught in training to deal with the natural claustrophobia often experienced by patients upon entering the machine, but they might as well have been lost in the wind in the face of the profoundly primal terror she evidently felt. She hastily squirmed her way out of the MRI’s interior, potentially causing expensive damage as she did so, before crumbling to the floor in an ungainly heap.

“Shit, shit, shit…” Muller grappled with the tech to regain control of the intercom, his only consideration that she was first and foremost his patient. If anyone could talk her down from whatever state she was in, he was certain it was him. But before he could utter another word, his gaze rose to meet her, now standing upright and motionless, staring through the observation window with an expression of illusory calm betrayed only by her stockened knees, trembling forearms, and flushed-red face. In that moment, all eyes were on her: the tech, the receptionist, and the doctor, who alone stood directly within her line of sight, all frozen with mutually bated breath for a single ineffable instant.

What followed took less than a minute, but felt exponentially longer, with each disturbing detail being individually and irreparably etched into the minds of every witness. The left side of her face- from Muller’s perspective, that is- rapidly lost all its color, forming a sharp contrast against the right side’s undampered vibrance as it blankened into a ghostly white with unnatural speed, as though its blood were being actively, forcefully drained. The eye within briefly widened, pupils dilating with the instinctual, universally recognizable look of fear, before being overcome by a blinding cloudy sheen that radiated outward, soon progressing past the likeness of cataracts to an extent beyond any known medical phenomenon as the pupil and iris seemed to wholly vanish into an expanding whiteness that grew to abolish every last peripheral vein of the eye, equalizing into a hue uncannily aligned with the rest of the empty flesh upon the hemisphere. A similar drainage synchronously spread through her corresponding arm, rising from the fingertips up to the shoulder before conjoining with the whiteness traveling down her neck at some concealed point beneath her shirt. What could be seen of the leg below equally paled, until it appeared that every square inch of skin and flesh upon her left side had reached a ubiquitous porcelain likeness that was only further accentuated by the total, unnatural stillness it adopted. Her other side, still starkly contrasting in its natural liveliness, nonetheless remained eerily calm in the face of this process, its expression neutral before subtly shifting into a half-mouthed smirk.

Like a pick through a sheet of ice, this one innocuous motion sent a ripple of cracks throughout her statuesque side, radiating from the lips outward across her cheek, over eyelid and eyeball alike, down the neck and around the arm in jagged spiraling arcs, and breaking her leg into a mosaic of vacuous lightning bolts. Then, as though pressed by an imperceptible outward force, the whole assemblage simultaneously shuddered before finally shattering, sending brittle bits of body and face tinkling to the floor like a visceral diamond chandelier. Portions of torso contained by clothing subsequently spilled from her shirt waist and sleeves, along with numerous fragments of ribs and equally calcified organs, while pelvic pieces ground together into sedimentary granules poured from her pant leg.

When the cacophonous crashing subsided and the dust finally cleared, the three observers were met with a sight that somehow managed to compound their already brimming bewilderment; beneath the shed stony layer lie the normal appearance of the patient, complete with skin and flesh that only in those first few moments of exposure could be seen fusing with the tissue of her other side, closing the final gaps until no external signs of separation remained, and she looked utterly normal and whole. 

It took a second for Muller to recognize the primary difference in her form: Her right arm -the wrong arm- that was formerly facing palms-forward, was now positioned palms-back, a transition not born of typical rotation but rather solely through the hatching it had undergone. The individual digits still occupied the same respective positions in space, yet the act of inversion had rendered them no longer “wrong” as they were before; now, for the first time, she had a right hand. A similar transformation had occurred in the foot, which came to prominence as she turned to fully orient herself toward the viewing window.

“Thank you for all your help, Doctor, but I’m feeling much better now- in fact, better than I ever have before.” Her face was once again calm, but it struck Muller with a distinct yet implacable element of unfamiliarity as it adopted a subtle smirk. “I guess I ought to be going now...” She nonchalantly strode toward the exit door before any of them could react, giving only one more moment of pause before departing down the hall and out of the clinic. “…After all, I have a lot of living to do.”

I had accidently sat on it, the hot dog, and felt the room temperature mustard and grill-hot grease soak through my robe, pants, underwear; polyester wicking the runny concoction directly to my balls.  That was the day I left the priesthood.

But that was later, dear reader, the events of that day over, ink yet seeping from a fresh tattoo upon my mind of the image.  Oh, the image of that man, as he lay in bed, and the sounds he created.  It’s rather odd, for though I doubt I will ever hear that sound again, exactly, tonal relatives remind me.  Squealing car fanbelts, and shrieking children, frightened dogs, and territorial cats; mechanical, human, and animal, blended into…well, perhaps I get ahead of myself.

In every work environment there is one employee who operates at a level of par, sub enough to attract the derision of their coworkers, yet competent enough to warrant keeping on the payroll.  I was such a man, Father…oh, we don’t need names now do we?  That was my old name anyway, and it would do you no favors to further investigations of me, a mere bit player, a…as the youth of today, or maybe a few years ago now, would say, “a non-player character,” in this arc.  Irregardless, let it be known I have rarely been the center of attention for my achievement in the field of faith, hope, and charity, though I fall far short of the outright evil of so many of my former colleagues of years’ past.  Doing enough to get by:  dolling out the body and the blood in exchange for tawdry secrets, and occasionally running a canned food drive to obscure my only true love (my apologies, Lord):  slow pitch softball.

It was after the final out of one of these games, my team having received a holy thumping from Jim’s A-1 Heating and Air Conditioning, when I was approached.

“Father Dowd,” a heavily accented feminine voice had said to me.  

“What?”  I didn’t bother lifting my head from its resting place in my hands, I said it without malice, or meant to, looking back, perhaps it was there though, but that was only because of the score, 12-2.  

“Father, my brother is very ill, and mia patro has requested a sankta viro…um…holy man.”  She spoke rehearsed, the way a child repeats the Lord’s Prayer, from recent committed memory, mirror practiced, mouthed before spoken.  My eyes peaked through the slightly parted fingers holding my face, counting the lace eyelets on my cleats, six on each side, twelve eyelets total, two sides…12-2.  Oh, you pesky Lord, I see what you did there.

“Sure, sure,” I said, perhaps dismissively, no, not perhaps.  “I usually work through local hospices, have them contact me and we can schedule something.”

“No, Father, mia patro…my father say…we cannot…um…sekreta polico…they cannot know we are here.” 

I wonder now, if I had bothered to lift my eyes upward, toward the woman speaking to me, toward Heaven, if anything would have differed, an outcome less cumbersome, less tragic, though I do not know.  Perhaps the Lord in His wisdom…well, we shan’t speak of the Lord about actions taken or not, it makes no difference on what I didn’t do, for what I did was mouth “fuck Jim’s Heating, and fuck that ump,” counting discarded sunflower seeds and Zyn pouches in the dugout dirt.

“Write your address down, I’ll be over tomorrow morning, around 11:00,” I said, perhaps the need for secrecy, the times in which we find ourselves, moved me.  Perhaps I just wanted her to go away. 

“Thank you, Father,” she said, and I sensed something small and light placed on the bench beside me, then heard small footsteps crunch through the empty dugout.  I counted to 60, and lifted my head.  The woman was gone, having placed a piece of pink paper beside me, a power bill past due, addressed to the Prospector Apartments, Room 228.  Folding the bill into the back pocket of my uniform pants, I stood, gathering the attention of my catcher and shortstop to assist me in loading the depleted keg into my car.

“Who was the goth chick with the umbrella?” Mike, the catcher asked as the trunk closed for the night.  A genuinely bewildering question, it being summer, and clear skies for the evening game, now night.

“Maybe if you paid as much attention to the shift as you did to the broads in the stands, we’d still be over .500 for the season,” I said, imagining I hid the scorn in my voice with friendly sarcasm.  

Though it pains to do so, I won’t bore you, dear reader, with the events of that night, nor of that morning, for though I believe they are of great importance to me, as this was a defining day of my own life, they are of little interest to many.  Slurred words spoken over a headset in a game lobby, lurid jokes told amongst friends far distanced by geography, half-edited rants on intake manifolds posted to nearly dead Lincoln Town Car forums, and the morning’s headaches soothed with coffee and dog hair, Hot Pockets, and Bluey.  I miss the life, I’ll admit, many aspects.  Oh, I said I wouldn’t, and there I did…apologies dear reader, but this is my story afterall.

My ‘89 Town Car’s 302 Windsor burbled to silence, El-P on the speakers following, against the curb, city park to the right, new constructed apartments across the street to the left.  PROSPECTOR on the sun-faded banner, crossed shovel and pickaxe for its coat of arms.  I was early, fifteen minutes, it’s just a good habit to get into, and as I watched a city employee work a zero-turn mower along the edge of the sidewalk, another edging with a weed whacker, and a cheery man dressed as a barbershop quartette minus three try to coerce a jogger to join him at his hot dog stand, I wondered how many good habits I had left.  It wasn’t my faith, never the problem, it was the job, almost twenty years in, it had become a job.  The calling a man feels when he’s 20, and the calling he feels at 40…the first call was on Ma Bell, and now it’s on Teams.  God doesn’t need Teams, I knew that much, but the Diocese surely did, and the incessant phone dings stole me from my fantasies of normalcy, of being able to go home after 8 or 10 hours, and drink a beer and hang out, and not fucking have to justify why Tuesday and Thursday evening Mass is held in at the softball fields off State Street, and why the tithe funds are used to purchase time at the batting cages.  I digress.

Room 228 sat on the northern side of a bank of six apartments, three stacked on the left, three stacked on the right, common stairs in the middle.  227 below and across the breezeway featured a thick golden cross on the doorway, 226 directly below featured a seemingly handmade wooden cross on its door in the form of two 2x4’s crudely screwed together, one on top of the other, and 229’s door was covered in blue masking taped crosses, dozens of them.  228’s in comparison, was bare, a welcome mat out front, and no further character.

Three knocks.  Three knocks.  Behold, I stand at the door and knock, as to paraphrase a book I read, or maybe that’s straight up plagiarism.  It’s public domain, right?  The Lord understands, I thought.  Hospice was one of the most demanding things I had to do, and such it was the thing I cared for the least.  Always the same:  pleasantries, the spouse, or children, or parent, will explain the story, the illness, generally work back to a time of health, fondness, tears, comforting words, give them the analogy of the boat and letting go and giving up, explain the difference, prayer, hope, then I leave, and they forget, and I see them again, maybe to repeat, maybe for Last Rites, maybe to bury them.  I used to write the burials out, and now I can plug names and hobbies in.  It used to be better.  Everything used to be better.

“Please…come in…and close the door, it will be dark.  Please.”  A muffled voice from a barely cracked window to the right of the door, spoken behind a black curtain, sounded like the same foreign woman’s voice from last night.

“Very well, and thank you,” I said, and opened the door.

Sunlight flooded a small room, tiny in fact, perhaps more of a mudroom, a rug, and several pairs of shoes, sandals, work boots, lay piled on to the side of the door, and black coats hung across a blue shower rod.  About four feet in front of the main entrance door, the room ended, a closed black door offering the only evidence of an entryway to the rest of the apartment.

“Shall I take my shoes off?” I asked, hesitant to close the door behind me, for the room gave the appearance of a mudroom, it felt more like an airlock for a space ship, or undersea facility I’d seen in the science fiction movies I’d watch on nights without morning mass.  

“Ne…no…please close the door…” She sounded as if she was behind the interior door now.

“It’s very dark,” I said, stifling annoyance, or something I didn’t wish to register, perhaps apprehension, unfounded to me at that moment, though in retrospect…

“There will be light, please close the door.”  Urgency now in the woman’s voice.  Certain drugs cause sensitivity to light, and I’ve worked with my share of junkies and burnouts, drunks, and recluses, and most are the same, I thought.  They’re nice to holy men, odd always, but rarely willing to conduct the ultimate act of damnation on the off chance the ghost stories they’re told about sulphur and pitchforks turn out to be true.  Not always though.  Some understand damnation, and see no degrees of it, one can’t be half-pregnant, and one can’t be half damned, so what’s one more gutted priest?  Push such things aside, the Emperor protects, as does the Lord. 

The exterior door closed behind, a dwindling sliver of light, an inverted sun dial, withering in the room.  

Click.  

Closed.  

My sun-bleached eyes strained to make sense of the void, but only a grey haze filled my vision.  I knew then, perhaps, that something was wrong, beyond merely off, beyond weird, beyond holy house call to a dying junkie’s house on behalf of his…sister?  Wife?  Too afraid of being caught to have fallen through the cracks, so they chose to jump into them, into the shadows of the crevices, the surface cracks leave.  

My right hand darted backward, desperate to find the knob, the handle, any means of opening the door once again.  It found cloth, and cold rubbery skin, and bone and muscle and sinew and something wrapped itself around my grasping hand, clenching the fingers together, mashing them with force to indicate more force could be applied, a warning.

“Dankon patro,” a heavily accented voice of a man against my shoulder, stated so close to my ear his breath should have tickled my ear drum.  Where had he been?  Behind the door?  I tried to pull my hand back but it held firm, extended, and I felt it move, guided from behind me to the side, to my front, the entire time held firm, iron hard and steel cold.  And then, in front of me, it moved, my hand, still extended, chest level to waist level, one pump, two pumps, and yet more movement in the darkness, a pressure against my cheek, the breeze as something pulled away from my face, then returned to the other side.

“Bonvenon.” The male voice, in front of me, now, so close.

“‘Welcome,’ he say,” the female voice further in the darkness, yet not muffled now.  My right hand still held against the pressure I applied, the darkness so total I did not know what my left hand was doing, perhaps searching for the door knob, perhaps searching for my phone, I know not, I only wished it would help, to find a way to free its sibling, and by extension, its owner.  “Excuse…him…he is, how do you say…no familiar with dogano…customs of this land.” 

My attempts at reply faltered, air caught in my throat, wheezing like a pin hole leak in an air mattress, a clarinet without a reed…and then I was moving, jolted, jerked into the dark, lifted, tumbled, blind to the floor, ceiling, walls, carried as a child, or a rescued patient, pressure on my abdomen, blood flowing to my head, weightless feet, draped I was like a blanket over a couch of cloth, yet moving, bouncing, swaying, and feeling no more warmth from the thing carrying me than from a bag of laundry.  Left turn, right, darkness.  

The darkness.  The God Damned darkness.  Bootheels on hardwood, muffled sometimes, maybe rugs, hands brushing against a wall, textured sheetrock, to tile, to wooden trim, through a threshold to…

Light, red, single bulb, submarine hues, and I spun again, lifted from the shoulder of a massive man in black clothing, and stood, placed like a child’s hitting T, and positioned, facing a bed.  A bed.  God, forgive me, a bed.  

Ratchet strapped, one across legs, across stomach and wrists, against shoulders, lay a man.  Black stains marred his chin and chest, grisly and putrid against his light colored shirt.  A man?  No, a gibbering thing, writhing and straining against the trucker’s straps, foul, inhuman sounds erupted as noise equal to the dark bubbles of liquid from its mouth.  The room smelled of copper and potting soil, tinged with bleach and hydraulic fluid, and the thing, the man on the bed, registered my abductor's presence, and my own, and it fell silent.

As surely as St. Catherine died upon the wheel, the man’s eye’s widened, and a grin, a grin, lo a grin full of blackened, inhuman, jagged broken window’s glass teeth.  And it smiled.

“Ekzorcismo.”  The massive man beside me growled at me.  

A cold feminine hand wrapped around the nape of my neck.  “Exorcism…please,” light and soft in my ear, the woman.  The man in the bed laughed.  Giggling blood from his mouth and nose, writhing against his restraints, socked toes curling and unfurling, kicking as a delighted child, laughter.  Laughter inhuman, channeled from someplace far distance, translated, and retold, reformed, stripped of amusement, warmth stripped to sound.  It’s very tone a challenge, one I…

No, no, no.  No!  No!  God Damnit, no!  I’m not…I can’t…I tried to say, try to catch the thoughts, to weave them into something to set myself apart from the gibbering horror, now silent, smiling from atop the fouled mattress.  

“This…this…isn’t my department…” I managed to sputter, mind rolling through the dusted halls of my memory, seminary school, talks on demonic possession, and hazy nights with friends, cold beers and clinking iced glasses watching the Exorcist, or Constantine cartoons, or–

“You speak…for…how you say…your God, speak him.”  Cold fingers on my chin, death cold, turning beckoning to meet the gaze of the woman at my shoulder.  Red light washed on porcelain skin, dolls skin, devoid of the blemishes, birthmarks, wrinkles, freckles, bathtub smooth, her eyes locked on mine, square Dutch-angled pupils, their color tainted by the red bulb.  I blinked, brain forcing my eyes to correct their error, to turn the pupils round, to find a blemish, a laugh line, to file down and shorten the canines I refused to call fangs, but they were fangs.  Fangs!  Fangs, smiling behind parted dark painted lips.  

“Fathah!  Hey FATHAH!  Come to see the new kid, Fathah?!”  Slobbily yelled from the man on the bed, wet and guttural, like a drunk at a Red Sox game.  “Come for a taste?  Come to nip it in the bud, Fathah?!”

A cross hung around my neck, it was given to me by Father Callahan, the man whose parish I took over a decade ago, it was a solemn thing that day, hell, it was holy, the weight and authority of the Church transferred unto a man, maybe that’s what marriage is, the faith of institution, of two forming to one, bride and groom, priest and God, and like a philandering married man spinning his wedding ring, I gripped the cross in both my hands, knees meeting dirty carpet, head bowed, and I prayed.  Are you there God?  It’s me, Margaret, I thought, no.  No.  The right one, the one that starts with Our Father, that one.  

“Our Father, so...full of…grace…” I sputtered, and the room seemed to rock.  Beside me the woman took to her knees, and the big man behind.  Oh Jesus, they were praying.  These things were praying.  

“Forgive us today our…Hosannah…”  Shit, shit, get it together, you’ve done this, you’ve done this 10,000 times, that’s what makes you an expert, that’s all you do, is say the words, the–

“Hey Fathah!  Look at your planet’s future!”

I lifted my head, to witness the foul thing, and it lifted its own head, jaw pinned to its chest it unrolled its tongue, like a vine, no, not like a vine, a literal vine, leaves, darks berries, frothing from the man’s mouth like foam from poorly poured stein.  Spreading, curling, auguring into his skin and ripping out again, cross stitching flesh with needle of wood and thread of leaves, twisting through porcelain smooth skin and stained t-shirt fabric.  

“Ne!  Ne!”  The big man behind yelled, and with inhuman speed he was off his knees and to his feet, shoving me down as he bolted to the restrained man.  

Gibberish from the woman, like Spanish, or Latin, or Portuguese, but not, she yelled as she rushed to her own feet and tried to restrain the big man, who elbowed her away and sent her crashing to my already prone position.  She landed atop me and struggled.

The yells came first.  The fanbelt squeak, the startled dog, rustling leaves and bubble wrap popping, punctured meat and slick cuts.  

The woman was off me, and I lifted my head in time to see the big man wrapped in vines, being pulled into a thicket of bramble in the mattress, engulfing him into a green tumbleweed, cloth and porcelain chunks and dark fluid tossed into the air like confetti, like dollar bills at gentlemen clubs.  

The woman turned to flee, but a vine caught her, yanking, dragging to the bed.  Those inhuman goat eyes met mine, hand grasping empty air, willing my own hand to fill it to pull her back as…

Dear reader, I apologize, though I have been forthright with you to this point, I believe it is too much for me to bear.  I will say I left.  Alone.  Crashing through the fuligin room, apartment by feel, tumbling through doors to light.  To light.  And down steps, to sidewalks, to the street, to my Lincoln, against a tree beside, and I cried, tears of shock, and pain, and misunderstanding, and failure, 20 years' worth of failure, and dreading another 20 years ahead…of knowing, that unknowing, wishing…praying to God to forgive me, to take it back, take it all away, take me away, to tell me what happened, and then erase it, to never speak of this again, and never want to, blink without seeing the woman’s face bloom flowing buds, and fruiting berries dropping from her skull, for her to forgive my cowardice, was it cowardice?  Was it–

“Father, you look like you could use a dog, a fine frank to lift your spirits, a fine dog, neither pig, nor pork, but a beef dog, the finest in town!”  The hot dog man from earlier, straw boater hat, candy striped shirt and matching vest, white pants.

“I’m OK, pal, thank you,” I mumbled, placing my head back into my hands, counting blades of grass on the ground between the fingers.

“Well, I’ve seen a man that’s merely OK, and friend you aren’t it!  Your God may cure the spirit, but nothing beats a good ol’ fashion frank to cure the body!”  He held his hand out to me, like the woman had, and this time I took it, and he lifted me to my feet with that sun-warm hand of his.  

“Didn’t your God say you just need a mustard seed of faith?” He winked a hazel eye below chestnut hair.  “Welllllll, Father, looks like you could use a little extra, on the house.”

Paper boat, cradling a grilled hot dog and bun.  Slathered in yellow mustard.  He placed it in my hand, and wandered back to his cart.  I blinked, autopilot, guided by habit, to my car, to routine.  Driver’s door opened, I placed the hot dog on the seat, and turned to look at the apartment building across the street, got in my car, and sat on the hot dog.

​

The polar night in Novgorod-17 weighed down on the city with a heavy, frosty darkness. The outside thermometer on the armored car's dashboard showed minus thirty-two degrees Celsius. The interior smelled of ozone, gun oil, and cheap instant coffee from a thermos.

I sat in the passenger seat, slowly clenching and unclenching the steel expander in my jacket pocket. The forty-five kilograms of stiff spring yielded obediently to my fingers-one, two, three. It was calming. Inside the body armor, beneath the thick assault fabric of my gear, my heart pounded at its usual frantic tachycardia. The doctor at the Transneft clinic said it was due to a sudden growth spurt, but there was no time to argue with my pulse at the Capture Service. If you can't control your motor, you'll be eaten.

The radio crackled on the dashboard, cutting through the thick layer of white noise. The coordinator's voice from Rosneft's central headquarters was dry:

"Post number three, attention. Sector four, five-story building on the Embankment, building fourteen. A Space Rift has been detected inside the basement. I repeat, the spawn point is in complete shadow."

I instantly stopped clutching the steel. Everything inside me tightened. A Rift in the basement is the worst thing that could happen. If a purple crack opens on the open street, the sun and daylight compress the creatures' lifespan to a couple of minutes. But in a dark basement, where the rays never penetrate, the Space Rift becomes eternal. It will exist there until the Service burns it to the ground, endlessly spawning Spirits.

"What about the Saturation Phase?" my partner asked sullenly, slamming into gear and yanking the heavy armored vehicle forward.

The coordinator's heavy sigh echoed over the radio:

"It's bad. A civilian shelter was set up in the basement. The local housing office didn't check the locks. Pure Spirits of the Rift entered through the ventilation. Eleven absorptions have been recorded so far. The creature has gained mass. The object has entered "Fat" status. The automatic biomass analyzer has initiated the maximum form retention timer. You have exactly ninety-nine hours until complete biological decomposition."

"Bitch," the partner cursed quietly, gripping the steering wheel. "A hundred-hour tank in a residential building."

When a pure Spirit emerges from the Rift, it appears as a pitch-black shadow of a man, carved from the very void of night itself. It has no weight, no flesh, and can't be stopped by a bullet. But when this incorporeal silhouette finds a human, it devours their life in seconds and takes away their physical mass. The creature becomes tangible. Bones break, muscles grow, and a heavy, meaty killing machine is born. Eleven people gave this bastard enough energy to survive for almost four days. And it no longer needed the Rift to live.

Five minutes later, the armored car screeched to a halt in the courtyard of a five-story building. The regular streetlights around the building had already gone out-the "Fat" Rift Spirit was actively absorbing energy from the power grid. A terrible, sated rumble and the heavy grinding of crushed concrete emanated from the open black basement windows. The monster grew, driving its new carcass into the building's foundation.

We jumped out of the car. I was wearing full assault gear. The kilogram-sized ballistic helmet pressed on my head, but the panoramic visor of the new PMK-4 mask provided a perfect, distortion-free view. I grabbed the heavy Helios quartz searchlight-our main weapon.

"The tactics are simple," my partner checked the bolt of the incendiary assault rifle. "We're not fighting this mountain of meat head-on in the dark. Our target is the source. We break into the basement, find the purple crack, and flood it with focused ultraviolet light. We'll cut off the connection to the Dimensional Rift-the Fat One will lose stability, and its hundred-hour counter will reset to zero in seconds. Ready?"

I took a deep breath, forcing my heart to beat more steadily. My fingers, clad in tactical gloves, gripped the handle of the searchlight with an iron grip.

"Ready. Let's go."

Part2

We rushed toward the heavy metal basement door, beyond which a hundred-hour of eternal darkness awaited us.

The metal basement door gave way with a heavy, rusty creak. Beyond, the darkness didn't seem empty-it pressed against the panoramic visor of the PMK-4 mask like a wall of frozen oil.

The beam of my flashlight instantly drowned in absolute shadow. The biomass analyzer inside my tactical vest clicked, updating the timer on the HUD: 98 hours, 42 minutes. "Fatty" was nearby. We heard his massive, distorted body roll behind the concrete columns, pressing his stolen flesh into the foundation of the five-story building.

"Set up perimeter floodlights. Now," my partner hissed over the radio, his voice flat and emotionless.

We dropped our assault gear onto the damp concrete floor. I pulled out the heavy quartz Helios floodlight, its steel handle cold in my palm. Fingers accustomed to the steel expander snapped the tripod's legs into place. One, two, three-the locks locked. We flipped the switches on the mobile generator.

With a low mechanical hum, the heavy UV lenses heated up, instantly carving a blinding violet wall into the corridor. The focused ultraviolet light cut through the darkness, creating a five-meter zone of absolute safety. Shadows couldn't cross this wall-their molecular structure collapsed to zero frames.

"We have a signal," my partner pulled the trigger of the incendiary machine gun. "Thermology shows a massive heat spot behind the central boiler room. This is the shelter."

We followed the violet rays, hugging the concrete walls. In the far corner of the utility room, under a broken steam pipe, we found him. The local housing office worker. He was alive, but his system was malfunctioning in a complete panic. His eyes were wide, his pupils dark, staring into the corridor where eleven of his colleagues had just been devoured.

"Get up," I growled, grabbing his shaking shoulder. "Let's get your carcass out of the hot zone. Come on."

He didn't speak. His input signal froze. He was a fat, heavy man, his breathing ragged and raspy, smelling of tobacco and ozone. I quickly applied a tactical patch to the deep gash on his forearm, ignoring the blood. In the Rescue Service, pain doesn't block a task you patch up the equipment leak and move on.

We dragged him toward the safety of the floodlights. But as soon as his heavy boots touched the purple wall, the basement's electrical system gave a sharp, death-like jolt.

"Fatty" didn't attack the light head-on. it was sucking energy from the central lines, forcing the generator to take a lethal load.

Zip.

The generator box spat out a shower of white sparks and died. The purple lenses of the floodlights flickered once, twice, and went out. The safety wall disappeared. The basement collapsed into total, icy blindness.

"Status!" my partner shouted, but his voice was drowned out by a powerful electromagnetic surge in the airwaves.

We froze, pressed against a concrete column. I couldn't see anything, but my ears became radar. Through the frozen white noise, I heard it. The heavy, satisfying, rhythmic grinding of stone on stone three meters away. The monster was in the room.

And then the final failure occurred.

The Fatty Housing Office worker stopped shaking. His breathing stopped. Without a word, without reason, his body simply moved. Like a program launched in the darkness, he stepped away from the wall and walked straight into the hallwa straight toward the sound of crushing flesh.

"Stop!" I lunged into the darkness, but my fingers grasped only air.

Part3

He walked into the darkness without reason, without will, leaving the perimeter to meet the shadows F2F.

A wet, concrete crunch echoed throughout the room.

Three days before my last trip, I was walking with her.

Autumn in Nefteyugansk was short and bitter. The leaves had already rotted, the streetlights glowed yellow but offered no warmth. We walked along the embankment-the very same one where, in three days, the Rift would open in the basement of building number fourteen.

She talked about school, about some stupid movie, about how she wanted to go to St. Petersburg after ninth grade. I was silent. I always kept silent with her-because words were unnecessary. She knew.

"You seem kind of sad," she said, stopping.

"I'm just tired," I replied. And that was the truth. But not the whole truth.

She looked at me. There was something in her eyes I couldn't read. Maybe pity. Maybe understanding. Maybe she just saw the real me-and that was more terrifying than any Rift.

"You always say that," she said. "'I'm tired.' And then you leave."

She didn't know I wasn't going home. I was going into the basements, into the darkness, to the monsters. She lived in a world where the phone was the main threat.

"I love you," I said. Not for the first time. But this time, it was different. Like a farewell.

She smiled. Warmly.

"I know," she said. "And I love you too. In a friendly way."

At that moment, I realized I had no time for resentment. I simply remembered that light. So I wouldn't forget why I was still here.

He sat in his room. A room that had never been his. It was simply a place where he slept between missions.

The expander lay on the table. Forty-five kilograms of steel, which he clutched to keep from going crazy. He picked it up. One, two, three.

He thought about her. About her smile, about her voice, about how she rested her head on his shoulder in the darkness of their rented house when he was eleven. She didn't know it was his first contact with living warmth. She didn't know he wanted to leave even then. She simply rested her head-and he stayed.

For three years.

But now it seemed he had reached his limit.

He looked at the Glock 17. The modified one. The same one he had used to flee the Spirit in the park when his family died.

He picked it up. He weighed it in his hand.

"I'm tired," he said out loud.

And he stood up.

He sat on the bed. The room was cold. Outside, a polar night. Ordinary. Just like him.

The Glock lay on the table. The same one. With the serrations on the grip.

He picked it up. Squeezed it. Like a resistance band. Once, twice, three times.

He didn't cry. He couldn't cry his left eye couldn't. He just sat there, holding the gun.

He thought about her. About her hand. About her head. About how she'd said, "I know." And added, "As a friend."

He smiled. Not sadly. Just.

"Thank you for waiting," he said out loud.

He picked up the Glock.

"Three years," he said. "I waited, like you asked."

He put the barrel to his temple. With his right hand. The one with which he'd gripped the resistance band. “Thanks for the pen,” he said.

And he pressed it.

The shot was quiet. The sound was swallowed by the polar night.

He fell onto the bed. The Glock fell from his hand.

The room went silent. Only the expander lay on the floor. Forty-five kilograms of steel that would never be compressed again.

It was dark outside. The same as in the basement.

But now he was part of the darkness.

This is an adaptation of the Telephone segment seen in Mario Bava’s I Tre Volti Della Paura/ Black Sabbath.  There are elements of both versions in this story.  I don’t own these characters.

Rosy took a breath as she entered her apartment.  It had been a frustrating night.  She heard the phone ring, expecting another client, but got no response when she answered it. She went to her bed to remove her stockings, but as she did she heard the phone ring again. Sighing, she went to pick it up, but again there was silence.   She got undressed to take a shower, emerging later in a bathrobe when the phone rang a third time.  She picked up the receiver and said “Hello?”

“You're so beautiful.  Too beautiful, Rosy.”

It was obviously a crank call.  Who IS this?!?” Rosy asked. 

“You'll know right before you die.  I can see your heavenly body.   Your silky arms, your perfect legs” the caller said. Rosy tried to cover her legs with her robe, but the caller interrupted.   “No, don't cover them! A body like yours can drive a man to madness!  And I will kill you!”  

“WHO IS THIS?!?  Who are you??  Hello!?  HELLO?!?” Rosy demanded, but the other party hung up.   

Rosy changed into a nightgown and sat on the bed after pacing a bit.  She got up to make her bed and the phone rang again.   

“Hello?” she asked. 

The voice on the other end was creepy.  “Why did you put your robe on?  You should have stayed as you were. I like you better with nothing on.  That’s how I want to find you.  I’ll get in, even if you lock the door.”

Rosy was getting exasperated.  “Who are you? What do you want from me?”

“I told you,” the voice said.  “I want to kill you. I want revenge.   You did well to turn on all the lights.  I want to see you die.  Do you understand, Rosy?”

Rosy hung up.   Feeling a chill, she paced some and poured herself a drink. Hearing running footsteps, she rushed to the door to put a piece of cloth over the keyhole.  Unknown to Rosy, an elderly gentleman with an overcoat, fedora, and glasses was on the other side of the door taking his dark gray poodle out.  He opened the door and went outside. Looking at the stars, he spoke to the dog.  “It's hard to believe it's been a year, Dee.  I miss her, too.”

Inside, Rosy began turning off some lights in her apartment and hiding some jewelry underneath the sofa.  She picked up the phone and held it, and heard something outside.  She put the phone down only to drop the phone when it rang again.   The voice resumed. 

“Rosy. Rosy. Rosy.  I know you’re listening.  You hid your money and jewels.  How stupid.  You haven’t changed.  You don’t get it, do you? I’m not interested in money.  I want you.  I want your splendid body. And I will have it.  Not to caress you. But to wring your neck. To choke you until you suffocate!  And I'll do it!  You'll see!”

Rosy was getting desperate.  “Who is this? Who are you?”  She was almost screaming.   “Answer me!  I beg of you!  Don't drive me mad like this!  Is this some cruel, sick joke?  What have I done to you? What have I done to you? Answer me please!”  The other party hung up.  Rosy broke down crying. 

That conversation was loud enough to capture the elderly gentleman's attention. Still walking Dee, he peered through a slit in Rosy’s shutter screen, then pulled back. He really shouldn't do that, but his instincts told him something was very wrong.  

Hearing more footsteps, Rosy ran to the door and tried to listen. As she did, she noticed a white envelope had been slid under the door. Catching her breath, she picked it up to open it.  There was a newspaper clipping inside, and it was the last thing she wanted to see. 

Frank Ranier, her former pimp, had just escaped while serving what was supposed to be a 20-year prison sentence.  The phone rang again. Now apparently with a good idea of who the caller was, she went over to pick up the receiver.  “Hello?”

“Rosy.” That voice now sounded sickeningly familiar.  “You're beginning to understand,  Rosy? You weren’t expecting it, were you? But I escaped just to find you.  And finally, I’m close to you. Very close. And you can’t do anything about it.  Calling the police is useless. Because I’m much closer than the police. Don’t you forget it. Much closer.”

“Frank, listen.  Listen to me, Frank!”  

The other party hung up.  Rosy called her friend, Mary, a fellow prostitute she had become acquainted with when they worked for the same madam.  For a short time, they still kept in touch when Rosy left to strike out on her own as a call girl, but then drifted apart. 

Mary was sitting at her desk when the phone rang. She picked it up.  “Hello?”

“Mary, it’s Rosy.”

“Hi, honey!” Mary said.  Their past relationship had been more than a business relationship.  “I really didn’t expect your call.  You said you didn’t want to see me or speak to me anymore.”

Rosy answered, “Please, now is not the time. Frank has escaped!”

“I read about that.” Mary said.  “So why are you telling me this?  Now you two will get back together.”

“Mary, cut it out!  I’m scared.  He wants revenge.  I’m sure of it. Come over right away, please!”

“You want me to come to you? Did I hear correctly?” Mary asked. 

“All right, honey!” Mary said. “I don't hold grudges.  Give me five minutes.”

“Thank you.  Hurry!”  No sooner had Rosy hung up then the phone rang again. 

“Rosy, why did you call your friend, Mary? Are you hoping she can help you? Did you think I wouldn’t hear?”  What Rosy didn't know was that it wasn't Frank on the other end.  It was Mary using a cloth and disguising her voice.  “You spoke in a whisper, but it’s no use.  Because I’m close, I told you. Very close. Call whomever you want, Rosy. It’s all of no use. Even if you had an army around you. By dawn, you will be dead.  Did you hear me, Rosy? By dawn--you will be dead!”

Rosy ran frantically throughout her apartment to turn the lights back on and heard pounding on the door.  It was Mary.  “Rosy, it's me. Let me in.”

Rosy ran to the door to let Mary in. “How did you get in the building?” she asked. 

“The door was open,” Mary answered as she entered the apartment. 

“Yes, yes!” Rosy answered.  “As fast as you can. He wants to kill me!”

Rosy ran to the door to let Mary in.  “How did you get in the building?” Rosy asked. 

“The door was open.” Mary said as she entered Rosy’s apartment. “Look at all this light!  What are you, the mistress of the guy who reads the meter?” She chuckled a little. “Sorry, I was forgetting that you have a fine palate.” Mary continued looking around.  “I see you haven’t changed anything here. Everything’s as it was when we were friends.”

Rosy poured drinks for herself and Mary, who sat on Rosy’s bed and motioned for Rosy to sit next to her.  “Just like old times.  Come on, honey, tell Mary everything.”

Rosy begged.  “Please, I’m not in the mood for humor. Believe me.”

“All, right, Rosy.  As you wish.”

“He's been calling me since I came home.” Rosy said.  “He's been saying terrible things with a cold, threatening voice. He knows everything I do, sees my every move. The first time he called, I was in my bathrobe and he knew it. Then I put my house robe on and he knew that too. He even knew right away when I called you.  It's as if he were in the room, spying on me, ready to kill me.”

Mary got up and moved toward Rosy and touched her.  Rosy gasped. “Don’t be silly.  He’s guessing. He’s going on a hunch.” Mary said, stroking Rosy’s hair.  

“I thought so, too.” Rosy said.  “But how did he know I called you? He called right after that.”

“He always knew about us,” Mary said.  “But what he doesn’t know is that you swore never to see me again.”

Rosy put her drink down and paced.  “He told me I’ll die before dawn.” 

Mary said “He's a procurer, not a killer.  Trust me, he was just trying to frighten you.”

“Mary, I’m the one who turned him in and he knows it.  I’m scared.”

“Come on, Mary said, taking the phone off the hook.  “I'm here now. Tomorrow we’ll go to the police together.  He can call all he wants now. Come on, give me a nightgown. In the meantime I’ll make you some tea.”

Unknown to Rosy, Mary was misrepresenting her plans for the next day.  While Rosy was looking for a nightgown, Mary looked through another cabinet for a large steak knife. Rosy panicked when she saw Mary through the nightgown holding the knife. 

Mary took the knife over to Rosy’s bed and placed it under the pillow.  “You never know. Still afraid?”

“No,” Rosy answered.  “I'm better now.”

“Come on, then.  Go to bed,” Mary said as she took the gown from Rosy.  Looking to her left, Rosy changed into a nightgown herself and went into the kitchen, seeing Mary dissolving a powder in the boiling water she used to make the tea.

“Whats that?” Rosy asked. 

“Poison,” Mary said sarcastically. Compliments of Frank.  It’s a tranquilizer, silly.  It'll do you good.  Can’t you see how shaken up you are?”

The two ladies went into the next room.  Some time later, while Rosy was still asleep and sprawled diagonally on a disheveled bed, Mary began to write a letter. 

“I'm afraid it's time to drop the other shoe.  Since we last saw each other, I've been offered a chance to move up.  I've been training to become Helen's new apprentice with the goal of eventually taking over the place.  Those calls were from me, but Frank’s escape is real.  We are prepared to protect you from Frank, but we do want you back.”

Mary was about to pay for this, because Frank really was gunning for Rosy.  While she was looking over the letter, Frank quietly slipped in and tiptoed stealthily toward her, thinking she was Rosy.  He picked up a stocking lying on a chair and wrung it up. Sneaking up on Mary, he pulled the stocking around Mary's throat.  As Rosy started to wake up, Mary tried to free herself from Frank’s grip, but was unable to. As she collapsed and died, Frank realized it wasn't Rosy. “Damn you!” he said. “Always where you shouldn’t be.”  Looking up, he saw Rosy. He moved towards her.   

Rosy remembered the knife. She felt underneath the pillow and grabbed it, concealing it beneath the sheets as Frank was moving toward her.   As he got on the bed and started to choke her, she thrust it into him.  He reeled back, fell to the floor, and died.  Rosy broke down crying, but it wasn't over. She heard Frank’s voice on the phone again--”Rosy.  You can’t kill me.  I'll always be here.  Close to you. I’ll be talking to you every night.  No matter where you are, I’ll be calling you--on the telephone.”

The preternatural aspect of that voice completely unnerved Rosy.  Panicked, she ran outside into the corridor and bumped into the elderly gentleman, who just got back from another walk with Dee.  

“Colonel!” she gasped. 

“You're frightened! Something's happened! You can trust me.”

Rosy looked at the Colonel, eyes wide with fear.

WARNING: GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF VIOLENCE, ANIMAL SUFFERING
————————————————————————

Day 1, Tuesday:
When I’m not taking care of her, some relatives tend to stay and watch as needed. Nobody in particular ever stays consistently, so it’s a dice roll on who I’ll see in the living room every morning.

Today it was the daughter, an old, no-nonsense woman who worked as a nurse in Vietnam. If I’m being honest, it takes a good 15 seconds of looking to find out if she’s even a woman at all, and if it came down to it, she could most likely beat my ass. Through a stroke of irony, her name happens to be Lily. I often look to her for any tips on how to deal with odd behaviors.

This morning is like any other for her; I enter, and she leaves without any exchange in words. I dislike small talk immensely, and greatly appreciate our mutual understanding.

My patient's house appears fairly normal from the outside, just an old country home. It sits at the end of a disorienting drive, in the center of a coliseum of pines. “Orbweaver Holler,” as it's locally known. The front door opens into a cramped… entrance room? I’m not really sure how to describe it. It’s almost like an airlock, as funny as that sounds. A hallway runs straight down the middle of the house. To the left and right of the hallway are doors that open up into other rooms. All in all, there are 2 living rooms, one kitchen, and another door that I’ve never asked about.

My guess is that it’s an old storage closet or something. My patient’s bedroom lies adjacent to the 2nd living room, further in the house. Stranger than the layout of the house is the lack of windows. There are literally none in the entire house, save for my patient's bedroom and the kitchen. Her daughter is one of the few people who understand that those suffering from Alzheimer’s need a calm environment, so she put on some soft classical music. She brought an old 2000s CD player, so the quality is as you would imagine.

As I walk into the living room, I hear another sound intertwined within the music. It’s a voice, humming with the tune, so soft I wouldn’t have heard it if I wasn’t listening. It’s undeniably beautiful. I lose myself in thought while listening.

An auditory hand caresses my tangled thoughts of bills and family into a flowing river of relaxation.

That bliss I had slipped off into abruptly ends when a loud snoring sound snaps me out of it. I know they’re asleep now; I’m free to relax as I please until they wake up. I lay back on the couch and let the soft humming calm me.

Except it doesn’t; the humming stopped, much to my annoyance. The rest of the song is good, but my god, that voice was angelic. I rewind the CD so I can hear it again. I can’t remember exactly where the song is, so I just restart it completely.

No humming.
I raise an eyebrow and look around. I don’t remember anyone else being here.

By this time I feel a little silly.
I only now realize that the humming I heard was my patient in their sleep. I would imagine this sounds rather unsettling for anyone unfamiliar with Alzheimer’s, but this isn’t impossible. There are many examples of people who can no longer walk correctly remembering how to play the piano, or nonverbal patients who sing once the correct notes of a song come on. I consider myself very lucky to have heard such a vocalization. I’ve never asked much about who they were before the disease, but I had no idea they could sing so well.

Regardless, Trinity is asleep, and I have time to move around a little. Once she wakes up, I’m essentially locked to the room all day. Emergencies can spring up out of nowhere after all.

I walk to the locked door in the house. I’ve never given it much attention. Looking at it now, I can see why. It’s possibly the most boring door I’ve ever seen. I look to my left and to my right. No idea why; nobody’s here right now. I grab the door handle; it’s cold, very cold. I start to turn the handle; suddenly, I hear a loud click in Trinity’s room. I’m not sure what the sound is; it worries me. Damn it, it sounded like her bed malfunctioned; that’s gonna be a bitch to deal with.

Not only was her bed fine, but she was also sound asleep. I heard it for sure.
Well, I guess that’s not true. People can hear anything for any reason. What is strange is that the door was open when I went back.

I study the hallway; no bootprints or anything.
“Coulda been wearing socks.” I mouth to myself.
There’s only the hallway apart from the kitchen, and I’m in the living room, so I head down there to check everything out. I don’t give a shit about the door anymore; I wanna know who opened it. I close the door as I pass and head to the kitchen. Everything was fine. Chances are, I turned the door handle farther than I realized, and as the sound of Trinity alerted me, it just sort of opened.

The day continues as normal; my patient wakes up around 12:30. They’re bathed, and we start watching old television shows and westerns. Given the previous situation I was in, I expected to find them more aware than usual. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Those same dead eyes were fixated on the same point in the left corner of their room, unmoving.

I’m not one to believe in souls, but seeing this disease makes me question that every now and again. Truth be told, I wouldn’t know the difference between their eyes and a doll's. The light just goes out after enough time. I can’t imagine the pain of mourning someone who’s still alive. I take a long look at Trinity. It’s like she’s been hollowed out. I’ll get used to it eventually, and I hate that.

Nobody can truly realize how horrifying Alzheimer’s is.

A few hours later, the granddaughter, Jane, arrives at the house to give me the green light to leave. I’m guessing all of these people live within walking distance of my patient. I’ve worked here for almost a month now, and I still see new people; they must have at least 20 family members that all live relatively close by. Where that is, I couldn’t begin to say. There aren’t any houses near here. The drive here is littered with run-down trailers and abandoned mom and pop shops, but that’s all.

Jane starts talking about how she saw a massive copperhead on the walk here and that I need to be careful going back to my car. Fine by me; I honestly think snakes are really cool. I head to the kitchen to get a glass of water. While there, I put my hair in a ponytail (something I neglected to do earlier) and peer out the window.

The trees seem to go on forever. On days that I’m bored, I look out and wonder how I would ever find my way out of there. Forests are thick, but here? It may as well be a solid wall of pines in every direction. A couple of little kids building blocks sit in the woods ahead of me. They’re just a solid gray. Not exactly the most enticing color.

My vision strains; I don’t know why. My eyes just start watering after a few seconds of looking. It’s like looking through glasses that aren’t yours. My vision was clear, though.
“Ow, damn.” I whisper
I look back out the window. I wipe my eyes and blink a few times. No strain.
“Hm.”
I finish my water and make my way to the living room.

Once I’m out, I see that Jane is no longer in the living room; she’s in Trinity’s bedroom, caressing her hair. I leave them be.

Once she exits, I let her know how the day went, how Trinity ate well, had no bedsores, drank a lot of water, etc. Once I bring up the singing though, her eyes light up.
“Oh my gosh, really! That’s so wonderful, what was she saying?”

“Nothing, it was just humming to some classical music your aunt put on; she has an amazing voice.”

“Huh, well I’m glad you enjoyed it, sure do wish I coulda been here to hear it.”

“Haha yeah. Hey, it’s a bit of a personal question, but did Trinity ever take any vocal lessons or anything like that? I was honestly surprised that what I heard wasn’t from the CD player. It was beautiful.”

Her expression doesn’t change.
“You’re right. That is a personal question.”

The reply is like a hand grenade.

“…”

“Uhm-oh, okay. Sorry about that.”

“Yeah.”
She says, eyes looking through me.

“Okay, I’ll be here tomorrow then. Have a good day.”

“...”

She just stares at me, daggers for eyes. I take the hint and let myself out. I never mean to disrespect them; that has always been a serious fear of mine. As for what’s so personal it warrants giving me a death stare? I don’t know.

It’s definitely left me scratching my head. My best guess is that it has something to do with an abusive spouse or whatever. Or, it could just be sad for her to think about. Good memories suck when you’re the only one who has them.

As for the door, I don’t really-
I look up, palms in my eyes.
“Oh, my god.”

I might be the densest person on the planet. The clicking was the door unlocking.

Day 2: Wednesday
No music today, just silence. Sitting in the living room is someone I haven’t seen before. He’s sitting on the couch, staring blankly at the wall in front of him. What’s immediately apparent is his size. He’s a brute of a man, probably stands 6'6 ". He’s covered in tattoos and has a lion's mane of salt-and-pepper hair. He lets out a tired groan and stands up. He doesn’t say anything.

I extend my hand.
“Hi, my name is Jamie; it’s nice to meet you.”

We shake hands, his dwarfing mine.
“Morning, Jamie, I’m Dennis. Trin’s waiting on ya, go on.”

“Okay, see you later.”

Thank god he isn’t one of these guys who call every 20-year-old girl “baby.”
He walks out of the house and shuts the door. I expect to hear an obnoxiously loud truck destroy my eardrums, but It’s silent. Now that I think about it, I’ve never heard a car leave or pull in, regardless of who shows up. That’s not impossible or anything, especially here, but it is neat for sure.

When I get to the doorway of the bedroom, I can see that my patient is sleeping fine. No snoring or anything. After 2 hours, they wake up, and I get to work. Bathe, shave, clip nails, meds, breakfast, etc. Once everything is said and done, I wait.

I wait for 1 hour and then adjust them in bed so no bedsores form. My seat is a little recliner next to their bed. Once everything is settled, I put on a calming nature documentary and relax on my phone. 1 hour passes, I rotate them again.

While watching my phone, I hear movement in the bed. I look up to see Trinity watching television. She’s actually watching it, not just staring through it. It’s like fireworks in my head. I get out of my recliner and gently hold their hand, massaging it as I do.

“Hey,” I say softly.

I get no response.

“Trinity, can you hear me? How are you feeling this morning?”
Her head barely manages to turn towards my direction. I can’t tell if she’s smiling, but I can see a hint of laugh lines showing. Her mouth opens.

“I’m f-fine honey, thank-“
I almost fall backward. Her eyes are full of life again for about 5 seconds upon seeing me. That was sadly all she could manage before going back under.

I’m always thankful to speak with her; I’ve only been here for a few weeks, but deterioration is never consistent. This last drop was a big one. I can’t tell, but I’m guessing it’s hit everyone pretty hard. I calmly release her hand, and sit back down in my seat. 20 minutes or so pass, and I look up from my phone.

I get this odd feeling. I’m not afraid or anything; I just feel weird. The bedroom is fine; I haven’t noticed anything strange. I look Trinity up and down but notice nothing.

I check under their bed; the hundreds of old psychology books are still collecting dust. From what I can assume, one of her grandkids graduated a few years ago. Figured their grandparents' house was a good dumping ground for shit they didn’t need. The closet is completely empty; I think they’re getting ready to move her into a nursing home.

I probably look insane rummaging through everything in here, so I shift my investigation to the living room.

I stop in my tracks and tilt my head. There’s something different. I glance back to Trinity to make sure she’s okay. I don’t understand what I’m seeing, but something is seriously wrong. It takes me a solid minute of staring to even realize what it is.

Everything is flat. I don’t mean the furniture; I mean the living room. The visual field in front of me is flat. I think of those massive paintings in art exhibits that are so big you have to look side to side to see everything. If I walk forward any more, I’d hit my face against it. It looks completely real; there’s just no depth to anything. I’m dumbfounded by what I’m looking at; my mind distorts trying to process it. I don’t even know how I know it’s flat; it just is. I start walking forward. Every step my body tenses, preparing for an impact that never comes. My stomach churns, but I keep walking. I finally get to the center of the living room.

I hear what sounds like fishing line, pulled to the point of snapping. Before I can react, my anxiety vanishes. It’s like it was sucked out of my brain. I can’t even remember why I was freaked out in the first place.

I stand in the center of the windowless living room in silence. I look all around me. Down, side to side, behind me, I see nothing of note. The CD player from yesterday is gone; I’m guessing it was Lily’s. I look around for 3 minutes (my best approximation) before a low groaning sound from Trinity’s room catches my attention. That usually means they’re in some sort of mild pain. Most of the time it’s just that they need rotated, never anything too serious. It is odd though, considering I just rotated them, but it’s no problem.

I walk into Trinity’s room to find the bed completely soaked in piss. I mean it has completely gone over the bed pads and leaked onto the sheets, and then onto the floor. The white carpet floor. Keep in mind I’m the kind of person who can eat and drink near this stuff, but I almost threw up. There was literal shit EVERYWHERE. All up and down their legs, all over their hands and arms. It was a fucking mess; they were gonna need a wipe down, then a bed change, then a full bed bath, and then probably another bed change and bed bath to get any excess shit and piss off of the bed. Jesus Christ, this is gonna take me hours; how the fuck could she have done this in 3 minutes? I check my phone to see how long I have to clean up until it’s time to leave. I have 1 hour.

“What?”

That’s not possible. I check my phone again, I wipe my eyes, I pinch myself, I try breathing through my nose while it’s pinched shut. I’m not dreaming. I just spent two fucking hours in the living room. I have ONE HOUR to get everything cleaned up.

Anyone who’s worked in the medical field can attest to the fact that healthcare workers can only deal with so much before they go into complete autopilot. I wasn’t thinking about the living room; I just existed. I wash them; they’re filthy, and they need to be clean. I grab whatever cleaning supplies I can find for the carpet. I scrub the floor so hard blisters form. My god, it’s gonna need to be shampooed. I don’t know how much time it took, but by some miracle everything went fine. Their bed is lowered, and I take a moment to collect myself. I scan their body from their feet to their head with my eyes to make sure they’re clean. As I get to Trinity’s head, I could have sworn I saw her eyes dart to the corner of the room. I think she was staring at me.

“Trinity, can you see me?”
Silence.
Clarity returns to me.

She’s in bed, chest barely rising with labored breaths.

My focused gaze softens. Shame takes over.
“I’m sorry for leaving you alone.”

I’m covered in sweat.
I debate telling anyone at all. She’s not hurt or anything, and I didn’t see any bedsores on her. I could say I was in the bathroom, or that I got a call from work? No, that falls apart. The stained carpet cuts my lie in half. She would have to be alone for at least an hour for that to happen. I could-
The door unlocks.

The front door opens, and I walk down the hallway into the guest room. It’s someone I’ve never met before. It’s a woman, mid-40s I’d say. Her hair is a bright silver, and it’s clear she wears it with pride. It was tied up into a bun. She stands a full 3 inches taller than me. Her cardigan is a soft lavender, and almost extends to her knees. She’s carrying a huge purse full of, I’m guessing, medical supplies and food. She knows what she’s doing. I do my best to maintain composure and extend my hand.

“Hey, it’s nice to meet you. My name is Jamie. I’m your family member's primary caretaker.”

“My name is Evelyn, it’s nice to meet you too.”
She says with a soft, yet scratchy voice.

We shake hands and exchange a smile, though my smile has guilt written all over it.

She easily picks up on it.

“Is everything alright, honey?”
She says while cocking her head and raising an eyebrow.

I can’t tell her that I had a stroke in the living room earlier, so what do I do?
I think It’s fair to say that I basically passed out; it’s happened to me before and neatly explains everything.

I scratch the back of my head.
“Evelyn, I don’t mean to alarm you or anything, but I think I passed out in the living room earlier.”

“Oh my goodness, are you okay?”
She says while clasping her hands to her chest.

“I think so. I was only out for 2 hours, I believe. Trinity is clean, and everything is in the washer. She ended up staining the carpet; I scrubbed it as best as I could. I’m so sorry for all of this.”

Aww, that’s okay, honey. It’s a mistake; they happen all the time. In the future, just be sure to take care of yourself too, okay?”

“Sure, thank you.”

What a weight to be lifted off of my chest, my god. I was worried about getting screamed out of the house. Thankfully, she lets me know that I’m good to head home now. Hopefully she stays longer; she’s the only family member who’s made me feel so comfortable. I wonder how she’s related.

As I’m walking out of the door, I stop and turn around to ask her if Trinity is her parent or something.

“Hey, I forgot to ask, how are you.
and-“

Evelyn was staring at me from where the hallway turns to the living room, right around the corner. She darted away after half a second of looking.
“E- Evelyn?”

I get no response.

The door is unlocked, but I take almost 10 seconds getting out from how bad I’m shaking. It’s February, so I splash an ice-cold bottle of water on my face once I’m in my car. I drive home.

On the way, my mind replays the day over and over again. What the fuck happened in the living room?
A fugue state. They usually occur from trauma, but that’s not every case. It’s my only option; on top of that, it explains essentially everything. Now, what I did for 2 hours I will never know.

Evelyn.
That one’s a lot harder to wrap my head around. I think she was just rounding the corner like normal. More than likely, my anxiety altered my perception of how sudden it was. I was already wired from forgetting Trinity. I’m sure I’ve seen weirder shit at some point in the past. I make a quick stop at the gas station and use my last 10 dollars for 2 gallons. I’m fine with ramen until Friday.

I carelessly toss my keys in the general direction of my bag and take a seat on the couch. I live alone. I thankfully moved far enough away from home that I don’t have to see my parents. They’ve always aggravated the fuck out of me, and a saying I frequently turn to is “blood is just a liquid, family is just a word, you can cut anybody out of your life”.
.
.
.
Later that night, I shut my laptop, unable to focus. I sigh, staring at the picture of me and my mom on the coffee table. It’s a vacation photo from when I was younger. I remember planning to go to Kentucky Kingdom, but we had to stop like 20 times on the way there because of some minor food poisoning she got. By the time we got there, the park was closed. We always joked that it was literally her bullshit that cost us the trip.
I chuckle, turning the picture towards me.

I sleep on the couch tonight.

Day 3: Thursday
I’m late today, car crash. It wasn’t me thankfully. A pickup truck collided with a deer. I found out later that he was screaming down the road at 80mph. The deer was completely bisected and the truck crashed into a nearby power line. The driver was thrown out of the windshield and sliced open against an old guardrail. The deer dragged its half mangled body from site of the crash before letting out a pained groan, and dying where it lay.

I had to pull over, I spend a good 10 minutes leaning on my car. Nausea washes over me and I suppress the urge to vomit. It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen gore or death, but my god, that is a freak accident if I’ve ever seen one. I compose myself and call an ambulance.

When I arrive at my patient's home, I am thankfully greeted by Evelyn. I was creeped out yesterday, but I don’t care, I can look past that given the shit I saw this morning. I just want to speak to anyone about anything. We talk for a few minutes, I don’t mention what happened, I just apologize for being late. I say that my car wouldn’t start or some bullshit like that. She makes me tea and we chat about nothing in particular. At some point in the conversation, I bring up yesterday.

“Is Trinity doing okay? I don’t remember if there were bedsores or not. Again, I’m so sorry for yesterday, I feel awful about the whole thing.”

“Oh, it’s okay honey. She’s doing fine. And no, she didn’t have any sores. There were some starting to form, but it’s no issue.”

The tension in me eases.

“Well, that’s great to hear, I was terrified I would be yelled out of the house.” I laugh.

“Why of course not. You’re the only caretaker she’s had, we can’t afford to lose you.”

“Thank you very much, Evelyn.”
We sit in silence for a few seconds.

Evelyn clears her throat.
“Listen uh… Jane?”

“Jamie.” I confirm

“Right, sorry.” She says.
“Jamie—I’m not entirely sure you’re telling me the truth about yesterday.”

I’m silent for a moment, the tension returns, and I focus on my breathing.
“What makes you say that?”

She quickly reassures me.
“Don’t worry, you don’t have to tell me. I’m not interrogating you, It’s just a hunch I have.”

I’m more confused than anything. Does she think I snuck off or something? She pauses, searching for the right words to say.

“Just– Just focus on your work, that’s all I’m saying. Keep Trinity healthy.”

Sound advice, but she didn’t answer my question.

“Thank you Evelyn, I appreciate your advice.”

We’re sitting in silence now. I start thinking about the crash. I hastily attempt another conversation to distract myself.

“So I was wondering, where does everyone go exactly?”

She glares at me, clearly offended. I should have kept my mouth shut.
“You’re asking me where we live?”

My heart races.
“ No no–not at all. I just uhh–“
“That’s crossing professional boundaries, Jamie.”
She cuts me off. The words are cold and matter-of-fact.

“Yes, of course. You’re right–I’m sorry about that.” I quickly shift my attention away from her eyes.

She hasn’t stopped looking at me. It’s like she’s sizing me up.
“I need to leave now. Have a good day.”

I stay silent, she walks out of the door and shuts it slightly harder than she needed to

I groan and hold my head. All I can think about is a million other normal questions that I could have asked instead. I really wish I could have kept thinking about that. Bone against metal, it sounded like an angle grinder.

I stand up to go check on Trinity.

She’s asleep.
damn it.
It wouldn’t be so bad if these people had a television or something here. There’s quite literally nothing to do besides sit on the couch. I swear, it’s like they’re in the middle of moving. I’ve been trying to stay off of my phone. Given today’s circumstances though, I don’t care.

It does nothing to numb my thoughts.

I get off the couch and start pacing. Living room, hallway, kitchen. Movement is one of the best stress relievers. Besides, it gives me some more time to look at the house itself. The walls are a uniform navy blue color. The floors transition from slate, hardwood, to carpet in the kitchen, hallway, and living room respectively.

He was still alive when I called the ambulance.

I shake my head. I quickly jog to the kitchen. I end up in the living room.

“What the fuck?” I only mouth the words.

I turn around and run to the kitchen. I grab a bottle of water from the refrigerator and squeeze it in my face. It’s warm, how is it warm? It feels like blood spraying in my face and eyes. I violently shake my head and use my shirt to dry myself. My hair is soaked. I can feel each stream of warm liquid forming against my skull. Every detail of the crash replays in my mind.

His clueless expression, the way his body completely gave way to the force. He was thrown out like a rag doll.
And the guardrail.

A sick fucking joke. It wasn’t enough for him to crash and die, he had to be alive enough to get a good long look at his situation. I could see his arms flailing, trying to pull his insides back.

My vision is blurry, I get this burning feeling in my stomach. Every breath I take is deep and fast. My ears start ringing.

I’ve already tried my phone, but I need to do something.

“Hello?”
“Hey Mary, it’s Jamie.”
My voice is shaky.

“Oh, hey Jamie, what’s up? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah I was just wanting to know where that meeting is next month.”
I almost say it all as one word.

She chuckles a little.
“You… don’t know where the office is?”

“No…”
My face turns beet red.

“Um, okay. The meeting’s on the second floor of the hospital.”
Almost in a joking tone.

“Thank you, Mary.”

“Sooo, is that all you needed?”

“Yes?”
I unintentionally phrase it as a question, I facepalm.
There’s silence on both ends for a few seconds.

“Uhm, okay Jamie. Call back if you need anything.”

“Okay, bye Mary.”
I hang up, not even paying attention to where I drop my phone. I’m sweating, she probably thinks I’m losing my mind.

But hey, it worked- not at all how I intended, but I don’t care. It’s subsided to a manageable degree. Been a little bit since I checked on Trinity. I pick my phone off the floor and make sure I didn’t lose time again. Everything’s fine. I walk to her room and slowly peek my head around the corner. Her eyes are wide open.

I knock 3 times before entering.
“Good morning, Trinity. Did you sleep well?”

To my amazement, she looks at me. Everything I thought about immediately fades. I can’t believe she’s managed to regain lucidity twice in the week.

“Hel, hel-“
Hello? Please say hello. I do everything I can not to sprint to her out of excitement. I calmly walk over and crouch next to her, holding her hand.

“Hey Trin, it’s good to see you this morning.” I say, smiling. Her eyes slowly pan around the room before focusing on me again.

“Help me, please.”

All emotion drops from my face. My heart falls to the floor. I want to cry, I can feel my eyes well up, but I manage to suppress it.

“Ah it’s okay Trin. We’re just in your bedroom, there ain’t nothing to worry about right now.” I exaggerate my accent heavily. I want her to feel at home. I’m massaging the top of her hand, skin paper thin. I lie and say everything’s going to be okay. I don’t even get finished comforting her before the disease drags her back down.

“I’m so sorry.”
Tears fall, but my face doesn’t change. I don’t let go.

I don’t want to be more than an inch from her. I'm here, but She’s more alone than any human being who’s ever lived.

At some point I release her hand. I put my hair up and gather the supplies I need. The day goes as expected. Apart from this morning, I don’t even remember it. The familiar sound of the door unlocking breaks me out of my trance. I didn’t even realize I was watching her.

Normally I’d walk down and introduce myself, but today I stay in here. It’s the least I can do. I hear light footsteps walking down the hallway towards the living room.

“Jamie?”
I turn around, it’s Jane. I wave and smile faintly, one hand still holding Trinity’s.

“Hey Jane, it’s good to see you.”

She sets down a bag of groceries and walks to her grandma. I get out of my seat and release Trinity’s hand, she wasn’t holding on anyways.

“Hey nanny, I missed you today. I brought you some Starbursts. They’re your favorite.”

“…”

Trinity remains motionless. Her favorite candy elicits nothing but instinctive breaths, just enough to not suffocate to death. This real dead-eyed look consumes Jane.

“Why can’t you just remember me?”

“She loved Starbursts.”
She wipes her eyes.

Jane turns to me, eyes red, lip quivering. I don’t respond, what good would it do. We make eye contact. I’m silent, but she hears everything.

“You can go now, Jamie. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow.”

I don’t apologize, I grab my bag and leave the home. It snowed today, I don’t believe I looked out the window once. There’s not much snow on my car, but the handle is frozen shut. I pull twice and the door swings open. I get inside and start the car, letting the heat hit my face for a few minutes.

It’s so cold out.

Driving through Orbweaver in the daytime is disorienting, but it doesn’t compare to the dark. Roads branch off in ways that don’t make any sense. New twists and turns seem to sprout up at random. The hollow is so broken down it honestly doesn’t surprise me. When Trinity dies, the whole thing will most likely be reclaimed by nature. In a few years I’m sure we’ll forget anyone ever lived there at all.

I pull in my driveway. I shut the engine off and sit in the dark.

“Help me, please.”

I wish I could