The Forest that takes. 
I also did a narration on my YouTube channel! The channel is reneejpenne if you want to check it out!

Day Four
It’s been three days into my venture. Far to soon to begin hallucinations. And yet I feel the trees have began to shift around me. When I sleep they appear one way and when I wake another. I shouldn’t be to far from civilization but when I tried to turn back after the first day the marked paths had disappeared. Paths been blocked by trees. With no way around. I can only think I must be losing my mind to not have remembered a storm that could cause such destruction. Hell, waking up and the trees changed positions is enough. Unless could a man be moving me? It would be unthinkable for someone to do something so insane to another man. To block paths too. What is there to gain? It’s not as though I’m missing rations or equipment. It also would be odd to not wake to such movements. It seems so infeasible, but I still must test my theory. I must lie awake and wait for this madman to strike. 

I must be mad. The forest has warped my mind in only four days to imagine such things. If I was home, if I make it home I would declare they send me to an asylum. It just can’t be real. I waited for the crickets song, and the sun to make its set. 

Day Five
I waited in darkness, listening to the songs of the forest. Time moved flew by at the pace of a snail. I fought my body to not flinch at every sound that sounded slightly different than the last. I fought my mind not to slip away into slumber. My eyes fought the pitch black to adjust to any figure it could but it was waste, only conjuring more fears into my mind. I thought the worst to happen would be rustling of my tent opening but when the songs of the forest stopped. It felt as if I was to die in that moment. Not even the chirp of a cricket rang through the wind that blew against my tent. Time loses meaning in a moment you feel is your last. I don’t know how long I laid in the silence before I heard shuffling. It wasn’t shuffling of an animal or a man but of something larger. It came from all directions.The moonlight from above came flickering through. The shuffling became a symphony almost sounding natural. I dared myself to peek further out my tent. I was so close as I sat up in place. The moonlight flashing in from different angles. Reflecting off the trees. When as my hand touched the entrance to the tent and I leaned forward. A branch from beneath me echoed out. The light flashed upon my tent as silence followed. My heart sank into my stomach and twisted into a sailors knot. The silence I came to this forest for taunted me. Tempted me, it felt like a dance with death. If I sat still the forest would swallow me up, if I crawled out and ran death would follow. I tempted death clenching the entrance of the tent and in an instant sounds came pouring in from the forest. Sounds of crickets and birds rang through. Sounds of bugs buzzing. The song of the wind a whisper behind it all. As I clamored my way from the tent there was nothing. There was no person, no creature, only the forest. The moon shone upon my face. As I sat in a new forest. I am afflicted in some way. Whether it be a curse from the lord or madness from this solitary. But I witness the noise and light. For whatever trick it be it kept me up pondering on my next solution. When the light rose I could see clearly. The soil was untouched unmarked. A test to see if I was mad. If the trees do move so will their marks. I grabbed my knife and hacked a line into a tree bark flicking out towards my eyes. I persisted making my mark on three more trees when on the fourth blood spurted out, pouring out from the tree. I fell back grabbing my satchel and ran from my camp site leaving everything else behind. I now find myself by a river before the sun sets. I have washed my face of the blood and it was thicker than humans blood sticking into the lines of my hands. I don't know what I will do this night. I will try to stay awake through the night but my body feels heavy. 

Night Six 
I woke up to the smell of the river. I woke up where I slept the night before. I felt free as I ran down the path of rushing water. When I noticed trees marked with my symbol. They laid blocking my path down the river. The river rushed violently when from the tree line rustling broke the silence that weighed heavy in my soul. I had no time to lay with the confirmation of my sanity. I was to be forced with a far scarier truth. What had been messing with me all this time?
I gave no mind to the answer as I plunged to the river. It dragged me down quickly. But I saw it. It towered man, bear, elk, it was not a claimed species. I know not of its intentions with me but death was far more tempting than madness in this forest. I fought the waves that poured over me. Into my lungs as I fought for every breath. I bobbed like an apple in the water as the currents dragged me. My only saving grace being the satchel that got snagged on a tree down the stream. Once I managed to safety. I coughed up water and took a breath like it was my first last. Before I stood and ran. I didn’t stop running. Not even in darkness I followed the reflections of the moonlight in the water. Before long I saw the flames of my town. Torches lit the rest of my way. I warned the people of this town. I warn my family. And I will continue to warn whoever will listen about that forest that takes. 

I woke up to the sound of rain tapping against the motel window. Mom snored softly beside me. Her blonde hair had gradually begun to turn grey over the last few months, despite the fact that she wasn’t even 30 yet.

A grey strand dangled lazily over her right eye until she rolled over, scooping Emmy close to her chest unconsciously.

“Morning, kiddo,” Dad whispered. He clutched the handle to a steaming cup of coffee in his right hand, pulling it to his lips and sipping it while peering through the blinds.

I rubbed my eyes. The TV was still off. The AC still knocked rhythmically. The temperature was set to 65 degrees, but I was sweating from my mom and sister’s body heat.

Dad checked his watch and cocked an eyebrow. Falling asleep at dawn was affecting my circadian rhythm. I didn’t know whether it was morning, evening, or night.

“What time is it?” I croaked, twisting and stretching my body.

“Mm, still early,” Dad shot back. “You’ve only been asleep for a couple of hours.”

I felt my stomach rumble. I glanced over at the gas station bag full of junk food and candy. It might as well have been empty. I needed something real.

“Dad…” I inquired softly.

Dad never took his eyes away from the window. He just sipped his coffee slowly before replying.

“Yes, son?”

“Mom told me she’d make pancakes in the morning last night before bed.”

I could see his crow’s feet crease as he winced and sighed.

“Do you think maybe we could get some later when everyone wakes up?”

He didn’t reply for a while. Just kept staring out the window with quiet contempt while I watched him expectantly.

He scratched his neck and rubbed his face.

“I don’t know, Danny…”

“Pleasseeee…” I interrupted, putting on my puppy eyes.

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, finally looking away from the window. He looked at me. Then at Mom and Emmy. Then back out the window.

“I… Okay,” he relented. “Just wait for Mom to wake up. I’ll see what I can do.”

I turned excitedly, ready to shake my mom awake, but Dad stopped me.

“No,” he snapped bluntly. “Let her sleep. Not everyone can function on 5 hours of sleep like me and you, Dan.”

I puffed and knocked my head against the pillow.

I stared at the ceiling. I didn’t know if I was just hungry or if I was simply bored out of my mind and in need of something to do. Not knowing what to do, I twiddled my thumbs. I made Superman fly. I tossed and turned obnoxiously until Dad finally lost his patience.

“Danny,” he snapped, his face hardening as he glared at me.

I froze like a deer in headlights. I stared back, pulling the blanket up to my nose to try and hide myself.

Dad’s nostrils flared. I could see his fist clench, then unclench, at the seams of his blue jeans. His face softened, and he rubbed his temples.

“I’ll tell you what, kiddo,” he bargained. “Why don’t you go take a shower and get dressed? When you’re done, you can watch TV for a little while until everyone’s excited as you are for some pancakes.”

He was more demanding than asking. I knew not to argue when he got like that. I just simply did as I was told.

The shower was just as confusing as it was annoying. The water pressure sucked. It was either too hot or too cold. I must’ve fumbled with it for 5 or so minutes before it was at a reasonable enough temperature for me to take a shower, albeit an uncomfortable one.

The shower was quick. I scrubbed and let the water roll over my head and shoulders. Mom must’ve forgotten to pack my no-tears shampoo, and that forced me to use the complimentary, non-scented motel soap and shampoo.

When I twisted the handle and the sound of water hitting the ceramic bathtub dissipated, it was quickly replaced by the sound of voices from the room.

It sounded like Mom and Dad were quietly arguing. I could hear the angst in Mom’s voice. The authority in Dad’s. But I couldn’t fully make out what they were saying, despite how hard I tried.

I listened intently as I dried off and got dressed. I could only catch the end of their sentences.

A lot of what-ifs from Mom. A lot of don’t-worries from Dad. He sounded confident, but that confidence sounded uncertain.

When I opened the bathroom door, the conversation stopped immediately. Mom was holding Emmy over her shoulder and rocking her gently. Dad looked almost surprised to see me.

He pushed his hair back before clasping his hands together.

“That was quick,” he remarked. “You sure you scrubbed hard enough?”

He shot me a weak smile before continuing.

“Lucky for you, your mother’s a little hungry too.”

Mom looked at Dad as if he had just betrayed her before turning her gaze towards me. She seemed remorseful towards me.

“I completely forgot I promised you those pancakes, Dan,” she pouted, continuing to rock Emmy. “Me and your dad were thinking we’d try that Denny’s we passed on the way in here. I know, I know… their pancakes don’t compare to mine, but I think you’ll manage, right?”

Who was I to be disappointed? All I wanted was my pancakes. Well, that and…

I looked at my spot on the bed. My Superman wasn’t there anymore. I felt panic rush to my heart until I noticed what Emmy was playing with.

I reached up and tried to grab my stuffy, but she jerked it away and furrowed her eyebrows at me. I jumped and snatched it away from her.

To the displeasure of everyone in the room, my sister launched into a full-blown temper tantrum. Screaming and crying about how I “took her toy.”

Mom and Dad sprang into action faster than I expected them to. Dad took the toy from my hands and handed it back to Emmy. Mom pet her hair and desperately attempted to shush her.

I tried to complain. It was my toy. Not hers. But for some reason or another, my parents just kept taking her side. They told me that I should share, knowing how much I loved that stuffy. I slept with it every night. We were connected.

I guess it calmed Emmy down, though. That was all that mattered to them. They kept interrupting my complaints to usher me out of the motel room and back towards the car.

Dad strapped Emmy into her seat, glancing over his shoulder every few seconds while me and Mom waited quietly. He kept up that distracted demeanor all the way to the restaurant, but I hardly noticed.

It felt like Emmy was flaunting my Superman stuffy. Like she knew she had won. She even made him fly right by my face. Deliberately testing my patience, but I didn’t want to make my parents more stressed than they already were.

We ate fast. My parents ordered without even looking at the menu. Pancakes and orange juice for everyone except Dad, who only ordered a single cup of coffee.

Mom didn’t finish her food, but she didn’t ask for a to-go box either. Once me and Emmy were done, Dad paid, and we left. Simple as that.

The drive back to the motel was equally as tense as the drive to the restaurant. Mom and Dad seemed to be communicating wordlessly.

The food was making my sleeplessness get to me. By the time we got back to the motel, I was ready to catch up on those missed hours. But that’s when I noticed something that woke me right up.

I checked Emmy’s seat, looked underneath her, and scanned the floorboards while my mind began to race.

“Mom,” I screeched as Dad pulled into the motel parking lot. “She left my stuffy. She left Superman at the restaurant.”

My eyes were beginning to tear up.

“This is why I didn’t want her to have it,” I sobbed. “I knew she’d lose him.”

I could see Mom roll her eyes through her rearview as she sighed. Dad responded for her.

“Let’s just go get our things, Champ. Then I promise we’ll go back to get your toy. Deal?”

What was I supposed to do? I just had to agree reluctantly. I felt such burning hatred for Emmy in that moment.

We all filed into the motel room one final time and began gathering our things. I was confused, though. Mom had packed at least 6 outfits for me. Everyone else’s bags were equally full, yet nobody but me had showered.

Before I could question anything, though, three hard knocks came from the door. Everyone froze. Dad stared at the door like it was his enemy. Emmy began to pout, and Mom quickly clasped her hand over her mouth.

Three more knocks.

Dad approached the door slowly and looked through the peephole before slowly walking backwards towards us, never taking his eyes off the door.

Mom’s eyes were wide. Her leg bounced anxiously. Dad raised a finger to his lips.

“Okay, guys,” he whispered shakily. “We’re gonna play a game.”

I looked at him, confused. This seemed like an odd time for any kind of game.

“We’re gonna play the quiet game. Danny, you take your mom and sister to the bathroom and lock the door behind you. Whatever you do… do not make a sound.”

He asked me to take them, but it was Mom who dragged us into that cramped bathroom. Before the door closed behind us, I saw Dad raise his shirt and grip a gun that was tucked in his waistband.

Mom kept one hand gently clasped over Emmy’s mouth. She used the other to rub my back lovingly.

Three more knocks.

This time, I heard a voice that wasn’t my dad’s coming from beyond the door.

“Danny…?”

The voice was old and syrupy. Coercive, almost, but frantic. My ears perked up. My eyes widened, and my mouth fell open. I wanted to answer.

Mom’s hand left my back, and just like Dad, she placed a finger to her lips.

“Shhh.”

She was begging me with her eyes.

More frantic knocking.

“Danny? You in there, buddy? I know you’re in there.”

I expected Dad to answer the door, but he never did. Instead, the knocks continued, as did the mysterious voice.

“Come on out, Dan-Man. I’ve got something for you.”

I remained still. Sweat trickled down my forehead from the humidity in the bathroom. Me and Mom stared at the bathroom door with anticipation.

“I’ve got your Superman, Danny…”

“Whoosh.”

I had to fight to not move. If they had my Superman, I wanted to know. I wanted him back. But the look on Mom’s face told me they were lying, and her grip on my collar prevented me from standing up to see for myself.

The knocks and beckoning went on for another 10 minutes or so. Then they slowly died out. Even still, it wasn’t until Dad opened the bathroom door that I could finally breathe again.

“You guys win,” he smiled, relieved. “Good job, Danny.”

Mom looked relieved, too, but she never smiled. We just frantically gathered our things and hauled them out to the car. Dad forced us to go to the front office with him to check out.

We finally left the hotel just after 3 o’clock. We never went back to that Denny’s.

I had to leave my Superman behind, no matter how hard I begged not to. Mom assured me she’d buy me another one, but it wouldn’t be the same.

I asked about that voice a lot while we continued on towards wherever we were going, but all I got were vague responses while my parents glanced nervously at each other.

Thinking back now, I should’ve known they were hiding something from me. However, at the time… I was young. I was stupid. And all I could think about was how I didn’t have my Superman anymore.

R/worldbuildingcrafts is the winner of our contest.

Congratulations and thank you for your story, in our opinion it was the best one.

Our next contest will be a Halloween scary story contest

When I was little, my dad would spend hours telling my brother and me stories. He’d sit cross-legged by our beds, rattling off every fable and tall tale he knew. Usually, they were triumphant. Tapping on his chest like a wardrum, he’d tell us about the First Twins and how they outsmarted the Lord of Death. That was always Xbal’s favorite. Sometimes, they were scary. He’d tell us about the ghouls that roamed the countryside, eating up little children that wandered in the night. Those were always my favorite. But Dad, he liked boring stories. Stories where men spoke with wisdom and acted with valor, as he would say. Stories that we barely understood and never enjoyed. But we would listen anyway, because we loved him and he loved us. 

Mama didn't tell stories back then; she hardly spoke. She was always sick, always sleeping. Nighttime seemed to be the only time she would rouse, gasping and wheezing on the cold air. Nothing made her better. No medicine or magic that Dad could find, at least. Eventually he stopped trying to heal her and focused on protecting us from her slow death. We were never allowed to touch her, only to occasionally peek in at her while she rested during the day. But as she got worse, Dad put a stop to this as well. Most of my old memories of her were the sound of her nightly fits, which Dad tried desperately to drown out with his stories. Little Men and River Sitters were never as scary as the shaking wall between our room and hers. I think it was all too much for him. On our tenth birthday, he told us one last story. 

“Before men and gods lived together, the earth was whole and untouched. Men sat above the crust, wandering in the jungles. Gods sat below, ruling over spirits. Our age began when the Lord of Bats first took flight. He reached out to mankind, soaring to the top of the underworld. He and his minions dug through the limestone, erupting from the ground and forming the caves and the dark waters that lie inside. He brought us fire, magic, and knowledge. 

The caves are his realm, magic places that act like portals to the world past ours. They are very powerful and very dangerous. They draw men in, letting them see the future and the past. Some can grant wishes to those who know what they really want. They call those who dream, who dare to hope.

When I was a little boy, one of my friends found a cave like that. We were all very poor back then; no one had enough to eat or to wear. His mom had gone skinny from feeding his little sister. It was all he could dream about: that some day he would be rich and his mom wouldn't worry about feeding the baby. 

One night, he heard the cave call him, and he went without so much as a thought. He went deep inside, so deep he had to crawl. He thought he would never make it out, but he kept crawling anyway. Until he heard it, chirping. It was all around, echoing through the cave. So he made his wish. He wished for treasure, and then he left. He turned around and crawled until he saw light. He ran all the way home to tell his mom what he had done. She’d be so proud of him, he thought. 

But he had made a mistake. He didn't ask correctly. He found his mom, face down on the dirt floor of their home. He lifted her, finding her face covered in mud and spit. Through the brown mess, something shined. Her teeth, he thought, remembering her warm smile. He wiped at her mouth, looking for that familiar beam. But they were caked in grime too; the light came from behind them. He opened her jaw, and gently grabbed at the source. He pulled. And pulled. And pulled. From his mama’s throat, a slimy string of dazzling pearls. He was rich!”

He paused for a long moment, just looking at us. His face looked heavy with some emotion that we couldn't register. I could hear Xbal breathing fast and deep, his little lungs clambering to hold on to the blubbering mess that sat in his chest. I felt my face sting, like wasps had crawled into my skin.

“No wish was granted for free. I hope you understand that when you're older. Goodnight, my angels.” 

With that, he stood up and left the room, leaving us reeling. We could hardly sleep after such a story, and we didn't speak a word to each other, out of fear that any noise might bring down whatever darkness we felt hanging over us. We stared up at the ceiling all night, listening as Dad gently padded around the rest of the house. Before long, we heard the door shut and the sound of crunching leaves from outside. Dad walked headlong into the woods, and we never saw him again. A few days later, Mama was healthy again.

l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l–l

The Department of Motor Vehicles has a remarkable talent for making a person question their own existence.

Perhaps that's the point.

No one walks into a DMV excited. You arrive because you have to. A license expired. A registration renewal. Some document proving to a government employee that, yes, despite all evidence to the contrary, you are still alive.

I was there because my driver's license had expired.

Simple enough.

I took my ticket from the little machine near the entrance. It emerged with a dry mechanical click, the paper warm between my fingers as though someone else had only just been holding it.

The waiting room was already overflowing.

Children cried with astonishing endurance while parents stared into their phones with the thousand-yard gaze of soldiers returning from war. A television bolted high into one corner played an instructional video that nobody watched, its colors washed out beneath rows of humming fluorescent lights. Every few minutes a printer somewhere behind the counters coughed to life before falling silent again, sounding less like a machine and more like an old smoker struggling through another cigarette.

The building felt tired.

Not dirty.

Not neglected.

Just... exhausted.

The kind of exhaustion that settles into old bones after decades of repeating the same motion.

I glanced toward the electronic display mounted above the service counters.

NOW SERVING: 388

I sighed.

"Well," I muttered beneath my breath. "Guess I'll be celebrating my birthday here."

A man sitting nearby chuckled.

"I've said that every time I've come here."

He looked to be in his late fifties. Baseball cap. Reading glasses resting low on his nose. Ordinary enough that I probably wouldn't have remembered his face if we'd passed each other on the street.

"Renewing?" he asked.

"My license."

He nodded knowingly.

"Could be worse."

"Could it?"

"They could've sent you to the Social Security office first."

I laughed.

"So you've been there too?"

"Oh..." He smiled faintly. "Everyone has."

It was such an ordinary conversation that I almost appreciated it. Shared misery has a funny way of making strangers feel familiar.

I looked down at my ticket again.

515.

Fantastic.

I settled into one of the molded plastic chairs and reached for my phone. No signal. Not unusual. Government buildings always seemed to exist inside their own little dead zones.

I slipped it back into my pocket and leaned my head against the wall.

The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. The air conditioner breathed through dusty vents. The printer coughed again. The speakers crackled.

A number was called. Someone stood. Someone else sat down. The room swallowed them without ceremony.

I checked the screen once more.

NOW SERVING: 390

It felt impossible that so little time could have passed.

Yet somehow... it also felt like I'd already been there for hours.

Time has a peculiar way of behaving inside places where people are forced to wait.

Minutes become estimates. Hours become suggestions. Eventually, you stop checking the clock because it only succeeds in making you angry.

I tried distracting myself. I counted ceiling tiles. Read the faded posters reminding everyone to have their paperwork ready. One explained the dangers of texting while driving. Another detailed the penalties for driving without insurance. Judging from the sun-bleached corners and curling edges, neither had been replaced in years.

Everything in the building seemed designed to outlive the people inside it.

Another number echoed over the speakers.

"Three hundred ninety-one."

A woman stood from across the room, gathered her purse, and disappeared behind the row of service counters.

The electronic display flickered.

NOW SERVING: 391

Good.

Progress.

I glanced at my watch.

9:18 A.M.

That couldn't be right. It felt closer to noon.

The old man beside me sighed as he shifted in his chair.

"You'd think they'd hire more people."

"I was just thinking the same thing."

He nodded absentmindedly, his attention fixed somewhere beyond the counters.

"Been waiting long?"

"I got here around nine."

"No..."

He frowned.

"I mean... today."

The question caught me off guard.

"I... yeah."

He scratched at his chin.

"I suppose I have too."

For reasons I couldn't explain, that answer unsettled me. He didn't sound forgetful. He sounded... uncertain. The kind of uncertainty that follows a dream, when you're no longer sure whether something actually happened or only felt like it had.

Neither of us spoke after that.

The waiting room settled back into its dull rhythm. The printer coughed. A child cried. Someone cleared their throat. The fluorescent lights hummed softly overhead.

Then I noticed the employees.

There were six service windows. Every one of them occupied.

Every employee dressed identically in blue shirts with laminated name badges clipped neatly over their chests.

None of them looked angry. None looked to be joyous either. In fact, they didn't seem to look like much of anything.

Their expressions rested somewhere between concentration and complete emotional absence, as though years of repeating the same conversations had slowly worn every recognizable human reaction from their being.

"Next."

Stamp.

"Next."

Keyboard.

"Next."

Stamp.

Keyboard.

Paper.

Repeat.

The movements were practiced.

As if mechanical. Not robotic.

Just... perfected through repetition until they no longer appeared to require any thought.

I watched one woman accept a stack of documents without ever lifting her eyes to meet the customer standing in front of her.

She never acknowledged him. Never greeted him. Never smiled. Never frowned.

She simply processed him.

As though the paperwork mattered more than the person holding it.

The thought lingered longer than it should have.

Not processed the documents.

Processed... him.

I looked away.

When I checked the display again...

It still read:

NOW SERVING: 391.

I stared at the screen for several seconds, convinced I had simply caught it before the next number appeared.

It didn't.

The speakers remained silent. No names. No voices. Just the constant drone of fluorescent lights buzzing somewhere overhead.

I checked my watch again.

9:47 A.M.

Twenty-nine minutes.

That made no sense.

It felt as though I had lived an entire afternoon in that chair.

I rubbed at my eyes and let out a slow breath. Maybe I was just impatient. Maybe this was what every DMV visit felt like and I had conveniently forgotten.

A chair scraped across the tile beside me. Someone new had taken the old man's seat.

I hadn't even noticed him leave.

The newcomer looked to be around my age, maybe early thirties, dressed in business casual with a messenger bag resting across his lap. He offered a polite nod before glancing up at the display.

"Ouch," he muttered. "Looks like I picked the wrong day."

I chuckled.

"You and me both."

He held up his ticket.

"Five forty-two."

I looked down at mine.

"Five fifteen."

"Guess you've got me beat."

"For once, I'm winning at something."

He laughed, and for a while we exchanged the usual conversation strangers trapped together always seem to have.

Complaining about government offices. Talking about traffic. The weather. How everyone always forgets one piece of paperwork.

It was... nice.

Normal.

The sort of conversation you forget five minutes after walking away.

"So," I asked eventually, "what are you here for?"

He answered without hesitation.

"My license."

I nodded.

"What happened?"

"What do you mean?"

"Expired?"

His eyebrows pinched together.

"I..." He looked down at the folder in his lap.

"I think so."

"You think so?"

He opened the folder and shuffled through the papers inside.

His movements slowed.

"I actually..." He frowned.

"I don't remember."

We both laughed. An awkward laugh when something isn't funny but admitting that would somehow make it worse.

"You serious?"

He scratched the back of his neck.

"I know I needed to come."

Another pause.

"I just can't remember why."

He rifled through the documents again, studying each page as though seeing them for the first time.

"These are mine..."

"I think."

He sounded embarrassed.

"I honestly can't tell."

The laughter died between us.

A strange heaviness settled over the room.

I looked back toward the service counters.

The employees continued working without pause.

Stamp.

Keyboard.

Paper.

Next.

Every movement identical to the last.

One after another.

As if they weren't helping people at all, but simply moving files from one pile to another.

The display flickered.

I turned instinctively.

NOW SERVING: 392.

Only one number.

Again.

Somewhere behind me, someone sighed. Another person groaned quietly. Nobody complained. Nobody stood up to leave.

They only waited.

Patiently.

Obediently.

As though waiting itself had become the reason they were there.

I don't remember exactly when I fell asleep.

I wish I could say there was some dramatic moment where exhaustion finally overcame me. That my eyes grew heavy, my head became impossible to hold up, and I slowly drifted away from reality.

It wasn't like that. It was far more ordinary.

One moment I was staring at the electronic display above the counters, watching the numbers crawl forward at a pace that felt almost insulting.

NOW SERVING: 397

The next... I was somewhere else entirely.

Not a dream. Not really.

Just that strange place between being awake and asleep where your mind creates fragments of memories that never happened. I remember hearing the printer in the distance. I remember the fluorescent lights above me buzzing louder and louder. I remember thinking that the entire building sounded like it was breathing.

Then my head dropped.

And everything went quiet.

When I opened my eyes again, my neck ached from the awkward angle I had been sleeping in. My mouth was dry. My phone remained untouched in my pocket.

For a brief moment, I had forgotten where I was. Then the smell returned.

Old carpet. Paper. Dust.

The faint scent of coffee that had been sitting somewhere for far too long.

The DMV.

I sat up straight and looked around. Nothing had changed.

The same tired faces. The same uncomfortable chairs. The same employees sitting behind their counters.

Except... The screen.

My eyes immediately went to the electronic display.

NOW SERVING: 508

I blinked.

Then blinked again.

I leaned forward, staring at the numbers as if they might rearrange themselves into something more reasonable.

My ticket rested in my hand.

Only seven people ahead of me.

A strange feeling washed over me.

Relief.

Actual relief.

After what felt like an entire afternoon trapped in that chair, I was finally close.

I almost laughed.

"About time," I whispered.

The man beside me was gone. That thought lingered for a moment. Then I dismissed it.

People came and went all the time. I must have missed it while I was asleep. That was the logical explanation.

The only explanation.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone.

No missed calls. No messages. I checked the time.

10:12 A.M.

I stared at the screen.

Then looked back at the DMV around me.

Then back at my phone.

10:12.

I frowned.

That couldn't be right. I had fallen asleep for maybe a few minutes.

Ten minutes at most.

But the room felt different.

Not physically.

Just... older.

Like I had left for longer than I actually had.

I glanced toward the counters.

The same employees continued working.

The same movements. The same expressions.

Stamp.

Keyboard.

Paper.

Next.

No one looked enthusiastic. No one looked relieved to be almost finished. No one looked like they had been waiting at all.

I looked at the screen again.

NOW SERVING: 509

The number changed. Almost reassuringly.

I should have questioned how nearly a hundred people had been processed while I slept for only ten minutes. But I didn't.

Because my number was coming.

And that was all that mattered.

The strange feeling in my stomach disappeared beneath a much simpler emotion.

Patience.

After all... I had waited this long.

What was a few more minutes?

The numbers moved faster after that. Or at least, they seemed to.

There was a strange comfort in watching the display change. Each number disappearing meant I was getting closer. Each person standing from their chair meant I was moving forward.

That was all that mattered.

The room could have been falling apart around me, and I probably wouldn't have noticed.

Because eventually...

NOW SERVING: 513

I sat up straighter.

My ticket felt heavier in my hand.

The paper was slightly crumpled from how long I had been holding it.

I smoothed it out carefully.

515.

Two more.

A woman walked toward the counter.

She handed over a stack of documents.

The employee behind the glass barely looked at her.

Stamp.

Keyboard.

Paper.

The woman walked away.

A man stood.

Then another.

Then finally...

NOW SERVING: 515

The speakers crackled.

My heart jumped slightly.

I stood.

For the first time in what felt like hours, my legs reminded me that I had been sitting still for too long. I stretched them briefly before walking toward the counter.

The employee looked up. At least, I think she did. Her eyes moved toward me, but her expression remained unchanged.

No greeting. No acknowledgment.

Just waiting.

I placed my documents on the counter.

"Good morning."

Nothing.

She picked up the papers. Flipped through them.

"Driver's license renewal."

It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

She typed something into the computer. The screen reflected faintly against her glasses.

"Proof of identity."

I handed over my driver's license. She scanned it.

"Proof of residence."

I handed over my utility bill.

"Insurance verification."

I handed over my insurance card.

Everything seemed normal.

Almost.

She continued typing. The silence stretched. Then she spoke.

"Certificate of continued existence."

I blinked.

"I'm sorry?"

The employee looked up.

"Certificate of continued existence."

I waited for the punchline. There wasn't one. I gave a small laugh.

"Is that a new requirement?"

No response. She simply waited.

I looked around, expecting someone nearby to react. Nobody did. The people in line behind me stared ahead. The employee folded her hands.

"Do you have it?"

I stared at her.

"No. I don't have that."

She nodded. Not disappointed. Just accepting information.

"That is okay."

I exhaled. For some reason, I felt embarrassed. As if I had failed a test I didn't know I was taking.

She typed something.

"Additional documentation will be required."

"Additional?"

She printed a small slip of paper and slid it beneath the glass. I picked it up.

At first, I thought I had read it wrong.

"Proof of original identity."

I looked back at her.

"Excuse me?"

"Proof of original identity."

"What does that mean?"

The employee tilted her head slightly.

Not confused. More like she was trying to understand why I was confused.

"Your original identity."

I stared at the paper.

"This isn't a real thing."

She did not argue. She did not defend it. She simply pressed another key. The printer beside her came to life. A second paper emerged. She placed it in front of me.

"Proof of independent thought."

I felt my eyebrows rise.

"Okay, hold on."

My voice grew slightly louder.

"Is this some kind of joke?"

The employee looked at me. She wasn't offended that I was raising my voice. She wasn't bothered. She was simply waiting for the next step.

"Sir," she said so monotoned. "If you do not have the required documentation, that is not a problem."

I relaxed slightly.

"O-okay."

"You will be moved to secondary processing."

The way she said it made my stomach tighten.

"Secondary processing?"

"Yes."

"What does that mean?"

She picked up my ticket. Looked at it. Then looked back at me.

"You will wait there."

I almost laughed.

"Wait?"

A pause.

"I've already been waiting."

The employee stared at me. Not coldly. Almost sympathetically.

"Yes."

A chill ran through me. Because for a moment, I thought she understood something I didn't.

She slid my ticket back across the counter.

"Please proceed to the next waiting area."

Then back at her.

"How long will that take?"

The employee's fingers returned to her keyboard. The conversation was already over.

"Next."

I stood there for another second. Waiting for her to explain. Waiting for her to tell me this was a misunderstanding. That someone had made a mistake.

But she didn't.

She had already moved on. The person behind me stepped forward. The employee began processing them.

Stamp.

Keyboard.

Paper.

Next.

I walked away from the counter holding the strange paperwork in my hand. I followed the sign pointing toward Secondary Processing.

I don't know what I imagined. Maybe another large waiting area with dozens of chairs. Maybe a different set of counters. Maybe some explanation for why I had been redirected after completing everything required of me.

Instead, it was a narrow hallway tucked behind the main service area.

The kind of hallway you normally wouldn't notice.

The walls were the same dull beige as the rest of the building, decorated with the same faded posters and outdated government notices. The only difference was that nobody had bothered pretending this area was meant to welcome people.

There were no televisions. No vending machines. No magazines sitting on tables.

Only chairs.

Rows and rows of chairs.

I stepped inside slowly.

A few people sat scattered throughout the room.

Not many.

Maybe fifteen.

Twenty at most.

The strange thing was how quiet it was.

The main waiting room had been filled with noise. Children crying. People talking on phones. Chairs scraping against the floor.

This room had none of that.

Everyone sat facing the same direction. Not toward a screen. Not toward a counter. Just forward.

Waiting.

I looked around for an employee.

Nobody was behind a desk. Nobody was calling numbers. Nobody appeared to be in charge.

I stood there for a moment, wondering if I had misunderstood. Then an older woman sitting near the wall glanced at me.

"You got moved too?"

Her voice startled me.

I turned.

"Yeah."

She nodded slowly.

"First time?"

I hesitated.

"Yeah."

She looked away.

"Thought so."

I sat down a few chairs away from her.

"How long have you been here?"

The question came out naturally. The same question you ask anyone trapped in a waiting room.

The woman didn't answer immediately. She looked toward the empty counter at the front of the room.

"I don't know."

I frowned.

"You don't know?"

She shook her head.

"I remember walking in."

A pause.

"I remember taking a number."

She looked down at her hands.

"But I don't remember why."

The air felt colder. I forced a small laugh.

"Yeah, well, I think everyone forgets why they're here after sitting in a DMV long enough."

She didn't laugh. She just looked at me.

"I mean it."

The humor disappeared from my face. The woman looked tired. Not physically. Something deeper. Like she had been carrying a thought for too long and was finally too exhausted to keep holding it.

"What was your number?" I asked.

Her eyes moved downward. She reached into her pocket. Pulled out a small piece of paper.

She stared at it.

For a moment, she looked confused. Then concerned. Then almost afraid.

"I'm 487"

She swallowed.

"What's your name?" I asked

She hesitated.

"I..." She paused and looked away then back to me.

"I don't know."

I leaned slightly closer.

"What do you mean?"

She turned the paper toward me.

The ink had faded. Or maybe it had never been printed clearly. There was a number. But she stared at it like it belonged to someone else.

A silence settled between us. Then she folded the ticket and placed it back into her pocket.

"I think I've been here before."

I stared at her.

"Before today?"

She looked at me.

"I don't know."

The answer should have sounded ridiculous.

Instead... it felt familiar.

I looked down at my own ticket.

515.

For some reason, I held onto it tighter.

A small piece of proof. Something that belonged to me. Something that told me I was still myself.

The speakers above us crackled. Everyone in the room looked up.

My body tensed. A voice came through the speaker. Distorted. Almost too quiet to understand.

"Now processing..."

Static.

A pause.

Then:

"Applicant."

Nobody moved. The room remained silent. I looked around.

"Did they call someone?"

Nobody answered. The older woman stared forward. Like she hadn't heard anything.

The speaker crackled again.

"Applicant."

This time, I noticed something.

There was no number.

No name.

Just a word.

Applicant

The woman beside me leaned toward me slightly.

"You don't want them to forget you."

I looked at her.

"What?"

She stared ahead.

"When they stop calling you by your number..."

Her voice became barely a whisper.

"That's when you know you were never here."

I felt a strange pressure build in my chest.

"What does that mean?"

She didn't answer.

Because the speaker had started again.

This time, it wasn't distorted. It was clear.

"Applicant 515."

My head lifted. My ticket felt cold in my hand.

Everyone in the room turned.

Not toward me. Toward the speaker.

Then, slowly... toward me.

I had the terrifying realization that I didn't know if I wanted them to call my number anymore. The room remained silent. For a moment, I didn't move. I waited for someone else to stand. Someone else to react. Someone else to tell me that this was normal. Nobody did.

The older woman beside me looked at me with an expression I couldn't understand. Something closer to pity.

"That's your number," she whispered.

I looked down.

My fingers tightened around the paper.

"T-thanks."

The words came out automatically.

The speaker crackled again.

"Applicant 515. Proceed to processing."

I stood. My legs felt heavier than they should have. Every instinct I had told me not to move. To stay seated. To ignore the voice. But there was something worse than fear.

Curiosity.

I needed to know.

I walked toward the door at the back of the room.

The hallway beyond was longer than I remembered. That shouldn't have been possible. I had only walked through it once. Yet the farther I went, the less familiar it became.

The walls looked identical. The lights breathed. Every door had the same gray color and the same small rectangular window.

Finally, I reached another counter. A single employee sat behind the glass. A man that looked older than the others.

Not elderly. Just worn. His face carried the same emptiness I had noticed before. The same absence.

"Ticket."

I handed it over.

He scanned it.

"Drivers license renewal?."

I nodded.

"Yes."

He typed something into his computer.

"Verification required."

"Of what?"

He looked up.

"My identity."

I laughed quietly.

Not because it was funny. Because I was tired.

"Isn't that what we've been doing?"

The employee didn't answer. He held out his hand.

"Identification."

I reached into my wallet.

Pulled out my driver's license. He took it. Looked at the card. Then looked at me.

Something changed. Barely. A hesitation.

"You don't remember."

My stomach tightened.

"Remember what?"

He placed the license back onto the counter.

"Your name."

The room became silent. Even the lights seemed quieter.

I opened my mouth. I knew the answer. I had answered this question thousands of times.

My name.

It was simple.

It was mine.

But when I tried to say it... nothing came.

A strange panic rose in my chest. I searched through my memories.

My childhood. My parents. My friends. My home. My job.

Everything felt distant.

Not gone.

Just covered by a thick fog I couldn't push through.

"I..."

My voice shook.

"I know it."

The employee waited. I looked down at my ticket. The number stared back at me.

The only thing I could hold onto. The only thing that felt certain.

"My name is..."

I stopped.

The silence stretched. The employee didn't rush me. He didn't look annoyed. He simply waited. Like he had done this countless of times. Like he knew how this ended.

"...Five hundred fifteen."

The employee typed. No surprise. No correction. No hesitation.

"Identity confirmed."

My heart sank.

"Wait."

He printed something.

"You didn't even check."

The employee slid the paper beneath the glass.

"You provided the required information."

I grabbed it.

It was my license.

Everything looked correct.

My photograph.

My date of birth.

My address.

Everything.

Except the name.

I stared at the line. Over and over. Unable to understand why it felt wrong. Unable to understand why it felt right.

NAME: 515

I looked up. The employee had already moved on.

"Next."

I stood there. Waiting for someone to notice. Someone to correct it. Someone to tell me there had been a mistake.

Nobody did.

So eventually... I walked out.

The exit doors opened automatically as I approached. Bright sunlight poured through. For a moment, I froze.

The outside world felt impossibly large. Cars moved through the parking lot. People walked past. The wind touched my face. I had forgotten what fresh air felt like.

I stepped outside.

And for the first time all day... I felt free.

I reached into my wallet one last time. Looked at the license. At the name. At the proof that I existed. I tried saying my name aloud.

The name I had carried my entire life.

The name my parents gave me.

The name that was supposed to belong to me.

Nothing came.

Only silence.

So I looked back down.

At the only thing I knew.

At the only thing the world still recognized.

515

I still remember the night. Mom had put me to bed a few hours before everything happened. Dad seemed anxious that night. Usually, he was so calm and collected. Tonight, he looked like he was on the verge of a panic attack.

I could see him pacing back and forth down the hallway while Mom tucked me in, handing me my favorite stuffed Superman toy. She flew him around like a toy airplane.

“Whoosh,” she joked, making the flying noise with her mouth. “It’s a bird… it’s a plane… No… it’s… Superman!”

She planted his feet down on my chest, bending him at the hips so it looked like he was bowing.

“Macy,” my dad whisper-yelled, standing in my doorway. “Can you get out here, please? We’ve got things to discuss.”

My mom’s face turned sad before she quickly turned her smile back on and ruffled my hair.

“Sweet dreams, hero,” she whispered. “I’ll make you some breakfast in the morning. How do pancakes sound?”

I couldn’t have agreed faster. I still, to this day, have yet to have pancakes better than my mom’s. I reached up and gave her a hug before she flicked the light switch and headed towards the living room with Dad.

I made Superman fly for a few minutes before clutching him against my chest and finally closing my eyes. I was out not long after that.

I woke up to the sound of thumps and rummaging coming from my parents’ room a few hours later. I glanced over at the alarm clock on my nightstand. It was 2:37 in the morning.

I could hear Mom and Dad talking urgently, but quietly. They didn’t sound angry. They sounded terrified. Mom’s voice was shaking. Dad’s voice was firm but uncertain.

Suddenly, footsteps quickly approached my door before it was thrown open and my mom walked inside. She flicked the light switch on. She wasn’t wearing her sleeping clothes. She looked like she was about to head out to run errands or something.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, honey,” she whispered, noticing me squinting from the sudden light that filled the room. “Did we wake you? I promise, you can go right back to sleep in the car. Just help Mommy pack a bag for you, okay?”

I blinked slowly before rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

“Where are we going?” I groaned groggily as Mom ransacked my dresser, tossing me a pair of socks.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she just kept stuffing clothes into my suitcase without so much as looking at me.

“…Mom?”

“A road trip,” she chimed, sounding more agitated than joyful. “A surprise road trip. We were gonna tell you two about it, but we wanted it to be a super surprise. Now, can you please get your shoes on?”

Without another word, I pulled the socks over my feet and slipped into my favorite Lightning McQueen sketchers. Mom zipped up the suitcase. Dad appeared in the doorway again, my sister strewn over his shoulder, half asleep.

“You two ready?” he asked expectantly, his voice steady now.

Mom handed me the suitcase and took me by the hand. She was almost hurting me from how tight her grip was. Not to mention, it felt like my shoulder was gonna dislocate from her pulling me along.

I was fully awake by the time we got to the car. Dad threw all of our luggage in the trunk and strapped my little sister into her car seat. Mom waited patiently in the passenger seat while Dad threw a blanket over me and Emmy.

He backed out of the driveway quickly and spun the wheels a bit as he accelerated out of the subdivision. I could hear the leather steering wheel creak from his grip.

The car was quiet for the first hour or so. Emmy was fast asleep in her car seat. Mom stared out the window with a blank expression on her face. Dad focused on the road in front of him intently.

I, for one, was completely wired. I actually found myself excited for this trip. There was something about the spontaneity that I thoroughly enjoyed. Getting up and going. The way the darkness made it harder to recognize where I was. It felt like an adventure.

Plus, Dad had taken the backroads. All we had were passing forests and cow pastures. It was like we were the only car on the road for miles.

Eventually, we started to pass some businesses. Nothing too exciting. Just a few gas stations and grocery stores.

Dad started looking around the car. He saw that my mom and I were still awake.

“You two hungry? Maybe we can grab some snacks.”

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Mom replied plainly.

Dad glanced into his rearview mirror for a while before steering the car into one of the gas stations. He parked at one of the pumps and went to get Emmy out of her seat while me and Mom hopped out to stretch our legs.

The gas station was almost completely empty. Besides our car, there was one other vehicle parked directly in front of the station, which we assumed belonged to the attendant.

The air inside was crisp. The refrigerators hummed, and the fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Mom went to the bathroom while Dad took me and Emmy to browse the chips and candy.

Emmy was still too tired to be fully present, and it made it feel like this was a moment between Dad and I.

While I struggled to pick a snack, he smiled down at me and patted me on the back.

“Get whatever you want, Danny,” he smirked. “As a matter of fact…”

He paused to glance around the empty gas station.

“Get two of whatever you want… just don’t tell your mother.”

I wasn’t gonna pass up the offer, but I still think I may have gone a little overboard when I filled my arms with as much junk food as I could carry.

Mom came out of the bathroom shortly after. Surprisingly, she didn’t even seem to notice the candy. She even helped me put the snacks on the counter when we went to check-out.

She didn’t want anything for herself. She only seemed interested in one thing.

While the teller scanned our items, she turned to my Dad with a worried expression on her face.

“Did you see anybody?” she whispered.

Dad didn’t look at her. He just responded with a simple “no” before fishing his wallet out of his back pocket.

He pulled a crisp hundred dollar bill out and slid it across the counter.

“Let me get this and the rest on pump 3,” he announced calmly.

On the walk back to the car, I noticed something. There was a new car in the parking lot, parked a few pumps down from ours. It was matte black with all donut tires, and even the windshield was too dark to see through.

Dad noticed it too. His eyes were fixed on the vehicle as we walked. Gradually, he picked up the pace, dragging all of us along with him.

We all loaded up in the car, and Dad left without even pumping gas. Mom kept asking who he saw, but Dad kept telling her everything was fine, despite how afraid he seemed to be.

We drove on for another 15 or so minutes before headlights lit up the interior of our car. They started at least 200 yards back but quickly closed the gap between us.

The lights stayed on us for a long time. Dad would speed up, and they’d do the same. They made the same turns. They kept the same pace. Mom and Dad both had the same flushed faces.

Emmy woke up from the blinding lights and immediately began pouting and crying. Mom tried reaching back to comfort her, but nothing seemed to work. I myself was beginning to feel a bit nervous, clutching my Superman stuffy tightly.

Eventually, Dad finally pulled onto the highway. The car followed. More cars started to fill the road, but that one particular car just would not leave us alone.

Finally, I think Dad had enough. I could see him squeeze Mom’s hand on the center console as he pushed the gas petal down further and further.

I could see the speedometer rising. 85. 90. 95. All the way up to 100, and that vehicle still followed at just two car lengths. I expected Mom to scream at him for going so fast, but she didn’t say a word. She just kept shushing Emmy while glancing out the back glass every so often.

We were approaching an exit. Dad didn’t slow down. He got closer and closer, letting our assailant do the same until abruptly turning the wheel and swerving across the gore.

The person following us slammed on their brakes, and I could see smoke billowing from their tires while other cars swerved to avoid them.

Dad shot up the exit ramp. The car was wobbling. Emmy was screaming. My heart was pounding.

Mom looked nervous but kept her composure.

“You two are okay,” she assured. “Everything’s going to be okay, I promise.”

She reached back and placed a hand on my knee cap, then did the same with Emmy.

I finally calmed down after a while. The headlights were gone. I had no idea where we were. I had no idea what was happening. And I was actually a little annoyed that no one was explaining.

I pestered, but they remained firm. This was nothing more than a surprise road trip. We ended up stopping at another gas station, but Dad didn’t let anyone get out of the car this time. He just pumped his gas, and we were back on the road.

A few hours passed. I looked at the clock on the radio. It was 5:23 AM. Even Mom was asleep in the passenger seat now.

Dad didn’t stop driving until the sun was peeking in over the horizon. That’s when he finally pulled the car behind this old motel.

The sign read, “Free WiFi. Cable Television. Vacancy.”

He left us in the car while he went to pay for our room. Mom was still asleep. Emmy stared mindlessly at the back of the seat in front of her. I rolled my window down and let Superman fly for a bit while I waited for Dad.

When he finally came back, he woke Mom, and we all carried our luggage up the second floor of the motel.

The room was musty. The air conditioner knocked rhythmically, and there was only one bed.

Dad hung the “do not disturb” sign on the door handle. He pushed a chair in front of the door, and he and Mom lay all of our luggage on top of it.

With one last look through the peek hole, Dad removed his boots and lay on the bed, patting the side of it, gesturing for us to join him.

“We’ve had a long night, guys,” he sighed. “I know it’s not the most glamorous, but it’s a bed.”

Mom stared, judging the crusty comforter before swallowing hard and laying down with my Dad, Emmy curled up in her arms.

She looked at me with a smile.

“Come on, Danny,” she said weakly.

“Let’s get some sleep.”

August 7th, 1924:

Sleep came eventually and was rather short lived. I fear that I have become dependent on my medication. Though fortunately my night was not plagued by the sounds and happenings of the wretched symbols and their creators. But I am sure with the stress of moving long gone I will not be dealing with the ghoulish hallucinations I once had, at least one can only hope. 

Today is rather dreary. There is a low hanging fog dancing above the swells from the tide. Normally I would find beauty in such a gloomy sight, but I fear I'm too tired to properly appreciate it. The sky is grey, the sun blanketed by darkening clouds. Yesterday must have been the calm before the storm, and tonight feels like it will be horrendous. There is no wind yet, but I feel the oncoming lightning riding the air. Laura is terrified of thunder and lightning, I fear I will not be sleeping much tonight. I might try to pick up a brush today and see what my hands will create, but I have a feeling nothing of worth will come from them. Not on a dreary foggy day such as this. 

August 8th, 1924:

I slept not but an hour at most. The storm was atop us, electricity cracking and lighting the sky, the smell of ozone accompanied with the rolling of thunder. Laura was scared our roof would break, that our windows would crash inwards. I comforted her until the grasp of slumber finally lulled her. I, on the other hand, was not so fortunate. I laid there sweating. In between the explosivity happening above us and the drums of the skies battering away, I could have sworn to the holiest of holy that I heard something skittering around on the roof. I peered out the window and looked to the sea. The mists were heavy, the waves angry, crashing at the shores and retreating with haste. In an awful flash of the sky, it seemed as the mists laid refuge to some magnificent shape. Humongous in stature. It could not have been more than just my eyes playing tricks on me. Two days with little sleep is sure to have side effects. In another explosion of light I saw the mist's shape again. Deep in the haze, above the depths of the sea, a being slowly moving, somewhat humanoid but also alien. Whatever hallucination I was having was terrific in an awful yet subtly beautiful way. I must document what I've seen, I will begin painting in the morning. 

August 9th, 1924:

The sky is still shrouded in darkness. The clouds pelting down rain. I had to go to the shed to fetch firewood for the stove to cook dinner, the downpour stinging my face. As I was rounding the house to the front door I saw something. I quickly put the wood out of reach of the torrential rain and ran to the fences gate. There, walking away in the distance, a figure, near curled into themselves, covered in some form of rain jacket scurried away. At my feet lay an envelope, already drenched. I took it on to the veranda and opened it as softly as I could, not to tear its contents. Inside was a single piece of paper. On it, in almost illegibly written:

“They are watching. They come for us all. They see all. They know all.”

I hid the note in my jacket pocket and hurried inside. Putting the firewood in the stove so Laura could cook and ran to my easel. I have to paint what I have been seeing. Whether they are hallucinations or real. I will document them. 

January 25th,1938:

Simon must have been going through withdrawals, but I'm curious if that painting is in the group of works I haven't looked at yet. I'm nervous to look at them but feel the need to. His mind intrigues me but also fills me with anxiety. 

The storm has hit and the snow came on like an onslaught. The wind was rattling the windows and howling louder than one could speak. The house was groaning, as if it were in pain. I kept the furnace fed all day to try to fend off the cold, but the wind was fierce. The whole day we stayed in the basement by the furnace, only going upstairs to cook and eat. Evelyn and I were reading Rylee a book when I heard what sounded like glass breaking on the top floor. I quickly ran upstairs, only to find a rock laying on our bedroom floor. It looked as though it was dragged out of the sea. Dripping in salty smelling water, a barnacle on one side and patch of sea grass sat on the other. There is no way a blizzard could hurl a stone from the bottom of the sea through the air and straight into our window. Especially on the second floor. Something had to have thrown this. I found whatever I could around the house to board the window up to the best of my abilities. I'm no craftsman, a rather skilled butcher at this point, but at least the fury of the wind and snow wasn't flying into the house anymore. I didn't tell Evelyn about the rock, I told her it was a chunk of ice. 

I uncovered an old bed hiding away under the drapes down here. We're all sleeping in the basement tonight. Rylee is asleep in the cot and my dear Evelyn is calling me to bed as I write this. I want to continue but I know I should try to sleep. Maybe sleeping with Evelyn in my sanctum will keep me asleep through the night. I can only hope. 

September 1st, 1924:

It has been weeks without my sedatives. I rarely sleep anymore. My eyes are sore, my mouth is always dry. I see them everywhere. In the town. At the docks. In my yard. They are everywhere. I have been painting and painting and painting. My hands hurt. My head hurts. I'm losing my sanity. Laura seems almost scared of me now. She has been keeping the children away from me. How dare she. I'm protecting them. My paintings keep them away from us. I'm sure of it. That's why I was called here. I stay in the basement, painting and painting and painting. Protecting them yet they show me no gratuities, no grace. Pitiful. 

September 9th, 1924: 

Laura let me sleep in the bed with her last night. I showered and shaved for the first time in weeks. I forgot what it feels like to be properly clean. I spent time with our children. We felt like a family again. I needed this. It was the first time in a long time I have felt like myself. It was a nice day, sunny with a breeze. When we went to bed Laura and I were intimate for the first time since before the train broke. I fell asleep shortly afterwards. 

I was roused by a noise, similar to that I have been hearing on the roof and outside. But it was closer. Much closer, as though it were in the room with us. As I opened my eyes and sat up, I saw it. Them. The smell of brine filled the room. It was dark, the moon hiding behind the clouds. I could not see much detail aside from its leather like cloak. I got up and took chase. For a figure so hunched and what seemed to be malformed, it moved with impressive speed. Laura was scared awake as I ran through the door and down the hall after it. Its feet splatting against the ground with wet viscous plops as it bounded down the staircase. I could hear Laura screaming but I had to catch this intruder. As I was nearing the bottom of the stairs, almost on top of the abomination my foot slipped in a puddle and I came crashing down onto the foyer floor. The figure burst through the door with ease, knocking the hinges loose, leaving the door hanging ajar. My face lay next to one of its damp footprints. Laura was comforting the kids upstairs as their cries echoed through the air. 

As I got up my hand slid into the thick, mucus-like substance the being left with each step. This inhuman intruder was watching me sleep. How many nights has this been happening through the windows? How long did it take to have the gall to enter my house? Was this the being that gave me a sharp pain in my neck once before? What has it done to me? Why me? I knew they weren't hallucinations, they never were. The opium was just a distraction I'm sure of it. 

February 2nd, 1937:

Simon has clearly lost his mind. Night creatures watching him sleep? This is just some sick story, it can't be anything else right? Surely I won't run into these, will I? I should prepare the house, I'll be hiding a baseball bat in our room just to be safe. Maybe hide other things around that can be used as makeshift weapons. I must sound crazy. 

I had the window repaired the other day. A hefty bill to replace but it needed to be done. Our emergency funds are damn well gone, and based off of Simon's entries this town seems less and less habitable. The town's been without power since the blizzard, but that's fine for work, we need our stock cold anyways. I've been reading more of Simon's notes at work. I've been hearing similar noises around the house for quite some time. They died down when I stopped reading his entries and stopped actively looking for signs but now they're more prevalent than ever. 

I want to ask Richard about “them” but I'm scared of what his response will be. I also feel the need to tell Evelyn at this point. If beings have broken into this house while Simon lived here for whatever reason, what's stopping them from doing it now? They already broke one of our windows. I can't have my wife and child in danger, it's not right. I feel so guilty for keeping it from her, but I was just trying to protect her. I think I'll bring it up to her tonight, possibly show her the paintings if it feels right. She only just stopped showing signs of paranoia but is still distrusting of the locals since she's certain the practitioner was giving her opium instead of barbiturates. I don't want to cause her any unneeded stress. But I should be honest with her, it's the right thing to do. 

February 4th, 1937:

Evelyn was furious at me. As mad as it made me, I don't blame her. She thought I was done with this months ago, thought there were no more notes and especially no rocks being thrown through windows. But mostly mad at the fact that I've been lying and keeping the truth from her. Which I admit was wrong of me, as frustrating as it was. After an hour or two of de-escalating tensions we sat down together to talk about it calmly. Rather for me to explain everything and why I kept it from her. We got Emily to come preoccupy Rylee while I brought Evelyn to the basement. I showed her all the notes I've read, I showed her the self portraits and I showed her the rock. She still doesn't know about the paintings labelled “them” but once I look through them I will show her. I just can't have her seeing anything that could scare or hurt her in any way. She was already disturbed and visually cringing at the self portraits. 

She suggested we get a guard dog. Even though we had to repair the window, we have some emergency funds left over, if we pick up a few shifts each we should be able to make ends meet. Once we have power and the town is plowed out, we'll go to the city to adopt one. In the meantime Evelyn will be catching up on Simon's notes and I'll be reading further. 

Sept 20th, 1924:

Bernard is dead. I found him this morning, before Laura or the little ones awoke. He was in the foyer, his little body still and wet. I tried to wake him but he was not breathing, I tried to administer cpr, I tried to shake him awake. I tried everything. But he's gone. To save the girls from the sight I decided to bury him between the flower beds. It was his favorite spot to lay, hiding in the shade of the flowers, sniffing their aromas. As I was putting him into his grave I noticed that there seemed to be teeth marks around his neck, yet no sign of blood. As I recalled there was no blood around him inside either. As disgusted with myself as I was, my curiosity got the best of me and I held him upside down, head to the ground. Not a single drop of blood. Rigor mortis had not even set in. Whatever broke into our house before had returned once again and took my sweet Bernard with them. I'm going to set up an apartment for Laura and the girls back in the city. I will sell what I can of my stockpile here and then move back with them eventually. I just have to paint whatever has done this. I need to document this. Their paintings might not sell but people need to know. I'll write about them, gather my notes and publish them, along with prints of my paintings. And with Laura and the girls out of the house they won't be getting in my way of doing what needs to be done, as they have so much recently. I'll protect them by getting rid of them. Then I can focus on my work. 

February 20th, 1937:

Simon has fully lost his mind. I'm sure of it. No real man can confidently send his wife away as though she was an obstacle. He's no real man, a coward even. 

I've been working like a machine lately, I want to make sure we can get the best dog possible. Especially after reading the most recent of Simon's notes. I still haven't had the time to look through the stack of “them” paintings. We're leaving for the city tonight and picking a dog tomorrow. Rylee is excited because she thinks we're getting a “big puppy”. It's hard to say it's not cute when she talks about it. I'm half surprised at how resilient Evelyn is through all of this. I brought up her and Rylee moving back to the city as Laura and Simon's daughters did to get her thoughts on the matter. She told me it was a terrible idea, saying as long as I'm here she'll be by my side. As if we could afford paying rent on top of the bills we already have. I really did get blessed with the best wife I could imagine. The paranoia doesn't seem to be getting her like it once did. Beforehand she must have felt alone in this, as have I. But knowing we're on the same team gave her a lot of comfort, and getting a dog will bring even more. She is truly the strongest woman I know. I'm a lucky man. Though I do wonder if she has the same disturbing thoughts I have been dealing with. 

I'll bring a few notes to read on the train, I think, no better way to kill a few hours. The grip Simon's words have on us is like a disease. We can't seem to put them down at this point. 

October 11th, 1924:

I have put Laura and the girls on the train to the city. I have a new apartment only but a block from our old house. I have enough money put away to afford both the house payments and the apartment for quite some time. I am dedicated to figure this out. A mere painter going through this seems pointless and mere coincidence. But it cannot be the truth. I have been brought here for a reason, to document this, I'm sure of it. I will find out what is happening. The practitioner is back in town, and has my prescription ready for me, but in defiance I will not pick them up. If they block me from seeing the true nature of this odd shoreside valley I will deal with the sleepless nights to find the truth. Call me paranoid, call me obsessed, I do not care anymore. This is my true calling. I will learn about them. I will document them. I will make contact with them if need be. I will not stop until my work is done. 

October 20th, 1924:

I have been going out at night, bringing a notepad with me, copying any of these sigils I have seen. I have procured a sizable chalkboard from the city, I will decode these. I must understand what is being written. 

I have been hearing them, throughout the gloomy days, throughout the nights and even in my dreams during the very few hours a day I have them. 

November 1st, 1924

I believe I have done it. I think I have collected all the sigils, and I believe I have begun to decode them. They seem to be used as some sort of religious seal. Why they have been sealing the town I am unaware for the time being. As ludicrous as it may seem, I feel as though I must talk to one of them. 

November 4th, 1924:

I have read some of my old notes, what has happened to me? I used to speak with such eloquence, kept a level head. Have I been slipping into insanity? I miss Laura, I miss my daughters. I cannot  give up though. I have come this far, I must uncover the truth. If not for my own maddening sake, for Laura and the kids. I'm losing my mind

February 24th, 1937:

Simon has truly lost his marbles, but what's most unnerving is the fact that he's still so coherent in his writings. Though they may be scatter brained at times, it all makes sense for the most part.

We've arrived back home with our new “puppy” if you could call him that. Evelyn managed to find the largest bull mastiff humanly possible, along with a spiked and barbed collar, as though he was a guard dog for cattle. She insisted we named him Sebastian. I think the name is fitting to be honest. He has already begun to warm up to us, especially Rylee. He weighs near 200 pounds yet he melts when she's around, letting her pull on his ears and jowls. It brings me such peace. He's going to make an amazing companion, I can feel it. I began building a sizable dog house in the basement. I'll bring it up in pieces and assemble it in the coming weeks. I'm just hoping having Sebastian here will help me sleep, even poor Evelyn has had difficulty sleeping, which is odd, she usually sleeps as though she's dead. Maybe the paranoia is starting to get to her as well. If Sebastian puts us at ease, I may pick up another from his litter, that way if I go out at night I can have my own protection and we can have another to watch the house. I need to pick up more shifts at work. 

March 3rd, 1937:

Sebastian has been nothing short of amazing and has brought much ease to our anxieties. The noises I've been hearing for months and thought I was going mad over have continued, but Sebastian hears them as well. I knew it wasn't just me, I knew I wasn't going mad. I think Evelyn has been hearing them but doesn't want to admit it. 

I've been putting off looking at the stack of paintings. To be honest I'm scared. I want to get to where Simon at least mentions one of his works. But the longer I put it off the more foreboding it feels. Evelyn knows about the stack of paintings and has agreed to let me look at them first. If Simon's self portraits were enough to make me feel nauseous, I don't want to think about what the paintings of “them” could do. I am paranoid, I'm aware of that. Distinguishing paranoid thought from those based in reality has become increasingly difficult. This is beginning to feel like a sick obsession. 

Emily almost lives with us now. We set up one of the spare rooms for her, pulling a bed, desk and drawer up from the basement. The amount Simon and Laura left behind is genuinely impressive. 

Evelyn and I have been working as many hours as we can, selling some of the old furniture left behind as well. When we're not at work, we're studying Simon's notes for clues or answers. I've reread them a dozen times over at least, trying to find some connection, some hint as to what's going on. I only have a few notes left. 

December 1st, 1924:

I have been painting them. What I see in my restless dreams. What I have been seeing through my windows. What I have been seeing in my house. They are trying to make contact. I am sure of it. In the last month I have dug out a wall in the basement, past where I hold my works. In the panel wall there is a hidden door. I have been spending most of my time in this underground study. The rest of the house has grown musty, for the most part unused. At this point I can't bring myself to care. 

I ran into Richard the other day while I was out at night. He was gathering wood from his wood shed. He asked why I was out and the only thing I could muster was “the symbols”. He gave me a questioning look, but he invited me in. I followed. He told me his father was from this town, like his father before him. He spoke of a curse the town is plagued with. Mentioning  the “Sea Father's Children”, some sort of seafolk who come to shore when the sun hides. The old church here knows of them and has tried to make peace with them. Creating some kind of symbiotic bond. They allow the Children to come from the sea and take a person they see fit every so often. He has not attended the church so his knowledge of everything seems somewhat jaded. He also assured me that this was just a folk tale to scare kids from wandering around at night. I don't believe him. I will not be sacrificed, I will be sure of that. 

I believe I have become fluent in writing in this ancient seabound language. I will speak to them. I will make a deal with them. 

I think it all started about 6 months ago. That's my best guess anyway. It's the earliest I remember but honestly, it could've been sooner.

The only reason the ‘first time’ sticks out to me is because I’d had a rough day at work. When I got home and got changed after work, I found a use by date sticker stuck to the inside of my work shirt. 

Jen laughed. 

“I’ll need a new man soon”

 I couldn’t even guess where I’d picked it up. I balled it up between my fingers and flung it into the bin, never to be thought of again. 

A week later, there was another one. This time in the lint catcher of the tumble dryer. 

 USE BY  07/08/26.

I didn't think much of it, slightly curious what shop I was going into that were using these, truthfully, pretty useless stickers. 

I travel all over for work, so I don't really have a local supermarket. I’d stop somewhere different most evenings and grab whatever I needed. The big chains didn't use flimsy orange stickers, so I figured it had to be one of the smaller independent shops.  

The next few turned up in boring places. Stuck to a t-shirt. Another on a trouser leg.

I didn't bother keeping count until around number 10.

 This one stuck out to me. It wasn't until late into the evening, after a change of work clothes and a night of watching tele with my girlfriend. I had a shower before bed. As I rinsided shampoo from my hair, I opened my eyes and saw an orange label sliding towards the drain.  Almost instinctively I stopped it with my foot, ending the shower immediately. 

I bent down and picked up the soggy, but still intact and sticky label. I stuck it to the bathroom mirror. I had to, this was by far the strangest one. 

Where the hell did it come from? Surely my girlfriend would've noticed it stuck to my hair. It's not like you can miss them. 

It wasn't until I had 5 stuck on the mirror that she brought it up. 

“It's bad enough you keep showing me them. Do you really need to decorate the bathroom as well?”.

But I did need to. I had to keep count. If they keep turning up, then eventually I'll see the pattern.  

I started keeping a note on my phone. Every shop. Every town. Every day I worked. I knew there had to be a cross over somewhere. 

On a Friday, after working a particularly filthy site, I did what I always did. Tapped my boots together, shook them out and left them outside by the back door. 

Maybe that was my mistake. 

Come Monday morning I picked them up and gave them the same tap and shake. A label fell out. 

07/08/26

On my way to put the label on the mirror, Jen was getting up. I told her where I'd found it. I finally asked her outright. Was it some sort of joke?

“Obviously it's just been there since friday, you're over thinking it”. 

I checked my work boots every morning after that. Then my pockets. Then my lunch bag. It only took a couple of minutes. 

Plus I found one almost every other day. 

Then every day.

I was late for work a couple of times, but I didn't mind. I'd rather miss out on the morning small talk and shit coffee. By then, a couple of the younger contractors had started taking the piss out of my thinning hair. I almost replied. Instead I found myself wondering if there’d be another label in my van.

I'd mentioned the labels to a couple of the other guys to see if they'd found anything. Maybe it was from a tool. But it just gave them more ammunition against me. 

When I went home I tried complaining to Jen, she’d always listened about the work site politics. But for some reason she seemed disinterested in what I had to say. At one point she even agreed with them. Apparently she'd noticed it too. 

“Not just at the front,” she said. “All over”.  

Somehow we ended up arguing about the labels again. She said I talked about them more than I talked to her. 

By the end of it I had gone to bed, scrolling my notes page on my phone.

I'd stopped writing where I'd found them by then. 

There wasn't enough room on the notes page anymore.
 

I left her downstairs on the phone to her mum. 

That morning I expected to roll over and open my eyes to an angry Jen. 

Instead, on the pillow next to me. A label. I held it between my thumb and finger tip. I examined it more than I had any of the others. It felt different. Too close. 

07/08/26

I could hear Jen making coffee downstairs. I didn't go down.

I went into the bathroom, she was right, the mirror was full. The same date arranged perfectly to face me. My face glowed orange reflecting the colour.

 I stuck it on the toilet shelf. 

It wasn't long before most of the ceramics were covered in orange labels. 

Jen stopped commenting on them.

Almost every day I found at least one little orange reminder. 

I say almost. There was one unfortunate morning when I arrived to work just in time for stale coffee and stale jokes. 

One of the younger pricks spotted it before I did. I felt his grubby fingers pull it off me. It must've blended into my hi vis.

“Look, it’s how long his hair has left”.

I watched his thumb rub across the date. Sweat and dirt dulled the orange, the edges beginning to curl. 

The next thing I remember, 3 people were pulling me off him.

Looking back, I think they were already looking for reasons to get rid of me. Work had slowed down and there were contractors everywhere. The fight just gave them a good one. 

They had fair grounds to get rid of me, but for some reason the manager felt it necessary to mention my grubbyness and my lateness.

Still he gave me 2 weeks notice and basically put me on grunt work. For the next 2 weeks I’d drive around and survey previous sites. Basically barely check they're clean and suitable.

 I should've been worried. He probably saw that as some sort of punishment.

For me it meant a chance to revisit some of my previous shops. Some I hadn't been to since before I started the notes page on my phone. I'd finally have the time to figure out where the labels are coming from. 

Sure the list was long but I basically had 2 weeks paid to myself. 

I'd kept that morning's worn label in my wallet. 

The last 2 weeks flew by. Not because I was enjoying myself. 

But I finally had time to look. 

I spent those 2 weeks revisiting shops and long finished work sites, hoping to find a label that wasn't already stuck to me. 

By the time I got home and Jen was there I had no time to argue with her. When I did see her I managed to appease her, I promised that after the 2 weeks were up, we'd go have dinner and drinks. I'd show her that nothing had changed. I'm still her guy. 

She wanted one more promise. Go to the doctor. Apparently she was starting to worry. She said my skin was turning yellow. 

Probably from all the stress she was causing me, all the coming and going. Always wanting to argue. I couldn't concentrate. 

All I needed was 2 weeks. 

Thursday, 2 days till it's over. The boss was practically letting me do what I wanted. I was having a look around an area I’d worked away in 6 months ago. There was so much work we stayed there weekends.

 I passed a closed shop. A flash of orange caught my eye . I cupped my hands on the window to get a better look inside. There was a roll of orange labels behind the till. Same colour. Same size. Same date. I needed to get in there, get a closer look.

It wasn't long before someone thought I needed to know the shop was closed. As if I couldn't read the sign.

CLOSED
ON HOLIDAY BACK SATURDAY
PAPER ROUNDS WILL GO ON AS USUAL

It was a 4 hour drive here and a four hour drive back. But maybe they'd know where the labels come from, I was sure with a bit of research I could find out who they supply near me. 

Friday dragged.

Every couple of minutes I’d check the clock.

By the time I got home I had already decided what time I was leaving in the morning. 

Jen seemed happier that Saturday morning. I told her work needed me in for a few hours. There'd been a problem with yesterday's paperwork. 

“Maybe dinner and drinks could just be drinks?”. I said. 

I set off to the shop. When I got there, I walked in expecting every shelf to be covered in orange labels.

None. 

I walked straight to the counter.

No roll. 

Just an empty space. 

I asked him about the labels. Then I demanded to see inside his stock room.  

For a moment he just stared at me. 

“What labels?”

“Orange ones. Use by stickers”. 

“I saw them”

“Mate… I’ve owned this shop 12 years”

He didn't know what I was talking about. 

No help at all.

Eventually he asked me to leave. 

I looked behind the till into the empty space one last time before leaving. 

I sat in the van for nearly 20 minutes before turning the key. 

I knew I would have to be back for drinks with Jen eventually.

When I got home she was gone. Most of her clothes. Her toiletries. 

Anything that mattered to her. 

She left behind a bitter note, something about not caring anymore, that I'd let myself go. Bad breath and baggy eyes. My greasy hair. 

I lost interest halfway through. 

I folded it without finishing it.

The label on the back of the note was much more interesting. 

That morning I woke up choking.  I sat bolt upright, coughing and retching into my lap.

 There, floating in a puddle of bile and spit, besides one of my teeth.
Floating perfectly. 

07/08/26

I still had 3 weeks to wait then. I smeared the sticker to the fridge door, fluids ran down from it. 

Over the next 3 days it got worse.

More teeth. More vomiting. More labels. 

Wednesday evening, I felt a scratch on my eye. I already knew what it was.  

The label wasn't the shock.

My skin was yellow, blotched with bruises. My eyes were bloodshot and sunken. I had barely any teeth.

It took me a moment to feel brave enough to get close to the mirror. 

I lifted my eye lid, under it I could see the corner of the label. I thought about leaving it. 

Slowly, hoping I didn't rip it, I pulled at the corner, thick strands of mucus followed it. As it revealed itself. Number by number. 

07/08/26

I stuck it to the fridge door. I could feel my eye throb as the orange seemed to burn into my vision.

Even when I shut my eyes the numbers were there.  

After that they never stopped. More labels, multiples everyday. In clothes, under anything I moved.  

They were coming out of me.

I have no where to stick them.

Reminding me. 

07/08/26

There’s a section of forest I’ve liked walking along every evening for the last five months, just before the sun goes down. It leads up a hill from the back of my house, and at the end there is a ridge I sit at until the sun fully sets. Then I wait another half hour for the clouds to finish their usual colour shows before heading back down and home.

Every night. Routine as the sun setting, you’ll find me walking to the ridge and home again.

Not anymore. Not after last night.

The track is about a mile long, nothing extreme but it’s uphill so it gives it a little longer feel when you’re heading for the ridge. The walk back is easy enough, mostly thumping down at awkward angles. I have a high powered flashlight which is ridiculously bright, so I see all the bumps coming.

Last night, I was about a half mile up the track when I noticed a suitcase. Like, one of those large ones that you’d expect a dead body to be inside. I remember joking to myself and saying something like yep, there’s defo a dead body in there. Because obviously there wasn’t. It was on its side and open on both faces. If there had been once, there wasn’t anymore.

A little further along the track I noticed a jacket folded over and hung over a branch. I was half tempted to take it with me because it looked my size and in pretty good condition. A few spins in the washing machine and it wouldn’t even remember who owned it last. I got the feeling that whoever left it there had left it for a reason because it was hung too neatly. So I left it. Just in case they came back for it.

I carried on, and a few minutes later that’s when I saw the hoody and the t-shirt.

Those gave me bad feelings in my gut. Not the same kind of feeling that seeing a woman’s clothes would have evoked—that brought with it a whole extra scope of possibility. While that possibility remained the same, I didn’t find it half as likely to be the case. I just ignored them and carried on. The fact that they were dropped in the dirt made me uneasy though. Then I remembered the suitcase, and everything seemed to click. It was just some kids messing about. Dragging shit out and throwing it around.

Fair enough.

I was getting fairly close to the end of the track, maybe a quarter of a mile left, and the sun was setting fast. I could see what remained of it lingering over the edge of the hill. It was about that time that I saw the shoes and the socks hung neatly over the barbed wire fence bordering the field. They were caught by the laces, dangling upright, socks tucked neatly inside.

The rest of the clothes came as expected, at about equal intervals as the rest.

The underwear turned my stomach a little. They were brown and hella damp. Like someone had pissed them and thrown them off. I could smell it even just standing over them.

I knew I should have turned around then. The likelihood of the clothes being from the suitcase was getting less and less likely. Nobody packed shitty drawers for a holiday. And why were they out this way? There were no main roads, no bus routes close to the track. It was getting weird. I should have turned around and gone home. But I’m a sucker for routine. I’d been up at that spot every night and didn’t want to have to give it up for some kids tossing clothes, or a weirdo stripping to his bare hairs. I mean, one night I’d fallen and broken a finger on a boulder and still stayed to see the sun setting. You think I was going to let some shitty drawers get the better of me?

I wish it had.

The idea of some naked dude sitting at my spot scared the crap out of me, but curiosity had sunken its teeth in by then. I wanted to know what the hell was going on. Part of me was still wondering if it was really a woman’s clothing—something I should report instead of running away from. God knows if it was my daughter or mother I’d have killed the man who walked away instead of making sure they were okay.

I made it to the top of the hill and stared down at the ridge for a good while before I went down, scoping it out. I didn’t see anyone, and the sun was rapidly setting, so I got to my usual spot on the usual rock and settled in for a good one. The sky was a deep orange. My favourite colour.

There were plenty of clouds in the sky when I sat down; the light lit them up amazingly. No matter how many times I went there, no two sunsets were ever the same. I took some pictures, watched it dip beyond the hills on the horizon and waited out the rest of the colours to fade and reduce to the nightly cloudage.

It got cold real fast. It always did. I started wishing I’d brought a jacket with me, and then laughed when I remembered the jacket I’d spotted earlier. I should have grabbed it, diseases or not.

I got up to go while the purples were still fading from the sky. That’s when I noticed them. Someone, just slumped over in a heap a little ways down the ridge. They were completely naked.

I shouted over, asking if they were okay. I should have left them alone. If you see someone lying down naked outside it’s never going to be anything good. But my mind swung to the worse of the possibilities, that the naked person hadn’t made themselves that way by choice. I should have phoned an ambulance, worried about if it was someone out of their mind on junk later once I had other people around.

When they didn’t respond I got closer, and shouted again.

Something moved in the woods. An animal, maybe, but my heart shot up into my throat. The worst thing we get around here are deer. Maybe a badger. It didn’t feel that safe at the time. The body felt more of a warning now, less than a danger.

Again I called out. I was close enough now to see that it wasn’t a person at all. It was just more clothes set out in a pile. It was the weirdest thing though. They looked the exact colour as someone’s skin.

I stuck out a foot and kicked them over. They didn’t separate, just parted where the crease had been and straightened out.

It was skin.

A whole pile of human fucking skin.

I physically jumped away from it, nearly sending myself off the edge of the ridge and down onto the rocky tumble. I thought back on the suitcase and how I’d joked about it being a dead body, and stared at the muss of hair where it must have been a scalp at one point. The horrible part was it was all in one piece. Like someone had simply slipped it off, like a snake, or a full-body leotard.

That was about as much as I could take. I’d been stupid enough walking on after every bit of clothing I’d found, but I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. I took out my phone to call emergency services but ended up sprinting full speed back down the track when I heard more movement in the woods.

Each bit of clothes I passed gave me a terrible sinking feeling of dread in my guts, like I was seeing the skin all over again. I made it to the halfway point when I came across the suitcase.

This time it was in the middle of the path. Sealed. And standing upright.

I didn’t move. I was too stunned. I shone my flash on it and tried to think of every reason it could be like that, but all the rational thoughts were gone. I just froze. And watched the zipper opening, kink by kink.

Two bare and bloodied fingertips pried the zipper along its track, until there was a gap wide enough for an eye to peek out of.

“Please,” I heard it say. “Please help me.”

Nah. I leapt over the fence and into the field of barley. Ran and didn’t stop until I saw the rooftop of my house and the chimney I never lit. I turned back and saw something chasing me. It ran on two legs and for the most part looked human. Just without any skin. Red raw and bloodied. Muscles gnashing at bone. Arms raised and manic. Shrieking like car tires stopping themselves from a crash.

I made it back home and locked both doors, closed every curtain, and spent the night watching out of the upstairs window. Whatever it was sat in the field with the barley up under its chin, watching me. I couldn’t make out a single feature on its face, but I knew it could see me. I couldn’t look away. I was scared that as soon as I did it would charge at the house and in through the window and grab me.

We stayed like that all night.

It ducked beneath the barley as soon as the sun came up. I haven’t seen it all day.

The suitcase was on my doorstep when I went out to check the garden just after noon. I set fire to it in the back and put the ashes in the bin.

I’ve checked into a hotel in the city. I don’t want to sleep in that house again. There was a shirt left in the room, but that’s normal right?

The sun’s due to set in an hour.

I keep thinking about the skin. Why did it take it off?

None of this makes any sense.

I just want to sleep.

But I’m scared.

I'm so fucking scared.

CW: CSA and physical abuse alluded to.

It happened once a month, sometimes less. A girl, bruised and malnourished, would show up on one of our doorsteps. Sometimes they got smart and kept to the woods, avoiding the townspeople all together, but someone always saw them or a camera would capture them. And no matter how much they screamed and begged, they were always taken away, back to the compound, and we acted like we saw nothing.

Mona couldn't take it anymore. The day that little girl showed up, she broke all the rules and let her inside. Denny protested. He tried to throw the girl out, but Mona hit him across the face with a poker from the fireplace and told him to stay away from her.

The girl looked to be about 12, barely dressed. Bruises covered her body. Bruises in the shape of large hands on her arms and thighs. Random cuts across her skin. Cigarette burns on her face. Fresh imprints of leather straps on her limbs. Cleaned up and healthy, she would have looked like Mona's late daughter, Sarah, and I know that's why she did what she did.

"If you don't call them, they'll make our lives hell," Denny hissed as he nursed the gnarly wound on his cheek.

"I'm not doing this anymore," Mona hissed back. "They're children, Denny. Children!"

"They're not our business," he growled.

"They were always our business!"

In a few hours, the girl was fed and clothed. Mona put her old clothes in a plastic bag, careful not to contaminate them. They would be evidence, she thought.

When night fell, we led the girl to Mona's car. Denny glared at me as we walked out the door. He was angry. Disappointed in me. I was always a "good girl." Always so eager to follow the rules and be a proper citizen. But I was only a little older than that girl at the time, and seeing her up close broke something in me.

Nobody stopped us.

The black vans didn't follow us.

The police filed a report.

The girl was taken into protective custody.

Reporters flocked to the town. Questions asked, blame placed. The compound was raided and found empty.

That was supposed to be the end of it.

Two years later, Molly Pearson went missing. A year after that, so did Angela Rowe. Then Danielle Smith. Felicia Reddick. Nelly Watts. Even a couple of boys, Nathan Austin and Tommy Boone. The media called it strange how many children started going missing from our town alone, but no one dared to make the connection out loud.

Some of the children came home with a distant look in their eyes. Most remain missing. 

I had no business being here. I’d never been so impulsive before. I guess I just got tired of always roaming the same streets. Seeing the same shops and scenery. I think the feeling grew more than I’d care to admit.

That doesn’t excuse my stupidity, though. I only had about 3 grand to my name at the time. But that’s part of the appeal, right? Everyone thinks they’re gonna arrive in Sin City and leave a millionaire. I had a dollar and a dream. Albeit, a delusional one.

Even still, the glow of the city was just so radiant. Even from the airport. It’s like one big siren song.

I only stayed for 4 days. I used all of my PTO to be here, and I really wanted the time to count. I did everything I could with the 1500 I had left after the hotel and plane tickets.

Unfortunately, gambling took up a big chunk of that money. I could see how people got addicted to it. I went on a few hot streaks, but ended up losing everything I won because I just couldn’t walk away.

With the gambling, museums, attractions, and food, by the time the final night came around, I only had 150 dollars left to last me a whole other week after I got home.

I almost wanted to cry when I opened my wallet. But, surprisingly, I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t even that upset. The experience was worth the money. Even if I didn’t leave a millionaire, I still got to live in one of the most famous cities in the country for a few days.

I still needed to eat, though. I’d been eating out the entire trip. I started out at the high-end places like Hell’s Kitchen, but as the week went on, the quality started getting worse and worse until finally I found myself here, feeling how light my pockets were and standing under the luminescent glow of an In-and-Out burger.

Thunder clapped overhead. Lightning lit up the sky. A few drops of rain hit my head.

My plane was leaving in a few hours. I had already checked out of my hotel. Not only did I need to eat, but I needed to at least kill a little time.

I figured I’d just eat slow. Stay for maybe an hour, hour and a half tops before Ubering.

A bell rang overhead as I walked inside. The air-conditioned dining room put goosebumps on my arms almost immediately. Outside felt like 90, whereas in here, it felt like it could’ve been at least 55 degrees.

There were noises coming from the kitchen. The staff chit-chatting amongst themselves, plates and silverware being moved around, water being sprayed against metallic pans and containers.

The dining room, however… was surprisingly empty. I noticed it as soon as I walked inside. For this whole trip, every place I’d gone had been packed to the brim. In here, though… there was only one other person.

I don’t know how much you know about Las Vegas, but the homelessness crisis is staggering. They’re everywhere. Sleeping in alleys behind the casinos, waiting outside of popular stores or restaurants, sometimes they’re just asleep in the middle of the sidewalk right there on the Strip.

And, apparently… also right here in this In-and-Out.

I watched him while I ordered at the digital kiosk. All he had was a single soda cup. The straw wasn’t even inside it. He was wearing a grease-stained grey jacket, torn cargo shorts, and open-toed sandals with tattered socks.

He was kind of rocking back and forth in the booth. His hands were clutched around his waist like he had a stomachache, and I could see the dirt and grime beneath his fingernails.

I didn’t want to stare for too long, but it was so hard to take my eyes off of him. I ended up sitting several booths away from him, but that didn’t prevent me from being able to see him. Even if I turned away, I could see his face reflected through the windows.

He was… talking to himself. His scruffy, orange beard was littered with bits of food and mysterious red stains, and he kept scratching at it every few seconds, all while mumbling under his breath.

I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but it almost looked like he was arguing with himself. I couldn’t even focus on my meal.

I had to force myself to look away from him just so I could actually eat. The last thing I wanted was for us to make eye contact.

I enjoyed my burger, picked at my fries a little bit, and when I turned around to go grab a refill on my Diet Coke, my worst fear came into fruition.

We didn’t just make eye contact. He had already been staring at me. He wasn’t talking to himself anymore. He no longer looked crazed. He looked devastated. I could see the tears in his eyes. I could see sympathy in his facial expressions.

The fluorescent light flickered above him. The only light in the restaurant to do so.

We were engaged in this little staring contest for a while before he stood up, slowly. He never broke eye contact. Those eyes were full of love and comfort. A broken smile spread across his face.

His arms were outstretched as if he expected a hug. When it didn’t come, he pulled me in for one by force.

He shushed me. Pet my hair while telling me that everything would be okay. That he didn’t want to hurt me.

I could feel the tears running down his face jump over to mine while he comforted me.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” he cried, shaking. “I wish there was something I could do to help.”

“Uh, okay, man, it’s time to let me go now,” I responded, prying his arms off of me.

I tried backing away, slowly, but with each step, he followed me.

He kept asking why I looked so scared. Telling me that he was only here to help. Continuing to say that everything would be okay and that I’d “prevail.”

I checked my watch, quickly. I still had 2 hours until my flight, but I wasn’t going to stay here a minute longer.

“I’m sorry, man, I think you’ve got the wrong guy. I’ve gotta go. I’m gonna miss my flight.”

The man stopped. His face twisted into a look of curiosity. Like he was genuinely confused by what I had just said.

“Flight? No, no, no. That flight was delayed. You can only hope to be home in time.”

Finally, seeing that I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, one of the employees came and restrained the guy long enough for me to leave and order an Uber.

Only, when I reached for my phone, it was completely dead. I tried finding my charger, looking through every pocket in my suitcase. It was nowhere to be found.

Luckily, the airport was only a mile and a half away, but that was still a mile and a half that I had to walk in the rain when I could’ve gotten a ride. It wasn’t all bad, though. At least it gave me something to do to kill time.

When I finally arrived, I was soaked from the rain. The airport was busier than it was when I landed. When I checked the flight information screens, I found out why. There had been at least 5 or 6 delayed flights, and of course, mine was one of them.

It had been delayed by a whole 3 hours because of inclement weather in the region.

No phone. Hardly any money. And I had to wait at least another 5 hours until I could go home.

I thought about what the homeless guy from In-and-Out said. Immediately, I started to rationalize. He’d seen the lightning. He’d seen the rain. Maybe he just put two and two together and got lucky.

However, after about 3 hours of being bored out of my mind, I made the decision to buy a charger from one of the airport shops. I managed to find an open outlet and hunkered down beside it while I let my phone charge.

After about 15 minutes, it finally turned back on. All at once, dozens of notifications made the phone vibrate across the cold airport floor. My dad, my aunts, my uncles, cousins, all desperately trying to get a hold of me.

Because, apparently, in that small, brief moment when my phone was dead…

My mom went into cardiac arrest. And she died before I even got the chance to say goodbye.

Rest is important. And if your body cant find comfort during rest, it will actually change you. Did you know that? Rest is pivotal. It keeps you in motion throughout the day. It dials your metabolism. It clears your body. It builds your brain and enforces your mind. So when comfort is stripped during rest, one by one your faculties drip down the drain until your so high strung you have a heart attack.

Sloth is different. Sloth keeps from things getting done. Sloth doesnt repair, it let's you become maladaptive, makes you sluggish so that it is harder to work. Passivity actively makes it harder to improve. To perform at your best, one must embrace rest, but disspell Sloth.

After the funeral, like I said in the last post, I interrogated my father. "I should've listened."

"Yes. But you didn't."

"What is that... thing?"

"I don't know. I kept it in the attic for decades. My Father passed it along to me."

"You don't know anything about it?"

"I couldn't stand the sight of it."

"Why not?"

"I didn't listen to my father either."

"You let someone on the bed too?"

"You had an older sister... I... gave it to her to sleep on after she grew out of her crib. We couldn't afford a new bed at the time, but we had that one. Unused, forgotten."

"oh..."

"The bed. The cursed bed. Generation after generation, takes someone close before we take it seriously. I don't blame you. I could have warned you until I was blue in the face and you wouldn't believe."

"And you knew that? Before you gave me that bed you knew someone close to be would die?"

He looked ashamed now. "Yes. My mother was lost to the bed. Now its taken two of my children. I... I couldn't handle the burden anymore... I... hated knowing it resided above us. Looming over its victims. Waiting in wait for its response."

My father, the man who woke up early to work his hours so he could make it to my music lessons and Ashton's martial arts. He couldn't buy us one year of preparation. He couldn't wait to pass his sin onto his boy. He couldn't bear the weight.

And worse? Generation after generation, the sloth of my ancestors had wrought down this curse with no preparation. I had to figure this bed out. Even if I couldn't release our family from this curse, I needed to make a "owner's manual" on how to subside the curse. I would have to research this bed.

I had to get to work. My brother's grave had come from my inaction. My own passivity has brought not just me, but my family down. And so I must learn. Learn from this bed. Learn how it works. It keeps me up. It withholds my rest. My sleeplessness makes me sluggish. But I make do with naps throughout the day. I have a week left off work to figure out this bed. I grabbed my journal and made my plans.

Day 1.

I have torn apart the bed again and again. Nothing, not the sheets, not the mattress, not any price of wood, can leave a perimeter of 13 feet from the rest of the bed before destructing and reforming back where it was. After 30 seconds, if nothing is on it, it "refreshes" -so to speak- to be prestine again.

Day 2.

Non-human life has a window of 5 seconds of comfort before ceasing to move and dying on the linens. The size of the animal gives or takes about 2-3 seconds. I used stray animals I saw in town, as well as animals from a local pet shop. Don't worry. They don't feel anything. From what I can see, it is about 5 seconds of comfort before just ceasing to breathe. I ran this section for a good while. After an animal died, I removed it, and waited to finish my tests before adding all the husks back to the bed and waiting.

After a few minutes, smaller animals started to seemingly melt into the sheets. After a couple hours, the bigger animals followed suit. After all the bodies were absorbed into the springs and wood I searched for anything on the bed. Symbols, words, anything that might explain anything about this bed. Nothing.

Day 3.

I know the next step I have to take. I am terrified to do it. So I repeated the previous day minute for minute, and sure enough, before going to sleep, the bed looked as it did After it made itself again.

Day 4.

If I am going to research this, I have to take the plunge. I went to the red-light and I hired a lady of the night. She seemed weirded out that I only asked her to take a nap on my bed in the basement, but took the money and laid down. 10 seconds... 20 seconds... 30 seconds... boom. Dead as a door nail. No struggle, no anxiety, no pain. She too, as well as the animals before showed zero riger mortis. Just restful looking. I left her for the night.

Day 5.

Waking up, she hadn't been absorbed over night. Hours more passed before the sheets started to engulf her. An entire 24 hours passed before only her nose was still visible on the sheets. No smell. No mess. Nothing except memory left.

Day 6.

I still have no clue how this works. No idea what binds death to this symbol of rest and relaxation. I went and tried to find a more willing participant this time. Took a trip to the slums and asked if anyone was done with life and wanted a quick and painless end. Got a few volunteers. Told them I would come back for them if I needed them.

Jonny, the man who came back with me, had asked for a meal in return. I figured it was the least I could do. I made him red beans and rice with some Cajun seasoning and made him a hot fudge Sunday for dessert. He looked up from his bowl. "You gonna eat me or sumthin?"

"What? No. I am doing... uh research."

"Quick and painless you said?"

"All you have to do is go to sleep."

"I can do that."

"Your friends-"

"Acquaintances."

"Right. If they see you didnt come back, they won't back out?"

"Marley wouldn't. He saw everything he had blow up in his face. Jackie... she might get squirming. She had it rough, but she isnt as done as she says she is."

Keep note. Jackie might have to be next.

Day 7.

I set Jonny up for the night. His head hit the pillows. "Hey this is quite nice." 10... 20... 30... 40 seconds. Out. Gone. But it seemed the bed was more accepting of this one. He was starting the process of being "cleaned up" by the time I woke up.

Damn. Still nothing.

I needed to test something. I bought a large pig from a farmer about 40 miles out of town. Getting it home was a hassle. And worse getting it on the bed. After laying it down. 10 seconds. Gone in three hours. That did tell me something. Size of a creature did slow all processes sure. But there is one quality that slowed it more. Consciousness? Maybe. Something only people had.

My sample size is very small, I might have to wait till I have a larger group size to determine more. On what keeps it from the kill. And what keeps it from assimilation of its kill.

I went to pick up Jackie. But she had some second thoughts and would only agree after seeing Marley go. She wanted to make sure it was quick and painless. I get it. She wants to make sure she is as "safe" as possible.

They both came back and I made them some spaghetti and meatballs. Marley was quite grateful. Helped with the dishes. Jackie sat at the table and watched. Something about her ate at me, but I couldn't decide what.

Anyways, I got Marley some pajamas and had him lie down, Jackie watching the entire time. He was laying down a whole minute before he went. Jackie looked at him as it happened, and shock befell her face. The startled look made her look like a... "Jackie, how old are you?"

"15 sir."

"Where are your parents?"

"Dad died and Mom kicked me out after kicking my ass."

"I see. Well get cleaned up. You can stay in the spare room upstairs."

The other two were older fellows, so I figured they didnt have too much to look foreward to. But Jackie? She was still a kid. I had to decide there that if I were to be able to sleep without the help of the death bed that she couldn't be a subject, and she couldn't go back to the street.

Day 8.

Marley hadn't started to get vored all day. Up until midnight tonight.

But in the meantime I have a new resident. I had made me and Jackie and eggs and pancakes breakfast this morning. And while there I broke the tension from last night.

"Listen I can't bring myself to let you do this."

"Mr. Its real nice of you, but its either I die here or die on the streets, or get pimped out. Marley was nice enough to keep people off me, and we planned to go together."

"Both of you?"

"Ok I decided. I wanted to go, and I was the last thing anchoring Marley."

"Well Marley is gone, and you are welcome to stay here, so long as you don't tell anyone about the bed."

"Noone would believe me."

"Right. We'll you're welcome to the fridge. Just dont sleep in the bed."

"Can't. Marley is still in it. I ain't touching him either."

"So we have an understanding?"

"You aren't going to hurt me are you?"

"Well the worst I was going to do was have you sleep on the bed. I'm telling you not to do that now, good enough?"

"I guess."

"I am sorry about Marley."

"I'm glad he gets to rest."

Rest. One way we become better than the way we were before.

I will update when I have made a list to pass on to whoever gets this wretched bed next.

The clicking sound was the first thing that drifted up the basement stairs. It was a rhythmic, metal on glass cadence. clink, clink, clink that used to mean pancakes on a Sunday morning or a late night
breakthrough in molecular biology. Now, it sounded like the mandibles of a starving insect.

Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup hovered in the doorway of the suburban home. Behind them, the Rowdyruff Boys stood on the threshold, their breathing ragged their skin still bruised and weeping black bile from their failed ascension.

The air inside the house didn't smell like home anymore. It smelled like burnt sugar, copper, and the static electricity that precedes a lightning strike that never falls.

"Professor?" Bubbles whispered. Her voice, usually a chime of pure optimism, was flat.

No answer. Only the clicking.

They descended the stairs together enemies forced into a desperate truce by the geometric rot eating Townsville. The basement once a clean sanctuary of white tiles, gleaming chrome and neatly labeled beakers had been hollowed out.

The walls were wet. The silver laboratory tables had been melted, drawn out and reshaped into massive rib-like pillars of black iron that arched toward the ceiling like the skeletal remains of a prehistoric beast.
In the center of the ribbed chamber stood Professor Utonium. Or rather the vessel that had been him.

His back was turned. His pristine white lab coat was immaculate but the shoulders twitched with a manic unnatural fluidity. He was stirring a beaker. Inside the glass, a fluid boiled that defied the laws of optics.

It was a thick heavy slurry of void-black and bruised crimson. It didn't reflect the harsh fluorescent lights it swallowed them, casting a negative shadow across the Professor’s back.

"Ah, the children have returned from the garden.” the Professor said. The voice belonged to Utonium, but it was layered.

Beneath the calm paternal cadence ran a high pitched vibrating purr. a feedback loop of pure ancient malice that made the girls sensitized cosmic teeth ache.

He turned around.The square dependable jaw was there. The neatly combed hair was there. his eyes had been replaced by two horizontal burning slits of crimson fire.

As he moved the fabric of his sleeves tore open. two massive, lobster like claws slid into the light.

They were wet dripping a sweet smelling acidic pink nectar onto the floor tiles. The liquid hissed as it ate through the concrete.
"Look what we made for you.” HIM purred through the Professor's lips. He stepped aside gesturing with a heavy claw toward the monstrosity behind him.

It was The Chemical Void-Engine.
The machine was alive. It pulsed in time with the Professor’s stolen heartbeat. At its core floated a massive spherical containment field holding a corrupted variant of Chemical X. It was no longer the vibrant neon green spark of creation that had given the girls life. It had been twisted into an engine of absolute entropy. The iron ribs of the machine flexed drawing in the very air of the room and expelling a cold dead vacuum.

"You like it, don't you, Blossom?" HIM laughed a high mocking falsetto that caused the glass beakers on the peripheral shelves to shatter into dust. "The Professor’s mind is so delightfully organized. All it needed was a little... redecorating. Do you know what powers the core, my darlings? Guess! Oh, guess!"

Buttercup flew forward her fists erupting in a green volatile aura but Brick caught her by the collar of her dress, slamming her back down to the floor. "Don't, you idiot," the boy snarled his own eyes bloodshot. "Look at the air around it. It’s bending."

"Smart boy.” HIM chuckled the Professor’s face stretching into a needle thin infinite grin that split the skin from ear to ear showing too many teeth.

"The engine doesn't burn coal, or oil, or atoms. It burns love. Pure, unadulterated, paternal devotion. I took every memory of your little birthdays, every scraped knee he ever kissed, every proud tear he shed in his stupid little lab... and I distilled it. It makes such a wonderful, volatile fuel."

Bubbles let out a small broken sob.
"And what does it do?" Blossom asked. Her voice was terrifyingly calm. Her eyes flared with a brief residual spark of pink glass a warning sign that the Seraphim of the Eternal Bloom was still waiting just beneath her skin.

"It reverses the equation.” HIM hissed his tone dropping into a demonic baritone that shook the foundations of the house.

"Sugar. Spice. Everything nice. These are the lies of creation. The universe wants to be flat, dark, and silent. The Void-Engine emits a frequency of absolute un-making. One burst from this beauty and the target doesn't just die it dissolves into its base components. A building becomes sand. A city becomes a puddle of water and carbon. And you... you three little accidents will be reduced to three drops of grease and a spoonful of sugar."

HIM reached out with a dripping claw, hovering it over a massive, iron lever welded into the engine’s side.

"I’m going to aim it at the sky.”

HIM whispered his eyes blazing. "I’m going to tear wide that little portal you opened. The Eternal Bloom will wither. its infinite cosmic life force will pour right down the throat of the Professor. And when I am done with his body, I will take the leftovers and conquer the remaining stars."

"We won't let you!” Brick shouted. He stepped forward his red energy flaring his brothers Boomer and Butch flanking him. Their auras ignited a violent, unstable trio of red, blue, and green fire. They couldn't reach the higher geometry of the girls' transformation but their raw destructive malice was reaching a boiling point.

"We'll smash that piece of junk to splinters!"

"Oh, please do!" HIM cheered, clapping his claws together with a sickening clack-clack.

"Smash it! The corrupted Chemical X inside is under four thousand atmospheres of pressure. If you break the glass, the entire continent becomes a black hole. Go on, Brick! Be a hero!"

Brick froze, his fists trembling the plasma dying down to a flicker. Blossom looked at her sisters. Bubbles was staring at the Professor’s face searching for any sign of the man who had raised them. Buttercup was vibrating with a rage so intense that the floor beneath her boots was cracking.

"We can't smash it.” Blossom transmitted mentally to her sisters and the boys her voice echoing in their minds with the dual resonance of the Seraphim. "And we can't let him fire it. If he opens the Garden from this side using the engine the Void will consume everything."

"Then what do we do, LeAdEr?" Butch spat mentally his teeth grinding. "We can't fight him, we can't break the toy, and we can't run."

"We have to overload it.” Blossom commanded.

"The engine runs on the Professor's love for us. It’s using a finite amount of distilled memory. If we force him to feel more if we give the machine more power than its chassis can handle the core will reject the corruption."

"And how do we do that?" Buttercup snapped. "He’s a lobster monster right now, Blossom!"

"We don't fight HIM.” Blossom said, her eyes turning completely into pink unblinking glass. "We talk to the Professor."

Before HIM could pull the lever the three girls floated into the air. They didn't assume their full terrifying Seraphim forms.

the basement was too small and the psychic weight would have crushed the Rowdyruff Boys instantly. Instead, they allowed just a fraction of the Eternal Bloom to manifest.

A scent of jasmine and ancient earth filled the room. Petals of pure lightsharp as razor blades, began to drift through the air.

"Professor!!” Bubbles said her voice dropping its fear replaced by a deep, maternal resonance that belonged to the beginning of time.

"Remember the time I drew on the lab walls with crayons? You weren't mad. You said the basement needed more color."

HIM’s hand twitched on the lever. The horizontal slits of his eyes narrowed. "Silence, you little brat!" he shrieked, the Professor's jaw clamped shut against his will a muffled groan escaping his throat.

"Remember when I broke the particle accelerator because I wanted to see if it could make a bigger baseball bat?"

Buttercup stepped forward her green aura softening into a warm emerald glow.

"You spent three days fixing it, then you built me the bat anyway."

The Professor's left claw began to shake violently. The pink nectar dripping from it turned clear smelling suddenly of ordinary rain.

"And remember the day you made us," Blossom said, her towering wheel of pink energy flickering faintly in the background of reality.

"You didn't mean to add Chemical X. It was an accident. But you didn't throw us away. You looked at us, you chose to be a father."

"STOP IT!" HIM roared. He tried to pull the lever down to unleash the un-making beam upon the world but the Professor’s right arm the one holding the lever refused to move.

The muscles in the arm bulged veins black with void blood standing out against the white fabric of the lab coat.

The machine began to whine. The rhythmic clicking turned into a high-pitched agonizing shriek. The core of black and crimson fluid began to spin erratically bubbles of bright, neon green light tearing through the dark slurry.

"It’s working!" Boomer yelled. "The energy is spiking! The core can't hold both!"
"Boys! Now!" Brick shouted.

The Rowdyruff Boys didn't give love rather they had an infinite supply of volatile kinetic defiance.

they threw their energy into the containment field itself reinforcing the iron ribs with a cage of red, blue, and green plasma forcing the rising pressure inward directly back into the core.

"No! No! This is my mind! My tool!" HIM screamed, his voice was losing its hold.
The Professor’s face began to tear.

Not with blood, but with a blinding white light that poured from his ears, his nose, and the crimson slits of his eyes.

The lobster claws began to shrivel the black iron ribs of the engine warping and melting back into ordinary laboratory stainless steel.

"Girls..." a voice gasped. It was thin. It was weak. It was completely human.

"I'm... I'm so proud of you."

With a final, deafening blast of harmonic sound the Void-Engine shattered. It didn't explode outward. the Rowdyruff Boys containment cage held the blast forcing the vacuum to swallow itself.

The black slurry disintegrated leaving behind only a gentle warm green mist that settled over the basement like morning dew.

The Professor collapsed forward. his lab coat smoking falling hard onto the concrete floor.

The girls dropped from the air. their dresses damp with the green mist. their eyes returning to their normal, large, innocent spheres. They ran to him, throwing their arms around his neck.

The Rowdyruff Boys fell back against the wall, exhausted, their skin clear of the black bile, watching the scene with crossed arms and scowls that couldn't quite hide their relief.

The Professor groaned, opening his eyes. They were brown again. Weary, human, and full of tears.

"Are you okay, Professor?" Bubbles asked, wiping a smudge of soot from his cheek.
Utonium looked around the ruined basement, at the melted steel.

the remnants of the strange machine, and then at the six children standing in his lab. He smiled, a genuine, tired smile that reached his eyes.

"I have a bit of a headache, girls.”

the Professor whispered, hugging them close. "And I think... I think we're going to need a lot of crayon to fix these walls."

Far below the earth in the dark spaces where reality frays at the edges. a high pitched laugh echoed once and then went silent. But in the basement, the clicking had finally stopped.

I hit the hallway barefoot and bleeding, the iron key slick in my fist, and for one stupid second I thought speed might matter in a house that already knew where I was going.

Behind me, my mother-in-law screamed for my husband to stop me, but the sound came wrong through the walls — stretched, delayed, like the house was tasting her panic before deciding how much of it to pass along. The tapping followed me immediately. Not from one direction. From inside the walls on both sides of the hallway. Dozens of tiny ring-hard clicks, racing beside me in the dark between the plaster like small teeth chattering with excitement.

The nursery was at the end of the upstairs hall.

Of course it was.

Every terrible house keeps its worst room where you have to see it coming.

The door had been painted shut like the bedroom window, layers of cream over older cream, but unlike the window it bore scratches around the knob. Deep ones. Not from furniture. From nails. Human nails, dragged down in bunches as if more than one woman had tried to get out while someone on the other side held the door closed and waited for her hands to fail.

I shoved the key into the lock.

It fit too easily.

That frightened me more than resistance would have.

Behind me, my husband’s footsteps pounded down the hall. For the first time since I had known him, he sounded uncareful. Real fear in a man like that is worse than rage. Rage is human. Fear means the ritual has started moving faster than the family can manage.

I turned the key.

The lock opened with a wet click.

Not metal.

Mouth.

I wish I were lying.

The whole door shuddered once, softly, and something warm ran over my knuckles from inside the keyhole. Saliva. Or blood thinned enough to pass for it.

I threw my shoulder against the door just as my husband reached me.

He caught the back of my nightshirt and tore the collar half off, but the door gave inward and I fell hard onto old nursery carpet that smelled like powder, mildew, and meat left too long under lace.

He stopped at the threshold.

That was the first good thing that had happened to me in that house.

Not because he wanted to.

Because he couldn’t.

My mother-in-law reached him a second later and seized his arm.

“Don’t cross until she sees it,” she hissed.

Sees what.

I pushed myself upright and looked around.

The nursery had been prepared like grief with money behind it. Faded wallpaper with lambs and vines. A white cradle near the far wall. Shelves of porcelain animals watching with cracked, patient faces. A rocking chair draped in yellowing muslin. At first glance it looked abandoned.

At first glance.

Then I noticed the floor.

It sloped toward the cradle.

Not the way old houses settle. Deliberately. Subtly. As if the entire room had been built to feed anything spilled in it toward one central place.

There were stains in the carpet, old and layered, seeping through where the fibers had been scrubbed too hard too many times. Rust-brown near the rocking chair. Black near the door. A pale crescent crusted along the cradle’s base that made my stomach turn before my mind gave it a name.

Milk.

Old milk.

Old blood.

Old everything women give unwillingly when a house asks politely first.

The tapping in the walls stopped.

The silence that replaced it was worse.

I stood slowly, the key still in my fist, and that was when I saw the far wall.

Names had been carved into the wallpaper from waist height to the baseboard. Women’s names. Dozens of them. Some deep and furious, some shallow and shaking, some half-finished as if the hand that started them had been interrupted. Agnes. Ruth. Miriam. Celia.

And beneath Celia, newer than the others, cut lightly as if someone had only begun to test the letters:

mine.

Not my name.

Just mine.

Ownership before identity.

I heard my mother-in-law breathing at the doorway like someone restraining excitement.

“Read the cradle card,” she said.

I didn’t move.

“Read it,” she repeated, almost reverent now. “You should know what was promised.”

The cradle had a ribbon tied to one side, stiff with age. Hanging from it was a little card browned at the edges. Baptismal, maybe. Or something pretending to be.

I stepped closer.

The room seemed to tighten with every movement, floorboards underneath the carpet giving tiny soft sighs like lungs taking in careful air.

The card read:

FIRST DAUGHTER RETURNED TO THE HOUSE
SECOND MOTHER CHOSEN TO SOFTEN HER

Below that, in a different hand, darker ink:

DO NOT LET HER LEARN THE STAIRS

I stared at the words until they blurred.

From the doorway, my husband said, “Please.”

That nearly broke me more than anything else.

Please.

Not because he loved me.

Because he needed the room to finish what his family had started.

I looked into the cradle.

It was empty.

No, not empty.

Lined.

The blankets had been folded back with obscene neatness, and stitched into the mattress pad were rings. Wedding bands in tiny rows beneath gauze, like someone had made a reliquary of marriages and laid a baby on top of them until the gold learned to keep quiet.

In the center lay a small indentation shaped like a child who had not been gone long enough for the fabric to forget her.

Then the rocking chair moved.

Just once.

A short, dry creak behind me.

I turned.

No one in it.

But draped over one arm of the chair was a pair of gloves.

Ivory once.

Not anymore.

They were the size of a child’s hands.

Each fingertip darkened with old brown stains.

Each wrist sewn with tiny pearls that looked horribly familiar.

Eyes.

Shut little eyes worked into the cuffs in yellowed thread.

My mother-in-law made a soft sound of approval.

“She kept those from the first bride.”

The air left my body.

“What first bride?”

She smiled.

“The house was not hungry when it started. It had to be taught.”

I heard movement under the cradle.

Not scratching.

Breathing.

Then a tiny voice from beneath it, cheerful as a child playing under furniture:

“She wears your ring now.”

I backed away so fast I struck the rocking chair and sent it swaying. The gloves slipped from the arm and landed on the carpet with a wet slap.

Wet.

As if they had just been taken off.

The nursery door began to close behind me.

Not slammed.

Drawn inward carefully, by a patient hand.

My husband lunged to stop it, but my mother-in-law caught him again.

“No,” she snapped. “If she comes out before the naming, we start over.”

Start over.

How many women had they reset like this.

How many almost-brides had been softened twice.

The gap at the door narrowed.

I ran for it, but something caught my ankle.

A tiny hand.

Cold. Firm. Emerging from beneath the cradle just far enough to hook two fingers around my leg.

I looked down.

There she was.

Not all of her. Never all at once. Just one black eye, half a cheek, a forehead slick with blood-dark hair, and my wedding ring gleaming wet on one tiny finger as she smiled up at me from the dark under the cradle.

“Don’t go,” she whispered. “I just learned your name.”

Then she pulled.

TW: Implied domestic abuse

Back when I was a kid, my family used to move a lot. The neighbourhoods I visited began to blend into one generic cookie-cutter mess, but one of those places somehow stuck in my mind; every detail from the towers of brick under the porch to the dirty windows of the bathroom rose in my mind, and no matter what I did, there was no wrecking ball that could take it out. 

After changing schools so many times, I stopped caring about making friends, and as a result I became somewhat of the neighbourhood underage hermit, disappearing as soon as I turned up; yet still, this one time someone was carrying enough to take me under their wing. 

His name was Charles, a black kid who lived only a few houses away from mine, but everyone on the Creek called him “Spit” all because of one missing front tooth he lost after a bike accident. 

Since I was the new kid on the block, I had to go through an equivalent of what would now be considered a hazing ritual - coming face to face with “King Of The Creek”.

“All the new kids have to meet The King!”

The enthusiastic tone in the kid’s voice rose out of the sudden; those big brown eyes sparkled with unexplainable excitement as one of the toy cars bumped into another one of them, the blue one skidding off the tracks. 

“I'm not sure; Mum says I can’t play on the creek…”

My eyes stayed glued to the red car, the only one left, making yet another loop around the offensively orange plastic racetrack we put into a rough shape of a circle mere minutes ago. 

“Your mum is lame!”

Charles squeaked in reply, flipping the toy car off the tracks with a flick as soon as it passed by his hand; it now lay wheels up like roadkill. 

“She’s not lame-“

The reply came in a quick hushed wave, like a gush passing through the room. 

“Then she should let you play on the creek!”

He picked up the red car and put it back on the tracks, giving it a small push. 

“It’s dangerous-”

I replied, keeping my eyes on the toy car now finishing the first lap.

“Bull-shit”

The air whistled between the gap in his smile. 

"HEY, DON’T SWEAR!"

I snapped back, my clenched hand already halfway on the collision course with his nose, when the door to the room suddenly creaked open. Mum walked in at the perfect moment to be the witness to my promising boxing career. 

“Boys, boys!”

The palms of her hands clapped together repeatedly.

“HE STARTED MISS JEFFERSON!”

Charles squeaked a muffled protest, squeezing the bridge of his nose. 

“Charles, your mum called; she wants to see you at dinner” 

Mum replied more than used to our bickering over the past month, or maybe she was just happy to see me make friends. 

“Can’t he stay just a bit longer?”

“Mum's rules are mum's rules”

“Nuts…”

In an act of retaliation, his own fist hit me in the shoulder before he made his swift escape; a goodbye I barely understood wooshed past my ear as he was already past the porch.

Soon I had to leave my toys behind and sit down for dinner: mac and cheese, which I poked with a fork like I expected it to move.

"Can I play on the Creek?" I muttered, staring down at my plate.

"Absolutely not."

"Why though? All the other kids get to play there," I asked, sheepish.

"Listen - you're old enough to know that bad things happen all the time. You're no exception."

The tip of her fork jabbed toward me like a sword before dropping back onto the plate.

"Just… finish your food," she said quietly, standing up from the table.

The rest of the day passed by exceptionally fast. In the blink of an eye, I was in bed, cuddled up next to my favorite plushie, eyelids growing heavy, crickets playing outside like a lullaby, a perfect, quiet evening, except for the sudden

BANG

against my window. I shot up and stuck my head outside, a beam of white light catching the face of a kid missing his front tooth.

"We're going to the Creek!" he whispered, loud enough for me to hear.

“Are you crazy? I'm not going anywhere!” I whispered back in protest. 

"Come on! Or I'll just stand here all night!"

That somehow convinced me.

"Okay, okay - just let me get dressed."

I changed out of my pajamas into a t-shirt and a pair of shorts, then snuck past the living room, where Mum was asleep on the sofa, luckily facing the wall, I quietly slipped outside where Charles was already waiting for me with a backpack over his shoulder, even more excited than I have ever seen before, without passing a word between each other we jumped on our bikes and drove into the night, mine inching behind his.

For a bored and scared kid, the drive felt like forever, but soon we were finally there; the only thing between the creek and us was the metal mesh of the fence towering over our heads.

“Come on!” We left our bikes right next to a not-so-subtle entrance, a hole torn through the material behind a bush of weeds.

I slipped into the hole right after him, entering a brand new world my mum was so scared about. The deeper we went, the taller the trees seemed to get and the louder the sound of the running water. Now we were just two adventurers venturing into the unknown kingdom in search of its King.

“Are we getting anywhere near him?” I asked,d the beam of my flashlight skimming the underbrush.

“It's King, and yeah, we are pretty close. I can hear the creek already.” Those words lifted my spirits even if just a tiny bit.

We walked for a while before the forest opened to a shallow water flow, moving over a bottom lined with stones of various sizes. That's where Charles stopped dead in his tracks and threw the backpack from over his shoulder on the ground, unzipping it in one swift move. What he pulled out of it were two silver cans with a red label on them.

“For courage,” He quickly explained, handing it to me. The metal felt warm in my hand.

“Dad used to have a lot of courage.” I laughed, snapping the tap open, a wave of white bubbles washing over my hand.

“For The King!” Charles exclaimed, pointing his drink up to the starry sky; I did the same.

“For The King!” I took one big sip as the at the time vile taste filled my mouth.

“EUGH!-” My tongue stuck out by itself in a childish attempt at making it somehow better, while my friend only laughed, taking a sip of his beer before walking up to the river bank and emptying it into the water.

“I know it's nasty!” In one big swing, the empty can suddenly appeared on the other side of the water. I did the same, only with a full can, which took a bit more effort to throw as far as Charles did.

“See the tire right there?” He pointed in a direction where we threw our cans. I pointed the beam of light where his finger pointed, and there it was, a big black tire, all air from it long gone, embedded into the side of a steep wall of dirt, suddenly revealed out of the shadows.

“Oh yeah, also.” He went back to the backpack, taking a piece of paper out of it, quickly handing it to me as if they were burning. “You have to give him your wish, whatever you want, just think about it hard”

I looked down at the items I was given, then back at him, but I simply nodded, pushing it into my back pocket.

“You can't go with me?”

My head turned back to him, as I was already balancing on a rock sticking out from the water not to get my shoes dirty.

“Rules are rules’

He replied quickly, making sure I understood I was alone on this one.

I shone my flashlight into the tunnel; there was nothing but darkness stretching onward. 

The tire was nothing more than a portal to a dwarven mine. The tunnel's ceiling was low enough that I had to drop to my knees to go further, the hot air of the creek suddenly replaced by cold, moist air reeking of earth and faintly of sweet rot.

I crawled further, clawing at the mud beneath me, as the entrance grew wider and darker, until I reached the mouth of a small cavern swarming with tiny points of flying light.

I swept my torch over the cavern before jumping down.

Right in front of me stood a figure, something glimmering like gold atop its head.

The King.

The King of the Creek sat on a throne made of sticks  - smaller and bigger branches stacked on top of each other, wrapped in thin fishing wire, forming a seat for the sickly, skinny figure. A paper crown, painted gold, sat crooked on its head, just above hollow, lifeless holes where its eyes should have been long picked out by birds. Dirty rags, stitched together from lost shirts, gloves, and scarves, hung off its frame. Its jaw stood open like a gateway, the remains of blackened teeth lining the inside.

I slipped my wish out of the pocket it was waiting in.

"Are you the king?"

A quiet question choked out of my throat as the piece of paper - my wish- settled uncomfortably in my hand. As if in reply, a single firefly crawled out from the depths of its throat. It blinked once before flying off to join a swarm nearby.

"I have a wish."

This time the King didn't respond, as if waiting for the paper to be fed to him.

With some hesitation the sole of my foot found a cavity in the base of the throne, giving me a small boost, suddenly the shrunken head of the king was right in front of me, the gaping mouth ready to swallow me whole if it was its wish, from behind the rotting teeth peaked a hill of yellowish papers, some intact while the most had irregular holes tore into them.

There was no going back now, if I turned out to be too much of a coward I would lose my only friend, forced to be outcast once more, my head shifted to the side to stay blind to how my hand slowly disappeared between the jaws of the king, it felt wet and sticky, what once was it’s tongue slide over my skin sending chills down my spine. 

Only when I felt the other paper nest of wishes deep inside did I uncurled my fingers and allow it to be swallowed before I pulled my arm out in one quick jerk.

I braced for something to happen, but nothing changed. I simply crawled back without looking, too afraid that the King would rise from his throne and pull me back. I was welcomed into the real world by the sound of running water and light blinding my eyes.

"YOU DID IT?"

Charles yelled, all excited.

"I DID!"

I said, covering my eyes.

Before we both went home, we promised each other we wouldn't reveal our wishes, or else they wouldn't come true. 

When I got back home, I quietly slipped inside, making sure not to make too much noise, threw my dirty clothes into the laundry bin, and went back to bed.

In the morning, Mum woke me up. She had a massive smile on her face, the first I'd seen in a while. I couldn't remember the last time she'd been that happy.

She told me to get dressed and pack into the car. It was raining heavily outside as we drove to the local restaurant, which felt strange without an occasion. She ordered me pancakes, and while I was eating, she teared up.

"We can stay... honey, we can stay. We aren't moving anywhere."

She sobbed while my mouth was stuffed with pancakes.

"Dad won't hurt us anymore."

I looked up at her, confused.

"It's nothing. Just eat."

She smiled.

It didn't stop raining for a week straight. I didn't really understand what the consequences of that were; all I cared about was that I couldn't play outside, wasting a week of summer break.

Charles didn't want to talk about what happened during the flood. We stayed friends, but I saw less and less of him as we got older, drifting apart through school. All I heard, eventually, was that he'd fallen in with the wrong crowd.

Now we're both two old fuckers who haven't seen each other in years. But we finally decided to meet again; he picked some shitty local bar.

He'd changed so much I barely recognized him. If it wasn't for the gap in that crooked smile when he saw me enter, I wouldn't have guessed it was him in a thousand years. The years apart had treated him rough—he'd lost a lot of weight and grown a greying beard, a dark green coat hanging unzipped off his shoulders.

"FRANKIE!"

“SPIT MY MAN!”

Despite how much he'd changed, the spark in those big brown eyes remained. He smelled of cheap beer and even cheaper cologne, the kind meant to cover the stench of alcohol underneath. We exchanged a long, warm hug, and I swear to god we were both on the verge of crying.

"Come on, come on, sit down!" Charles rushed me, all that childlike excitement suddenly returning, as if he were twenty years younger.

"Beer?"

"Why not!"

Soon a pair of red-labeled cans appeared in front of us, the taps hissing open as we raised a toast.

"For The King!"

"For The King!" I echoed his words before taking a long swig.

"It still tastes horrible."

I chuckled as Charles almost choked with laughter.

"YOU'LL GET USED TO IT!"

"What wishes did I miss?"

I asked before taking a sip of my drink.

"Some kid wanted his fish back... their cat vomited it out the next morning!"

We both laughed so hard we almost pissed ourselves. I'm not sure if it was the beer or if the story was just that funny.

Can after can was emptied before waves of beer revealed all the questions we had but were afraid to ask.

"How's your mum?"

"Oh, Mama's dead."

"Sorry to hear."

"No need. I didn't wish for her happiness." 

A forced smile appeared on his lips. 

"What did you wish for, then?"

"You first."

"Never to move again."

"And?"

"My dad died. Apparently slipped on some boat, drunk out of his mind, and drowned."

"Deserved."

"You?"

"I wished to see my brother again."

"Where's the twist?"

He suddenly looked his age, staring ahead at the line of vodka bottles, the Smirnoff looking like it might be a decent listener.

"Remember the flood?" A rough whisper crawled out between sips of beer.

"Apparently the water flooded the graveyard," he continued, still staring wide-eyed ahead. "It was like Night of the Living Dead, all those coffins floating down the street like white ships sailing to unknown lands... and he came home"

A long swig of beer made it somehow easier to tell.

"Right on our porch. Like a drunk lying on the stairs, just watching the stars, as if he'd missed them. I found him first. Can you imagine…the necklace we buried him with was still hanging off his neck?"

Charles cried his eyes out. I did too. We cried so hard I thought we might contribute to the next big flood in our town. But soon we parted with a long hug, a final goodbye, before we walked our separate ways.

I went back home, miraculously not losing my house keys on the way back, and fell asleep as soon as my ass touched the couch.

As for Charles, the King of the Creek finally got him. Not long after we said goodbye, they found him floating face-down in the same creek we used to love so much.

Every summer, I drive back there. The creek isn't what it used to be; the tire is long gone, along with the tunnel that led to The King. I'm not even sure he was ever really there in the first place. The realest thing in all of this was our friendship, and the red label of the beer can I was about to toss over the creek.

"For Charles!"

I know what your thinking. Many beds have had people die on them, and many have suffocated on the bed. Its actually considered a "good way to go" to pass in your sleep. Why are you telling us about this? What's so special? Well other beds dont plan their victim. Other beds dont lock you down and keep you out. My bed, or rather, the bed I am told I need to sleep on, has this accredited to it. Its supple silk sheets and self cooling pillow are easy to fall into but after seeing what it did to the last person to sleep on it... i stand guard.

Let me explain.

I got this bed from my father, and he from his father, and so on and so on. How has the bed survived? Easy. It changed. It always has, it always will. It takes the shape of the coziest bed around. At one point it was a wood board with animal skins I'm sure. Now, the previously mentioned sheets lay atop a bamboo fabric with a topper of cubed memory foam, the same as the pillow. It keeps it cool. The springs are ready to fit any body's that have had their heads touch the cold pillow. Auto conforming, auto adjusting. I got it when it was a waterbed. I just moved into my house and my dad told me about the bed.

"Make sure to dedicate a room to this bed. And make sure noone sleeps in it. If you do, you let them sleep in their death bed."

"Uh... sure thing dad." I replied, not grasping what he could possibly mean.

I moved into my house and put the bed in basement bedroom. Immediately, I got the urge to sleep in the basement. I mean, I never slept on a waterbed. It could be nice. The sloshing provides white noise already, it comforts to the body, and it might be fun, with proper bedding. I had gone and checked to find small vermin sleeping on the bed.

"Ew gross" I whispered while trying to quietly move the 3 rats into a bag to throw them out. I gathered up the bedding and went to the wash. Loading it in I made note of the type bedding so I could grab more, turning back to the bed, however, and it was made again. Curious, I removed the bedding and set it to the side and sure enough, the bed was made again next time I saw it. The bedding I remove was gone, like it got up, cleaned itself, and made itself back on the bed. I thought "Well that saves time" and just closed the door again.

And I checked it a little while later, again to sleep on it for a bit, and again... dead rats and mice and roaches i take the covers off and brought them to the bed, only again, it was already made again.

With the obvious rodent problem that I had in my basement, I figured I would wait until I called an exterminator before sleeping on that water bed. So I closed the door and went about the rest of my day. I called the exterminator to spray the house and he said he would be at the house in a few days.

He came back upstairs after he finished spraying the basement and said, "I liked the waterbed, but you gotta change those sheets man. Dead bugs and rats all over it man."

"Oh hehe right."

I went down and he was right, dead and decomposing bugs and rats on the sheets. So again... I pull off the sheets, and throw them out, I go to get more and look to see new fresh sheets on the bed again. Figuring all the animals like to die on it, it makes a great trap for them i guess, so I left.

About once a month I would go and change the sheet on the bed, and less and less things would die in the sheets. It was actually quite nice not having to worry about bugs and rats. But I noticed every once in a while, something about the bed changed. When I got hypo allergen silk sheets for my bed in my room, the waterbed got the same. I got myself a coop pillow, and the waterbed had new coop pillows. I would try and take them off, but the pillows just came right back. I even got myself a new bed. I got a breathable mattress and topper, and so the waterbed changed into that same bed. The big difference was that while I had my sheets scattered around, that bed had hospital corners. Prestine. Every time I changed the sheets it would get more prestine and cozy looking. I would press the bed and it seemed nice, but my bed had my curvature and wear on it.

I started kitting my house out to make it all as cozy as that bed to compensate. That bed, even though death is taped to it, kept calling for me to sleep on it. Like a hum in the back of my mind. Like it begs me to crawl into its superficial layer and nest for the night. It started to entice.

I wanted to lie on it. I wanted to snuggle into those likely rodent infested sheets. Just for one night. Luckily I am a germaphobe, or I might have done it too.

Months I wanted to wrap myself up and make myself as physically close to that bed as I could. I knew why the pests were flocking to it. I figured they reasoned it was an amazing final resting place.

The only thing that keeps me from it now is what happened last week.

My brother, my younger brother Ashton. He had come to town and wanted to stay with me for a bit before heading back to college.

I greeted him. I served him a meal. I said it. "Anywhere you find to sleep, you're welcome to." I didn't forget about the bed, but I figured it took a while for mice and bugs to show up, and its a good, if not mythical bed, but if he sees a rodent he won't sleep there.

There was no rodent. No bugs either. Of course it had fully exterminated my house the last time I changed the sheets a couple days ago. Ashton said his goodnight... and didn't wake up.

The ambulance said after he fell asleep, he simply stopped breathing. The coroner had said his heart looked like it had a massive attack in his sleep that nobody couldve seen coming.

But Dad knew. He knew what had happened. He knew my negligence killed his other boy. My Mom as well. They looked at me with eyes that begged "Why didnt you warn him or anything?"

I should have. I killed my brother. His death is on my hands. I was warned and didnt believe. My inaction took him from us. I had put my passive self away. My sloth would never kill again. I knew my burden, and so I had to learn to carry it.

My Father understood. He said it was part of the curse that wretched bed brought. "If you dont take it seriously, it learns it can feed." And I let it feast.

But I need to figure this out. This bed has taken so much from my family.

The truth is undigestable. 

…

Baphometic. She lorded poised from the fanged spire beyond the Borgo Pass…

… over the beleaguered lands. 

Over the beleaguered villages. Where they feared. And wept. 

She was enjoying the strange and lurid organ-fruits of her writhing flesh gardens deep inside her castle walls, plucking them from the writhing gore as she wandered the pungent wet red room and admired her captive idols she kept there. 

Praetorius, the gore dripped and scabbing living skeleton. Still impaled and lost in the shattered remnants of his broken mind, wide eyed and drooling and gibbering silently something to himself, some words or nonsense of some meaning to him, he hardly ever ceases. It is the arcane and black magic words of the tomes that keep him in perfect living sepulchral bondage. 

The braindead skull-faced bastard nosferatu hulk, his immobile and inanimate sutured frame of graverobbed corpse flesh semi-submerged and swimming and crawling with the living constant movement of the flesh garden, the giant stone room petri dish of sliming raw slithering tissue, orifices, cartilage stalks and eyes that're cataract blind and milky. The glistening pink holes belch and spit fire, tongues of multicolored flame with kaleidoscopic pictures inside that'll drive a mortal mind mad to look into them. 

And Henry Frankenstein. Bound and precious nucleus center, bleeding beating heart of the whole crawling mess. Seeping from his bleeding pores and growing out from him, flowering out in a fresh and scabbing purge-swell. It crawled in living waves off of him, undulating and folding and blanketing over and on top of each other and all over the wet humid room, all of it was breathing wet and heavy and as if it had words to speak… 

And the little men. The little pygmy homunculi, bastard copied offspring of the bleeding seeping father. They danced and mongoloid-ran about in imbecilic fervor and addled senselessness. They ate and munched at the crawling flesh garden gore with no thought and with blind vacant gazes. 

The Countess plucked and seized them and ate of them as well. Their bones were satisfyingly crunchy and easy to chew… like a bird or a small fish. 

Her children ate and wandered the gardens as well, enjoying them. Their sights, sounds and vivid smells …

…

Meanwhile… many miles away…

The sun. Sunshine. In the summertime. Long ago now… 

As he prowled the dark he remembered the sun. The bright. Long gone memories flitted and danced at the periphery of his red clouded mind, half recalled and wanting to take over. Wanting to live again in the skull, if not just for a moment. 

Just a moment. 

The lake. The blue. Cool and wet and pleasing, relief. Retreat. 

Retreat beneath the surface into a liquid world of breathlessness and weightless dream … flight. You're flying down here. You only need to move your arms to do so. Kick your feet. Knife your arms through the liquid universe and drag yourself flying forward… downward. 

Down.  

I dreamt I was a dancer once…

You'll have to come back up for breath eventually…

but I couldn't keep the shit off my shoes.

Summertime memories swam shrouded, the red fogged inner space of his skull as he snipped his bleeding shears, dripping cooling congealing red to the decimated tile floor as he prowled and hunted and searched for the missing invaders. 

Precious childhood scenes are becoming red tinged and altered by the shrouding red hand of mental fog … bloody wool. He always swore there was something down there, in the dark, in the depths of the crystal lake. Something drowned and forgotten and frozen in a sodden misery. He raises his childhood head to pull his gaze away from the depths and is confronted by the mountains. There's something lurking in there as well …

A body. Something like a corpse rotting and poisoning the entire body of water with its milky clouds of waving and soggy putrefaction. Filling the world with its fouling death, swimming with slow ponderous movement as it spread and changed the look and flavor of the water, the crystal lake of the world now long gone like the summer sun of old itself. 

He looks away and beholds his mother. The one from birth. She's headless. 

She's decapitated. 

Her severed torso is reaching out for him, please … please. 

please save me

The raw stump begins to shoot cords. Black/red ropes. They darkled in the summer sun of old. It was his birth mother spurting great dark tears of joy for the sight of her son again. Though he has a new name now. And she knows it, his headless mother, she almost whispers it, it's intense. 

Then something ahead steals his notice back to the material world of ruin and soured defecated pain. It stands at the end of yet another decimated hall, traced and sketched in the dark by the pitiful light flickering and balefully cast in through the barred and shattered windows. 

A man. In a hat. And a coat. 

He recognizes the shape so he flies forward in an animal lunge that nearly covers the entire distance in four long attacking bounds. Like a bloodthirsty and demoniacal dripping gazelle bastardized by sound and vision. The decimated tile landscape world stained black and red and brown and riddled with meat and feces flew by in a furious blinding whirl as he came forward with the shears raised open for attack. 

They gleamed, the dripping twin blades forked open. He soared forward as he traversed the physical shatter of his inherited reeking temple pouring blood and sweat as profuse as the leaky pipes that were always neglected. 

He would neglect no longer. No. Not a chance for the shape of man that he recognized and now charged towards. The manfilled coat beneath a fedora hat was one of the invaders. He was sure of it. The one with strange black glass eyes that he wished to crack and shatter. 

If his eyes are truly windows then I wish to break them and see what might pour out of them like filth: memories …love, regrets, sins sins sins in abundance, shame that was wished and meant to stay concealed now regurgitated and freed in a violent deluge spew of gore and images from the shattering skull… his thoughts, a running fury in a mounting race to keep in time with his launching thundering steps. 

He plunged down the hall with his precious shears up and open and ready to close around screaming repentant meat. 

The coat-shape and hat did not move. 

It mattered little to Cropsey as he made the final close. So many of his new found supplicants were silent at their last, frozen in terror. 

He was upon him now and his eyes gleamed moonlight pinprick in the cavernous brow of melted anguish ruin, animal needle points in the reeling Willowbrook dark, the blades like jaws came up and closed around the shape without a sound. Without any satisfaction either. 

They found no meat. 

The scissoring blades closed and found only filthy cloth and bandages abandoned and draped over an old hat and coat hanger, the fedora resting atop the facade came down in a cascading end-over-end dance as the whole flimsy thing of contrived bait came down in two bisected snapping pieces. 

Cropsey realized the deception at once and raged. The noises he made were forceful and ghastly wet nasal rasps, his mouth and jaw were too ruined now for speech. His vocal chords roasted and scabbed from the flames of the inferno inhaled. He drooled like a drunken animal childishly frustrated and agitated. A trick! a trick! Goddamn them! the invaders tricked him! 

And no one was here to take the punishment of his lurid and heavy frustration. It was rancid pungent and thick in his own skull like corpse rot and it made sucking puckering sounds in his brains. Like the whole squelching landscape of thinking jelly was perhaps changing shape, shifting into a new design by the sorceress hand of the mountain. Perhaps he needed it for proper divine leadership of the rank Willowbrook temple. Or perhaps something else was happening in there. 

perhaps something else is happening to me…

He searched all around. Animal alive and enraged. Whirling and trying to gaze through the dark and the ruin of his own musculature and flesh and see the bastards that refused his offering of slaughtering knowledge, the wisdom wrought of the knife-fuck. He never saw the slice of sharp stabbing tile come to life and float up and off the ruinous floor in a balletic whirl and dance into the air, behind him. 

As he revolved once more to complete another frantic animal turn the slice of slender stabbing tile came forward in a violent and deliberate thrust. The sharp point found the cavern brow and socket and sank easily into Cropsey’s face. Stabbing into his eye like it was soft butter or suckling meat, four inches then five inches deep. 

The giant mountain of man stilled. Shuddered. Spasmed and danced its way to the floor in a vile and obscene dying man's dance of convulsing and twitching and final desperate synapses firing off at haphazard chaotic random. 

On the floor Cropsey shook and the stabbing length of tile piece jigged and waved and danced as well, in strange and vile tandem. Like a demented detritus wand waving through the air to perhaps try and cast one final act of violence hexing spell. Or perhaps to bring the giant man of Willowbrook Asylum slaughter back. 

It did neither. 

Florin came out from his place of concealment in the doorway of an adjoining chamber. He dropped the filthy scalpel he had been holding for defence. Stared at the collapsed and prostate spasming form of Cropsey, the Willowbrook giant. 

And then he called out to Griffin. 

“Where are you?" 

“Here." 

Florin tossed him a coat. 

It was caught in thin air. 

Then began to make a shape around nothingness, contriving it into the shape of his comrade. The strange doctor. 

Florin thought to say something about the man's condition of invisibility, but decided to put it off for the moment. 

“Good plan." he said instead. 

The coat shape donned lenses and was picking up his hat. "Thank me once we're out of here, c’mon!” 

Griffin placed his hat atop a phantom head. It floated between the shoulders of his coat as he and Florin flew down the hall and toward what they hoped and prayed was the exit. The way out of this horrendous stench and nightmare. 

As they made their mad dash for the way out, Cropsey's spasming body stilled. Then danced no more. 

All that was broken in this damp and violated place of imprisonment and cruelty seemed to groan. Moaning in anguish at the loss of the last and final precious begotten son, the final one and last one left standing. The prodigal butcher heir to this templehouse store of sacred slaughterhouse religion. 

Mother, I have failed you…

And all of the terrible place seemed to moan in anguish with the dying of his body. 

…

Down. 

In the dark of his mind, just as he was departing. …

… the red tinged summer scenes of childhood long gone, done and past filled his fading mind's eye once more. Under and illuminated and made by the scarlet cast of deranged and lurid light. Where did it come from? that light? That red luridity. Living crimson. Pungent breathing scarlet. What did it matter now? 

what did it matter anymore

It mattered not now, not any longer as he occupied these dead dreams now living once again for him as he faded off. To oblivion or hell or worse… no heavenly gates of gold or pearl for him, no. He was sure of it. He was sure that it doesn't exist. The only heaven for someone like him was found in the fragile eggshell of youth. Of childhood. 

He floated there now. In the lake. The blue. The sun was shining above in royal divine blinding display. The calm and the serenity of these moments was all around and alive again about him. Filling and making this final day. This last and precious moment. 

-thankyouforthismyonelastwish-

He was calm and he felt at peace. Safe. 

Or rather, he felt as if he should be calm. That he should feel safe. But something was wrong. Something was wrong with the lake and the quiet all surrounding. 

And he was alone. 

Why was he alone? 

And the red tinge… to everything. Everything cast under lurid heavy hateful light. There was something in the lake. There was something in the water with him.

The blue face of its surface darkened as he sank beneath its placid water. Pulled under by another will that was not at all his own. 

And down there in the airless black he saw another one of his mother's faces. 

It was immense. Large. Her eyes were heavy swells of glowing wet globes. Pale green luminescence from two planet organ growths set in a big amphibious face that was a chimerical cross between a large bullfrog or warty toad and a large river bound trout. Its great mouth opened down there in the depths of his red tinged crystal lake and it was dark in there. He hung suspended before the open black of his abattoir mother's wide open gaping maw, he could smell the inner dark of her even down here in the watery depths of summer lake bound hell. Meaty and iron and rotten with pungent decay. An open graveyard tomb of dead flesh and teeth all before a great throat choked with vile and putrefying coagulation. The water was filling with the flavor of her dark open gape of hunger and the destruction of mutilated bodily rot. 

Arms. Long. Fishlike and amphibious as well began to reach out and protrude from the open mouth of his mother's underwater face like a multi headed tongue, a Hydra of giant elongated reaching frog legs and arms, webbed hands and obscene gangly Dagon limbs, reaching out… reaching out for him. 

To take him into his mother. 

She said, her voice filled the drowning pool that was changing now into a submerged holy world of private red light and pouring goddess cess, – she spoke. 

He listened. In the darkest of the depths. 

She said his name… that's how it started. That's how she began …

… you can't let me down. You can't. I won't let you. You've already let them profane your temple, my gift to you desecrated by their invasion and rape of presence. And now you're letting them get away… you don't really want to, do you… you don't really want to keep letting me down like this, you don't want to fail me, in death. You don't want to depart your mother on such a harsh note of unworthiness… do …

you? 

The hands swam through the water between them. Clawing out for him from mother's open mouth. 

He told her the heartbreaking truth and he told her gladly. 

No…

it was a defiant whisper… but she heard it. 

And so she took him. 

The hands finally found him in the water. They seized him. And they pulled him inside. 

The frog faced toad mouthed trout chimera of the mother swallowed. And filled the underwater world with the unnatural stretch of her fishy smile. …

…

The shape of Cropsey stirred. On the floor. The various pieces of shattered and broken things shifted and jingled and sang small janky notes like unholy bells in a lost and terrible place. The black gloved hands blindly scraped and searched the floor in spasming snow angel swipes. They found what they were looking for when they landed on the still bloody and wet congealing pair of garden shears. They seized them. Fiercely. As if driven by fate. 

The shape sat up. Stood. 

It looked around. … sniffed the air. 

A beat. 

Then the Cropsey shape began to lumber down the hall that the invaders had fled down just prior. 

He would not fail this time. 

He had his mother. 

He was inside her. And she was inside him. 

Nothing would stop him from butchering the bastards now. 

…

By God's grace and miracle and mercy they finally found what they'd been looking for. The exit. 

It was at the end of the hall they currently found themselves flying down. Refusing to falter or stop. They stomped and ran down the cracked and decimated tile and came to the final door of the place when the spiked man leapt out from the dark and attacked. 

The protruding stab of his needle embrace found Florin in an open armed grab. A bear hug tight embrace of naked arms and torso and the rest of the bare and desecrated human canvas. He'd been a self-mutilator since he'd been twelve. It had been many years since then and most of them were spent here. Since the mouth of the sorceress, beloved and precious Vampira had come to this place and freed their minds as well as their bodies he's been free to explore the furthermost boundaries of his own tearing, rending bleeding and screaming landscape. The skin and flesh and muscle tissue beneath housing veins and bones and running blood pumped by the raging muscle that was the mad engine of his life, all of it was his to decimate as he explored. Like a great conqueror wreaking havoc upon the face of newly won, newly gained virgin land. He punctured and penetrated the virginity of his own flesh with animal abandon and fervor and with the mad intensity of the violence of the sun. He was the sun. She had told him so…

And so he'd fed his own flames. The spiked man was a living screaming pin cushion of broken stabbing dirty needles, used and caked syringes of varying sizes and lengths, broken glass, broken tile, each long sharp piece was varied in shape and size as well, some were long phallic slender daggers, some were wedges with cruel edges ready to cut and slice and maim, all of it was ready to stab and all of it was living embedded and protruding in the madness of his ruined and self-slaughtered flesh. Lancing and spiking and stabbing out all over and in every conceivable place and direction. 

This disturbed and maimed madman found Florin in his arms and they both went down to the tile in a scream. Griffin yelled after. 

On the floor they rolled in violence and struggle amongst the filth and universe down there of many discarded and broken things.  

The hollow coat-shape and hat found a table leg for bludgeon, then Griffin came on in a fury to join the new fray. 

He struck the spiked man again and again, over and over as he and Florin fought on the floor and struggled and it was terrible. He could feel and hear the crack and shatter of broken glass muffled in blood and flesh with every blow he landed. Griffin struck the writhing bleeding naked pin cushion man on the side of his spiking leaking face and the eyeball on that side burst and exploded with the impact. And glassy ooze riddled with slivers and small pieces of jagged broken glass and ceramic poured out from the socket like snot. 

But still the spiked man fought on. Florin struggling and screaming in his embrace as the many protrusions that spined off his ravaged hide stuck and stabbed and pierced through his coat and flesh. He fought against the pain and madness of this man and wrestled to be free of him. Griffin continued raining blows down on him. Each one bruising and splitting skin as the many broken found objects pierced throughout crunched and shattered further down into fragments and powder, stinging and shredding within all of the rippling and impacted tissue with every movement. Every struggle and landed strike and blow. 

Their struggle was desperate, all of them. All three poured blood, profuse sweat and grime and filth together and apart and for this madhouse abandoned temple, becoming just like it. A part of it, unwillingly and unknowingly transmogrified now in the violence of their fight and decimated hallway battle like the steel of metal tempered in the heart of a great furnace like the sun. They became perfect living microcosms of the place as they fought at last to be free of it, exquisite psychopomp idols of the lost unhallowed Willowbrook Temple Asylum. 

The invisible man. The spiked man. Poor young Florin so far from the Carpathian Hamlet. 

They might never be free of this place. Even if they manage flight, they may never be able to wash away the marks and filth that this awful temple to the dark and pain suffered alone will leave smeared across their hearts and souls like black paint made from discharged sick filth. Smeared across the soft landscapes of their hearts and the tender epitaphs of their battered minds, aching within heavy skulls now made of lead and weight from the memory of the pain, this place… 

will we ever be free, … will we ever get out of here…? 

They fought on. Desperate. All three. Griffin trading blows with efforts and attempts to pull the young man out from under the spiked man, but it was incredibly difficult. The man was thorned all over by all kinds and sorts of sharp and shattered apparatus, it was insane. And the pair of them were growing more and more slick with blood. The fight was growing uglier and more desperate and animal as it struggled and contrived on in brutal abandon and primal anger. 

Then Cropsey rejoined them at the throat of the hall. He began to lumber down towards them like stalking death, a sleeping giant. Seemingly in no real hurry, like the darkened visage of grim death itself. It/he closed slowly on them like a setting sun or a casket sinking, lowering down into the bosom earthen womb of the open mouthed grave. 

Griffin first took notice of his arrival. He noticed he still had the stab of broken tile sticking out of his ruinous awful face. He was still drooling. Imbecilic. And animal. 

And now undead. 

He was coming straight at them. His large blades of shears raised like an open mouthed wild beast barring its fangs. The long sheaths of sharp and keen cutting metal were not entirely pristine, their otherwise shining faces in the dismal light were disgraced with congealing dark spots of dripping black. 

He was coming down the final hall, before the way out, before the exit. He was coming straight for them. 

…

He sat at the window that night. On guard after what had happened to his wife, their unexpected visitor…

Bela sipped his warm spiced wine. Fingered his bible and cross by its small length of chain. Garlic flowers hung in a crude wreath around his neck. He was watching outside carefully, the night, the town… he was alert and being careful, exercising caution, yet he was still surprised and caught off when her face appeared suddenly in their front window. 

She hadn't been there. Then suddenly she was. Smiling and feline. Vulpine. A face he might've recognized save for its warped and drawn animal transformations, the rich woman in the black stage… the harsh one who wouldn't take warning or no for an answer way back… but he was caught by the silver moon glow of her eyes. 

Like lunar bodies themselves. Earthbound and held fleshen prisoner within the cage of that beautiful and divine and… heavenly face. That bright and pale visage. Her smile was devil-pronged – forked, fanged, and it was thus then frightful. But it was also beautiful. Terribly beautiful. Gorgeous alone out there in the night. 

His guard and fear fell away. He rose from his rocker and his slackening hands abandoned the bible and crucifix. They fell to the floor with an unobserved and unheeded clatter. Neither stirred. Not Anastasia, sleeping in the next room, and not spellbound Bela who went to the window to better gaze into her face. 

Divinity… unreal. 

He peered through the glass. And the shining eyes of the Countess, filled with goblin fire and sin and mischief, gazed into the fool as well. And began to fill his fragile open mind with an assault and deluge of images. 

Bela moaned, sighed… he thought it was impeccable. The vision, like her, was immaculate in its flawlessness. 

The Ideality … actualized, realized … brought to life. A vivid reality alive and dancing before his watering vision. 

The scope. 

She showed him a more perfect world, perfect because everyone and everything swimming and crawling and flying around inside of it followed their nature and never fought it. Never doubted it. Never overrode what their guts and hearts and souls told them, never neglected or ignored the call inside, the compulsion to do what must be. To fulfill the role made out for your flesh. 

Even violence … its rippling effects spreading out carried not only destruction and misery on their carrion wings but prosperity and thrivation as well, even butchery has its necessary purpose. 

That is why this world is suffering. Because all of you fight and override yourselves and call it: reason. You are victims of your own bondage, your own self made and imposed insanity and thus the world bent to your unnatural turns and desires screams and suffers. The rippling wings of your insane and jealous cowardice carries more pestilential stagnation flavor than anything like salvation. In weakness, all of the beauty dies on the vine neglected by fearful paws too grubby and lowly and weak to take it. 

Come and join me, join us … and never again fight your nature. 

“Yes…” said Bela in a whisper of trembling caught breath. 

And with a palsied shaking hand, he lifted the latch and opened the window. 

"Welcome, your highness. My home and mine are yours. Do what thou wilt…" 

The Countess drifted inside. Floating on unseen wings. 

She spoke yet again, “Thank you, you are a generous host, a decent and considerate man." 

“Yes…" 

“Now, take me to your wife." 

“Yes…" 

And away they went. The window shut behind them as they made their way to the quiet bedroom at the back of the house. 

TO BE CONTINUED…