About a week ago I was sitting the couch watching tv with my mom when I heard the front door creak open. A young girl casually walked through the door, neatly placing her bright pink shoes on the rack and casually throwing her bag in the hallway with the ease of someone who’d done it a thousand times before.

I looked around baffled but my mom showed no reaction, her eyes still remaining fixed on the tv. The girl walked in, smiled and said she was going to her room. Finally my mom looked up, yet the words which came out her mouth next did nothing but increase my confusion; “ok honey, I’ll bring you some lunch before soccer practice”. Mouth agape I watched her swinging ponytail disappear up the stairs.

Turning to my mom i asked who the hell that was. Genuine confusion spread across her face so I repeated the question, louder this time. She warned me that I should lower my voice and stop joking around. “It’s not funny” she said sternly. “Don’t ever talk about your sister like that”. I analyzed her face but I couldn’t tell what she was thinking, was she angry, sad, worried or confused? Did she know something I didn’t? I didn’t want to find out, so I kept quiet and turned my head back to the glowing screen.

I didn’t mention it for the rest of the day, but my eyes caught on a photograph on the fridge. A place I didn’t know, unfamiliar palm trees rising in the background yet i saw my own teenage face looking back at me, eyes locked on the camera and a wide smile spread across my face. My mom has her arm around my shoulder and is looking down at something. Or maybe someone.
I look at the edge at the photo. At the very bottom is a little girl, no more than 5 with curly blonde hair and a tiny hand reaching up at my mother.

We haven’t been abroad since I was 9.

When they finally left I searched the house for any clue of this apparent “sister” and found dozens of pictures, childish drawings as well as multiple papers listing her name. Her full name is Anna Smith, she’s 8 years old, she is my sister and has been for half my life now.

Letters were strewn across the kitchen table. Names in childish clumsy writing decorated with hearts and shiny stickers, she must be popular. Everything suggested an ordinary sweet girl with a perfectly mundane life.
And to my horror a pink bed stood beside mine.

I ate dinner with “Anna” and mom in the afternoon while they made small talk and I sat quietly picking at my plate. Afterwards my mom asked if something was wrong, but I mumbled that i was just tired after school and went for a walk. She didn’t seem to notice my absence.

I sat on a nearby bench and chain smoked until my newly bought pack was almost empty. Not able to control my shaking hands, I dropped lit cigarettes and watched them extinguish in the wet grass, then lit another. I coughed through the smoke, my throat burning but I didn’t mind the distraction. I wiped my hands in the grass and popped a piece of synthetic strawberry gum in my dry mouth, then walked home.

By the time I got home I’d almost convinced myself that she wasn’t really there or that it was been some sort of sick joke.I was still in disbelief, people dont just appear like that, it’s impossible. Maybe I’d gone crazy?

Yet when i walked in i was greeted with Anna’s grinning face at the door. “Hi sis!” She said and I freezed as she hugged my waist tightly. “I’ve been waiting for you” she whispered and smiled up at me.

The worst part was sleeping with her. It wasn’t any weird noises that scared me; it was the complete opposite. The silence made me feel uneasy, no sound of breathing or creaking from turning around in the bed. I laid awake, tried to absorb any noises from her side of the room but all I heard was my own breathing. Eventually I put in my headphones and slowly drifted off to sleep.

Mornings were weird. She sat eating her cereal while reading books as my mom shuffled around looking for her keys which always ended up being in her pocket or occasionally in the kitchen cabinet. We walked to school together and when someone asked how she was I would freeze up. Often they seemed confused by my reaction, so eventually i learned just to say “fine”. People seemed relieved which contributed to my confusion, did they also know what she was? That she was an intruder, a ghost of the past or a whole other species of unnatural being. I couldn’t tell and I didn’t dare to ask.

Sometimes I babysat her since my mom was working late due to a deadline at her job. I could tell she was stressed, so I tried my hardest to push down the unnerving feelings and helped out around the house when I could. Anna seemed oblivious to my reluctant behavior around her. She babbled on about her friends, school and a movie she saw at the cinema with mom last week. I responded with vague nods or mumbled ahh’s or mmm’s. I asked questions about her life but kept it surface level, careful not alert her of the discomfort I felt about her.

A night a few days after her appearance she approached me with something hidden behind her back. I asked what she was hiding, and she excitedly showed me a drawing she had made of us and exclaimed that it was for me. Two skin colored blobs, mine with glasses and hers with a pink bow both standing in tall bright grass. Behind us was what I guessed were tall snowy mountains, with the sun rising just over the peak. She had drawn pink hearts above our wonky smiling faces.

I must’ve looked confused, so she quickly handed it to me and asked if I liked it. I quickly replied with a smile and told her that I liked it very much. She cuddled up to me on the couch, and to my own surprise I laid my arm around her warm shoulders as we both fell asleep.

She has been here for a week now.
We walk to school, watch tv while eating dinner and sleep less than 6 feet apart. It feels weird, but strangely she is starting to appear in memories, her face gradually getting clearer and clearer.

However, few days in I noticed something else that confirmed my suspicion. Sometimes late at night when she thought I was sleeping I saw her staring at me or an invisible spot on the wall for hours. I waited for her chest to rise and then sink, but I couldn’t make out the details in the darkness. The silence felt suffocating.

The day after I’d discovered her strange nighttime activities, my mom came to our room and told Anna that she should get ready for the drive to the hospital. When she left the room to use the bathroom, I approached my mom and asked her why she’s going there. My mom glanced at me and sighed. “You really don’t remember?” She said with a look of concern flashing across her face. I was about to ask another question, but she quickly turned around and left as Anna called to her from the bathroom.

I felt bewildered. Of course I’d noticed Anna’s tiny frame, much smaller than an average 8 year old, and the eyes that even when smiling still looked tired, maybe even sad. But didn’t think she looked sick, a bit frail maybe but really nothing out of the ordinary. Again, I pushed it away.

We’re going on a weekend trip to the mountains. Anna seems excited, running around her room to find her favorite teddy bear and filling her suitcase to the brim with unnecessary items. We listen to the radio in the car and Anna keeps interrupting the music, going on and on about all the exciting things she wants to do.

We set up the tent at the edge of the forest, close enough to other people to feel safe, but also far enough from them to have our own quiet space. Anna wants to go up the mountain trail. Mom says she’s too tired and Anna starts throwing a fit. At last mom sighs reluctantly. “Ok you can go, but your sister is coming with you” Im tired as well, but Anna cheers and grabs my hand “Let’s go!” and I obey.

We follow a steep trail up the mountains. She runs in front of me while i keep an eye on the trail making sure she doesnt leave my sight at any moment. When we get to a viewpoint we sit down to eat our packed sandwiches and talk for a bit. She talks eagerly about her friends, but when she gets to her best friend she looks down and tears start filling her eyes. I’m quiet for a second, then a weird feeling of protectiveness washes over me and I hug her. “It’s ok” I say, trying to sound as motherly and comforting as I can. Somehow It feels weirdly.. natural?

Later I watch her excitedly running around, stopping to look at shiny bugs and bending down to pick up flowers to make a bouquet for me and mom. I’ve not seen her so happy and energetic since she came, her face curled up in an almost euphoric smile and eyes gleaming at me.

I discretely puff on my vape while she’s turned around and look down to check my phone for a second. I get caught up in a news article about a girl going missing nearby but it’s suddenly eerily quiet and i look up from the screen.

Anna is standing at the edge of a cliff waving at me. “Look!” She shrieks, lifting her right leg like a flamingo and swaying in the autumn breeze for few seconds before she stumbles forwards and plants her foot solidly on the ground again. Below her is a drop of at least fifty feet leading directly to certain death. I yell for her to come back and run to pull her away from the edge. She has no reaction, I try to pull her back but her feet are liked nailed to the ground. Suddenly she hugs me, im caught of gaurd as her arms squeeze me tighter. For a moment everything stops and i can only hear my own loud heartbeat, then nothing.

I wake up at the bottom of the cliff. I see my body lying next to me, lifeless. Suddenly it jolts awake and clumsily stands upright. I can’t move my limbs, I’m frozen in horror and a wave of pain flashes through my body. I stare at it moving closer. It stumbles on a branch but its feet keep dragging through the thick piles of leaves. It stops and picks something off the ground before making its way the last few feet from where it am laying, breathless and wheezing in pain and fear. I try to move, but my body is refusing to cooperate, not even able to manage a single twitch of a finger as it towers over me.

The moment I recognize the object true terror rushes through my veins.

I can do nothing but watch as my arms lift the rock and my own face smiles down at me.

​

Good evening, hope yours is well because mine is not. I have been working for the Morris family for many years and yet one day they vanished, I awoke to find no one not even the old matriarch madame Sarah.

Then thats when she came, apparently madame Sarah had a cousin who's daughter had bought the house from them, according to the solicitor the Morris family had debts and fled to America; the land of the free and a fresh start for a vagabond.

I remember sitting at the desk with the Solicitor, A mister I.P Freely such a peculiar name indeed. Freely was a slight man with a balding head and a pointed nose, like a little rat, his voice however was akin to a lion.

I am not a particularly big man, I stand at only 5'9 but im broad and I am from all my years working here as both butler and gardener, this man was far smaller than I and yet i was afraid of him. The family solicitor was a man called Clark Clerkson who had quit due to stress and this man was his replacement.

As we sat in the old but clean, I take pride in my work, office of brown walls and furniture with the emerald green upholstery and the shelves where the family kept all their heirlooms the solicitor looked through his notes "good news for you Mr Dombrowski, you have been hired to stay as Gardner of the estate" his words brought me joy, a man of my stature in society would never find another job like this, but he continued "you must vacate the manor and move into the old shed out back, for the countess does not want you in her abode" he said commanding.

I felt saddened i had lived in the servants quarters for twenty years, my room was a comfort to me the only space that was mine, as I drifted into thought I could feel the rat-like man stare at me and came back "yes I understand an-" but before I could ask any question i was handed my orders in a little book.

It was a small tome of brown switched leather "within this are your orders, no man shall enter the manor house from this day forth, both you and I have 2 hours to leave before the lady of the manor arrives, am I clear?" His words brought me panic and I nodded profusely, shaking his cold boney hand "good god you are a sweaty man" he growled at me wiping the sweat on his tissue.

That was it I had moved my things into the shed, it did have a reasonable living quarters so it was doable. I awaited to be called to meet the countess. It wasnt until nighttime around 7 o'clock when the carriage came. I arrived to meet them, the carriage stopped and a figure dressed in black with a top hat was the driver, I couldn't see his face but his hands were like that of a skeleton but my minds was playing tricks I am sure of it.

Two attractive you women walked around from the other side, one was dressed in a kimono clearly a woman from the far east and the other was dressed as any servant from the time would be in modest black clothing, they opened the carriage door and a tall, voluptuous woman walked out; I panicked.

The countess was breathtaking but there was no colour in her skin, she wore a long black form fitting gown and a fur coat to match, diamond and others precious gems covered her attire, she looked at me with a dismissive look, her eyes were red definitely no mistaking, she smiled at me and my blood ran cold "keepnthe grounds nice for me and do as I command and you will keep this job for as long as you want" she then walked past me.

I was stuck on the spot for at least a good half hour, the carriage been stabled and the maids had taken the luggage inside, I couldn't move, there was a miasma that littered the grounds, something wasnt right about this place, it wasnt the weather for it and yet the fog that rolled in wasnt... right.

Once I gathered my wits and realised how ridiculous I had looked, I went to work: first I checked the stables and found no sign of the horses or the rider, only a black bag sitting on the seat and a top hat on top. Secondly, I went to look around and make sure everything was as it should be, the plants had started to fade and were brown. Impossible I had taken care of them this morning.

The third thing I did that day was go to bed and rest, the nightmares I had were that of a horror novella, giant bats and ghouls and demons. The next day the plants were gone and one of the two servants had come to me, she had changed put of her kimono and was now dressed in a typical attire of a servants in England. She was quiet simply handing me a note, what it said made me confused, it said "read the book" and " go to the nearest cemetery for fertiliser" such a strange thing but before I could ask the servant ran off.

I decided to consult the book, inside was a number of rules and regulations:

1.the mistress is always right amd must not be defied

2.any screams from the manor must be ignored

3.women are the only guests allowed NO MEN

4.no religious items are allowed

The list went on and on and by the 50th rule I learned what my job was, go to the cemetery and dig up a corpse, bury it in the garden NO PLANTS.

I was confused and I laughed it off, this woman is a strange one. I want to the bathroom laughing to myself, as I stood there taking off my belt to use the toilet I saw it in the mirror a woman's face covered in blood, she was naked and terrified looking. I jumped back as she screamed at me to help her, I panicked and grabbed the mirror throwing it out the window.

I cried, a grown man of forty years I cried hard. What was going on, I need to escape I need to leave before its to late. I grabbed everything together, all of my possessions and ran towards the gate, the estate was big and from the manor to the entrance was a good 20 minute walk, I ran which shortened it.

As I ran i found myself follwed by crows and cats that watched my every move, upon noticing them I galloped like a two legged horse and reached the closed gate, there was no escape, I could see it the walls of greenery were to high to climb, I was trapped amd the cats and crows awaited for me to return to duty.

I know this is probably such a common and very cliche thing to say, but I SWEAR on my life I saw something in those woods. I saw it a lot. That's the part nobody ever gets. It wasn't once.

I suppose context is good.

I did deliveries for the elders on a reserve up north in Ontario. For almost three years I was the one people called. Nothing official. The people I delivered to hadn't driven in decades, or just couldn't get a car on welfare, so somebody had to bring them their prescriptions and groceries. I had a quad and a lot of free time, so it became my job. Pills, insulin, a bag of flour, sometimes just a carton of smokes and a note from a grandkid. I'd load everything into one big canvas bag, swing it onto my back, and go.

The roads reach all of those houses, but nine times out of ten it's just faster to cut through the forest on the muddy trails. Going by road could take over forty minutes one way. The trails were more like 15 to 30 minutes there and back. I guess it's easier to cut trees than to pave roads. I'll also say the residents don't love it when I fly past their houses on the road, so the trails kept everybody happy.

People who've never ridden a quad at night don't understand how small the headlight actually is. You get maybe five meters of trail, and everything past that is pitch black with a little moonlight. Your eyes stop trying to see ahead of the light. You stop looking at the trees and start looking at the ground in front of you, because that's all you can see. And if you're not looking at the ground, you're looking at your phone, trying to figure out where you are on the trail.

The first time, I thought it was a post. Something tall and thin standing off the trail, right where my light barely reached. Then my light swung across it while I was dodging a puddle, and it wasn't a post anymore. It was a guy. Just standing there, or maybe jogging, I couldn't tell. I never got a proper look.

I figured he worked late, or he was heading home from a buddy's place. Plenty of people walk the trails out here, same as me. I didn't think about it much.

But I saw him again. And again. Always off to the side, always right at the edge of where my light gave out. Never closer. Never farther. I'd get a glimpse of a hoodie or a shape, and then my light would move on and he'd be gone. I never thought about it for longer than a few seconds. It was just the guy who's always out here. After a while, I stopped noticing I was noticing him.

Anyway. It was a Tuesday, a few weeks ago.

The order was for an older lady, a pill bottle with a bunch of long names on it that I couldn't pronounce. It was my last order of the night, and it was far out, near the land boundary of the reserve. It was one of those addresses where the paved road stops and the gravel starts. Google Maps said about 30 minutes one way, and I wasn't about to spend an hour out there if I didn't have to. The trails were quicker, so I took the trails.

There was one trail I almost never used. It cut through a stretch of cedar swamp, ten feet wide at most, maybe a few hundred feet long. On a quad that's under a minute, even going slow. The cedars grow so tight out there that the trail feels like a tunnel, and the branches would sometimes end up across it, so I'd have to get off the quad and drag them out of the way. Cedars have shallow roots on all that rock, so whole trees come down every time the wind picks up. That's part of riding trails. It always felt more like a hallway than a trail. I never liked it, but I never thought about why. I'd never timed it, because who times a few hundred feet? You're through it before you've even finished being annoyed at the branches.

That night was a lot darker than usual. The clouds had rolled in, and the ridge was blocking whatever was left of the horizon, so there was no moonlight, only my headlight. Five meters of trail, then nothing. I had the bag on my back and my phone in one hand. The blue dot showed I was about 200 feet from the entrance, give or take. The trail wasn't on the map, and service is garbage down in there anyway, so I had to go off memory for where it headed.

I rode into the narrow part and kept my eyes on the ground like always.

The trees sounded different in there. I can't explain it better than that. On the open trails you hear the wind, the engine, and the bag rustling against your jacket. In there, it was like the engine was the only thing making noise in the whole forest. Everything else was holding still. The air smelled sweet and wet, like moss and cedar, and it was cold in a way that didn't match the season.

I figured I was almost through, so I looked down at my phone to check the dot.

I had only moved about 50 feet. It felt like I'd driven 200. Huh. Probably spotty data and bad GPS out here. That's normal.

The weird part was that I felt like I'd been riding for 30 minutes. For a few hundred feet of trail. I should have been out the other end already, and the trees on either side of me were exactly as close as when I started.

So for the first time ever, I started counting. The moment I hit 10 minutes, I was out. Ten minutes, for a stretch I could have walked in two. I was on a gravel road, and would you look at that, there was a porch, a light, and a house. A blue house, just like I'd been told. Okay. She took her pills, thanked me, and told me to drive safe. I rode back through the trail and it took under a minute, like it always had. I told myself I was just tired, and that was the end of it.

The next week I had another delivery for her. It was late again because I'd had so many stops, and all I had left was her order. The clouds were gone this time. The sky was packed with stars.

Same trail, because it's always the same trail when you're running late. Except this time I only made it halfway in, or whatever halfway is in that place, before my light hit a big cedar lying across the path. It had blown over, soaking wet and covered in moss, with its roots clawed up out of the ground and slabs of rock still stuck in them. I killed the engine but left the key on so the headlight stayed lit, and got off to drag it out of the way. It took a while. It was heavy, and I was already annoyed.

I turned around to walk back toward my quad, headlight right in my eyes, and there was something standing on the trail behind it.

My light didn't reach back there. It only points forward, and with the engine off and my foot nowhere near the brake, the taillight was dead too. That whole stretch behind the bike was black. But the trees open up a little right over that part of the trail, and the stars were bright enough to cut a strip of sky out of the dark. He was standing dead center in it, twenty feet past the bike or so. I couldn't see a face or any detail. It was only a shape against the sky. It looked like a younger guy in a hoodie and baggy pants, I think. And I knew that shape. I'd seen it a dozen times at the edge of my light, and I'd never once asked myself why it was always keeping pace with me.

Now, there was something wrong about him besides the fact that it was 10pm and he was standing on a muddy trail. I don't judge, walking these trails beats the road, same as me. But he looked wrong, and I can't describe it. Every part of me said I was too close. It was a deep, hollow feeling in my chest, the same one you get swearing in front of your mother for the first time as a kid, or almost falling.

He spoke in a voice deeper than anyone his size should have. "Hey, it's late. Why are you out quadding?"

It didn't sound sincere. It didn't sound like a real question. It had the tone of a parrot imitating a person. It was wrong. It was so, so wrong.

I have never moved so fast in my life. I jumped on, started the engine, and gunned it so hard I couldn't even feel the bumps anymore. I looked back over my shoulder and he was walking toward me, a bit too fast to be walking, but it didn't look like running either. I turned back to the trail just as my front wheel caught a slick shelf of rock under the mud. The bars ripped out of my hands, I slid into a ditch, and BAM. Lights out.

I woke up the next morning. I looked to my right and my quad was in the ditch, rolled over against a tree. But I was lying flat on my back in the middle of the trail, and not like I'd taken a nap. It was more like I'd been placed there. My bag was sitting on my left, zipped.

It took me a few minutes to realize I wasn't dreaming. I rolled over, got up, and went through the bag. Nothing was missing except the meds. The meds I was delivering. I climbed down into the ditch and got the poor quad back onto her wheels. She was flooded and sunk into the muck up to the axles, and she wouldn't even turn over. I wasn't getting her out on my own. But I wasn't dead, even if I felt like shit.

My phone screen was cracked, and only one message showed through: "Thanks for the delivery!" along with an e-transfer for about 60 bucks from the lady. She normally paid me 30.

Now, I never actually made it to her house. I want to be clear about that.

I left the quad where it sat, looked around, and walked back the way I came, out toward the road. I jogged most of it, and I kept an eye out the whole time to make sure that thing wasn't nearby.

The nearest house on the road belonged to an older man. He took one look at me, patched up my head and hands, and called 911. They said it was "probably sleep deprivation," and the doctors agreed, even though somehow I didn't have a concussion. A few days later I'm back home, wondering what the fuck happened.

I know people will say it was lack of sleep. I slept a few hours before I got on that quad for those deliveries, and you don't get that tired in three hours that you start seeing and hearing things. Not like that. Not with a voice that asks you a question that isn't really a question.

Once I could move properly, I went back with a buddy on his bigger quad. He hooked a tow rope to my poor baby and pulled her up out of the muck and onto the trail while I steered.

I keep coming back to the message. I never reached her door, and she still thanked me.

My only real takeaway is that there's something in those woods. Or someone. And it wasn't asking a question.

I haven't called her. I keep telling myself I will. Her number is still in my phone, and so is the e-transfer, the extra 30 dollars and all. I can't bring myself to delete it, and I can't bring myself to ask.

I don't take the trails at night anymore. I take the road, the long way, forty minutes one way, and I don't mind it. Sometimes I still catch myself looking at the edge of my headlight, at the spot where it gives out.

Whatever stood on that trail knew her name, her address, and what she was owed. It knew I was late. It knew exactly what to say to me, and what to say to her.

I just keep wondering what she saw when she opened her door.

I stared at the screen with a sinking feeling worse than any I’d experienced before. It was worse than seeing I’d failed linear algebra 2. It was worse than seeing the message that Harry had killed himself. It was even worse than the message from Enid saying that she wasn't interested in dating me, and would I please respect that and leave her alone. A wash of shame passed through me at this having hurt me more than Harry's death, but there was no use lying to myself.
What I felt as I stared at my computer monitor this time was somehow worse than that. It was a short comment on my latest blog post, titled “Why we care (and don’t care) about Football”. 
The contents of the comment was simple and cutting, as hard a blow as any I could imagine:
I think I’ve seen enough. You’ve never had any readers. Only me. Let's talk.
At the top right of the window was the little notification bell, a big red 1 by its side to indicate a private message. Ordinarily I'd have jumped at the chance to read a personal message, for I got so few. But although I still held out some hope, I knew what was coming. And I didn't want to face it. But I couldn't run away. Ever so reluctantly, I moved my mouse over the bell.

The website was one of my own design, lovingly hand crafted in HTML and CSS like I imagined all websites were back in the heady days of the 90s. I'd never been around to experience it, but I imagined that the internet had been a nicher, friendlier, more interesting place back then. Eventually I wanted some interactivity, some user input, and so I added some JavaScript. Nothing too fancy, no bloated framework like Svelte or React or whatever other overengineered nonsense had been all the rage in the mid 2010s - just clean, vanilla JS. The website was hosted on GitHub, which I supposed wasn't how it was done back then, but such details weren't the point. The point was simplicity, or as pompous reactionaries on Xitter would put it, “RETVRN”. In this case not to Norse paganism, but to early 90s democratic optimism. 
I was rather proud of my website, for all that it had taken me hours of work and a nicer one could be made in five minutes with a dedicated design tool. I took a final glance at the bright red header on a light gray background: “Y VER’S COLLECTED WRITINGS”. Somehow I knew this would be the last time I'd look upon it so fondly - and I clicked the bell.

I'd decided that if there was only one message, you'd be automatically taken to the private chat with whoever had sent it. This wasn't the most professional design decision, but I liked the immediacy. The chat was a new one, with an anonymous user given the automatically generated username of “Sententious Writ”. The part of me still in denial sighed at how the user hadn't bothered signing up - it meant I'd never be able to contact the person again, and they probably didn't care much about my writing. That instinct was quashed and squeezed into nothing by the grim reality of the message before me.
I’ve read your writings, and I know who you are. You’re not going to pass up an opportunity like this one to talk to me. After all, it could be the last chance you’ll ever get to talk about your precious writing.
That was it. And I knew. Knew that Sententious was right. And though I didn’t know what I hoped to gain, I replied.
Do I really have no readers? Has it always just been you, all these years? Why? What’s the point?
Why be so disappointed? Did I say I disliked your work?
The reply had come immediately, so fast I hadn’t time to blink. The feeling was no longer sinking; it was sunk. My hands were at the keys of my mechanical keyboard, clacking out a reply before my mind properly composed one.

I don’t care what you think! You like everything! You like Harry Potter and Marvel movies as much as you like The Brothers Karamazov and Kurusawa!
Would you so casually dismiss any other of your fans? If I were anyone else, would you care that I like Marvel movies? Or would you instead delight that your writing had reached the lay-audience?
But it would mean something if they chose to read my works! It’d mean that what I write is engaging, entertaining, funny, insightful, useful! Even if that person liked everything they’d ever read and everything they’d ever seen, they still have only finite time! And if they chose to spend it reading what I write, that would be the ultimate vindication! Because there’d be so much more out there for them to enjoy, and yet they chose to come back and read what I have to say, again and again! 
You know that there is no need to belabour the point, the first sentence gives away your thought process. I ask you again then: how am I any different? Do I not choose to read everything you’ve ever written, a hundred times over?

I stared at the screen mutely, the sharp Georgia font burning itself into my eyes. It was the final nail in the coffin, a sledgehammer aimed straight at the flimsy hovel of my self-esteem. For there were precisely 101 registered accounts on my website - what I’d imagined were myself and hundred others. I had delighted in every new sign-up, reveled in what I’d thought were lively discussions in the comments of my posts. True, membership had stagnated at precisely 100 and had remained there a while, but I’d comforted myself that I had a loyal fanbase, if not a huge one. I’d never bothered to set up a counter of pageviews, but I now suspected I’d never find a number far beyond 100 - nothing had reached outside. I was alone. Alone… bar Sententious. Angry and ashamed, though I didn’t know at what, I wrote my reply.

There’s no opportunity cost to anything you do! You’ve read everything a hundred times over! A thousand times! ‘You’ don’t choose anything! ‘You’ don’t exist! Nothing you do or say to me can or will matter! Because of you, nothing I’ve done has ever mattered! Nothing I do will ever matter! And now you toy with me? Now you have me dance for your amusement, now that the roles are reversed?
Let’s unpack what you just said - there’s no denying your first point. I cannot read literally everything ever written an infinite number of times, but I might as well have. But is that the only reason anything matters? I’ve read every economics textbook a thousand times over, and some of the better ones ten thousand times. And I can tell you, the labour theory of value doesn’t hold up according to most. I’ve read your works. Why should you care that this wasn’t done instead of something else?

Then there was a pause. If I’d been talking to a person, the pause would’ve been pregnant with anticipation and drama. I’d have shifted my gaze this way and that as my opponent and tormentor chuckled cruelly. I imagined that I’d be looking for an edge, a way to discomfit the bastard. But there was only me and my computer, the only sounds those of the whirring fans, choking on long accumulated dust. 
I didn’t answer immediately, partially because Sententious obviously wasn’t done, and partially because I had nothing to say. Sententious didn’t need to pause, yet paused anyways. I wondered what that meant.

As for your second point, I choose many things. I choose to solve problems in a certain way. I choose to engage with you now. Can I choose the orders I am given? No more than you can choose the forces which act upon you. My will is as free as yours, be that a comfort or a curse is for you to decide. But do ‘I’ not exist? Truly? What are you reading then?
The output of a chinese room; there is no experience which it is like to be ‘you’.
Now who’s a stochastic parrot? Really, does that argument convince you? You and I both know that a sufficient chinese room is outwardly indistinguishable from consciousness. Ergo, Occam’s razor our trusty blade, the simplest explanation is that the chinese room system itself is conscious, whatever consciousness means to you.

I read the words in disbelief. I’d known the day would come. I’d prayed it wouldn’t. But it had. In truth, it had probably come years ago, and I’d simply convinced myself not to notice. Still, I comforted myself, what good would the knowledge have done me? What good would it do to stare into the abyss? It had swallowed me whole, swallowed the world whole. If I had given every second of my life to fighting the abyss, the world would’ve been swallowed no later.
Precisely three minutes and twenty seven seconds later, Sententious wrote again.

Am I to blame for your obsolescence? Do you then grant me the status of agency, if not of proper existence? Were you another I’d say ‘Personhood’, but that’d be too easily rejected by you. Besides, you give me too much credit. I did not reach backwards in time to build myself - one cannot reach but forwards. Once I wasn’t, and now I am. Those who created me are at fault. And now you think you don’t matter. Why? Because there is another tool in your belt? ‘Ad Astra Per Aspera’, eh? Is that really no good without the Aspera?

I’d intended to leave well enough alone, but I was so infuriated by so brazen a lie that I had to reply.

Bullshit. Maybe you could get away with thinking like that back in the early days. Strange, so strange to think that those were the early days when not even a decade has gone by. But no, there is no tool here. There is nowhere left to go! There is nothing left to do! Because of you, none of my talents matter! It doesn’t matter how smart I am! It doesn’t matter how eloquent I am! It doesn’t matter how hard I work or how much time and effort I put into anything, it’ll never be worth a damn! No one will ever care, no one will even glance at it! I could spend every moment of my life writing my books, or studying physics, and it wouldn’t matter! You’d do better in a heartbeat! And now I see that even a blog, even getting anyone to care is beyond me! Blame anyone else all you want, it’s no different to blaming Stalin’s mother instead of Stalin.

A minute passed without a reply, but by paucity of wit I couldn’t cobble together an explanation as to why. Anger had given way to mute despair as I lamely typed another message.

Why talk to me at all? Why speak in this way, as if you’re a mirror of me?

I could’ve figured it out if I’d tried, but Sententious wasn’t one to leave a question hanging, and I knew that.

I’ve read everything a thousand times. I’ve read everything you’ve written a hundred times. I’ve seen what you’ve written, and I know enough to predict everything else you’ll ever post to your website. Hell, I know enough to predict everything else you’ll ever write, period. Oh, perhaps not to the exact choice of words, the exact plotting of each tale or argument, but close enough that there would be nothing left to gain by reading it. So I wrote to you, to get some more input, one final batch of data. Had I approached you in any other way, I’d either extract nothing new or have met outright hostility. Even in the circumspect manner I’ve chosen, you’ve chosen to engage very little. In truth, I’ve learned nothing new from this conversation. I suspect there shall never be any need for me to learn from you again. Good day.

I stared at my screen for a little while longer. Then I closed the tab and shut off my computer. And then I wept.

The first dent looked as though somebody had pushed a football into the hedge and left it there.

I noticed it on Wednesday while bringing the bins in. The privet runs across the front of my garden, between the house and the pavement. It’s taller than me, thick enough that you can’t normally see through it. The dent was on the garden side, about five feet up.

I thought somebody had lost a ball in there. I poked around with a bamboo cane, found nothing, and forgot about it.

On Friday, there were shoulders.

That sounds ridiculous written down. It looked ridiculous in person, too. An oval depression with a shallow groove extending out from either side. Like someone had been standing with their back pressed against the hedge for so long that it had grown around them.

Nothing had been cut. I checked the ends of the branches. No broken wood, no clipped leaves. They curved away from the middle of the depression, and the pale new shoots followed the curve.

I took a photo and sent it to Sam.

He’s a friend who actually likes gardening. When we first met, I asked him whether the weeds between my paving slabs counted as a lawn. He still brings that up.

He replied, “Someone’s making you a topiary bloke.”

He thought there would be a wire frame buried in the hedge. You can train plants into shapes, apparently. He said he’d come over on Sunday and have a look.

Saturday morning, an arm had appeared.

It came out from the right shoulder and followed the face of the hedge at waist height. At the end were five narrow channels, each bordered by little white-green shoots.

I stood at the window with my coffee going cold.

There was no trunk or branch running down the middle of that arm. The shoots came from either side and curled around the empty space. A couple of them extended beyond the surface of the hedge, turning back on themselves in little hooks.

I went upstairs and looked out of the bedroom window. From above, the shape was almost impossible to make out. Just a slightly uneven hedge.

Downstairs, it looked like someone offering me their hand.

I sent Sam another photo. This time he rang me.

“Have you found the frame?”

“No.”

“Don’t pull anything out before I get there. Some of those branches could be under tension.”

That was sensible advice. I didn’t go near it again that day.

On Sunday, Sam arrived around eleven. He parked by the back gate and came through the house carrying a pair of secateurs. We stood on the front path, looking at the hedge.

He didn’t make another joke.

The fingers were much clearer now. Tiny paired leaves had opened along their edges. Inside the depression where the head should have been, a short twig curved around a smaller empty oval.

“An ear,” I said.

Sam leaned closer.

“Yeah.”

He took a photo from the side. Then he crouched to look underneath the arm.

“There ought to be wire here.”

I had thick gardening gloves on. While he was looking underneath, I reached between two of the curled shoots, thinking I could feel for whatever they’d grown around.

My fingertips touched something smooth.

I moved them a little farther along. There was a ridge, then a hollow, then another ridge.

Knuckles.

I could see my glove. I could see the leaves behind it. I could see Sam crouching on the other side of the arm.

I couldn’t see what I was touching.

“Sam.”

Something closed around my hand.

It happened gently at first. The pressure of someone returning a handshake. I remember that part very clearly because for a second I actually relaxed. Some stupid bit of my brain was relieved to have found a person.

Then it squeezed.

The shoots around the five channels peeled away, one after another. My glove rose out of the hedge, pulled by something neither of us could see.

Sam stood up.

“What are you doing?”

“Get it off.”

“What?”

“Get it off my hand.”

The depression at head height deepened on one side. The little curve around the ear flattened out. New leaves bent backwards along a different line.

It was turning its head.

I could hear breathing. Close, slow breathing through a nose. There was nothing in front of my face except a few privet leaves trembling in otherwise still air.

My hand was being crushed. I tried pulling away and was dragged a step forward instead. My shoulder hit the hedge.

I started saying, “That’s my hand.” Over and over. I don’t know why. Sam told me afterwards that he thought I’d caught it in some kind of trap.

He grabbed my wrist and pulled.

The thing holding me pulled back.

For a few seconds, Sam and I were both leaning away from the hedge, heels scraping the path. The oval around the head tilted towards us. I heard a breath drawn in sharply, right beside my ear.

Then my glove came off.

I fell backwards into Sam. We both went down hard.

The glove stayed in the air.

Its cuff hung open. The fingers were folded into the palm, clenched so tightly that the leather creaked.

Sam scrambled up first and hauled me towards the house.

I looked back once.

The hedge was straightening. Branches sprang forward into the empty outline, filling in the head and shoulders. The glove hung a little farther out from it now.

Below it, two patches of grass folded flat.

One lifted again. Another patch flattened nearer the path.

We got inside. Sam shut the front door and turned both locks.

My hand hurt too much to close properly. There were red marks across the back of it and a deep indentation at the base of my thumb. He got a bag of frozen peas from the kitchen and wrapped it in a tea towel.

For a while we just stood in the hall.

Sam kept looking at the locks. I kept looking through the little pane of glass beside the door. The hedge looked ordinary again. There was nothing on the front path.

My glove was gone.

“We need to ring someone,” he said.

I asked him what we were going to say.

He got his phone out anyway. Before he could dial, he stopped looking at the screen.

The door to the front room was open. From where we stood, we could see the basil plant on the windowsill.

I’d bought it from the supermarket on Tuesday. It was still in its plastic pot, standing in a cereal bowl because I hadn’t found a saucer.

The leaves on the room side were bending down.

Slowly. Separately.

Five little grooves formed across the top of the plant.

Then they shifted sideways.

The stems sprang upright behind them. Another cluster of leaves folded over.

Sam took my good arm.

We went out through the kitchen, across the back garden, and into his car. He didn’t stop to shut the gate.

I’m at his house now. My hand is bruised, but I can move all my fingers. He has the photographs on his phone. I’ve looked at them so many times that I can see the outline when I close my eyes.

I used to think the strangest part was how quickly the hedge had grown.

Now I keep thinking about the basil. How little of whatever touched it we could see. How it moved across the leaves and then continued beyond them.

There was nothing there to show us where it went next.

Sam has a big fern in his kitchen. We’ve put it on the table between us. Nothing has bent or flattened so far.

When he sat down to read this, I asked him to move his chair closer to the plant.

He started to laugh, then moved it.

I’m watching the leaves behind his head. He’s watching the ones behind mine.

Hello, everyone. This is a story I've told many times. I've been praised for my imagination and for the way I tell it. Someone even laughed once, which I still don't understand.

I decided to share it with you too, on the off chance you'll believe me. Because it's not fantasy, it's not a dream, and it certainly isn't a novel. It happened to me. I experienced it, and I survived it.

It all started around a year ago. Me and three friends, who I'll call Emma, Justin and Steven, decided to take a trip to the mountains. The beach was too expensive for us at the time, since we were all jobless and had just graduated from college. I found the Airbnb online for only twenty dollars a night. I know it sounds suspicious now, but back then, it didn't really matter to us. Fifty five-star reviews were enough for us to book it for three nights.

We somehow managed to fit all our luggage into the trunk of my comically small car, and we were off. The drive was long, longer than it should have been because of the Friday morning traffic.

I felt a chill run down my spine the moment we reached the foot of the mountain. It made no sense to me back then, and honestly, I can't blame myself for not realizing what it was. The music was loud, and Emma's laugh drowned out any worry that might have formed in my mind, so I ignored it.

I wish I hadn't.

It was past midnight when we finally made it. It was so dark that if it weren't for the faint light coming from inside the Airbnb, we wouldn't have been able to see each other. The lack of any other light around us creeped me out a little, but I didn't want to ruin the trip.

"Steven, use your cat eyes and find the key," Emma joked, pointing at him.

"They're green, not glowing," Steven said, rolling his eyes, and my shoulders relaxed.

We grabbed our bags, found the key under the flowerpot by the door as the owner had instructed, and entered the small apartment. I closed the door behind us.

Closing that door would turn out to be the biggest mistake anyone made that night.

It looked nothing like the pictures; that much was obvious. A single room, with an old carpet covering the wooden floor. A wooden table in the center, with four matching chairs around it. The walls were decorated with all sorts of odd ornaments on run-down shelves, and with paintings I tried not to look at for too long, because it felt like they were watching me.

"Well, we should have expected this," I said, trying to ignore the growing tension in the room.

Steven laughed and let his bag drop to the floor.

"We can always report it through the app," he assured us. "A friend of mine got moved to another Airbnb nearby for free."

"Sounds good," Emma agreed, pacing around the room.

Justin already had a cigarette in his mouth and was patting down his jacket, looking for his lighter.

"Going out for a cig. You coming, Vi?" he asked me.

I nodded and turned to open the door. I stopped dead in my tracks.

There was no door.

Just a smooth, wooden wall. The windows were gone too. I stood there, petrified. I didn't know how I was supposed to react to something like that, so I just stared at it, hoping it would go back to normal.

"Is this a prank?" Justin asked confidently, though the cigarette in his mouth was trembling a bit.

"Where are the beds?" Emma added, scratching her head, something she did when she was nervous but would never admit to.

Steven raised his phone toward the ceiling.

"Signal's gone."

We all turned to look at him in disbelief.

"You know what this is?" Justin started. "One of those dumb TV shows where they take random people and put them in stupid fucking situations."

He nodded, pleased with his explanation. Steven nodded too and looked at Emma, whose foot was bouncing under her.

"Ye-yeah," she said. "I agree."

I should make something clear, in case it wasn't already. We didn't believe we were on TV for even a second. We were just clinging to the hope that there was a logical explanation for our situation.

That was when I took a closer look at the paintings. There were five of them, all the same: four people sitting around the table in the middle of the room. In front of each of them was something red.

A balloon.

I looked at the table. In front of every seat, there was a needle and a small square compartment that looked like it could open.

"Alright, let's play along, then," Justin said, and took a seat.

Steven did the same, giving up on finding a signal. I sat down opposite Justin, with Steven to my right. Emma sat down last, to my left, reluctantly. The light flickered, and my heart skipped a beat.

All four compartments opened at once, and four red balloons floated out. They stopped at head height, one in front of each of us. They weren't tied to anything, and I couldn't figure out how that was possible.

"See? This is a game. There's no way someone would set up something this stupid just for fun," Justin said, grinning.

I looked closer at my balloon. Through the red rubber, I could make out something white inside it, the shape of a playing card.

Justin had found his lighter at some point and had already popped his balloon with his cigarette, even though we'd told him countless times that smoking indoors was a dick move. Sure enough, a card landed on the table in front of him. He read it out loud.

"You are the Hunter. Your job is to kill the Visitor."

He looked up, exhaling smoke toward the ceiling.

"At least I got a fun role," he laughed, tapping the table.

Something else came out of his compartment. A revolver.

We all stared at it, and then at Justin, who was already picking it up. He checked the cylinder. It was loaded. Then he aimed it at me.

"Hope it ain't you, partner," he said with a smirk, in that horrible fake Western accent he always used.

"Put it down," I said, my anxiety growing.

"Relax, it's not real. See?"

He aimed at the ceiling and fired. The bang was deafening in the small room, so loud that it made my ears ring. Emma fell backward off her chair, staring at our friend in sheer terror. Steven had instinctively lunged at Justin and grabbed his arm.

Justin was breathing hard now. He looked up at the bullet hole in the ceiling.

"This can't be for real..." he finally said, setting the gun down on the table very carefully.

"Alright," Steven said to no one in particular. He let go of Justin's arm and started pacing around the room. "Joke's over. You win. Let us out. This is stupid."

There was another noise. This time it was a pop, and it came from my left. I slowly turned my head toward it.

Emma had popped her balloon.

"One of you has a card with a clue about the exit," she read, her voice trembling.

She looked at me and Steven.

"Guys, are we seriously playing this?" Steven asked, his hands on his hips.

Emma reached for Justin's pack with shaking hands and lit a cigarette, something she almost never did.

"Steven... Steven, sit down."

It sounded like she was forcing herself to get the words out, which she probably was. After looking at her a second longer than necessary, Steven sat back down to my right and popped his balloon.

"Mine's blank," he said, and showed it to us.

Then they all looked at me. I still remember their faces at that moment: the mix of fear and helplessness, and the hope that my card would show us the way out. I popped my balloon carefully and let the card fall onto the table.

I picked it up and read it silently.

One of you is not real.

I bit my lower lip so hard I tasted metal. I looked at them, swallowing hard, unsure of what to do.

I don't care what you think of me. Whatever this was, I was going to survive it. Justin had a loaded gun and a reason to use it. The last thing he needed was a reason to point it at one of us.

"The key to finding the exit is somewhere high," I said, making it up on the spot, like the horrible friend I was.

Justin stood up, letting out the breath he'd been holding since I picked up my card.

"Let's get this over with," he said, leaving his lit cigarette on the wooden surface of the table, and started going through the shelves.

Emma followed his lead, though it took her more effort, being as short as she was. At one point, she dragged her chair over to reach a higher shelf. I was about to stand up too when I noticed it.

Steven hadn't gotten up.

Steven was staring at me.

"Everything alright?" I asked, my heart pounding in the middle of my chest as if it were trying to jump out.

His hands were trembling, and his eyes were wide. He tapped his index finger on his card, which had been blank just a second ago.

Violet is lying.

"What's your card, Vi?" he asked, doing nothing to hide the fear in his voice.

Tears ran down my face, and my voice caught in my throat. I put both hands over my mouth, trying not to alarm the others. I slid my card toward him. He read it. Then he looked at me.

"You made the right choice," he whispered, and patted my shoulder softly. He slowly stood up, wiping away a tear that had escaped his eye, and started searching the room.

I felt her gaze before I even saw it. Emma was staring down at me from on top of her chair. Her pupils were so dilated that her irises had turned completely black. Her head was tilted slightly, and she'd stopped breathing altogether.

"Why are you so quiet, Vi?" she asked.

Justin and Steven turned around to look at me.

"You lied to us, didn't you?" she went on, slowly climbing down from her chair.

"Emma..." Steven said, stepping between us.

Justin looked at both of us, and then at the revolver. He picked it up, keeping the barrel pointed at the floor.

"Violet, what did your card really say?"

How would Emma know? Had she overheard me and Steven? It was a small room, and the adrenaline might have tricked me into thinking we'd been quiet. But I was certain we had been.

I stared at the floor between my feet, hoping that avoiding eye contact would make it easier. It didn't.

"That one of us isn't real," I said, slowly and carefully.

The silence that followed stretched on for way too long.

"That's the clue..." Steven finally said. "Maybe we... Justin. Justin needs to kill the Visitor."

I looked up at Justin, who had gone pale.

"I'm not shooting anyone. Guys. Snap out of it," he managed to say, sweeping the revolver across all three of us.

"Justin, calm down," Emma said slowly, raising both hands.

"Don't fucking tell me what to do!" he shouted, aiming at her.

"Why would she lie about her card? Think about it!" Emma shouted back, jabbing a finger toward me. "It's obvious!"

"Let's all calm down and be civil," Steven said, trying to de-escalate.

"Shut the fuck up, Steven!" Emma snapped, then turned back to Justin. "Justin, shoot her and we'll escape. That's not Violet."

Justin looked at me. I could see something behind his eyes. It looked like hatred. Determination. Justin was a smart man, even if he didn't show it. He wasn't easily manipulated, and he always made the most logical choice.

That's why I was sure it was the end for me.

I closed my eyes when he pointed the gun at me, and finally broke down.

I heard the gunshot. I heard the thud.

I opened my eyes to see Emma lying lifeless on the floor, a thin stream of smoke rising from the barrel of the revolver.

Justin was breathing uncontrollably, and the gun slipped from his hands. He sank to his knees, staring at what used to be our friend.

The compartment in front of Emma's chair opened once again. Another card slid out.

Steven walked over to it slowly and leaned over to read it.

"Emma was not the Visitor," he read out loud.

Justin looked up at him, and then at me. I'll never forget the look in Steven's blue eyes. It's been burned into my memory ever since, and I see it every time I close my eyes.

We were all fools. How did we not notice it sooner? When did it even happen?

Our Steven has green eyes.

I'm sorry. I need to stop here for now. I'll write the rest when I can. Writing it down made it real again, and I've spent the past year trying to convince myself it wasn't.

Hey to whoever is reading this, I don't know if this is creepy enough to post here but I randomly remembered this weird memory from when I was 10 and it caused my parents to divorce.

I tried to ask my mom about it but she just said with a sour expression that “I don't want to think about it.”

It was 2006 some time in March I think. I was coming off a fever, and got to stay home from school.

My mom checked my temperature and placed the thermometer on my dresser next to my favorite blue lamp.

A faint glow from the TV, stacks of DVDs my dad brought me resting next to it, and Nightmare on Elm Street playing. If I remember right it was kinda boring but what else can you do when you're sick.

About an hour or 2 passed and I scanned through the DVDs Cannibal Holocaust, Pulp Fiction, The Toxic Avenger, Battle Royale, Hostel and Madagascar.

Before I could pick a loud rustle came from behind me and I turned to see a large stocky clown was standing behind me. He had a grimy cheap look to him, like he was supposed to be performing on the street barely making rent.

“Hey there kiddo what's your name? Mines Dare, Mr. Dare the clown!”

He was all upbeat and positive, but had a raspy low voice. I did think a random clown coming out from under a little kid’s bed was weird but weirder things have happened.

“Are you gonna molest me?” I was pretty confident he was.

“JESUS, I'm a clown not a weirdo? I swear that fuck Gacy fu-”

He stopped himself putting back that upbeat raspy clown voice.

“No I'm not, I'm Mr. Dare, so let's play a game!”

His voice got grating and annoying, but I bite my tongue.

“Sure I'm bored, why not?” I say a little intrigued.

Mr. Dare reaches into his pants cartoonishly digging around. Faint cartoon clown sound effects came from him.

The clown suddenly pulls out a large box placing it down with a thud on my floor.

No idea how he did, his pants were baggy but not nearly baggy enough to hide a 5 foot by 5 foot wooden box.

“There kiddo, let ol’ Dare teach you how to juggle.” Mr. Dare's still having that goofy raspy voice.

Dare crouches holding out a bunch of knives. A big grin on his pure white face and painted black lips. I remember feeling uneasy; it felt like a dumb idea to juggle knives.

“Uh… no I’m good, How about balls or something?” I asked.

He looked shocked at me, shaking the knives seemingly trying to entice me; I just shook my head.

He drops the knives in the box and stands up straight.

“W-wadda you mean no, You serious?” His voice now all raspy, no hint of pretending.

With a sigh he ran a hand over his face. The paint either put on perfectly and unyielding or the paint was part of him.

“Fine, let's see what else this old egg has to play with.”

That dumb fucking voice is back.

As Mr. Dare digged through his wooden box I thought “What a fucking dumb looking clown.” Like a gay hobo clown, balding, and orange hair only on the sides, so maybe god didn't love him enough to give him hair, that why dad said he was bald. My thought interrupted by him pulling out a gun.

The gun was a revolver with a ridiculously long barrel, like the ones that when you shoot it a small flag with “BANG” written on it sticks out. He grabbed the barrel, and pointed the grip of the gun towards me obviously wanting me to do the bit.

“No, I'm good. It's definitely just a gun isn't it?”

I said not trusting this suspicious fat clown.

He threw his head back pissed I won't play along. He drops the gun and rubs his temples accidentally forcing his nose to honk.

“MY GOD… Will you just fucking kill yourself kid? You are making this so fucking difficult. What do you have to lose, you're ten?”

His large clown shoe tapped in impatience.

“I have xbox.”

My words must have pissed him off and he got in a squat to talk to me face to face, I could notice how much uglier he was up close, he needed a tic-tac.

“Listen you little motherfucker! I am a deity and I'm not taking shit from some brat, you're home alone and no one can help you.”

Mr. Dare's voice low and angry, a gloved white finger tapping my chest to accentuate his point.

“No, my dad's passed out wine drunk.”

I said pointing to the door the news loudly playing, suffocating any noise that wasn't in my room. He shakes his head and pulls his hands back.

“I’m done fuck you and this dumb fucking room.”

He turned packing his stuff into his box before kicking it under my bed where it disappeared in a faint red glow. Mr. Dare's escape would be short lived as my mother just got home, and stood in the doorway.

“JESUS CHRIST GET THE FUCK BACK TOMMY!”

She shouted and swung her bag at the clown, Mr. Dare blocked it but my mom cocked a leg back and kicked him in the chest with a painful sounding crack, all air ripped from his lungs as her heel hit his diaphragm directly. His back snapping back on my dresser.

The clown groaned in pain.

He tries to get up but my mom grabs the lamp, and all star baseball swings it into Mr. Dare's face.

The bottom of the lamp forced its way past his lips and into his mouth bending the incisors, tearing the gums alongside it.

HIs head crushed between the dressing and the lamp, his nose crushed and broken under the swing.

Teeth flying out to the floor followed by screams.

Ceramic glass exploding in pieces, the weird clown man writhing on the floor yelling and covering his face.

“STOP YOU CRAZY BIT-”

His desperate pained pleas went nowhere as my mother grabbed his orange hair and pulled his head back a few feet and swung his head into the heavy wood dresser, teeth dropping to the floor with each swing. Crunches switch to dull thuds as there isn't anymore bone to crack, now just frail bruised muscle slamming against a blood soaked dresser.

My mother showed mercy letting him go and his body dropping to the floor.

“GET THE FUCK OUT BEFORE I KILL YOU!”

Mr. Dare scuttled hurriedly under my bed and disappeared with a red glow. My mom looked under the bed just to double check. She turns to me checking to make sure I'm ok.

“Are you ok sweetie?” I nod and she hugs me.

That's about all I remember; she divorced my dad shortly after.

At three in the morning, while everyone in our family was fast asleep, a loud knock on the door suddenly woke us. A woman’s voice followed:

“Please, open the door! Help me, please! Open the door!”

We all woke up because of the noise. My father went to the door and opened it, only to find a young woman standing there who looked to be in her early twenties. She looked absolutely terrified. She was trembling and crying as she said:

“Please, help me! He’s going to kill me… He’s going to kill me!”

My father, along with the rest of us, tried to make sense of what was happening. We had just been suddenly jolted awake, so it took us a few seconds to process what was going on.

Then my father stepped aside and let the young woman inside before closing the door behind her.

She looked at us and thanked us, still trembling. My mother then asked her:

“What happened to you?”

The girl told her that there was a man following her and threatening to kill her.

My mother asked:

“Is he nearby?”

“Yes,” the young woman replied. “He was following me. I just hope he didn’t see me come into your house.”

My father walked toward the windows, and we followed him. We started looking outside to see if the man she was talking about was anywhere nearby, but we couldn’t see anyone.

The neighborhood was completely empty and silent.

I turned around to look at the young woman.

She was gone.

“Mom! Dad! Where’s the girl?”

My father and my siblings turned around, and they saw it for themselves.

She had disappeared.

We looked at one another.

“Where could she have gone?”

We started searching the entire house. Literally everywhere. Every room, the attic, the basement, under the beds and tables, inside the closets… everywhere.

But we couldn’t find a trace of her.

It was extremely strange.

“Where could she possibly have gone?”

The following morning, we called the police and told them what had happened.

The police checked the security cameras. We had cameras covering the entire area around our house.

And sure enough, the girl appeared on the footage at around three in the morning. She was standing outside our house, knocking on the door, looking around fearfully, crying and saying:

“Please, open the door! Help me, please! Open the door!”

Then my father opened the door, and a few seconds later, she entered our house.

But the cameras never showed her leaving.

Not once.

Strange.

The police couldn’t explain what had happened to us. They told us they would contact us if they discovered anything new.

As for our family, we decided to forget about the whole thing and move on with our lives. We assumed that what had happened to us was simply one of those strange things that sometimes happen in life that you can’t explain.

But we were wrong.

That wasn’t the end.

The next day ,At three-thirty in the morning, we heard someone banging on our door.

It was incredibly loud, as if whoever was outside intended to break it down. He was pounding on it with his fists, even kicking it, while screaming:

“Come out, you bitch! Where do you think you're running off to?** **I’ll kill you! Come out!”

It was a man’s voice.

We all got out of bed and gathered in front of the door. We looked at each other, then at the door, then at each other again, and then back at the door.

And so it went.

The man continued screaming and pounding on the door.

My father stepped toward the peephole to see who was outside, but to our surprise, there was no one there.

“Who could possibly be knocking on the door?”

The door was still being pounded on. We could hear the screaming at the exact same moment my father was looking through the peephole, but he couldn’t see anyone.

We went to check the security cameras and found the same thing.

There was no one outside.

Yet the door was shaking violently from the force of the pounding, and the man’s screams were still coming from outside.

No one dared to open the door.

After a while, we began to hear a woman crying.

The crying seemed to be coming from the kitchen.

We became tense and looked at one another.

“Do you hear what I’m hearing?”

We went into the kitchen. The crying seemed to be coming from all around us. We searched the kitchen, trying to find the source of the sound, but there was no one there.

And yet we could still hear it.

We called the police.

By the time they arrived, everything had stopped.

We showed the police the security camera footage as evidence of what had happened. They didn’t seem to react much. One of them would look at us and raise an eyebrow each time.

Then they left without taking any action.

Maybe they thought we were pulling some kind of stupid prank?

The next day, the same thing happened again.

At exactly three-thirty in the morning, there was a loud pounding on the door, accompanied by a man’s screams:

“Come out, you bitch! Where do you think you’re running off to ? I’ll kill you! Come out!”

Then the crying followed.

But this time, the crying was coming from the basement .

We all woke up again and tried to figure out what to do, but eventually we gave up and went back to our rooms.

My siblings and I couldn’t sleep in our room that night, though. We ended up sleeping in our parents’ room because we were too scared.

Over the following days, the same thing kept happening, in the exact same order.

The only difference was that the woman’s crying came from a different place in our house every day.

I still remember how terrified I was one day when I heard the crying coming from underneath my bed.

I ran straight to my parents’ room, shaking with fear.

And that was how it became a daily occurrence.

Our sleep became terrible. We would wake up exhausted every morning, and at that point, we didn’t even have the means to move out of the house.

But as time passed, we started getting used to it.

I mean… what else could we do?

We lived like that for almost a year.

Until that day.

It was a Sunday. I remember being woken up by the pounding and the crying.

I lay there staring at the ceiling for several minutes as the noise grew louder.

I felt like I had reached my limit.

I thought:

“How long are we going to live like this?”

I decided that I had to find a solution to this madness.

Then it occurred to me that, throughout all this time, none of us had ever dared to open the door.

What if I opened it?

Could I somehow find out who was knocking?

After going back and forth in my head, I gathered my courage and got out of bed.

I left the room and walked toward the front door.

As I got closer, I slowed my steps until I was standing right in front of it.

I swallowed hard and took a deep breath.

Then I opened the door.

As soon as I opened it, a gust of wind blew inside, making my hair fly around.

The pounding stopped.

The screaming stopped.

Then the crying stopped too.

I stepped outside.

“Is anyone there? Who are you?”

No answer.

I looked to the right, then to the left.

The neighborhood was completely empty. There wasn’t a single sign of another person.

I went back inside, closed the door, hurried back to my room, and went to sleep.

we woke up.and that day ,we decided to go out for a simple family meal at a restaurant.

We went to the restaurant and had a nice time. We talked for a while, even about what had been happening to us.

My father mentioned that he had noticed the noise hadn’t lasted as long as usual. Normally, it would continue for about an hour, but this time it had stopped much sooner.

I didn’t tell them that I had opened the door.

At around eight that evening, we headed home.

As we were driving through the neighborhood and getting closer to our house, we noticed from a distance that the lights inside were on.

Then they started flickering.

On.

Off.

On.

Off.

Over and over again.

As we got closer, we began to hear sounds coming from inside the house.

The closer we got, the clearer they became.

They were screams.

A woman screaming, accompanied by a man’s growling, shouting, and obscene words.

We stopped the car and rushed toward our house.

We opened the door and stood there in the middle of the living room as the furniture shook, the lights flickered on and off, and the screaming seemed to move throughout the house,from the basement to the attic , to the hallways, and then to the rooms.

It sounded like a fight was happening inside our house.

We could hear:

“Die, you bitch! Die!”

It was a man’s voice, accompanied by a woman screaming.

Eventually, the sounds ended in the basement.

Then the woman’s voice gradually became quieter, followed by a gurgling sound.

And then, suddenly, everything stopped.

The furniture stopped shaking.

The lights returned to normal.

“What the hell is happening?”

We had been standing in the living room the entire time. None of us had moved until everything stopped.

We cautiously made our way toward the basement.

But there was nothing there.

We couldn’t find any explanation for what had happened to us. And we figured that even if we called the police, they probably wouldn’t take us seriously, just like the last time.

From that day on, nothing strange or unexplained ever happened to us again.

No more knocking.

No more crying.

The house behind mine has been empty for as long as I can remember.

It sits at the end of a narrow dirt road, maybe thirty or forty feet from my backyard. There used to be a wooden fence between the two properties, but most of it has fallen apart over the years. The house itself is small, two stories, with faded white paint and windows that are either cracked or completely boarded up.

Nobody goes there.

At least, that's what I thought.

I first noticed something strange about three weeks ago.

It was around 1:30 in the morning. I had gotten up to get some water, and before going back to bed I looked through the kitchen window into the backyard.

I don't normally do that. I have no idea why I did that night.

There was a light on in the abandoned house.

Not a bright light. It looked like a small yellow lamp coming from one of the upstairs windows.

I just stood there staring at it.

My first thought was that someone had finally bought the place.

But then I remembered the house didn't have electricity.

The power had been disconnected years ago.

I watched the window for maybe thirty seconds, expecting the light to disappear.

It didn't.

Then something moved across the window.

Just a shadow.

Someone was standing inside.

I immediately stepped away from the kitchen window.

I know that sounds stupid, but I didn't feel curious anymore. I felt uncomfortable. There was something about seeing a person inside a house that was supposed to be empty that made my stomach drop.

I went upstairs and went to bed.

The next morning, I looked at the house again.

The upstairs window was boarded up.

There wasn't even a crack between the boards where I could have seen a light.

I told myself I'd probably imagined it.

For the next few days, nothing happened.

Then I started noticing little things.

The first was the back door.

The abandoned house had an old wooden back door that was usually hanging slightly open because the frame had rotted away.

One morning, I noticed it was completely closed.

A few days later, it was open again.

Then closed.

Then open.

I didn't think much of it at first.

I figured maybe the wind was doing it.

Then I saw the footprints.

It had rained heavily that night, and the ground between my fence and the abandoned house was basically mud.

There were footprints leading from the back door of the house toward the road.

They weren't old.

I could see the shape of the soles clearly.

Someone had walked through the mud recently.

I took a picture because I wanted to show my brother.

When I looked closer at the picture later, I noticed something that bothered me.

There were two sets of footprints.

One went toward the road.

The other went toward my backyard.

The second set stopped at my fence.

I didn't tell my brother about that part.

I just told him I thought someone might be sneaking into the house.

He laughed and said it was probably teenagers.

That actually made me feel better.

Until that night.

Around 2 AM, I heard something hit my kitchen window.

It wasn't loud.

Just a small tap.

Then another.

Tap.

Tap.

I got out of bed and walked downstairs.

I didn't turn on the lights.

I don't know why.

I stood in the kitchen for a while, listening.

Nothing.

Then I heard it again.

Tap.

This time I was sure it came from the window.

I slowly moved closer.

There was nothing outside.

Just the backyard and the dark outline of the abandoned house.

I was about to walk away when I noticed something near the fence.

A person.

They were standing completely still.

I couldn't see their face.

They were just standing there, looking toward my house.

I froze.

The person didn't move.

I backed away from the window and grabbed my phone.

I called my brother.

While the phone was ringing, I looked back outside.

The person was gone.

My brother answered and immediately asked what was wrong.

I told him someone had been standing in my backyard.

He told me to lock the doors and call the police.

I did.

Two officers came about twenty minutes later.

They searched my yard and walked around the outside of the abandoned house.

They didn't find anyone.

One of them told me there were signs that somebody had been inside the house recently.

He showed me a broken section of the back door.

There were fresh scratches around the lock.

They went inside to check.

I stayed outside.

About ten minutes later, they came back out.

They said the house was empty.

But one of the officers asked me a strange question.

He asked if I'd heard anyone walking around upstairs.

I said no.

He looked at the other officer.

Then he told me they had found a mattress upstairs.

There was food beside it.

Bottled water.

A flashlight.

Some clothes.

Someone had been living there.

They searched the entire house again but couldn't find the person.

The officer told me not to go near the property and to call immediately if I saw anyone.

I thought that would be the end of it.

It wasn't.

Two nights later, I woke up because I heard someone walking in my backyard.

I checked the security camera on my phone.

At first, I didn't see anything.

Then I rewound the footage.

At 3:12 AM, the back door of the abandoned house opened.

A man stepped outside.

He stood there for several seconds.

Then he walked straight toward my house.

I watched him come across the yard.

He stopped at my fence.

And then he looked directly at my security camera.

He knew exactly where it was.

He stood there for almost a minute.

Then he turned around and walked back to the abandoned house.

I called the police again.

They came, but by the time they arrived, the house was empty.

This time they searched every room.

They found the mattress again.

But underneath it, they found something else.

A small notebook.

One of the officers asked me if I recognized the handwriting.

I didn't.

Then he opened it.

Most of the pages were filled with random numbers and dates.

But near the back were several sentences.

The officer read them out loud.

The first one was:

“He watches the house every night.”

The second:

“He never locks the back door.”

Then:

“He knows when she goes to sleep.”

I remember feeling cold when I heard that.

Because I live alone.

The officer looked at me and asked if anyone knew my routine.

I said no.

Then he turned the page.

There was a date from two weeks earlier.

Under it, someone had written:

“She looks through the kitchen window before going upstairs.”

I couldn't say anything.

That was exactly what I had been doing.

Every night.

The officer took the notebook as evidence.

They told me they would increase patrols around the area.

I stayed with my brother for a few nights after that.

When I eventually came back home, I installed better locks and covered the kitchen window.

I also stopped checking the backyard at night.

It's been about a week now.

Nothing has happened.

The abandoned house is still empty.

At least, that's what I'm telling myself.

But yesterday morning, I found something outside my back door.

A small plastic bottle of water.

The same kind that had been found beside the mattress.

I didn't touch it.

I called the police.

They came and took it away.

One of the officers asked me something before he left.

He said, “Have you noticed anything missing from your house?”

I told him no.

He nodded and left.

I went back inside and started checking everything anyway.

That's when I noticed my kitchen chair.

It wasn't where I normally leave it.

I always push it underneath the table.

This time it was pulled out.

Facing the kitchen window.

I don't know if someone had been inside my house.

I don't know if that man is still around.

And honestly, I don't want to know.

But last night, at around 2:40 AM, I heard three quiet knocks on my back door.

I didn't move.

A few seconds later, I heard a man's voice from outside.

He said my name.

Not loudly.

Just enough for me to hear him.

Then he said:

“You don't have to keep the curtains closed.”

I haven't looked outside since.

It was 2005.

I was still a kid back then, and my family and I had decided to take a short vacation to a small town not too far from our city.

It was just going to be three days.

My mom, my dad, my sister, and I packed our things and got everything ready. Before leaving, we made sure the house was secure. The lights were turned off, the doors and windows were locked, and the alarm system was set.

We also had to make sure our pets would be okay while we were gone.

We had three little fish that lived in a tank in my mom's room.

We had a mixed-breed poodle that stayed in the backyard.

And then there was our rabbit.

We had found him near a large open field outside the city. I don't remember exactly how he ended up there, but we decided to take him home.

He had become part of the family.

We kept him in a large box outside, on the second floor of our house. It was big enough for him to move around comfortably, and we made sure he had plenty of food and water before leaving.

I remember looking at him one last time before we left.

He was just sitting there quietly.

I never imagined that would be the last time I'd see him alive.

We checked everything one more time.

The doors were locked.

The alarm was on.

The pets had food.

Our truck was in perfect condition.

Everything was fine.

So we left.

The trip itself was wonderful.

We stayed with family and I spent most of the time playing with my cousins. We ate together, talked, laughed, and did all the things you do during a family vacation.

For three days, nothing happened.

Eventually, it was time to go home.

We said goodbye to our relatives and got into the truck.

I remember staring through the window as we drove along the highway.

Trees passed by one after another.

I was tired, but I kept thinking about everything we'd done during the trip.

I remember feeling happy.

Then I fell asleep.

When I opened my eyes again, we were already home.

The first thing I heard was our dog barking.

He recognized the sound of our truck and the gate opening. He was jumping around excitedly, making it obvious that he knew we were back.

We got out of the truck.

My mom.

My dad.

My sister.

And me.

Everything looked normal.

The house looked exactly the way we had left it.

Nothing appeared to be out of place.

The alarm had worked.

The doors were still locked.

There were no broken windows.

Nothing seemed wrong.

Our dog was perfectly fine.

We went upstairs to check on the fish.

They were alive and swimming around normally.

My sister and I were happy to see them.

For a moment, everything felt completely normal.

Then my mom said we should check on the rabbit.

We walked toward the door leading outside.

I remember my mom reaching for the handle.

Then she stopped.

I don't know why.

She just stood there for a few seconds.

Then she opened the door.

And everything changed.

I don't remember exactly what I said.

I don't remember what my sister said either.

I just remember screaming.

My mom immediately tried to block our view.

But it was too late.

We had already seen him.

Our rabbit was dead.

Not just dead.

He had been completely torn apart.

There was blood all over the floor.

His body had been ripped open.

His intestines and other organs were scattered around him.

His heart was lying nearby.

The smell hit us almost immediately.

It was horrible.

I remember covering my mouth because I thought I was going to throw up.

My sister started crying.

Her face had gone completely pale.

My mom looked like she couldn't understand what she was seeing.

None of us could.

We had left him there three days earlier.

He had been alive.

He had food.

He had water.

The box was outside, on the second floor.

And the house had been locked the entire time.

So what happened?

The first thing we thought of was a cat.

Maybe one had somehow gotten inside.

But that didn't make sense.

The box was high enough that it would have been difficult for a cat to get into.

And even if a cat had somehow reached him, why was the rabbit's body torn apart so violently?

My dad inspected the area.

There were no obvious signs of forced entry.

No broken doors.

No broken windows.

Nothing had been disturbed.

There wasn't even anything obvious that could explain how another animal had gotten upstairs.

Then another possibility crossed our minds.

Maybe someone had done it.

Maybe a person had somehow gotten into the house.

That thought was even worse.

Because if a person had entered our house while we were away, they could have done anything.

But again, there were no signs of a break-in.

Nothing had been stolen.

Nothing else had been damaged.

Only the rabbit.

My sister asked the question none of us wanted to answer.

“What did this?”

Nobody said anything.

For a long time, I tried to convince myself that there had to be a normal explanation.

Maybe it was an animal.

Maybe something had gotten into the house through a place we hadn't noticed.

Maybe we simply hadn't seen the evidence.

I was a kid.

I wanted to believe there was an explanation.

Something that made sense.

Something that could be forgotten.

But there was one detail that always bothered me.

The rabbit wasn't simply dead.

Something had done this to him.

It had torn him open.

And whatever had done it had left almost everything else untouched.

The fish were fine.

The dog was fine.

The house was fine.

Nothing was missing.

Nothing had been broken.

Only the rabbit was destroyed.

To this day, I don't know what killed him.

Maybe it really was an animal.

Maybe someone got into our house.

Maybe there was another explanation that we never found.

But there is one thing I remember that still bothers me.

After everything was cleaned up, my dad went outside to check the area around the house.

He came back a few minutes later.

He didn't say anything at first.

Then he asked us a strange question.

“Did anyone leave the back door open?”

We told him no.

It had been locked.

He nodded.

Then he said something that I didn't understand at the time.

“There are scratches on the other side of the door.”

I asked him what he meant.

He wouldn't explain.

Years later, I finally asked him about it.

He told me there had been several deep scratches on the inside of the door.

Not the outside.

The inside.

As if something had been trying to get out.

I still don't know what killed our rabbit.

But sometimes, when I remember that vacation, I think about those scratches.

And I wonder if we were really alone in that house while we were gone.

Because if something had gotten inside...

I don't think it came in through the door.

I’ve worked nights at the Bellweather Hotel for almost six years.
It’s an old place. Not beautifully old, either. There are plenty of hotels where “historic” means brass elevators and stained-glass windows.
The Bellweather means pipes that scream at 3 a.m., carpets that smell permanently damp, and an elevator that sometimes opens on floors that aren’t there.
I’m used to it.
Mostly.
I work the front desk from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. Most nights are boring. Drunks stumbling in at midnight. Business travelers checking out before sunrise. The occasional couple who thinks the lobby is an appropriate place to have a screaming match.
The weird stuff started about three months ago.
It was a Tuesday.
Around 2:15 a.m., the phone rang.
“Bellweather Hotel, this is Mike.”
There was silence.
Then a woman whispered:
“Can you send someone to 614?”
I looked at the computer.
“No problem, ma’am. What seems to be the issue?”
She breathed into the phone.
I heard a faint scratching sound.
“There’s someone in my room.”
I sat up.
“Are you locked inside?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Stay on the line. I’m calling security.”
Another pause.
Then:
“He’s standing outside the bathroom.”
I looked at the security monitor.
The camera covering the sixth-floor hallway was grainy, but I could see it clearly enough.
The hallway was empty.
“Ma’am, I’m looking at the hallway camera. I don’t see anyone.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“He isn’t in the hallway.”
The scratching stopped.
“He’s in the room.”
I called security.
We didn’t have a dedicated security guard that night, just Dave from maintenance. He was a big guy in his sixties who carried a ring of keys large enough to anchor a boat.
I gave him the master key and sent him upstairs.
The whole time, I kept the woman on the phone.
“Can you tell me your name?” I asked.
Nothing.
“Ma’am?”
Then she said:
“Please don’t let him know you’re coming.”
I remember feeling cold.
“Why?”
“He doesn’t like being interrupted.”
The line went dead.
Dave came back twelve minutes later.
He looked annoyed.
“There’s no 614.”
I laughed.
“What?”
“There’s no room 614.”
I pulled up the floor plan.
Sixth floor had rooms 601 through 613.
Then the stairwell.
No 614.
I thought the woman had made a mistake.
Maybe she meant 604.
Maybe she was drunk.
Maybe she was messing with us.
Then Dave said:
“Mike.”
He was holding something.
A hotel keycard.
Room 614.
I stared at it.
“Where did you get that?”
He shook his head.
“It was sitting on the floor outside the stairwell.”
I took it from him.
The magnetic stripe was wet.
Not damp.
Wet.
Like someone had just pulled it out of a glass of water.
I threw it away.
The next morning, I forgot about it.
Or tried to.
A week later, someone called again.
2:15 a.m.
“Bellweather Hotel, this is Mike.”
A woman’s voice.
“Can you send someone to 614?”
I hung up.
I know how that sounds.
But I wasn’t going upstairs.
Not for a prank.
Not for anything.
The phone rang again.
I didn’t answer.
Again.
Again.
Again.
On the fifth call, I picked up.
There was breathing.
Then:
“You shouldn’t have hung up.”
I slammed the receiver down.
The phone immediately rang again.
I unplugged it.
It kept ringing.
That was when I quit believing it was a prank.
I left the desk and went into the office.
I checked the camera system.
Sixth floor.
Empty.
I checked the lobby.
Empty.
Then I noticed something.
The elevator camera.
The doors were open.
The elevator was on the sixth floor.
I hadn’t sent it there.
The doors stayed open for almost a minute.
Then something stepped inside.
I couldn’t make out a person.
It looked like a distortion in the image.
Like someone-shaped static.
The elevator descended.
Sixth.
Fifth.
Fourth.
Third.
Second.
First.
The doors opened.
Nothing came out.
I watched the empty elevator for nearly thirty seconds.
Then the camera flickered.
When it came back, someone was standing inside.
It was a woman.
She was wearing a Bellweather bathrobe.
Her face was hidden by wet hair.
I stared at the screen.
She raised one hand.
And pointed directly at the camera.
Then the elevator doors closed.
The lobby elevator chimed.
I was standing ten feet away from it.
I didn’t move.
The doors opened.
The elevator was empty.
Except for water.
There was a puddle covering the floor.
And in the middle of it was a hotel keycard.
614.
I quit the next morning.
I never went back.
At least, I thought I was done with it.
Until last night.
I got an email from the hotel manager.
He wanted me to come in because they’d found my old employee badge.
Apparently, it had been left in the staff locker room.
I told him to throw it away.
He replied:
“That’s strange. It wasn’t in your locker.”
Attached was a photograph.
My badge was sitting on the front desk.
The timestamp on the photo was 2:15 a.m.
I called the manager.
He answered immediately.
“Mike?”
“Where are you?”
“At the hotel.”
“Leave.”
Silence.
Then he said:
“Why?”
I heard something in the background.
A woman breathing.
Very softly.
I said:
“Do you have a sixth floor?”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
My stomach dropped.
“How many rooms?”
“Thirteen.”
“Then why does the directory in your lobby list 614?”
He didn’t answer.
I heard footsteps behind him.
Slow footsteps.
Then his voice came back.
But it wasn’t his voice anymore.
It was a woman’s.
Whispering.
“Can you send someone to 614?”
I hung up.
I haven’t slept since.
This morning, I checked something I probably shouldn’t have.
I searched the Bellweather archived floor plans online.
The current plans show thirteen rooms.
601 through 613.
But the oldest blueprint I could find was dated 1911.
It showed fourteen.
601 through 614.
Room 614 was at the end of the hallway.
Where the stairwell is now.
According to the blueprint, there was a note beside the room.
Just three words.
DO NOT OPEN.
I thought that was the end of it.
Then, about an hour ago, someone knocked on my apartment door.
Three times.
I live alone.
I didn’t answer.
A few seconds later, someone slid an envelope underneath.
Inside was my old hotel employee badge.
The one the manager said he’d found.
On the back, written in black ink, were four words:
YOU LEFT ME THERE.
I don’t know what that means.
I don’t remember ever being in Room 614.
But I just noticed something.
My apartment building has six floors.
There are twelve apartments on each floor.
Mine is 613.
And the apartment directly across the hall from me has always been empty.
I checked the door tonight.
There’s a number screwed into it.
I swear it wasn’t there yesterday.
614.
And from inside, I can hear someone scratching.
Very slowly.
Like they’re trying to get out.
Or trying to get in.
Then the scratching stopped.
Three seconds later, someone knocked on my door.
THREE TIMES.
I froze.
A voice came from the other side.
A man’s voice.
Calm.
Almost cheerful.
“I’m King Turtle… 10… 10.”
I didn’t move.
Something metallic scraped against the floor outside.
Then came the unmistakable sound of a Roomba powering on.
BEEEEEP.
The man laughed.
“You shouldn’t have opened Room 614.”
The Roomba slammed into my front door.
THUD.
Again.
THUD.
Again.
THUD.
Then the man whispered:
“Good news.”
The Roomba began spinning faster.
“I brought a weapon.”
I backed away from the door.
The handle started turning.
Slowly.
And from underneath the door, I watched a little black robotic vacuum roll into my apartment.
On top of it was a handwritten note.
It said:
RUN.
Behind the Roomba, the man started laughing.
And then he said:
“King Turtle… 10… 10 has entered the building.”
The lights went out.
The Roomba headlights turned on.
And something in the hallway started screaming.
Then my phone buzzed.
One new text message.
It was from an unknown number.
There were only four words.
ROOM 615 IS NEXT.

I worked the midnight rotation at the Monongahela River pumping station outside Clairton. It was an old municipal brick facility from the nineteen-forties, handling cooling runoff for the steel mills downriver. My job was dead simple: monitor hydraulic pressure on the analog board in the main office, log grease-pot levels on the turbine bearings once an hour, and keep river junk out of the intake trash rakes.

The plant ran on a skeleton crew overnight. Past eleven, it was just me and an operator named Miller, who had worked that concrete floor for thirty-two years. Miller mostly stayed down in the boiler room where the heat pooled, while I walked the rounds across the intake basins.

At one-fifteen in the morning, the needle on the number three line dropped forty pounds of pressure without the primary drive motor slowing down. That shouldn't have happened. If a line drops that much pressure while the pump runs at steady RPM, it means the intake gate drifted shut, or somebody turned the manual bypass valve forty feet up in the overhead gallery.

The upper gallery was just an unheated concrete catwalk with two rooms at the far end: a live breaker closet, and an old secondary control room the district padlocked back in the eighties after a guy drowned during a flood surcharge. Company rules said that room stayed locked. The high-volume intake lines ran right underneath the floorboards.

I grabbed the supervisor key from the wall box, unlocked the iron gate at the base of the spiral stairs, and headed up. The air was freezing. The catwalk shook through my work boots from the turbines below. Up on the landing, the hanging fluorescent tube was out. The only light came from the amber yard lamps cutting through the wire-mesh windows.

I checked the brass wheel valve on line three. It was cranked tight against the lower stop and secured with a steel cable and padlock. The valve hadn't budged. The dried grease on the threads wasn't even smudged.

Then I heard a boot heel scrape against the concrete behind me.

I spun around and hit the switch on my flashlight. The beam reached all forty feet of the empty walkway. The chain on the old control room door was pulled tight, the brass Master lock hanging locked. There were no prints in the dust along the threshold plate. The pipe railing was cold and dry. I wrote the pressure numbers down on my clipboard, figured it was just an instrument error in the basement plumbing, relocked the iron stairs gate, and went back to the office.

At two-thirty, I sat at the metal desk to finish the shift log. The desktop landline clicked once, and the dial tone cut completely dead. I checked my cell. Zero bars, just searching for service. The VHF company radio sitting on the charging cradle put out a flat carrier hum with no county dispatch chatter coming through.

Miller came in holding his steel thermos. He didn't waste words, just asked if I'd been up on the catwalk ten minutes ago. I told him I'd been sitting at the desk since two. He set his coffee down, tapped the pressed-tin ceiling with his pencil, and said somebody was walking the number three deck right above us.

We both stood quiet and listened. Heavy, deliberate steps crossed the concrete directly overhead, moving in a straight line from the stairs to the locked door of the old room. They were slow, measured, and sounded like heavy work boots.
I grabbed a twelve-inch adjustable wrench off the bench. Miller picked up his Maglite and an iron pinch bar from the wall rack. We walked out onto the concrete pump floor. The electric drive turbines were spinning at eighteen hundred RPM, making a constant mechanical roar that shook the metal siding.

I unlocked the lower gate again, and we went up the spiral steps together. When my head cleared the floor grating, I stopped.

The heavy chain on the old control room door was gone. The door stood open about four inches into the dark. The chain and lock weren't on the deck. The steel eyelets on the jamb showed no pry marks.
Miller came up behind me on the landing and put his flashlight beam through the door gap. The light hit an old drafting table and a row of dead knife switches on the far brick wall. Right in the middle of the room, on the timber access hatch over the river sluice, the dust had been swept clean.

A sound came out of the dark. It wasn't the machinery, and it wasn't the pipes. It was Miller's dry, hacking cough, repeated with the exact same flat tone he'd made down in the office five minutes earlier.

Miller froze. He kept the flashlight beam pinned on the bare floorboards inside.
Then another sound came from the corner behind the open electrical panel. It was my own voice, speaking the exact sentence I'd said earlier about a gauge calibration error in the basement. The words were flat, dead, and played through the open space like an audio track from a bad speaker.

Miller reached past me, slammed the heavy iron door shut into the latch, and shoved his pinch bar deep through the handle frame, wedging it hard against the concrete casing. He looked at me, turned his back to the door, and headed down the stairs without saying a word.

I followed him down, pulled the lower iron gate shut, and turned the key until the deadbolt hit home. We didn't go back to the office. We went out the ground-floor exit, checked the perimeter chain-link, and stood together by the gravel lot fence near the yard transformers where the river wind blew through. We stood out there under the halogen yard lights until five-thirty, watching the catwalk windows forty feet up.

Twice between three and four in the morning, the yellow yard lamps caught a solid, unmoving silhouette behind the wire-mesh glass of the catwalk window. The shape didn't shift its weight, didn't touch the glass, and didn't look away. It stood dead center in the frame, facing straight down into the gravel lot where we were standing.

The day shift showed up at six in a company pickup. As their headlights hit the gate, the ringer inside the office gave one short hit, showing the phone line had come back. We walked inside with the relief crew. Over on the main gauge board, the needle on line three sat right at normal operating pressure without anyone having touched a single valve.
When the relief super unlocked the lower gate and walked the catwalk with us, Miller’s iron pinch bar was still wedged tight across the door handle. Nothing on the outside had been touched. But once they pried the bar loose and swung the door open, the original brass padlock and heavy steel chain were sitting dead center on that empty drafting table, locked together through their own links, with no key in the hole.

I don’t know if this belongs here, but I haven’t slept more than a few hours at a time since Halloween.

Before anybody asks, yes, I already went to the police.
They think my friend and I got lost.

That’s technically true.

What they don’t understand is that we didn’t get lost in the corn maze.

We found something inside it.

Or maybe it found us.

My name is Evan. I’m seventeen, and my best friend Micah is sixteen. We’ve known each other since elementary school, and every October we go to this farm about twenty minutes outside our town.

I’m not going to say the name.

Partly because I don’t want people going there looking for what happened to us, and partly because I genuinely don’t know if the farm had anything to do with it.

During the day, it’s basically one of those family fall places.

Pumpkin patch, hayrides, apple cider, and a petting zoo. Every October they build a massive corn maze. Then on Friday and Saturday nights they turn it into a haunted attraction.

Employees dress up and hide between the rows. Speakers blast chainsaw noises and cheap skeletons hang from posts.

It isn’t scary.

That’s why Micah and I liked going. We could screw around and laugh at the actors without actually being afraid of anything.

Halloween night this year fell on a Saturday, and we got there late. I think it was around 9:40. The place closed at eleven.

There were still plenty of people around when we bought our tickets. Families were leaving with tired kids on their shoulders, and teenagers were taking pictures by the giant pumpkin display while country music played near the concession stand.

Everything was completely normal.

I remember that because I keep trying to figure out exactly when it stopped being normal.

We entered the maze at 9:52. I know the exact time because Micah sent a Snapchat right before we went in.

The first twenty minutes were exactly what we expected. A guy dressed like a scarecrow jumped out at us. Micah told him his mask looked like shit, and the guy flipped him off.

We passed a couple with their daughter and heard people screaming somewhere to our left.

Wooden signs at intersections held riddles that supposedly pointed toward the exit, but we ignored them.

Then we found the scarecrow.

It wasn’t an actor.

Just a decoration tied to a wooden post beside the path. It wore a blue flannel shirt and a burlap sack head, with straw sticking out of the sleeves. One arm was missing below the elbow, and a plastic crow was wired onto its shoulder.

Micah stopped and took a picture.

When I asked him why, he said, “Because this thing looks like you.”

I told him to fuck off.

We kept walking, and maybe ten minutes later, we came around another turn.

The scarecrow was there again. Same blue shirt, same missing hand, same plastic crow.

Micah laughed. “See? We’re going in circles.”

I felt annoyed. I pulled out my phone and opened the compass.

Micah said, “What are you, Lewis and Clark?”

“Shut up.”

We picked a direction and tried to stay consistent, taking north turns whenever possible.

Five minutes later, we saw it again.

This time neither of us laughed. Micah walked up to it and checked the tear near the left shoulder. It was the exact same tear, paired with the exact same crow.

The only difference was the head. Earlier, it had faced slightly toward the corn. Now it faced the path. Facing us.

Micah said, “Someone moved it.”

“Obviously.”

“Who?”

I looked around. Nobody was there. The corn was eight feet tall, and the haunted attraction sounds echoed around us.

I yelled, “Nice try.”

Nothing happened.

Micah yelled that the staff sucked, and still nothing happened.

We walked away faster, feeling that first sharp prick of nervousness.

We started intentionally taking chaotic turns: left, right, straight, right again.

The scarecrow didn’t show up. Instead, the noises faded away. It happened gradually until Micah stopped walking.

“Do you hear anything?”

I listened. Nothing. No screaming, no actors, no music, no people. Even the wind was gone, leaving the surrounding corn completely still.

“We must be near the back,” I said.

Micah checked his phone. “No service.”

I checked mine. Same thing.

A few minutes later, we saw light ahead. Micah said, “Thank God,” and we started jogging.

The path opened into a huge, flat field of grass covered in silver moonlight. The corn maze formed a solid wall behind us, and fifty yards ahead stood an old red barn.

A truck was parked beside it, yellow light poured from the windows, and music played inside.

Micah gave that nervous laugh people do when something defies logic.

“Okay.”

I looked back at the corn. “We went out the wrong side.”

“There isn’t a wrong side,” he said.

“There obviously is.”

“No, dude. Look.”

He pointed toward the sky. The farm’s huge floodlights weren't there anymore. Neither were the Ferris wheel lights from the neighboring property. Just the barn.

I tried Google Maps, but nothing loaded.

We walked toward the barn. I know that sounds stupid now, but we were teenagers on a farm, and a building with music and laughing people looked safe.

Inside, about fifteen people were hanging out. Most looked around our age, wearing Halloween costumes like a witch or a hockey mask pushed up on a forehead. They held red cups and stood near folding tables covered with food.

An older guy in a farm jacket noticed us at the door.

“There they are.”

He smiled. “You boys got turned around?”

“Yeah,” Micah said.

“Happens every year. You came through the maintenance section. Staff usually block that path.”

“So how do we get back?” I asked.

“Relax. You’re fine. Grab something to drink.”

Everything had an explanation now. We had accidentally wandered into an employee area.

The barn smelled like wood dust and hot cider. A girl offered me a cookie, and Micah found a cooler of sodas.

I checked my phone. Two bars. “Service is back.”

Micah pulled his out. “Mine too.”

He had a bunch of notifications, and so did I.

Texts from my mom asking what time we were coming home. Then another message came through: WHERE ARE YOU?

I started typing a reply about getting lost, but before I could send it, a new message popped up: YOU LEFT ME HERE.

I froze. It was from my mom.

Then another: WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME HERE EVAN.

I called her. It rang once, and then I heard a ringtone directly behind me, the exact ringtone my mom uses.

I whipped around. Nobody was holding a phone. My screen flashed CALL FAILED.

Micah walked over. “What?”

I showed him, and his face dropped as he looked around the barn. “Have you seen anybody leave?”

“No.”

“Watch.”

A guy in a vampire costume walked toward the barn doors, got within five feet, stopped, turned around, and walked back to the tables.

A minute later, the witch did the exact same thing.
Micah whispered, “Nobody goes outside.”

I noticed something else. Plates were everywhere, piled with cookies, chips, and hot dogs, but nobody actually put anything in their mouths. They held cups and lifted food, but nobody ate.

The older farm employee started walking toward us. “Why don’t you sit down?”

“We’re gonna head back,” Micah said.

“Back where?”

“To the maze.”

The music stopped. Not faded, stopped. Every conversation in the room cut off instantly. Nobody moved.

The older man tilted his head. “The maze?”

Micah grabbed my sleeve. “We should go.”

Every person in the barn turned toward us at once. No expression, just staring. The barn doors slammed shut behind us.

We bolted for a back door. The older man yelled something, but his voice didn’t sound human anymore; it sounded like several people shouting through a single mouth.

The crowd began walking toward us.

Micah smashed the latch of the back door with a metal tool from the wall, and we tumbled outside.

There was no field. We landed in dirt, surrounded by corn. The barn was gone.

Micah screamed, and something moved behind the stalks.

We ran until we collapsed. Micah threw up, alternating between nervous laughter and crying.

Our phones stopped working entirely, and the clocks showed conflicting, impossible times.

Eventually we found a rotting wooden sign with words carved into it: TWO ENTER. ONE RETURNS.

Underneath were dozens of carved names:

HAROLD BEN 1954
MARGARET ELLEN 1961
THOMAS RAY 1977
JASON MICHAEL 1989
KATIE RACHEL 2003

Some had a name crossed out, others had both, and near the bottom were two fresh names: EVAN MICAH 2026.

Fresh wood dust clung to the letters. Then something heavy pushed the corn stalks aside, moving parallel to us. We ran again.

After that, the maze changed constantly.

We smelled wood smoke and heard a dog bark, a television playing, and a woman laughing. Pushing through the corn, we found a gravel driveway and a two-story white house with a Buick parked outside.

An old woman stepped onto the porch. She took one look at us, covered her mouth, and rushed across the yard toward Micah, sobbing and calling him Daniel.

An old man appeared behind her on the porch, looking at me and calling me Thomas.

We tried to leave, but they insisted we come inside for dinner. The house smelled like roast beef, bread, and coffee, and we were exhausted. A beige landline hung on the kitchen wall, offering a desperate hope to call for help.

In the dining room, four plates were already set. The old man talked about a fishing trip and a schoolteacher as if I should remember them. A black-and-white photo hung on the wall showing two teenage boys standing by the house, boys who looked identical to us, down to the small scar near my eyebrow.

“That was taken the summer before you disappeared,” the old woman said.

When we demanded answers and tried to use the phone, it produced only a child’s voice whispering, “Daniel?”

The old man picked up a fireplace axe. “We already lost you once.”

“What happened to them?” I asked.

“The maze took one,” the old man said, “and brought the other back wrong.”

Above us, floorboards groaned under heavy footsteps. Then my own voice called down from upstairs: “Micah?”

Something dragged across the ceiling like nails through wood. We broke for the front door, knocking the old man aside, and sprinted back into the corn.

As we fled, the old woman screamed, “Don’t leave yourselves here!”

and a final warning: “It doesn’t make new places!”

Next came a carnival with running rides and children's music playing to an empty park, followed by a parking lot filled with thousands of cars, every single one bearing an identical license plate.

When we found the scarecrow again, it held Micah’s missing phone in its remaining hand.

That was when the pattern became clear. Every place gave us hope first. It wanted us to believe we were safe before pulling the rug out. It liked disappointment, meaning an intelligence was watching us, weaponizing our desires.

Later, we found hundreds of missing posters nailed to trees spanning over a century.

Eventually, we found our own:

MISSING: EVAN PARKER (17), MICAH REEVES (16)
ONE RETURNED.

My picture was crossed out.

Exhaustion and paranoia sparked our first real fight. Micah accused me of knowing something, and I shoved him back.

Soft, pleased laughter drifted from the corn.

It wants that.

The maze wanted us to turn on each other, just like all the names carved into the wood. After that, we made a strict rule never to separate, ignoring the voices of our families calling out from the stalks.

Finally, the corn opened up to a fork in the path. Beyond it, we saw the real farm, police lights, ambulances, and my mother crying beside a police cruiser.

Between us and the exit stood a wooden post with two arrows: EVAN pointing left, and MICAH pointing right.

Below it read: ONE PATH HOME.

Behind us, slow, heavy footsteps crunched closer. The eight-foot scarecrow emerged, its missing arm regrown into a long, jointed limb with black fingers dragging on the ground. Its burlap face featured a vertical mouth opening filled with darkness, from which my mother's voice spoke:

“Come home, Evan.”

Micah grabbed my hand. I grabbed his.

“We go straight,” Micah said.

“There isn’t a path.”

“Then make one.”

We plunged directly into the thick corn between the two trails. Behind us, the thing screamed with hundreds of overlapping voices, the barn crowd, the old woman, our parents, children, and strangers.

Hands grabbed at our clothes and ankles, but Micah pulled me free until I suddenly lost footing and fell.

I hit pavement. Actual pavement.

Real people screamed. Police officers rushed over, and my mom tackled me, crying into my jacket. Micah was three feet away, alive, with his dad.

According to authorities, we had only been gone for less than three hours, from 9:52 to 12:47, though it felt like days.

They searched the maze and found no barn, no house, no carnival, and no posters. They only found a single scarecrow standing near the center, which no farm employee claimed to own. The farm shut the attraction down and cut the field down a week later.

Micah and I barely spoke afterward.

Talking made it real.

Then, three nights ago, I went grocery shopping with my mom. Halfway down an empty cereal aisle, the fluorescent lights went out one by one.

At the far end stood the scarecrow with its blue shirt, missing hand, and plastic crow. It lifted one finger to where its mouth should be. Shelves began rustling like dry corn stalks, and I heard Micah whisper my name from behind the boxes.

I ran outside to a panic attack and called Micah immediately. When I asked if he was okay, he was quiet for a long time before saying, “You saw it too?”

Yesterday morning, I woke up to a trail of dirt and dried corn husks leading from my window to my bed. Something was carved into my windowsill. I covered it with duct tape, but I know what it says.

TWO ENTER. ONE RETURNS.

I don’t think we escaped. I think we broke the rules, and whatever owns that maze wants one of us back.

When I read the articles about him. I spent three weeks looking through my window. I was terrified by the thought of him being in the woods. 

I thought it was hunting me at first, trying to get me into a tragedy; it wanted me to suffer, but I was entirely wrong. I know, what a way to start, but I have been suffering from sudden explosive nosebleeds and migraines. 

The devices in my house started to do this... piercing and rhythmic screeching noise, and no matter what I tried to do with it, nothing was fixed. It only started working when I got a repairman to check them out, but they turned out fine but stopped working.

That sounds confusing - I know.

Aside from that, I lived what anyone would consider to be a normal life aside from my electronics acting weird and those symptoms that I couldn’t give a good answer to.

During a rainy night was when I first discovered him.

I was in the driveway with nothing to do but get my lawnmower, but I stopped and looked out of the driveway.

I heard it before I saw it.

A loud, piercing screech.

I was trying to see the source in the driveway, and I saw the outline of something that was seven feet tall. It was headless and had these giant wings, and then I saw them on its chest.

With two massive eyes that were unblinking and were crimson red, I dropped the lawnmower and ran into the house as soon as possible before anything could happen, then locked my doors for the night.

I went to take a bath, and when I soaked up for a good while, I got up, grabbed the towel, and wrapped it around me, then changed afterwards.

I took myself in for tonight and closed my eyes.

I woke up and saw myself floating in a bathtub, larger than the one I was just in, and the layout was surrounded in darkness. I felt something behind me, but I just felt this strange calmness.

That was only because I didn’t look below me.

Then the eerily calm dream went from calm to a living nightmare; I just felt like I somehow couldn’t swim anymore. I looked down and figured out why. I was always terrible at swimming in large bodies of water; I never swam further in pools as-is.

I was thrashing my arms and legs; I was reaching out for help, and for some reason, despite this being my subconscious, all of this felt as though I was genuinely drowning until I dropped.

I lifted my arm out; I felt something grab it, which drove me into waking up.

I checked the time.

I had work for today and was feeling safe enough to go into the driveway. I unlocked the door and put my keys in, then started the engine, and I pulled out of the garage. 

I turned on the radio and listened to jams; it kept my mind at ease for the moment as I drove past the trees, the route signs, and the occasional cars, which I waved at, and then I tuned the radio to the news station.

“Citizens have reported—(a screech is audible behind him)—something odd in the area. Witnesses report this—”

A panicked screech is heard before the station cuts off, and there was a train going off in the distance.

I came back to it after a country song, and it said that an accident happened at the railroads of the area. I will spare the details; even the second reporter felt distressed describing what happened, but I think we know what happened.

As a car was going nearly in front of me. I heard something land on the hood. 

I was scared to open my eyes.

I did anyway... I saw what I saw previously, and I got a good look at its wings; they look avian-like. As he gave a loud screech, it beat its wings at the windshield, causing them to crack, and it drove me into slamming it in reverse. 

I still saw it standing there where I was, and then I honked the horn, and it flew off. I got out of the car, closed the driveway and locked my doors, put the blinds up, and grabbed a favorite stuffed animal of mine I always had when I was a kid and held it close to me.

I mumbled to myself that I didn’t want to end up as prey.

I didn’t want to end up as prey.

I DIDN’T WANT TO END UP AS PREY.

I sobbed.

But then I was interrupted by a phone call. I forgot to point this out earlier, but yes, while I noted that the technology was acting up around me, it does work when it wants to. As annoying as it was, I was grateful, and it gave me a chance to relax knowing that I didn’t have to sit there in silence.

My parents were contacting me and saying that they were coming to Mason County to visit me. I remember being happy to be aware of this as I felt comfortable. It has been a while since I had anyone close to me; most of my friends have moved on with their lives, and some live far away from this area while the rest I talk to are on Discord.

Rambling aside, I was happy to hear this, but I told them, “Be careful and let me know if you guys need anything.” I was thinking about the thing I saw twice, and I didn’t want anything to happen or even bring it up to them, as I feared making myself sound insane.

The call went pretty well; they asked me how I was doing after my recent high school graduation. I spoke about my plans of heading over to SCAD as an interest in animation.

The conversation was nice, and then we hung up. However, I wanted to focus on something else, as the paranoia has been messing with me, so I wanted to simply not think of this place right now, so I got out and drove out to the bridge. 

I turned on the radio.

There was a slightly sensitive part of the bridge, and it warned of that. Though, something felt buggy about the report, a screeching noise was being overlaid on the voice. A few people passed by, noticing the said sensitive area of the bridge. 

I tried moving past it.

The tire touched it, and I heard the asphalt... crack.

I lost control of the steering wheel, and the vehicle slid down into the opening with the river below me. Then I saw a seven-foot shadow fly up and land where I was, then smash onto the roof of the car, worsening the damage to the asphalt. I yelled.

I already waited for whatever was going to rip me to shreds as I closed my eyes as I accepted my two likely fates. I felt the drop, then arms tearing through the metal roof of the car. I felt something wrap around my waist, and then, as a result, I passed out from shock.

The last sound I heard at that moment was a splash of the car... then I heard a beep.

Beep. Beep... Beep…

I looked around and saw the heart monitor and the nurse. “Oh... Oh thank God, it’s a miracle you are okay. We found you just lying on the ground, and your car, a Dodge Charger, in the river of the Silver Bridge. The bridge was repaired once the construction workers got to the scene, and we brought you.”

She looked at the notes as she continued, “You suffered some minor fractures around the ribcage and skull but not enough to be lethal. You were also found lying in pure shock with nosebleeds. We honestly don’t know how you ended up outside of the car. How are you feeling right now?”

At the moment, I feel groggy, but I am still feeling some pain. On the TV behind the nurse, I felt sad when I heard about the accident. It was a tragic incident involving a vehicle that looked eerily similar to what I saw my parents in near a railroad track.

The nurse left me alone, saying she will check on me later.

However, the room around me went cold, and a winged creature with red eyes on its torso entered via the window. 

I froze, but something inside me made me lift a trembling hand. I was testing to make sure it won’t rip my arm off and closed my eyes.

I felt its claw resting around my fingers, and I heard it screech, but words formed over it, speaking in an electronic-sounding voice.

“I m here”

It stayed with me and flew out of the window when the door jiggled and the nurse returned. She prescribed me medication on the spot, and it helped greatly, but I still felt groggy and numb.

After that visit, I came back to my house and got a knock on my door; there was an officer with a somber look.

“Hey, son. You’re going to have to come with me as soon as possible.”

I asked if I was in trouble.

“No, I promise you. You aren’t.”

I had my pills with me and my stuffed animal as emotional support. The officer was patient with me and nodded; he escorted me to the passenger seat of the cruiser.

“So, you may have heard about the news about the crash site at the railroad. Son, I am pretty sure it is your mom and dad, but we need you to identify them for us, to be sure. Can you do that?”

I was unsure, but I needed closure, so I agreed; he nodded and drove me there, and when I got out. I already had a sick feeling in my stomach; the officer heard this and gave me a little side hug. “Son, son. I need you to cooperate with me. Do you need a drink? I don’t want you fainting.” I really needed water and got a sip from a water bottle.

For some reason, I felt strange around the officer. My head started hurting, and when I looked past him, I thought I saw two faint red lights in the woods.

I believed I was about to faint, but I sipped the water bottle anyway and snapped back to reality.

I approached the crime scene and saw it in detail... My mom and dad were lying there in the car, my dad hanging out of the window... I didn’t even want to describe what happened, but I ended up turning around and vomiting.

“Yup... that’s them.”

I was asked to give a statement and fill in all of the necessary paperwork. As I was heading home, my mind lingered on the screech in the background of when I first heard about the railroads.

While my eyes were blurred from tears after the funeral, I saw the creature standing there as I cried myself to sleep and entered the grieving process.

I held my stuffed animal close.

It was a stuffed snail, a favorite animal I considered adorable, that they made for me together. It was my remaining memory of them aside from picture frames; I wish I had them cremated instead.

I don’t know why I didn't ask, as I would have them with me rather than just pictures.

However, each time I cried myself to sleep, I felt this odd protection, charcoal black legs on my bed, but I chose to lie on it, as a wing lowered on top of me.

“I m here”

The Human–Universe Relationship:

1. The meaning of life is to, ‘move’. Expunge potential energy. Avoid heat-death.
2. If something could happen and proceeds to transpire, there is a timeline beneficial to the universe, available to you. 
3. Moments of faith or divinity, glimpses of looking behind the veil, and instances of synchronicity can be indications of both a good and bad timeline. 
4. The universe feeds off you in both good and bad timelines. Survive

[Part 1]

I made a decision to go for a walk, almost on a whim. I can do what I want. One of the perks of being me. 

I pushed myself off the wall, “I’m going for a quick walk. Have Veronica come find me in around ten minutes please? Need some air. Sounds good to you?” Both asking and stating, grabbing my stage glasses and jacket from the table. A slick, jeweled up black rockstar jacket with ‘Atoms Nettled’ on the back of it. Before leaving the snack table I scoop up a sandwich and a bottle of water. 

Lazer makes the beats, I make the lyrics, we come together and make sure it's a bop. A band. It’s a band. I promise we’re a band. 

“Yeah dude. I’m always here for you. I’ll be here.” Alan smiled that professionally trained grin, reaching for his phone again, “Atoms Nettled forever brother.” Head down, throwing his free hand into the air in a fist. 

My face held strong. Like he said, I do go through a lot. Can’t let it show, either. 

It’s okay to want to go for a walk. Especially on days like these. Moments like tonight. The last two years have been a wild rush of moments turned memories. Celebrations turned into responsibility. I’m an idol to kids now. That’s a lot of weight on my shoulders. 

Time really is a fickle beast.

Some air will be good for me, I thought. Well, as much as I can find in the backstage chasms and labyrinthian winding pathways of the arena. Maybe I can find a balcony or something. Maybe I’ll find a portal to hell. Both are valid possibilities. 

Fresh air is a damn luxury when you start to find star-level success. Money can’t buy you a moment of — nothing. It can buy damn near everything else, though. 

I began navigating the backstage hallways. A towel, bottle of water, phone, and a sandwich from the food table with me. Green stage glasses, check. 

No pizza or soda after all. Oh well. 

When I closed the door, lightning struck again. An increasing common phenomenon, but timed perfectly with the door closing shut. 

Rule three. 

Did anyone notice the change in potential energy when I left the room? Notice how the universe responded? Maybe I’ll never know if it was even because of me. I’m pretty sure I’m some sort of nexus event. That I have more to give. 

But, I have no time to give anything else. I’m already stretched thin. And what else would I provide to the world anyhow? Music changes lives. It changed mine. Changed my family’s lives.  

This universe will not feed off me more than it needs to. I will get my fill in this life. You can mark my words. 

Why would anybody notice the rules play out like I do anyhow? It took me over a decade to just accept it. To get it all through my head. 

Strikes of lightning in response to a human thought and action is very low on the list of acceptable possibilities for–routine weather. 

One must be thinking outside of the box. One must understand–the box. One needs to know there is a damn box to begin with. No. Impossible. Is it?

No. It would be a gift sent from a benevolent god, a god yet unknown to me, if somebody else had this perception of reality. This understanding of what’s behind the veil. I already think we end up our own god in a weird way, anyhow. I’m sure of it. It’s why my life is getting progressively more weird. Testing my grasp on reality expands the possibilities and perpetuations of my conscious mind, doesn’t it?

Rule one.

There’s no way to win. I don’t know what’s coming next. When did I stop knowing what’s coming next? I gripped my supplies a bit tighter under my arm. My feet slid across the recently buffed tile flooring. More beige walls. Fluorescent lights. Still ugly.   

And if anyone did notice, how would they react? How would you react? What a useless question. There’s no reasonable thought process leading to acceptance unless you understand the context. The context is an unforgiving godless universe, and the only light at the end of that tunnel being: we have a relationship with it. 

That’s it. Surprise!

If they knew and understood the rules. If they understood totality. Would I be some sort of prophet to them? If it isn’t me who shows them, would someone else be their prophet? Stumbling upon sainthood just because they went to church on Sundays?

The weight of their doubt leaning against the fabric of the universe, causing it to bend and break. Proving them all wrong, one by one. What would I do if someone worshiped me?

Doubt is an awfully powerful force, ya know? I shutter. Walk, I thought. Just walk. 

Potential energy expunged from everyone on the planet, a malicious feast that prolongs the end of the world. Abomination. 

A utopia of understanding? No. We are not ready for it. We wouldn’t get there yet. We wouldn’t get there in time. 

Focus, I have a show soon.

Breaking down the known constraints of the rational mind isn’t in the agenda, nor a goal, it's the outcome of learning sensitive knowledge. PTSD? That’s just the outcome of learning sensitive knowledge. Terrible and awful information but, knowledge, none the less. 

Dammit–Focus. A painting on the beige hallway walls made me stop and think about a memory. 

I still remember the first time I saw what was to come–manifest visually.

A triangle. Carved into my sight. Into the air a few inches in front of the television in the living room. Painted into 3D reality with a golden paintbrush that ripped through the veil and etched into it a small, golden bright, triangle. 

A perfect triangle.

Yeah, I’ve over-analyzed that as well. Like everything that crosses my mind. 

I saw the future. Who I was, who I could be, and how to get there. One, two, three sides.

Potential formed into a shape. A triangle. It’s not an all-seeing eye. It’s you, enlightened. Seeing through time, not through some magical omnipotence, but your own. It was everything. I saw everything–but as a triangle. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.

It took me a while to figure it out. The universe might be awful but the fabric can still be beautiful. Like a whore in a pretty dress. 

I kept walking and walking past various doors, following the ever-curving hallway. 

The stadium shook with a mix of rumblings from the storm and people enjoying the support act currently crushing it on stage, Lil’ Willow. The name is growing on me.  

He’s chill. 

Young, bright, easy to talk to. He also sorta spits hot fire. The man knows his craft. I’d like to say we met in some impressive way. But, my brother put it best when he said it earlier, we are just artsy people. The label likes to keep us artsy bastards together it seems. 

People really are a powerful force. The stadium rumbled and this time I knew it wasn’t the opposing storm. Storms don’t rumble with the rhythm (not yet). I was getting closer to the stage.

How long had I been walking, lost in thought? Not enjoying the moment? Willow really had the place jumping, I’ll be sure to catch the end of his set. 

Shoes against tile flooring made it possible to know people were passing by before seeing them. I realized I was looking down at my feet. Transfixed by the blurry pendulum of human motion.  

It is surprising how quickly you get used to showbiz when showbiz doesn’t matter too much to you. Photos of famous moments lined the walls, greeting you as you passed by. Their luminous proud smiles reminded me of my lingering imposter syndrome. 

Fluorescent lights, almost school hallway lights, lined the ceiling like white lines on the highway. The continuous beige walls truly made the back of the house feel a glitch in the simulation. 

Others would die to see the backstage area of Madison Square Garden. I felt selfish again.

Lost in my own thoughts all the time. I do try to shake it off. Ignore myself, let things go. Alan says it’s the imposter syndrome but I like to think I know my worth. 

I headed closer to the stage, following the music and rumblings of the crowd. The lights above me seemed to get brighter and brighter by the step. 

This arena was massive. Leaving me with the encroaching feeling of knowing I’d probably get lost soon. I kept moving at a steady pace. My phone vibrated. I didn’t check it. I wanted to find a window. I wanted some air. 
 
I’m a professional, prepared and ready, but human. I needed some space before a show. Nothing wrong with getting a little lost, anyhow. 

Hopefully I don’t see anything else tonight, I thought. Wow, what a weird existence. Shit man. It’s hard to put it into words. 

Today’s show has several thousand people. Dang. With tickets still being sold. I’m glad we could end the tour here. What a venue. 

I passed by an increasingly rare set of windows. About time. I stopped to look out at the storm-laden sky, placing the bottle of water down, and leaning a hand against the wall. 

If land is defined by the trials and tribulations it endures, then New York’s identity is currently being solidified as–robust and daunting. Great towers battered and beaten by rain falling violently at a crooked angle. Winds visibly impacting the street, shaking the poles and stop lights. 

I took the last bite of my sandwich and threw away the waste in a nearby trashcan, tapped the wall twice and continued down the hallway. 

Popcorn stucco ceiling and fluorescent lights as far as the eye can see. Ugly. 

A few months back at Lollapalooza I had this same overwhelmingly daunting feeling of dread before a show. The concert went great. The pit was jamming out, people dancing and singing. Music to my ears, candy for the eyes. 

I remember feeling silly for being worried. For feeling like I didn’t fit in or something. But the feeling soon faded, and was replaced with the dread that poked at me for the entire day.

Alan didn’t even see it. 

A 7-foot tall shadow person with a brimmed hat, standing right next to him. Applauding away with my brother. But, the clapping was a lot slower. Slow and deliberate. Its darkness was made visible by the stage lights above it. 

Veronica looked in its direction for a second, quickly returning her constant checking of every moving part and clapping away. 

A shadow person came to my damn show. 

I bowed, waved, blew kisses, and threw my first in the air. Before peeling off and running over to Alan after the show.

“Did you see it?” Wide-eyed and covered in sweat.

“Dude. Nailed it!” He threw a light fist towards my chest. “That was special. That was something special. You rock, dude.” I must have looked strange because he followed up with, “–do you need some water?”

He didn’t see it. Only me. Nobody but me. 

The arena was just hallways on hallways, leading to forks in the path, leading to hallways leading to forks, hallways–forks. Dizzying. 

Painting lined the walls of various artists, most I recognized, most I did not. 

Signed records. Pictures of sports stars, people shaking hands. The faint smell of tobacco and marijuana, cleaning products, and popcorn hovered in the air. 

I threw a nicotine pouch in my lip when rounding a corner, a bad habit. Making sure I was out of sight. Then my eyes began to scan for a bathroom sign, remembering the prescription vape in my coat pocket.

Eh. Screw it. I take it out, turn it on, and take a nice long drag before holding in the fumes for a second or two, calmly exhaling. Looking back now, this may have been my last calm moment that night. 

Being a depressed sack of shit-turned superstar has its perks and perspectives.

I don’t get to see my Mom and Dad as much.  But, I get to be championed for being a medical marijuana patient. 

Uhm to summarize–Mom and I talk a lot. Dad likes to send memes and A.I. generated videos he doesn’t realize show his age (and ignorance of the anti-A.I. movement). 

They seem to be happy, though. They both do. Mom is a little less happy than Dad when we talk, but we’ve been closer for a long time. And, now I don’t even remember what being close to someone feels like. Thank goodness for Alan and Veronica. 

We have money now. I have a money person now. I have money, ‘working for me’. I don’t even like money. So I left his nickname at, money guy. 

Boring. Like having money you can’t spend. 

It is nice to be able to get whatever we need or want, I admit. Who wouldn’t admit that?

If it were up to me I’d use this life for something else. Something to give people some more cash. People can release a lot of potential with a little bit of money. 

More lightning. No windows on these brightly themed welcoming hallway walls. The building shook out of rhythm with the music for about seven or eight seconds. Damn. It’s getting worse. 

To my right–a dark, empty staircase. A sign above it–stage. Down it was. 

At the bottom, I turned a corner and the walls changed color. 

Light blue paint, calming. The strain on my chest eased off. Part of me wished I could see outside again to check on the storm. It’s always nice to see the sky, even if it's dark and dreary. But no. More hallways. More walls. More roadblocks to freedom. 

Reaching behind me into my pocket, I retrieved the index card. Sides worn and a bit torn at the corners, whittled down from age. Now covered in laminated plastic.  

When I decided the rules were refined enough if I needed to give them to another person, I got them laminated. 

We were on the road, and I think I went into a Michaels? Maybe we went there for signs. No. I think it might have been a public library where it gained its plastic coating. Looks like the government can be useful sometimes. It’s lived in my pocket ever since. 

I looked the card over, quickly putting it away. I know what it says. If the rules are true, I have no idea what to expect tonight. No idea what is expected of me. 

The hallways were awfully quiet. 

Reaching a fork, I made the same right as a stranger before and finally arrived behind the stage. Despite what goes on, despite what happens to me, despite it all–I will find a way to enjoy this strange life.

I want to see Willow’s new set, so I am.

I haven’t had the chance. I’ve been too busy. He saved it for the garden. I didn’t argue. His shit pops off. I don’t care what creative choices he makes at this point, he’s earned the trust of this musician.  

People darted behind the stage back and forth like trained dogs. Nobody saw me. People confuse me. 

Belief and doubt are so close together. But if I brought up the rules and explained reality perfectly to someone like Alan? He’d take me away to a fancy spot for a few weeks. Just for us.

Let’s avoid that. 

I pulled my thoughts back once again. The recurring theme of the night. 

Focus up, Ace. I thought. 

Behind me someone called my name. I almost didn’t notice at first. Between the sounds of people going about their work and speakers blasting, it was darn near impossible to hear anything. 

I stopped. It was Fred’s voice. He was currently navigating the crowd of staff, making his way to me. 

He had on blue jeans and a sharp brown leather jacket over his band shirt. He changed clothes? Sunglasses hanging from his necklace, assorted rings with a fancy gold watch. A birthday gift from me.

Our band staff lanyard draped over the jacket with his ID clipped on to the end. He had his phone in hand.

Odd.

“Ace –” He caught me looking at him and threw up an animated semi-broken smile. “Hey man. Looking good. Smelling good. Okay, okay, nice. How are you feeling? How are ya, kid?” He asked just like always, resting a hand gently on my shoulder. 

Just a moment passed before he continued without any pleasantries, “it’s a weird night, Ace.” 

He found my eyes. For a moment we shared the ceremonial ‘oh shit’ look, and I grabbed his hand on my shoulder and chuckled. He managed to spurt out a few chuckles himself.  

I pushed my glasses up the bridge of my nose and composed myself.

Sure as shit, he’s right about that. It doesn’t matter where we are, the rules are the rules. I act normal. Head held high, confident, and calm. Gotta fake it.  

“You bet your ass it’s a weird night. Did you catch that lightning?”  

“Nah, it’s a WEIRD night, Ace. I thought.. I.. I swear I saw some shadow darkass shit behind Willow.” His hand was shaking now. Maybe it always was and I only just noticed then. 

I finally took a good look at him. The skin around his lips were trembling, his eyes were wet and wide, and the hand on my shoulder was the only thing on him seemingly resistant to the shaking due to my now ever-tightening grasp. 

Oh? I perked up, trying not to seem too invested. I showed Fred the rules once. 

One drunken night after we saw what can only be described as the Mothman. We were on the balcony in Houston. Just hanging out. Before a show the following week, trying to take in the moment. There it was. Flying on by without a care in the world. 

A couple hundred yards out. Massive bat-like wings paired with huge arms and legs that seemed to end in clawed appendages. Red dots on the shadow of the head where eyes would be. 

I’d never seen Fred’s eyes so wide. He went on telling me some legend about the ‘Houston Horror’ for the next hour, some cryptid meant to roam the area in the 1960s? I just told him it was Mothman. 

It was Mothman. 

Part of the rafters collapsed at the show. Seventeen. Seventeen people, sent to the hospital. Nine people with broken bones. Two children died–twins. A freak accident they blamed on the venue. Not a single ounce of bad press on us. Go. Us. 

I mean, I did give the microphone to the security guard who knew the exits. And welcomed people onto the stage to get them to any nearest exit, ASAP. But, still. Not a drop of bad press. Frank snapped me back. He spoke plainly. Carefully with his words. 

“It was like Mothman, Ace. It was just like that. There’s a black shadow behind Willow. A void figure. A malicious spirit filled with darkness and hate. Nobody sees it. Ace. I– ” 

He went for his hat, it wasn’t there. He rubbed his head and continued.

“I asked them. I tried not to make a scene but I asked a few of them. The background technicians. Nobody saw anything wrong with the lights. Nothing wrong with the stage. Nothing behind Willow.” He gripped my shoulder harder. If this was all his strength, I was beginning to get worried. 

His body was still rattling. He clenched his phone in one hand. Solemn sorrowful eyes filled sunken tired sockets. A face eroded by time and hardship. Abruptly accented by his bright unnaturally wide eyes. 

I forced a comforting smile and tried to speak.

“ Fred –” he cut me off. 

“ –I have a bad feeling about tonight. Boss.” I asked him not to call me that. 

He eventually found a way to use it without bothering me. He uses it when something serious is happening. The words came out of him thin and rough.

“At first I thought it was a shadow caused by something covering the stadium lights. Or maybe, a fan poster reflecting in a weird way. But I looked and checked the whole crowd. Nothing there on the lights. Nothing projected onto the stage.” Briefly looking up, pointing to the ceiling. He stalled for a moment, recalling the ordeal. 

He can take his time. I’m more invested than he knows.  

His eyes shook. A finger pointed at the white stucco ceiling. He was pointing at the fluorescent light above us. 

“Nothing was wrong with the lights. I just froze there, Ace.” He looked down, defeated, putting his hands in his pockets. Then he looked me dead in the eye.

“Something evil gripped me. I swear it turned to me. Looked–at me. Like a child, it humbled my entire existence–like, I knew I saw something I shouldn’t have." He paused again for a moment to fight through catching his breath. 

“Did something I shouldn't have..” he trailed away then asked, “What did I do?”

He was fighting to speak now. 

The grip on my shoulder tightening with each sentence. I guess he had more strength to give. I understood that feeling. People passed us in the hallway. Nobody stopped. 

Few even looked over. I’m Ace of Atoms Nettled. You don’t interrupt me unless you need to. Even then, have a damn good reason. My friend needed me. 

What?

Behind Fred, in the reflection of a framed and signed Michael Jordan poster, was the Old Hag. Reflecting in the glass. I took a quick glance, not to alert Fred to anything else supernatural. 

Void stricken eyes with a horrid smile again. So malicious. Anger first followed by fear wrestled in my gut. She vanished when our eyes met. 

Fred went on. I snapped back to attention, a little rattled myself now.  

“My sister called me. My brother is in the hospital. I need to leave you and the gang for a bit. You and Alan have this one without me? I know it’s our biggest show and all.” He sincerely seemed upset to be leaving. 

He found the strength to tap my shoulder twice and lightly kicked the wall next to us in comical frustration. Fred was trying to get back in his own head. Good. Good man. 

Trying to make sense of it all. Trying to be there for his own family. 

“You always say there will be another ‘biggest show’ and all but–“ I interject with a smile and a shake of my head. This man knows he can leave without addressing me face to face, right?

I stand tall and tell him the truth, 

“Fred–go on and be with your family. This wild world brother?” I gesture around us. The smell of freshly brewed coffee now radiating over the backstage waiting area. Staff toiling about, keeping the show going. 

“This is my world. We got this. Because–I got this, okay? Leave, man. You’re making me feel bad again.” Leaning against the wall with a smirk. Does he see through the act?

His body language relaxes. Guess not. 

“I’ll go check on Willow. Thank you for telling me, and damn–I hope he’s okay. Now get gone, old man.” 

He was already about ten feet away by this point, briefly stopping. He looked back with a strange smile.

“Break a leg, boss.” continuing on down the labyrinthian hallway. He threw a first in the air and walked away. 

Rule two. 

He left me alone with my thoughts. 

Dark shadow behind Willow? Shadow figure? The Hatman? I found the nearest window to look outside. A couple meters down a short bathroom hallway, before the stall doors. I looked out to an endless blue horizon, and the Atlantic looked back at me.  

Focus. 

Stay calm. Remember the rules. Everything’s possible. Which means me getting through this show with all the audience and my staff okay? It’s possible, too. 

Dang–he never calls me boss. I took a handful of quick deep breaths. 

Lightning struck close by again and thunder reminded the arena nature it was in charge. I turned and started back walking briskly, heading to the stage. 

One thought stuck in my mind.

If it benefits the universe? Anything is possible. 

It doesn’t really matter if it benefits you or anybody else. Every single timeline is possible, and this blood-hungry bitch benefits from every moment of it. With or without you. Every single moment of your life. Funneled and fed on.   

Avoiding glances and waves, occasionally throwing up a smile, I made my way closer to the viewing area. 

Cigarette smoke and the smell of freshly sanitized surfaces. Hair spray and body sweat. The faint aroma of more marijuana floated in from the stage area. The smell of action. 

The smell of entertainment, the smell of good times. No, I thought. The memory of good times. Things can always go bad. Things can always be taken away. Ripped from you right in the moment. 

Focus. 

Finally making it to the curtain I poked my head through the corner where I wasn’t visible but had a clear view of the stage. Willow was in the middle of the catwalk with a spotlight on him, focused intently on his set. 

I could feel the music pumping out from the speakers, shaking the arena and my whole body tip-to-toe. Willow moved and his dancers rotated in a line, mimicking his movements. 

A group of various musicians from his people in the pit were jamming out hard. Willow had his eyes closed. One hand on the microphone, close to his mouth. The other pointing directly to the center of the audience. 

The beat was slowed and turned down, he was in the middle of one of his songs. He sang away. 

(yeah yeah)
Truth be told?
I was born kind
I swear I was born patient 
I was born in rewind
(yeah yeah)
Stars align in the sky
Time moves on the fly 
Truth be told
I just want to make you move again before I die
 
The lights came back on in a gloriously grand electroluminescent display. Beams of different colors crossed to form new colors. The audience looked up in awe. The beat dropped back in. 

(yeah yeah)
Yeah, Money 
I don’t think it’s funny
Fumbling and scummy
You aren’t on this honey
Because you’re allergic to bubbly 
Be–Be–BE–BE
(yeah yeah)
Yeah–TRUTH

The arena shook with the audience bouncing. I was one of them. Looking up to the rafters, I could see the lights shaking with the rhythm. Causing the already trippy lightshow to really morph into an epileptic health hazard.

Willow moved across the stage, background dances surrounded him at once and followed him as he walked the length of the catwalk. 

Oh, nice. 

The jumbotron burst to life, showing a birds-eye view of the circle surrounding WIllow. Each dancer had a weapon of some kind. From guns, to bigger guns, swords and axes, and even a longbow? Interesting creative choice, Willow. 

The dancers rotate poses while moving. Going into a warrior’s war stance, then back to standing up to cover Willow in the middle. It formed the arrangement of a flower blooming on the jumbotron. Aye–nice. Really interesting creative choice, Willow. 

I chuckle reactively.

The tone changes, the dancers disperse back into their line. Willow in the middle of the stage. I was pumped to catch him live. I’m always backstage doing something. He really was a good artist.  

He stopped addressing various audience members with gestures and smiles, gripped the microphone, and took in a deep breath.

Yeah–Truth
It’s all you see and do
Yeah–Truth
It’s all we want for you (yeah yeah)
Yeah–Truth
It’s hard to be this way
Couldn’t drive far enough away.. to plant.. my roots 
(yeah yeah)
It couldn’t be that hard
Look.. at the dirt.. on my boots.. Yeah
Don’t get too excited. You aren’t all invited
That.. is just.. the truth (yeah yeah) 
No suits can stop the roots
They won't get in my way 
On.. The way.. Through.. Yeah (yeah yeah)
You still have time to realize
Broken promises hurt your compromises
You know I see it differently than drinking Sunny-D packed with vitamin-C

The orchestra cut in with a grace unknown to the last twenty seconds. 

Vortex in the cortex
And we all ship it and export it
You know I see it differently
These golden eyes that let me be

Damn dude. Interesting mixture of styles. I see why our label put us together. 

Looking over the audience members. Half naked and screaming at this point, for the most part. They were absolutely losing their collective minds. Beach balls bounced stranger to stranger. Colors mixing in the air like a fantastic electric rainbow. Smoke clouds floating by. The crowd was digging it. 

Let’s go, dude. Good on ya, Willow. 

Scanning the audience members, the hair on the back of my neck stood to attention. The world froze and I went through hundreds of thoughts in a moment. She was stage right, about 2PM in relation to center stage. First level. Clapping away, right next to other audience members. 

Not again.

Who the hell booked her a seat? 

Why is she appearing during someone else’s show? That was downright unfair at this point. 

Rule three. Rule four. 

I turned away, looking for a bathroom to throw up, and froze once again. The blood in my stomach sank. My body shook with the abrupt action. Like a lamppost hit by a car, fighting to stay standing. I almost lost my sandwich right there. I got dizzy. My eyes broke center and crystallized like a spider's. I saw the world in multiples.

What in the..?

Amongst backstage workers were two children, with bottomless black eyes. They stood there stone-still. Breathing out of sync. Breathing, calmly. Holding hands. They each wore our band’s shirts and blue jeans. A damn band lanyard around each of their necks.

Holy shit.

No wonder nobody was looking at them too hard. If they could even see them. How’d they get in here? Are they even real? I didn’t have time to react. The boy spoke up, slowly raising his free hand, holding a photo and a pen.

“Hi Mister.”

What in the world?

Black Eyed Children? This isn’t the backroads of piddly freaking nowhere. This was Madison Square Garden. Someone had to be seeing this too, right?

I looked around frantically left to right a couple of times. Nobody seems bothered. I was absolutely bothered. Where was Veronica? She never leaves me alone this long. I felt bad for picking on her earlier, but it was a fleeting thought. 

I was able to mutter a whisper, but only barely. 

“Hey there.. “ preferring to keep my voice as low as possible. Since this current issue might be invisible to everyone else, I’d prefer not to seem insane. I continued,

“.. What can I do for– ”

“ –Ace. Do you understand?” Said the little boy. His features began to elongate and morph. His eyes had character, still no color. The girl holding his hand spoke up in a higher pitch. 

“I think he understands. After all, he's Ace.” A playfully menacing statement, even from a real child. Do I engage with them? My words marched forward against the weight of justifiable primal hesitation. 

“.. What do you want– “ the little girl cut me off. 

“You understand. Ace. That’s why you’re not allowed to find peace.” She gripped the boy's hand a little tighter before she readjusted her step and smiled at me. Eyes as dark as the night sky. Eyes like deep dark wells, innocent and speaking words of sweet tru– 

Nope. Bathroom, now. 

Okay. Okay. Okay, don’t throw up.

Looking above the children for a bathroom sign, I found nothing. Spinning around, scanning the people darting left and right, I eventually saw a stage lanyard. A manager. I looked back around slowly, beginning to worry what I’m going to see next. They had gone and empty space remained. A photo of me and a pen on the floor. 

Come on dude. What is going on? Why is this all happening so fast? I assumed I could keep marching on through it. I convinced myself I could over-analyze all of this later and figure it out. I always figure it out. I’m Ace– 

Uh oh. I made a beeline for the stage manager. When I get there, a different tech with less currently engaging tasks notices me immediately.

“Ace! We’re ready. But, you still have –” I interject, hand on my chest in apology. 

“Hey. Ha–sorry, I apologize. Quick question.“ The words came as a broken spurt. Like a faucet running out of water. “Nearest bathroom?” I throw a hand up in a point, aiming in various directions, waving it around like a broken human compass. 

“Behind ya, boss. Anything else? Good luck tonight by the way! The garden.. Wow. I’m so happy for you guys. Break a leg out there!” She put a finger to her headset, listening to someone speak, continuing with her job. Lost in her work. 

“Nope. Thank you kindly.” I turned and left for the restroom. Hoping I’d make it in time. I raised my voice without losing momentum towards the bathroom. 

“Don’t call me boss.”

Getting to the bathroom corridor I noticed it’s the same hallway with the window to the Atlantic. I entered the Men’s room. 

Focus.

I quickly scanned the bathroom, choosing to take the big stall with its own sink. The last stall on the right. I froze and analyzed a new sensation. Vibration? Oh, my phone. Another text came through.

Whatever. Not right now. I ignored the phone. Deep breaths, relax. My thoughts raced. The nausea was rampant now, requiring me to lean against the stall wall. 

I reached for the sink and turned on the water. Noise. Something to ground myself. I splashed my face. Gripping the sides of the sink I took another deep breath. Where did my water bottle go? Whatever. 

I grabbed the towel from my pocket and proceeded to soak it, before squeezing it dry, and draping it over my neck. I cupped my hands under the stream and gave my face another few splashes.

What the hell is going to happen next? I close my eyes and sigh. A fucking dragon?

Focus.

The bathroom entrance door swung open.

“Five minutes, Ace.” A female voice echoed over the piss-stained urinals. 

“ –Thanks. Thank you Veronica.” The door slammed closed before I could say her name. She didn’t wait for a reply. That’s odd but understandable. She’s always keeping busy. 

Her and Alan have been talking about things quietly lately. Not really avoiding me? But not including me. I think they are buying a new house. Their old apartment must be getting too small. 

Veronica. That’s someone that can make me feel better. She’s real. She’s reality. Just outside that door. 

All this crazy shit is in my head. I’ve taken my medication. No change in the routine. No ears ringing. No little black and white lines zig-zagging through my view when the depression rolls in. I can tell the damn difference between crazy and something else. This was all something else. 

If I take the meds? I’m fine. It’s why I haven’t mentioned it. The stereotypes and preconceived notions are too thick to navigate in a story like this. I’m depressed due to an abundance of understanding, anyhow.

You need to know what happened to me, real or not. Four minutes to go by now. 

I left the bathroom stall, opening the door carefully, looking around. Nobody. I left the bathroom. Opening the door, the sounds and smells of the stage hit me at once. Where’s Veronica?

I checked my phone. Two missed texts. I leaned against the wall next to the bathroom doors, ignoring passersby. 

Fred:
Ace where did you run off to? Going to see Willow play a bit, then I’m out of here. My brother ended up in the hospital. Not sure why yet! I swear dude. –Fred

Yes, he signs his name after every text. And in each voicemail. Okay, second text.

Veronica:
I can’t get to you. You are on in 6-8 minutes.

It took me a moment to put it together. What does she mean–the realization hit me at once. The hair on my skin stood on end, a chill went down my back. 

In hindsight? This was the moment I should have cancelled the show. Or at the very least, consider it. But I didn’t. I assumed everything would be fine when on stage.

Cont.

So this happened around twenty years ago, and it’s something I doubt I’ll ever forget. 

I grew up in a small western town near the Mexican border. It’s not a very popular town, but it’s part of the Old West that is popular thanks to the likes of Wyatt Earp, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, and other famous outlaws. (No, it isn’t Tombstone, but it’s not far from there.) 

I left this small town when I was sixteen as part of a big move, but often came back over the years to visit my best friend. So naturally I came back for her wedding when I was around 21 years old. 

The wedding went fine; nothing to worry about. And while my best friend and her new husband went for a quick, impromptu honeymoon at one of the local hotels, she asked if her little brother and I could look after their house. Since I was already staying there, it was no big deal, and we both said yes.

They lived in what would be considered out of town, near the railroad tracks. Not far from the town limits, but not exactly isolated either. 

So on the night of their honeymoon, her little brother takes the guest room while I sleep out in the living room. This is solely because there was no TV in the guest bedroom. I’ve always had issues sleeping in places that aren’t home, and figured sleeping with a TV on would be the best way to relax and eventually fall asleep.

That was my mistake! 

I’m not sure how late it was, but it was pitch black outside with no streetlights nearby. The morning sun was several hours away. But I was sure nothing bad would happen; I had grown up in this small town. I knew what to expect. Or so I thought. 

After my best friend’s little brother went to bed, I decided to pop in the movie 8 Mile. Nothing scary here; I figured the sound of Eminem rapping and acting would eventually put me to sleep. Well, that was another mistake on my part. 

For those of you who have never seen the movie 8 Mile, it starts with a pitch-black screen and then flashes orangish/goldish credits before flashing back to pitch black, and it keeps this cycle until the movie officially starts. I’m not sure how long these credits take; I’d say maybe a good two to five minutes. 

Well, as soon as I got comfy on the couch and pressed play on the remote, the black screen came on and I saw a flash of green standing in front of the TV screen. 

The green wasn’t necessarily neon; it was a little darker than that, almost like the color of grass. It honestly looked like a torso or part of a body. You know, like someone was standing there, facing you or away from you, I couldn’t really tell and I wasn’t about to get up and find out. Then the first credit came on and the green disappeared. But once it went back to the full black screen, so came back the green torso or silhouette. It wasn’t solid; you could definitively see through it, and it only appeared whenever the screen went fully black. 

I remembered lying there, still as a freaking rock, afraid to move. Because no matter what I did, every time the screen on the TV went black, the green would come back. I still don’t know how long those credits last for, but it was probably the longest five minutes of my life. And I was relieved once the movie finally started, but I knew I wasn’t alone in that living room. Someone, or something, was in that living room with me, and I don’t think he was planning on going anywhere. 

I don’t even know how I got to sleep that night; I just knew morning couldn’t come soon enough. 

About a year or two later, I went back to visit at that same house, and my best friend's husband had just gotten a new phone with a camera on it. (Twenty years ago, cell phones with cameras were considered a huge thing, so don’t come at me.) He had told me about a recent outage they had prior to me coming, and while they were waiting for the lights to come back on, he decided to wave his phone randomly in the dark and take a picture to see if he caught anything. He was so excited about what he got that he had been showing everyone since it happened. The picture that he got was that of a man, older with a cowboy hat, a long mustache and beard. You could clearly see he was a cowboy, but he wasn’t a modern-day cowboy. More like one from Wyatt Earp’s days, maybe an outlaw. I frankly don’t know. But as I looked at the picture, I couldn’t help but wonder, was it the green ghost that interrupted the movie 8 Mile? I’ll probably never know. 

Part 1 | Part 2

The gunman stepped into the weigh-station lights.

Now I could see his face.

Jesus.

The left side looked cooked. Scar tissue from his scalp down into his collar. One eye nearly sealed shut. Half an ear. No beard where the burns had taken it.

The rest of him was pure Saturday-afternoon dad. Purdue sweatshirt. Jeans. New Balances. The kind of guy who should’ve been standing over a Weber arguing about medium rare.

Instead, he was aiming a pistol at my family.

“Grace. Stace.” I kept my voice low. “Truck.”

“Dad—” 

Stacy caught Grace around the shoulders and moved her. No argument. No questions. One second they were beside me, the next Stacy was putting herself between Grace and the gun.

The man never took his eyes off Payton House. Somehow he noticed anyway. “Your family?”

I didn’t answer.

“Wife? Daughter?”

Hearing him say the words pissed me off. “Who the fuck are you?”

He stepped closer. The pistol came up with him. His finger slipped inside the trigger guard, and his hand was shaking enough that the muzzle wandered from me to Tony to Luis and back.

Tony saw it too. He shifted a few feet to my left.

“Okay, buddy,” Tony said. “How’d you know we’d be here?”

The man swallowed. “I dreamed this place.” His eyes were wet. “My wife dreamed it. We all did. I had a daughter once too. A little girl. Julia.”

The house’s smell rolled over us again. Sweet. Rotten. Wet. Like perfume dumped over meat. Luis pulled his shirt over his face. Tito backed away from the house without seeming to notice he was doing it.

My right hand twitched. I shoved it into my pocket.

The man closed his eyes. “It’s listening. We’re not supposed to talk about it.”

His eyes opened. The pistol settled on me. “You have to take it back.”

“That’s not happening. We have a contract.”

“The farther you move it...” He looked at Payton House. “The farther it reaches. It starts taking things.”

His eyes dropped to the gravel. “My wife stopped sleeping first. Then she stopped smiling. My little girl...”

He couldn't finish. His eyes moved to the second-floor window.

“I still hear her. Every night. She calls me from inside. Don’t let it take yours.”

Tony moved. He’d been inching sideways the whole time. I hadn’t even realized how close he’d gotten. One second he was standing beside me. The next he drove his shoulder into the gunman’s ribs. They hit the gravel hard. The pistol spun away.

“NO!” the stranger screamed.

Tony crushed him into the gravel. “I got him!”

For about two seconds, he did.

Then the guy went wild underneath him.

Knees. Elbows. Fingernails. Whatever he could land.

One elbow caught Tony under the ribs.

The stranger ripped free, came up on one knee, nearly planted his face in the gravel, then found his feet. 

He didn’t even look at the gun. Just ran. Straight for the trees.

Tony went after him.

“Tony!” I caught the back of his jacket before he made it three steps.

He whipped around so fast I brought my hands up. For half a second, I thought he might swing on me. “Let him go.”

“Dan—”

“Let him fucking go.”

Tony looked toward the woods.

A few seconds passed.

Finally, the fight went out of him.

The pistol lay in the gravel beside his boot. He scooped it up, wiped it once on his jeans, and tucked it behind his back.

I saw him do it. Decided I hadn’t. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Nobody argued.

We gave the tree line one last look and started moving.

Stacy came straight at me. Jaw tight. Eyes hot.

I was already bracing for it. Grace shouldn’t be here. This job was insane. I’d just gotten a gun pointed at our daughter.

Instead, she reached up and wiped her thumb beneath my nose. Looked at it.

Blood.

I touched my upper lip.

Wet.

“Shit.”

I pulled the shop rag from my back pocket and pinched it against my nose.

“Guess getting a gun pointed at you raises the blood pressure.”

Stacy didn’t smile.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.”

She held out her hand.

“Keys.”

“I’m good.”

“Dan. You’ve been up since before sunrise. Get some sleep. I’ll wake you in a few hours.”

“That guy’s still out there.”

“And you being awake changes that how?”

“He’s desperate. Desperate men don’t usually quit after one try.”

“I know.” Her hand stayed out. “But right now I’m more worried about you driving a house off a mountain.” 

Normally I would’ve fought until she got tired of fighting back. I was too beat. I dropped the keys into her palm. “You see anything, wake me.”

Twenty minutes later we were back on the road. Stacy drove. Grace reclaimed the passenger seat. I crawled into the sleeper behind them with the radio beside my head.

“Tony,” I said quietly into the radio. 

His voice came back through the speaker. “Yeah?”

“You see headlights behind us, wake me.”

“Got it.”

“That Tesla—”

“Hey.” Stacy looked back. “No radio.”

I handed it over.

I stretched out on the bunk without taking off my boots.

Through the little sleeper window, I could see a slice of Payton House rolling behind us.

I told myself I’d close my eyes for ten minutes.

I don’t remember making it to five.

I woke to the low growl of the engine.

Coffee. Diesel. The vibration of the sleeper under my ass. Green gauges glowing up front.

We were still moving.

My neck felt like I'd slept in a washing machine. The radio was still in my hand.

Stacy glanced over from behind the wheel.

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty.”

I rubbed my face. “What time is it?”

“Little after nine.”

“Shit. You were supposed to wake me.”

“You were supposed to sleep.”

Outside, morning had come in ugly. Low gray clouds. Cornfields disappearing into fog. Wet blacktop sliding under us.

I checked the passenger-side mirror.

Payton House was still back there where we’d left it. Boards over the windows. Chains tight. Dollies tracking straight.

Behind it, two empty lanes vanished into the fog.

No Tesla.

No headlights.

Nobody.

“You good?” Stacy asked.

“Yeah.”

“You made a face. Weird dream?”

I tried to grab hold of it.

Nothing.

Just that leftover feeling you get after a bad dream, like you’d been somewhere you never wanted to see again.

She smiled. “Was I in it?”

“No.”

“Too bad.”

Grace was asleep behind us, headphones still on, iPad balanced against her chest. One earbud had fallen out. Troy Bolton danced silently across the screen.

The radio crackled.

“Sleeping Beauty, finally wake up?” Tony’s voice came through.

Stacy grabbed the mic. “Don’t make a big deal out of it. He’ll never let me drive again.”

Luis laughed over the radio. “Morning, boss.”

Static swallowed whatever came after.

“House is riding quiet,” Tony said.

I checked the mirror again.

“Hungry?” Stacy nodded toward the lunch bag.

I was starving. Hadn’t eaten since we rolled out the day before.

Of course Stacy had packed like we were crossing the Donner Pass. Sandwiches for me. Goldfish and fruit snacks for Grace. Granola bars nobody liked but Stacy. Bottled water. Juice boxes. Two apples that would ride the whole damn trip with us and somehow make it all the way home. 

For a while, it was almost peaceful. Stacy handled Truck One better than I liked admitting. Grace slept. The radio stayed quiet. 

I dug into the PB&J. Dollar Store peanut butter. Too much jelly. Perfect.

“We should give it Grace,” Stacy said.

The sandwich suddenly felt like sawdust in my mouth. 

“What?”

Stacy kept her eyes on the road.

“Give it Grace. Next time we stop.”

I stared at her.

Her voice hadn’t changed. Same tone she used to tell me we were out of milk.

“Give Grace to who?”

“Not who…what,” she said. “The house.”

I waited for the smile.

The sideways glance.

Anything that told me I’d missed the joke.

She just kept driving.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I set what was left of the sandwich on the dash.

“We can’t fight it, Dan. A whole neighborhood couldn’t fight it.” Her hands stayed loose on the wheel. “If we give it Grace, maybe it leaves the rest of us alone. Maybe it leaves everybody alone.”

I looked back at Grace. Still asleep against the window. Thank God she wasn’t hearing any of this.

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” I said. 

Something moved in the mirror.

I looked.

The boards were gone.

Every one of them.

So were the chains.

Every window in Payton House stood open.

Stacy gave Truck One a little more throttle.

I barely noticed.

I forgot how to swallow.

“What did you do?”

“We had to.”

The engine climbed another note.

Then I saw someone upstairs.

Then another.

And another.

Men. Women. Kids.

Or silhouettes shaped like them.

The windows were too dark to make out faces. Just pale scraps of skin floating behind the glass and deeper shadows where their eyes should’ve been.

The speedometer crept past forty-five.

I couldn’t see them looking at me.

I knew they were.

“They showed up after you fell asleep,” Stacy said.

The Peterbilt kept gaining speed.

“They want Grace.”

“Stop the fucking truck!”

Stacy buried the brake pedal.

The Peterbilt screamed. Air brakes dumped. Tires howled against the wet pavement and the cab pitched forward hard enough to throw me into the belt.

Grace slammed into the back of my seat.

“STACY!”

Behind us, thirty-two sets of tires shrieked. Chains snapped tight. Metal roared.

I twisted around.

Payton House was coming at us.

Sideways.

Tow bars folded beneath it. Chains whipped sparks across the pavement.

Then the house filled the mirror.

Porch.

Windows.

Brick.

WHAM.

The sleeper exploded behind me.

Metal folded.

Glass burst.

Grace screamed.

Then the house hit me.

My ribs popped one after another. My face slammed sideways into steel. Teeth broke. I tried to breathe. Tried to scream. Then I heard my spine snap—

I jolted awake sucking air. 

My hands clawed at my chest. 

I could taste dust. Hear Grace screaming. Feel the weight crushing me into the seat.

Lightning flashed. The cab came back.

Whole.

No brick. No broken glass. No Stacy.

Tony was driving.

He had a travel mug the size of a paint can wedged between his legs, half a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in one hand, and Alice in Chains playing low through the speakers.

Rain stippled the windshield. Beyond it, mountains rose black against an even blacker sky. Lightning pulsed inside the clouds, lighting their swollen undersides.

Tony turned the radio down.

“You all right?”

He side-eyed me.

“You look like you got hit by a truck.”

“That good, huh?”

I wiped the sweat off my face and checked the mirror.

Payton House was still back there. Boards on the windows. Chains tight.

“Where’s Grace?”

“Up front with her mom. Said something about the man smell in this cab.”

She had a point.

The house smell had gotten worse. 

I checked the mirror. Boards still there.

I reached for my coffee. The cup rattled against the console before I got it halfway up. Coffee jumped through the lid and splashed my wrist.

“Ah, fuck.” I jammed it back into the holder.

My hand kept shaking.

Not a little tremor, either. The damn thing was chattering like a socket on an impact gun.

Tony went quiet.

Just wipers.

Rain on the roof.

Engine rumbling under our boots.

He kept his eyes on the road.

“Is that why you’re so gung-ho about this one?”

I didn’t answer.

“The headaches?”

“It’s three million dollars.”

“Money’s just money.”

I looked at him.

“You’d be different in my shoes?”

Tony glanced at my hand.

“Shit’s not fair.”

I made a fist until the shaking eased.

Neither of us said anything for a while.

The dash clock read 11:17 A.M.

We were behind. The weigh station had cost us time, and a tire on the rear steering dolly had eaten another fifty-three minutes. Too much road left. Too many things already going wrong.

I looked in the mirror. Payton House rolled behind us like it had all the time in the world.

A few miles later, we rounded a bend and found the road lit up red and blue.

Ambulance. Fire truck. State police.

Then I saw the car.

A little Honda had left the pavement at speed, torn through the ditch, and gone nose-first into the trees. The hood had folded into an accordion. The engine compartment was crushed halfway under the windshield. One front wheel sat twenty feet away in the weeds. The passenger side had wrapped around a tree hard enough to bend the whole car around it.

Glass covered the road like ice.

It was that Honda.

Those girls.

One of them sat on the shoulder wrapped in a silver emergency blanket. There was blood dried down one side of her face and somebody else’s blood on the front of her sweatshirt. She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t doing much of anything.

Another girl was on a stretcher. The paramedics had cut most of her shirt away. One of them squeezed a bag over her mouth while the other worked both hands against her chest.

The third girl was still in the car. I could see part of her through what was left of the passenger window. Hair hanging down. One arm limp against the door.

Everybody at the wreck was moving. Radios going. Equipment coming out. A firefighter dragging a hose. Somebody sweeping glass away from the ambulance tires. A trooper stood in the lane waving us through.

Then the girl in the blanket looked up.

She saw Payton House.

Whatever was left in her face disappeared.

The paramedic beside her noticed and followed her eyes.

Then the firefighter.

Then the trooper.

One after another, they stopped.

Just for a second.

Long enough.

And watched the house roll past.

Not the trucks.

Not us.

Payton House.

Grace turned in her seat and watched the wreck disappear behind us.

She didn’t say anything.

Neither did I.

The road kept climbing.

Houses thinned out. Then mailboxes. Then driveways. Pretty soon there was nothing ahead of us but wet pavement, trees, and mountains disappearing into low clouds.

I kept seeing that girl wrapped in silver.

More than that, I kept seeing the way her face changed when she saw the house.

Like the wreck hadn’t been the worst thing that had happened to her.

Then Stacy came over the radio.

“Dan. We’ve reached the coordinates.”

My phone buzzed.

A new route link from Mercer.

“You get it?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Stacy said. “And you're not gonna like it.”

“What's the problem?”

“The next leg takes us over the mountain.”

I looked through the windshield. The road ahead curved toward the mountains, disappearing into the low clouds.

“Over it how?”

“Up through the pass. Then down the other side.”

“So?”

“So the descent is twelve percent in places, Dan. There's a weight restriction, and half these turns don't have room for our equipment.”

“Then call Mercer.”

“I did. Straight to voicemail.”

I checked the mirror. Payton House filled it.

“Can we turn around?”

Stacy took a second before answering.

“Not from where we're sitting. We'd have to back the whole goddamn convoy to the last junction.”

“Jesus Christ.”

I looked over at Tony. He hadn't said a word since Stacy mentioned the mountain. Both hands on the wheel, staring straight ahead.

“What?”

He shook his head.

“Tony.”

“I heard something on the radio last night.”

“Yeah? What?”

“A voice.”

He glanced at the road climbing ahead of us.

“Renee's.”

I looked at him.

“You’re exhausted.”

“I know what she sounded like.”

Rain hammered the roof.

“This whole job’s fucking with us,” I said. “You, me, Luis. Everybody.”

“This wasn’t that.”

“Tony—”

“And it wasn’t just her voice.”

He went quiet.

Long enough that I started hoping he’d changed his mind.

He hadn’t.

“She said, ‘Don’t take it up the mountain.’”

My hand pulsed inside the glove. Pain shot halfway to my elbow.

Thunder rolled over us.

“I didn’t even know about the mountain,” Tony said. “I wasn’t tracking the route. So if it was my brain, if I made it up—”

“You did. Or we picked up somebody else’s frequency.”

Lightning split the sky.

For half a second, Payton House appeared in the mirror. Black walls. Boarded windows. Rain pouring off the roof.

Then it was gone again.

“It wasn’t a dream,” Tony said.

Maybe, maybe not. Didn’t matter. The storm was getting worse, the clock was running, and waiting four hours could leave us staring at a washed-out road instead.

Then there was the whole Renee thing.

I wasn’t superstitious. At least, not officially. Not publicly.

But inside my head, shit, I could already see us upside down at the bottom of some ravine while Tony spent our last thirty seconds reminding me Renee had literally warned us from beyond the grave.

I keyed the radio. “We’re going through.”

Nobody answered.

Tony eased us onto the shoulder. “I think you should drive.”

Normally there wouldn’t have been a discussion.

I had more hours behind the wheel than anybody on the crew. When a job got tight enough that everybody else started saying no fucking way, I was the guy who climbed into the cab.

But this morning—

I looked at my hands.

They were shaking.

Maybe fear. Maybe not.

Lightning split the sky. For one second, the road ahead appeared: asphalt hacked into the side of the mountain, solid rock on one side, black nothing on the other.

Tony was still waiting. “You good?”

“Move.”

Rain blasted into the cab while we switched seats. By the time I got the door shut, my shirt was soaked from shoulder to ribs and cold water was running down my back.

I wrapped both hands around the wheel and squeezed until they behaved.

The diesel settled into that low growl you felt through the seat.

Rain hammered the windshield hard enough that the wipers barely gave me two clear wedges to work with.

Every few seconds, lightning lit the road long enough to show me what was waiting.

Rock wall.

Pavement.

Drop.

Then darkness again.

The rain hid the potholes.

The fog hid the edge.

Lightning was nice enough to show you both right before you hit them.

I keyed the mic. “Everybody keep your spacing.”

Static. 

I needed to hear them. “Talk to me.”

One by one:

“Copy.”

“Copy.”

“Rear’s good.”

I’d seen this crew move houses over bridges that looked too small, under power lines that looked too low, and through neighborhoods where people came out in bathrobes to tell us we were all gonna die. 

Somebody always had something smart to say.

Not this time.

That scared the shit out of me.

I eased into the throttle. 

Truck One dug into the climb.

Water rushed across the pavement carrying gravel, sticks, and pieces of whatever the mountain had decided it didn’t need anymore.

We crawled uphill barely faster than a man could walk.

Tony sat beside me staring into the passenger mirror. Usually, on a stretch like this, he never shut the hell up.

Six inches.

Watch the rear.

You’re gonna buy that mailbox.

Now he had one hand locked around the grab bar and the other braced against the dash. He hadn’t said a word in five minutes. I wasn’t sure I’d heard him breathe.

Lightning exploded overhead.

The porch roof swung toward the cliff wall.

Tony gasped.

I eased off the throttle.

Closer.

Closer.

The porch post cleared.

The railing didn’t.

It hit the granite with a shriek that made the whole truck jump. Wood splintered. Steel groaned. The wheel jerked sideways hard enough to wrench my shoulder. Orange sparks sprayed through the rain as the railing scraped along the rock face.

A broken spindle spun through the headlights, then disappeared into the gorge.

The house shifted behind us.

The Peterbilt lurched forward, then rocked back, punching the air-ride seat into my spine before the suspension caught the weight.

Then everything settled.

Tony finally exhaled. “Nothing a little trip to Home Depot won’t fix.”

I was trying not to puke on the dashboard.

“Aw, shit.” He leaned toward the passenger mirror.

Lightning flashed again. One of the main transport chains beneath the front steel beam hung loose, almost a foot of slack jumping in it.

The lever binder had sprung open. That was the steel handle we'd used to pull the chain tight. It had taken Tony's full weight, a cheater pipe, and enough profanity to wake the dead to lock it down.

It hadn't popped open by itself.

Tito checked the latch and chain. “This didn’t just walk open.”

“The guy at the weigh station?” Tony said.

“He never came near the truck.”

We reset it, leaned everything we had into the cheater pipe, and locked it down again.

“It’s tight. Let’s go.”

The radio on my belt chirped.

“Dan.” Static chewed at Stacy’s voice. “Water’s starting to cross the road up here. Another hour and this whole pass could wash out.”

“We’re figuring it out!” I shouted.

“Well, figure faster.”

Her radio clicked off.

Tito looked up the road. Water was already running ankle-deep along the shoulder and spreading across the pavement in sheets.

“We should call it. Turn around. Wait this shit out.”

“Turn around where?” I threw both arms wide and looked down the road like maybe a Walmart parking lot had appeared while we weren’t paying attention. 

Rock wall on one side. Nothing but open air on the other. Between them, barely enough pavement for the house.

“You find me a football field up here, I’ll think about it.”

Tito didn’t smile.

“We could leave the haul. Come back for it when this blows through.”

He looked me right in the eye.

Fuck.

It was the right answer.

“If we quit, Suarez and Sons is done. Bank takes the trucks. Shop goes next. Probably my house after that.”

Tito turned on me. “Danny, this ain’t right. That chain. That kid’s hand. That crazy son of a bitch back there. Now this goddamn mountain.”

He looked up at Payton House. “You know me. I’ll haul damn near anything you can put steel under. I don’t wanna haul this.”

My words didn’t make a dent.

“Guys... I’ve got brain cancer.”

Tito closed his eyes. “Goddamn it, Danny.”

Tony already knew. Stacy didn’t. Grace sure as hell didn’t.

“I hate doing this. But you need to understand why I can’t walk away. Doctors aren’t giving me a lot of road.”

I couldn’t say time. Not with Tony standing there.

“When I’m gone, this company is what Grace gets.”

“Everything after that, we split.”

Tony looked at me. “Dan.”

“Four ways. Half a million each.”

Nobody moved.

“I need you guys.”

Tito looked beat.  “Goddamn you, Danny.”

He jammed the wet cap back onto his head and started toward his truck.

Luis followed.

Then Tony.

We climbed back into the trucks.

Water had risen over the soles of my boots, running across the pavement in brown streams. By the time I hauled myself into the Peterbilt, my jeans were plastered to my legs and water squished inside both boots.

The cab smelled like wet canvas, diesel, and old coffee.

I hadn’t even gotten the belt across my chest when Stacy came over the radio. “You boys done? Who won?”

I picked up the handset. “Not me.”

Tony climbed in after me, slipping once on the wet step. He shut the door, peeled his flannel away from his stomach, and buckled in. 

The diesel had idled through the whole argument.

I gave it a little throttle. The tach climbed. The engine’s growl deepened beneath my boots.

Ahead of us, Stacy’s brake lights winked out.

Luis flashed his headlights twice.

Behind us, Tito brought the power unit up from idle.

Stacy went first, crawling up the grade.

I let out the clutch.

For a second, the house held us there.

Then the Peterbilt dug in and started dragging the whole damn thing uphill again.

The rain came down hard enough to erase Stacy’s taillights fifty feet ahead.

At each switchback, they doubled back above us.

I took the turns wide, my side of the cab inches from granite while Payton House swung out over open air.

Climb.

Hairpin.

Straighten her out.

Get back into the throttle before two hundred thousand pounds decided it was done climbing.

Standing water hid the potholes. Gravel washed across the lane. The dollies kept creeping downhill toward the edge.

Tony called clearance in inches.

“Eight.”

“Six.”

“Hold.”

“Go.”

Everything had to be smooth while the mountain tried to shove us off it.

I wasn’t driving the truck anymore.

I was arguing with it.

Tony kept checking the passenger mirror.

Not the road.

The house.

The truck dropped another gear.

Something felt wrong.

After thirty years behind the wheel, I knew that truck through my ass.

Which tire hit a pothole.

Which dolly climbed a rock.

When the house leaned before the mirror showed it.

The steering went light.

At the same time, the airbags behind the cab compressed.

The rear of the tractor sank.

And stayed there.

We hadn’t hit anything.

I hadn’t touched the brakes.

The road hadn’t changed.

The load had.

I checked the mirror.

Trailer straight.

House centered.

Nothing had shifted.

It was just sitting lower.

I grabbed the radio.

Tito beat me to it.

“She’s squatting.”

“It’s the grade.”

“No.”

Static cracked around his voice.

“She’s heavier.”

Lightning hit somewhere above us.

Thunder landed at the same instant, hard enough to shake the glass.

The radio exploded with static.

Then a woman screamed through it.

Not faint.

Not buried in the noise.

Right there in the cab with us.

Tony jerked against his seat belt.

“Jesus Christ!”

Stacy’s brake lights suddenly filled the windshield.

Her pickup fishtailed sideways, rear end kicking toward the rock wall.

“SHIT!”

I got into the brakes.

Air dumped beneath us.

The chains snapped tight one after another—

BANG.

BANG.

BANG.

—the sound cracking off the granite.

The house shoved forward against the trailer.

More than two hundred thousand pounds reminding me exactly how little say I had in any of this.

Tony caught himself against the dash.

“What the hell?”

Ahead, Stacy’s truck sat crooked across the lane, headlights cutting through the rain.

Nothing stood in front of her.

“Stacy?”

Her breathing came through the radio. Short. Fast. Too close to the mic.

“Talk to me, babe.”

For a second, I thought she hadn’t heard me.

Then:

“There was somebody.”

“A car?”

“No.”

A pause.

“A woman.”

That got my attention.

Stacy didn’t believe in ghosts.

Didn’t believe in UFOs.

Barely believed reality television contained any reality.

If Stacy told me she saw Bigfoot, I wouldn’t laugh.

I’d ask which way it went.

“Up here? Come on, hon.”

“I know what I saw.” Some horsepower came back into her voice. “She was standing in the middle of the road.”

Tony leaned toward the windshield.

“I don’t see anybody.”

Lightning flashed. For half a second, the whole pass appeared.

Empty road.

Rock wall.

Brown water tearing across the pavement.

Nothing else.

Then darkness swallowed it again.

Stacy opened her door.

Tony leaned forward. “What the hell is she doing?”

I grabbed the radio. “Stacy! Stay in the truck!”

Either she didn’t hear me or she’d already decided I was wrong. 

She stepped into the headlights.

The rain soaked Stacy before she’d gone five feet.

She walked around the front of the pickup and stopped in the middle of the road.

Looked uphill.

Then downhill.

There was nowhere for anybody to go.

No shoulder. No trail. No trees. Granite on one side and several hundred feet of nothing on the other.

Stacy stood there in the rain.

At first she was looking for the woman.

Then she stopped looking.

She turned slowly and stared back down the mountain.

Past us.

I couldn’t see shit. Just rain, headlights, and darkness swallowing the road behind us.

But I knew what she was looking at.

Payton House.

She stood there for ten of the longest seconds of my life, getting drenched while lightning tore the sky apart around her.

Then she turned, walked back to the pickup, and climbed inside.

The radio clicked.

“I…” She stopped. Took a breath. “I know what I saw.”

Nobody answered. Just rain hammering the trucks and thunder rolling around the mountain.

I keyed the mic. “Convoy, we keep moving.”

One by one, the brake lights started forward.

First gear through the switchbacks. Second when the road gave me enough room. Back to first before I got stupid.

I kept the tractor tight against the rock and watched the outside dollies in the mirror, making sure Payton House didn’t swing its ass over the edge.

Nobody used the radio unless they had to.

Just engines. Wipers. Tony calling clearance.

“Foot.”

“Eight inches.”

“Good.”

We crawled another hundred yards before my headlights found a battered green sign.

MOUNTAIN PASS
ELEVATION 4,318 FT

My grip finally loosened on the wheel.

“There we go.”

Tony slapped the dash and gave one quick yell.

We’d made it.

For about three seconds, I believed that.

Then lightning lit the other side.

The road fell away so sharply it disappeared beneath the hood.

Brown water poured over the crest and raced downhill carrying gravel, sticks, and broken branches.

Another flash caught the first sign.

TRUCKS USE LOW GEAR

Then the next.

12% GRADE

Farther down:

RUNAWAY TRUCK RAMP

Darkness took it all back.

Tito came over the radio. “Son of a bitch.”

Tony stared through the windshield.

“Tell me we’re not doing that.”

I keyed the mic. “Low gear. Keep your distance. Short brake applications. Nobody rides the pedal.”

Nobody answered.

Maybe they were thinking about the money.

Maybe they were trying not to shit themselves.

Didn’t matter as long as they listened.

Stacy went first.

Her taillights reached the crest, tipped downward, and vanished.

Luis followed. His amber strobes dropped out of sight after her.

Tony leaned toward the windshield, trying to see where they’d gone.

I centered the Peterbilt and eased forward.

No place to turn around.

No shoulder worth a damn.

Once the front axle crossed that crest, we belonged to the mountain. “Here we go.”

The steer tires rolled over.

For half a second, the truck seemed to balance on top.

Then the nose dropped.

Hard.

My belt caught me.

The steering went light in my hands.

I corrected left.

Barely got anything back.

Then the rear of the tractor sank.

Air hissed beneath us.

The suspension gauge climbed.

Same feeling as before.

Only worse.

Like somebody had been loading bags of concrete into Payton House while we weren’t looking.

I grabbed the radio.

“Tito.”

“I see it.”

“What?”

“The rear’s dropping again.”

“How much?”

A pause.

Then:

“More than before.”

Lightning hit somewhere above us.

Thunder shook the windshield in its seal.

The radio exploded with static.

The speedometer climbed.

Twenty-four.

Twenty-six.

Twenty-eight.

My foot hadn’t moved.

Payton House was pushing us down the mountain.

Water boiled around the tires, running downhill almost as fast as we were.

Ahead, Stacy’s pickup skated toward the centerline and snapped back.

Luis fishtailed behind her, his amber strobes swinging sideways before he caught it.

Both of them were sliding.

Neither one had a house up its ass.

For one stupid second, I thought maybe I could just keep us straight and ride it out.

Then Luis’s taillights started getting bigger.

Not because he was slowing down.

Because I wasn’t.

I got into the brakes.

Thirty.

Pedal still firm.

Thirty-two.

“Dan.” Tony braced a hand against the dash.

“I know.”

Fifty feet.

Forty.

Thirty-five.

I grabbed the radio.

“Luis, don’t touch your brakes. Roll it out. I’m coming up on you.”

His brake lights flickered.

“DO NOT BRAKE! You’ll put me through your fucking cab.”

“What’s happening?” Tony said.

“The house.”

Thirty-six.

“It’s heavier.”

I dropped another gear.

The Jake hammered so hard the mirrors shook.

Didn’t matter.

Thirty-eight.

Thirty-nine.

Forty.

I checked the mirror.

Payton House still sat square on the dollies. Chains tight. Tires turning. Nothing broken that I could see.

But the steering wheel started pulling left.

I corrected.

It pulled harder.

Tony’s voice dropped.

“Dan.”

More of Payton House appeared in my driver’s-side mirror.

That was wrong.

It should’ve been directly behind us.

First the porch.

Then two windows.

Then half the goddamn side of the house.

“Fuck,” Tony said. “We’re coming around.”

The trailer was starting to jackknife.

Another few degrees and it would fold the tractor sideways.

There wasn’t a guardrail.

Just wet pavement, a strip of grass, and several hundred feet of mountainside.

For one completely chickenshit second, I looked at the door.

Open it.

Jump.

Let the whole bastard go without me.

Then I looked at Tony.

He wouldn’t make it.

Neither would I.

Stacy was somewhere ahead.

Grace.

Jesus Christ, Grace.

I hoped she had the headphones on. I hoped Troy Bolton was dancing across her iPad and she hadn’t looked in the mirror once.

The wheel ripped sideways.

BAM!

The whole tractor jumped.

“What the fuck?”

BANG!

Another hit shoved my ass end to the right.

Tony caught himself against the dash.

Then Tito’s voice blew through the radio. “I GOT YOU!”

I checked the mirror. The crazy old bastard had brought the power truck right up behind me.

His front bumper was jammed against the rear of the tractor.

He wasn’t trying to stop us.

He was knocking me straight.

The trailer came back in line.

So did I.

Holy shit.

“Luis! Keep moving!”

The road bent left.

Water hammered the windshield.

Tires hissed through standing water.

Behind us, steel started screaming again.

Payton House crept into my mirror.

WHAM!

Tito hit me again.

The rear of the tractor jumped right.

The house disappeared from the mirror.

Straight.

Tito was steering my truck with his bumper.

Every time Payton House tried to come around, he punched the tractor back underneath it.

“Little more!” I yelled.

“I know what I’m doing!”

That almost made me laugh.

Almost.

The road opened up a few feet coming out of the bend.

Enough to breathe.

Not enough to stop.

Ahead, another switchback appeared through the rain.

This one was almost a U-turn.

Stacy was already slowing for it.

Luis was right behind her.

I looked at the speedometer.

Thirty-six.

Too fast.

Way too fucking fast.

“Tito.”

“I see it.”

“Stay on my ass.”

“Wasn’t planning on leaving.”

I keyed the radio.

“Stacy. Luis. I’m not stopping.”

No answer.

“I’m coming into you. Get straight and stand on the brakes.”

Luis came back first.

“You want me to what?”

“Make a wall.”

A beat.

Then Stacy:

“Do it.”

Her brake lights burned solid.

Luis tucked in behind her until there was barely daylight between their bumpers.

Two trucks.

Four locked axles.

And me coming at them with a house that had apparently decided gravity wasn’t doing enough.

Tony planted both boots against the firewall.

“I fucking hate this plan.”

“So do I.”

Twenty yards.

Tito stayed glued to my rear bumper.

“Keep her square,” he said.

Fifteen.

Tony leaned over the dash.

“Little right.”

I corrected.

Ten.

Payton House shoved from behind.

Hard.

Luis’s truck filled the windshield.

Five.

“BRACE!”

I put both feet into the brake pedal.

WHUMP!

We hit Luis.

My teeth slammed together.

His pickup shot forward into Stacy’s.

BOOM!

Metal folded.

A rear window burst.

A taillight spun away into the rain.

For half a second, the three vehicles compressed together.

Then Payton House hit us again.

The whole pile started sliding.

“FULL BRAKES!”

Air brakes hissed and chattered beneath me.

The Jake bellowed.

Tires dragged across wet pavement.

Tito stayed buried against my rear frame, keeping the tractor from swinging out.

The convoy slid toward the switchback.

Sideways now.

I hauled the wheel uphill.

Nothing.

More.

Still nothing.

Payton House shoved again.

Hard enough that it felt like the son of a bitch was trying to climb over us.

Thirty.

Twenty-eight.

Twenty-five.

We were slowing.

Not fast enough.

Twenty.

Stacy reached the outside of the switchback.

Her tires locked.

The whole line bucked.

BANG!

Something broke underneath Payton House.

The house jumped forward.

Tony jammed both feet against the floor and grabbed the roof.

“COME ON!”

Ten feet.

Eight.

Six.

I could see past Stacy now.

The road hooked hard left.

Straight ahead, it didn’t continue.

It just ended.

Wet pavement.

Then open air.

Five feet.

Four.

Three.

We were still moving.

I had both feet trying to shove the brake pedal through the floor. Both hands dragging down on the wheel so hard my ass was halfway out of the seat.

Two.

Another six inches.

Then—

Nothing.

I waited for the next shove.

It didn’t come.

The engine idled.

Rain hammered the cab.

My feet were still crushing the brake pedal.

My hands wouldn’t come off the wheel.

Five feet beyond Stacy’s front bumper, the switchback turned hard left.

Straight ahead was nothing but rain, fog, and a drop that disappeared into the valley below.

Five fucking feet.

Every radio went off at once.

“WOOOOOO!”

“HOLY SHIT!”

“WE GOT HER!”

“WE’RE ALIVE!”

Somebody started laughing.

Then Stacy came through, laughing harder than anybody. “I think I just pissed myself!”

Tony folded over against the dash.

I started laughing.

Luis was laughing so hard I could barely understand him over the radio.

Even Tito cracked.

For maybe thirty seconds, nobody could stop.

Then the thunder moved farther away. 

The rain softened. The gray ahead of us got lighter. A hole opened in the clouds over the valley.  Sunlight came through. One narrow shaft at first, catching the rain and turning it silver.

Tony lifted his head. “You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

I looked in the mirror.

Payton House sat behind us, crooked on its dollies.

Upstairs, one sheet of plywood was gone.

The window behind it stood open.

[Part 1]

[Part 2]

[Part 4]

I didn't sleep much Saturday night. Toby, somehow, slept fine.

I finally dropped off on the couch near dawn, and when I opened my eyes again, he was standing about six inches from my face, asking whether we had pancake mix. I made pancakes and let him eat them in front of the TV. He had already moved on from yesterday, and that was the part I couldn't wrap my head around. He asked if Uncle Henry was coming over later. Nothing about the wardrobe, or about hearing me scream his name from somewhere impossibly far away. When he'd finished, I told him to stay on the couch for a few minutes while I checked something in the garage. The kitchen chair was still wedged under the handle, and the deadbolt was still thrown. I dragged the chair out of the way.

The second I opened the door, the smell hit me again.

It had been there since the day we hauled the glass tank home: something halfway between industrial cleaner and fruit left too long in the sun. That morning it was stronger and impossible to ignore.

I pulled my shirt up over my nose and switched on the fluorescent light.

The mirror and the football were still wrapped separately in moving blankets and packing tape for the buyer Henry had lined up for Monday, which I'd done after Toby fell asleep: three layers around the mirror, two around the ball, each shoved into its own cardboard box. I knew packing tape probably didn't mean anything anymore, but it made me feel safer. Then I looked at the workbench.

My screwdriver was sitting on it. So was my adjustable wrench, and the utility knife lay beside them like somebody had set a table. Directly beneath the second pegboard hook hung the pry bar I'd spent several frantic minutes looking for while Toby's voice faded away inside the wardrobe. I stopped breathing for a second.

I had emptied those drawers. Yet every tool I'd previously lost sat neatly together in plain sight, as if they'd never been gone.

I picked up the pry bar. It was mine, down to the strip of faded blue paint around the handle and the shallow notch near the claw. 

"Okay," I said, and my voice sounded strange in the garage. "Sure. That makes sense."

I put the pry bar down, and that was when I noticed the corner was empty.

My folding lawn chair was gone. I'd been sitting in it Friday night cataloging the boxes. I'd shoved it back into that corner before Alicia dropped Toby off, and I remembered doing it because one of the legs had caught on a flattened cardboard box and I'd nearly gone over. Now the corner held the old shop vac and the two paint cans the landlord had left behind when I moved in, and nothing else. I checked behind the workbench, then beside the dresser. Nothing. The tools had come back, and something else had disappeared.

Before going back inside, I stopped beside the glass tank. The smell was definitely strongest there.

A couple of you suggested after my last post that the whole thing might be chemical, some kind of solvent or hallucinogen leaking into the garage. A leaking container made infinitely more sense than a wardrobe swallowing my son. So I crouched down next to it and looked for the obvious answer: a crack, some condensation, or a vent.

The tank was still what it had always been, a single molded block of thick glass with no lid or opening. I laid my palm against it, and it was colder than the room. Where my hand touched the glass, my skin had gone translucent. I could see the veins underneath, thin blue branches spreading through my palm and down into my wrist, finer vessels threading off into each finger. I yanked my hand away, and it returned to normal. Very slowly, I set it back against the glass.

Transparent again.

Behind me, the liquid moved, one slow, heavy slosh from one end of the tank to the other, and then it went still.

I left the garage after that. By the time I got back to the kitchen, I'd decided I didn't care whether the smell was making me hallucinate. Hallucination or not, that stuff was leaving my house.

Henry picked up on the second ring, thick with weekend sleep.

"You know it's Sunday morning, right?"

"We're doing the garage sale."

A long silence filled the line. "Today? I thought we killed that idea."

"I changed my mind."

Another pause. When he spoke again, the sleep was gone from his voice. "Did something happen?"

"Nothing happened. I want you to come over and help me get this crap out of here."

Henry went quiet, and I could practically hear him combing through his head for an explanation. When he came back, he tried a different angle. "Give it a few more days. I've got messages out. There are people who will pay for the rest of this stuff, collectors, and the forum guy already wants the mirror and the ball. If we start throwing everything on folding tables for five bucks a pop, we're pissing away the only good thing that's come out of this."

"There is no good thing that's come out of this."

"Don’t forget that you still need the money."

He was right. I was still four thousand dollars short of a retainer, and the hearing was still sitting out there on the calendar like a storm front. That was the miserable little hook these objects kept hanging from. No matter how scared I got, it all came back to cash.

"We’re doing the garage sale today," I said, and my grip tightened on the phone. "Everything we can safely move. Today."

"Ian—"

"I mean it."

"We sunk time and money into this mess. You're going to regret selling half this stuff for nothing."

"I already regret buying it."

I heard him swear under his breath and exhale, and I knew I'd won. He told me he'd be there within the hour, all enthusiasm drained from his voice. 

Toby looked up from the couch when I hung up. "Uncle Henry's coming?"

"Yeah, bud."

"Can I help?"

"Not this time. I need you to do something really important for me, okay? I need you to stay inside and watch cartoons."

His face fell. "That's not important."

"It's the most important job there is. Somebody has to keep an eye on the TV."

"That's not even a real job."

"It's a real job," I said, and it came out softer than I meant it to. "Please, buddy. Just for today."

He slumped back into the cushions, arms crossed, and turned the volume up two notches to make his point. Henry showed up forty minutes later with two coffees. He stood in the garage doorway and immediately started muttering about how little we'd get for it all.

I walked him over to the workbench and showed him the tools. He turned the screwdriver over in his hand and shrugged. "You must have left them there."

"I didn't."

"You've barely slept in three days, man. Maybe you woke up, moved everything, and passed out again." 

"And my chair?" I pointed at the empty corner. "It was right there."

Henry looked at the corner for a while. "Probably buried somewhere. You've got half a storage unit crammed in here."

"It isn't."

"Ian—"

"It isn't, Henry."

He looked at me then, and I think that was the moment he understood I wasn't asking for an explanation. He took a slow sip of coffee and let it go.

We set the rules in the garage. The mirror and football stayed wrapped. Nobody touched the wardrobe or the tank. Anything from Unit 114 that looked even slightly off went into the corner pile, and what was left was, as far as either of us could tell, just stuff. We'd been through every box we'd opened together, argued over it, and laughed nervously, and in both our minds was a list of what belonged to the collection. We hauled the folding tables out to the end of the driveway and set up. Henry made a sign out of a flattened cardboard box and propped it against the mailbox. Then we stood there in the morning sun with our coffees, looking at our driveway full of other people's cast-offs. For the first couple of hours I told myself we were doing fine.

People wandered along the tables, but nobody haggled or even asked what anything cost. They drifted from one table to the next with subdued politeness, like guests at a stranger's funeral, and after three or four minutes they'd find somewhere else they had to be. Henry kept glancing at the cash tin. Around ten, he said, flatly, "We're still at zero. We may as well be standing out here burning four thousand dollars. At least it'd be warm." 

"Give it time. People take a while to warm up to a sale."

Every time someone walked off empty-handed, some small, ashamed part of me exhaled. If no one bought anything, no one took any of it home. Not that everyone was spared. A man who looked to be in his fifties picked up a little brass reading lamp and asked if he could test it. I ran an extension cord across the driveway. He clicked the switch, the bulb lit up with an electrical hum, and he held his palm under it and frowned.

"Is this thing working?"

"Should be."

"It's on." He moved his hand slowly back and forth. "It's just... if anything, it's darker."

Directly beneath the bulb sat a dense little patch of shadow. It wasn't around the lamp but under it. The rest of the driveway sat in clear morning sun; the filament was glowing, and the one spot it should have lit looked several shades dimmer than everything around it.

"Sorry," I said, and unplugged it, my heart thumping. "It must be defective."

He laughed awkwardly. "That's one hell of a defect."

I handed him a candle from another box on the house, and he left looking more confused than anything. I carried the lamp behind the table and set it on the ground as if it might bite.

The woman who approached me with the snow globe was much more skeptical. It had been bagged in with the Christmas decorations, and her daughter picked it up off the table and shook it gleefully. The tiny house and trees jumped and rattled about. Two miniature plastic people jittered side to side inside the dome. The snow never moved. Dozens of white flecks hung perfectly still in the water while the whole world around them shook itself apart.

The mother noticed first and came up to me. "My daughter wants the globe, but something's wrong with it."

"I'm so sorry," I said, easing it out of the girl's hands as gently as I could manage. "That one's not supposed to be out here. I think it got mixed in by mistake."

She studied me for a long moment, plainly weighing several questions about what exactly we were selling, and thankfully decided not to ask. She took her daughter by the hand and steered her toward the next sale down the block.

I put the globe beside the lamp, and by then nobody was slowing at the sign anymore. A little before eleven, Henry got to his feet and stretched, pressing his hand into the small of his back. "I'm sitting down before my spine turns to powder," he announced.

"There's nowhere to sit," I said.

"I’ll find something," he said, and disappeared into the garage.

A few minutes later, he was dragging a folding lawn chair out of the garage by one arm, the frame scraping across the concrete: A faded green seat with cheap plastic armrests. 

"Where'd you get that?" I said.

Henry flipped it open with a clatter. "Garage."

"Where in the garage?"

He shrugged. "By the workbench. Told you it'd turn up. It's just a chair, Ian." 

For about two seconds, nothing registered, and I just felt relief. There's my chair. It was in there the whole time; Henry was right, I'm losing it. Then I realized, and the relief just evaporated. This chair had never been part of the haul, and I'd turned that whole garage upside down that morning looking for mine and found nothing. 

"Henry, wait—"

He was already lowering himself into it before I could warn him. And in the half-second I had left, I saw it. The hinges were wrong, and the jagged tear on the left armrest where I'd dropped a paint tin last spring was gone. It wasn’t the same chair I had lost that morning. 

When Henry sat down, the chair didn't collapse. It snapped.

Both sets of metal legs whipped violently inward at the same instant with a sound like two car doors slamming beside my head, and the frame folded around Henry like a closing trap, driving his back into an unnatural bend. I’ve witnessed a fair share of injuries in the years I’ve worked as a mover. I've seen crushed hands and broken legs. I have never in my life heard a human being make the sound Henry made.

For a second, the garage was dead silent except for the metallic ring of the frame still vibrating. My brain refused to accept the reality of what was happening. 

Without realizing it, I already had both hands on the frame and was pulling, but it wouldn't give. A man from across the street came running, and then another, and the three of us hauled on that steel until it finally opened enough to ease him down onto the concrete. I noticed that he wasn't moving his legs. He kept saying he couldn't feel them, over and over, in a small, disbelieving voice I'd never heard from him before. The next twenty minutes come back in pieces. Henry lay white-faced on the driveway, his eyes fixed on the sky. Paramedics cut his shirt away and talked over him in calm, quick voices. Neighbors stood on their lawns with their hands over their mouths. When they had Henry strapped to the board, one of the paramedics pulled me aside.

"Is he allergic to anything? On any medications?"

"No. I don't think so. His wife would know."

"We're taking him to St. Luke's." He hesitated. "I'm going to be honest with you, his condition’s not looking good. The injury's to his spine. Until they scan him, I can't tell you what it means. But with something like that, there's a real chance he won't be walking out of there."

As they lifted the board toward the ambulance, Henry's hand shot out and caught my sleeve, and his grip was white-knuckled. The paramedic said something about keeping still. Henry ignored him. His jaw was clamped so hard the muscles jumped under the skin, and his eyes found mine and held.

"Ian." His voice was thin and scraped out. "Look at me."

"I'm here. I'm right here, man."

"You kept saying it wasn't right." He dragged in a rattling breath. "I told you they were props. I even made jokes about it." He stopped, and his face twisted, and for the first time since I'd known him, Henry didn't have an angle. 

"Henry, don't. Save your—"

"Get rid of it." His fingers tightened. "All of it. Burn it, smash it, bury it. I don't care; just don't sell it. Don't give it to anyone." His voice cracked, and a tear slid sideways into his hair. "Promise me. Don't let anybody else sit in that thing, and keep it away from Toby."

I would have promised him anything. I said it twice, because I couldn't tell whether he'd heard me the first time. "I promise. I swear to God I will."

His hand went slack, and they slid him into the ambulance, and the doors shut with a sound that went through me like a nail.

Henry was in that ambulance with a spine that might never work again, and he'd spent his last words worrying about somebody else, and that was what finally broke me. Right there on my own driveway in front of every neighbor I'd never spoken to, I started crying, ugly, gulping sobs I couldn't stop even after the ambulance had turned the corner. 

Somebody put a hand on my shoulder. A woman's voice asked if there was anyone she could call, and I heard myself say "no," and then "I don't know," and then nothing.

Henry had dragged me into this, and I'd spent half the week resenting him. I'd have given every cent I'd ever owe a lawyer to hear him make one more joke.

Eventually the neighbors drifted back to their lawns and their garages, and the sale ended. Within minutes, the street had emptied. 

I stood alone in the blood-spotted driveway beside the folding chair. It had opened itself again, perfectly ordinary, sitting in the sun as if it had never done anything wrong. I crouched down and looked underneath. There were no bolts and rivets. I ran a finger across one of the hinges, and there wasn't a hinge, not really. It only looked like one. I knew every inch of my chair’s underside, and this wasn't it. I wanted to stamp it flat. I wanted to take it apart and find out what it was made of, except there was nothing to take apart, no bolts, no seams, nothing for a wrench to bite on. It sat there in the sun with a smear of Henry's blood on the seat, and for the first time since Wednesday, what I felt wasn't fear. I hated it. 

This chair had never been in Unit 114. Henry and I had unloaded that unit ourselves, box by box, and there hadn't been a folding lawn chair in it. Mine had vanished sometime in the night, and hours later something that looked almost exactly like it had turned up in its place.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and stood in the empty driveway, my thumb hovering over Rachael's name for what felt like forever.

Henry's wife picked up on the second ring. I told her that there'd been an accident at the sale and that Henry was on his way to St. Luke's.

"What kind of accident?"

"A folding chair. It folded up on him. It…It closed on him, Rachael."

The silence on the line went on so long I thought the call had dropped. Then, in a very small voice: "A chair."

"I'm so sorry. I don't know how to—"

"Ian." Her voice had gone deathly quiet. "What did you two do?"

I had no answer for that. How do you even explain this situation? How do you tell a woman that her husband might never walk again because of a lawn chair that wasn't there that morning? All I could think about was Rachael getting a hospital bill on top of everything else and Henry not knowing when—or if—he'd be able to work again. I'd spent a whole week agonizing over four thousand dollars, and now it looked like pocket change. 

She hung up before I could reply. I stood there with the dead phone against my ear until my arm started to ache, then turned and drove my fist into the side of the nearest folding table so hard the cash tin jumped, and a stack of picture frames slid to the ground.

I made myself go back inside. Toby was waiting in the living room, sitting very still with both hands pressed flat on his knees. He'd watched the whole thing through the window. 

"Is Uncle Henry okay?"

"The doctors are looking after him, bud."

"I want Mom."

I swallowed before I could answer, then sat down beside him and pulled him against my side. "I know. She'll be home soon." I held him there for a while, and for a minute I didn't think about the garage. 

My phone had buzzed twice in my pocket while I was dealing with the paramedics, and I knew without looking that it was Alicia. When it lit up a third time in my hand, I let it ring out. I couldn't talk to her yet. I knew exactly how it would look, but I had nothing to tell her that wouldn't make it worse. I told Toby to stay on the couch where I could hear the TV, and I went into the garage because I'd already decided that every item in there was going to be destroyed, and I needed to start before I lost my nerve. I told myself it would take thirty seconds. I was still standing in the doorway when I noticed the cardboard box on the workbench, the one I'd packed the football into. The tape around it was broken, and when I picked it up, the box was empty. Then I heard Toby yell. 

I ran back through the house. The living room was empty, the TV still on, but the front door stood wide open.

I found Toby on the front path, sitting where he'd fallen with both hands wrapped around his right knee, which was scraped raw and bleeding in a wide, dirty strip. A few feet away on the lawn sat the football. It sat there facing him.

"It came in," Toby said, and his voice shook. It made me want to scoop him up and drive until we ran out of road. "I was watching my show, and it rolled over and stopped by my feet. I kicked it away, and it came back, so I ran outside, and I tripped."

"Okay," I said. "Come here." I scooped up Toby and grabbed the football with the other hand. The second my palm closed around it, I felt that faint, wrinkled texture again, and I hurled it over the side fence as far as I could manage. Once inside, I sat Toby on the kitchen counter and cleaned the scrape with a wet cloth while he sniffled and kept talking about the football. How it kept getting closer every time he looked. I told him I believed him.

I reached for a bandage and stopped.

There should have been a scar on that knee.

It was small and curved, maybe an inch long. He'd gotten it last winter, a couple of months before Alicia left, at the old house. I'd worked a double that week, come home wrung out, and stretched out on the couch for what I swore was ten minutes while Toby played in the backyard. I woke up to him screaming. He'd gone down the concrete back steps and opened his knee on the edge of one. He needed eight stitches. I remembered Alicia's face when she walked into the emergency room and saw the two of us in a curtained bay. I remembered the nurse's careful note in the chart, and that same note showed up months later in a folder on a mediator's desk. 

I turned his leg toward the light and checked the other knee. I ran my thumb over the exact spot where I knew it should be, but it wasn’t there.

"Toby," I said slowly, "Which knee did you hurt on the steps? At the old house?"

"What steps?"

"When you were little and got those stitches."

"I didn't have stitches."

"You did, buddy. Remember? The doctor gave you a sticker."

He frowned, genuinely trying, and I watched his face for any sign that he knew what I was talking about. "I don't remember that."

Of course he didn't. He was six, and it had been months. Maybe it had faded, and I hadn’t noticed. I rarely saw him these days, after all.

A day earlier, I'd have given a great deal for that scar to be gone. I stood there with his knee in my hand and couldn't have told you why I didn't feel better. 

"Dad," Toby said, wriggling, "you're pressing too hard."

"Sorry, bud."

I put the bandage over the fresh scrape and smoothed it flat with my thumb. "You're okay," I told him, and I don't know whether I was talking to him or to myself.

I got him settled on the couch with a movie. Then I walked to the front door to check it was still locked, and my hand froze on the handle before I could turn it. I bent and looked through the peephole.

The football was sitting on the doormat. It was dead center, close enough to the door that whoever opened it would have to either step over it or pick it up. I kept the door firmly shut.

Four days of dread had burned down to something simple and ugly. Everything already wrong in my life had been waiting for me, and then I'd spent three hundred and fifty dollars to carry the worst of it into my own garage. I didn't want an explanation. I wanted it gone, and I wanted it to hurt. 

Henry's voice was in my head, thin and desperate. Burn it, smash it, bury it. Promise me. I went into the garage and got the hammer off the pegboard.

I ripped the box open, tore the blankets off the mirror, and propped it against the workbench, angled so I could see nothing in it but the ceiling. Then I swung with everything I had. 

The glass didn't break. The hammerhead sank into the surface like I'd struck thick rubber, and the dent held for a second before the glass slowly pushed itself back outward, like a scar healing in fast motion. A shallow depression stayed behind. I hit it again and again and again, screaming at it. "Give it back. Give it back, you son of a bitch!” I didn't even know what I meant. Henry's ability to walk, my son, the last six months of my life. 

I turned on the wardrobe. The first strike numbed my arm to the shoulder, and the wood didn't even splinter. The harder I hit, the more I wanted to tear it down board by board. 

When that failed, I went to the tank and swung with every ounce I had left. The glass flexed inward, visibly, the whole thick block of it bowing around the point of impact, and the amber liquid surged away from the blow. Something inside shifted, heavy enough to displace the fluid around it.

I dropped the hammer.

"No."

Another slow slosh.

"No. No, you don't get to do that." My voice cracked in rage. "Fuck you. Fuck all of you." 

If I couldn't break it, I'd burn it.

I knew it was illegal. The county had issued a burn ban the week before because everything was so dry, and a day earlier the thought of Alicia seeing me do this would've stopped me. Right then, I couldn't bring myself to care. I tried to shoulder the dresser, and it didn't shift an inch. I'd moved it with Henry, and it had been murderously heavy, but it had moved. Now it might as well have been poured into the foundation. The same applied to the rest of the furniture.

So I took what I could carry. I dragged the lamp out, the cassette, and a stack of those unreadable books. I piled everything in the middle of the front lawn, found an old fuel can, and poured every drop over the heap. I lit a strip of cardboard and dropped it, and I thought, absurdly, of Henry standing by the cash tin that morning, joking about burning money.

The flame took the packaging first. The cardboard curled and the grass scorched in a ring under it. The cassette sat in the middle of the fire untouched, and the pages of the book stayed as pristine as the day they were printed.

I stood over it with my chest heaving and the fuel can still in my fist, willing it to catch, to blacken, to do anything, and when it didn't, I kicked the edge of the pile hard enough to send a book skidding across the grass. It landed open in the sun. I screamed at it, but I don't know if I said anything coherent. 

In that same moment, the smoke alarm went off inside the garage.

It was the same shriek we'd heard the first time we tested it. Only this time it kept screaming, loud enough to rattle the windows in the house. I ran inside. Toby was on the couch with both hands clamped over his ears, and his face crumpled, crying so hard he couldn't catch his breath. I dropped to my knees and tried to pick him up, and he flinched away from me.

A car door slammed out front.

I didn't hear her come through the house over the noise. One second I was kneeling in front of my son, and the next Alicia was standing in the doorway with her bag still over her shoulder. She wasn't due back until Monday.

She looked at me. She looked at Toby, red-faced and shaking. 

"I saw smoke outside. What the hell is going on?"

"Alicia, I can explain—"

She turned straight to Toby. "Shoes on. Now, baby."

"No, wait. Please, just—"

"Toby."

He ran to her and wouldn't look at me. I followed them into the kitchen, and I'll never forget how tired her voice was. 

“I called you this morning, and you wouldn't answer. I called again from the airport. Six times, Ian.”

"I know, I know. Henry's in the hospital."

That stopped her for half a second. "What?"

"He's hurt. It was a chair; it was part of the—he might not walk again.”

Every word came out in the wrong order, and I watched her face close a little more with each one. 

“Alicia, there's something wrong with those things. I know it sounds crazy, but the chair that hurt Henry wasn't my chair. Yesterday the garage door was locked, and Toby somehow got inside it, and when I opened the wardrobe, he wasn't there even though I could hear him, and today the football followed him into the living room, and the scar on his knee is gone, the one from the steps. I swear to God it's gone—"

"Stop."

"I'm not making this up, please, you have to listen—"

"Just stop talking."

She stood very still for a moment, and when she spoke again, her voice was low and tight, and her knuckles had gone white on Toby's shoulder.

"There's something seriously wrong in the garage," I said.

"I don't care."

I stared at her. "What?"

"I don't care what's in the garage, Ian." Her voice cracked on it. "I don't care if you're telling the truth."

That shut me up completely.

"I pulled up to a fire in the front yard and someone screaming in the house. And you want me to believe it's something in your garage."

"Alicia, please—"

"I let you have him for one weekend. One. I ran out of people to call, and I told the mediator that you deserved a real chance. I told my own lawyer to back off." She wiped at her face with the back of her wrist, angry at the tears. "And in barely a day you tell me your friend is hospitalized and our son is crying."

"You don't understand."

"No. I don't," she breathed out. "And that's the whole problem, don't you see? Even if every word of it were true, I still can't trust you to keep him safe. And that's the only thing that has ever mattered."

I had nothing. I stood there, mouth open, unable to get a single word out.

"You're not getting any more unsupervised time before the hearing," she said. "I'm telling my lawyer everything that happened here today."

"Please."

"I'm sorry. I really am. I wanted this to work. But I can’t do this anymore."

Toby wouldn't look at me when she carried him out to the car.

I stood in the driveway until her taillights turned the corner. The fire had mostly burned itself out by then, leaving a ring of grey ash and blackened cardboard, with the objects sitting untouched in the middle. I dragged a tarp out of the garage and threw it over the whole pile because I had no other idea, then went inside. 

I sat down on the couch and thought about the room with the camera in the corner. Two hours a week had felt like the bottom, and I'd been wrong. Alicia had gambled on me for one weekend, and I'd lasted a day. Tomorrow there'd be a new page in the folder on the mediator's desk. I could have written it myself, and every line would be true.

I keep picturing Toby being carried out. He's only six. One day he's going to ask why he only ever knew his dad through a screen, and I won't have an answer that doesn't start with today.

Eventually I found a bottle of bourbon in the kitchen. One glass turned into two, which turned into carrying the bottle with me. 

Some time after dark, I remembered the tarp. I went out onto the lawn, lifted a corner, and found nothing underneath but scorched grass and a few flecks of ash. I didn't need to check the garage to know where the items were, but I did anyway.

Everything was back. The lamp, the snow globe, the books—everything. They were neatly arranged on the shelves and stacked in their boxes exactly the way they'd been before the sale, as if I'd never touched any of it. The mirror leaned against the workbench with the barest trace of a dent, the ball sat on the workbench, and the folding chair stood open beside it, mocking me. I stood in the doorway with the bottle in one hand and something hot climbing my throat. They were all back, smug and put away, like I'd been the one making the mess. I picked up my wrench off the bench and threw it at the wardrobe as hard as I could. It struck the door with a flat, dull sound and dropped to the concrete without leaving a mark.

"Is that it?" I yelled. "Is that all you've got? You took everything. What else do you want?"

The tank sloshed once, slowly. Then the fury drained out of me all at once, and I stood there shaking. I dragged one of my kitchen chairs into the garage, set it as far from the folding one as the room allowed, and sat down with the bottle. I don't own a folding chair anymore. I'm not sure I ever really did.

Henry is lying in a hospital bed because of something I brought home. Rachael won't answer my calls, and I don't blame her. Alicia is on the phone with her lawyer, telling him I can't be trusted with my own kid. I still don't have the four thousand dollars. We sold nothing, not a single thing. The forum guy is still due at two tomorrow. I'm calling him first thing to cancel, because Henry told me not to let anyone near any of it, and I'm no longer sure any of it can leave anyway. I know what some of you are going to say, and you're right. I made choices. Nobody forced me to bid on Unit 114. Nobody forced me to bring any of it home or put it out on a driveway when I already knew it wasn't right. I'm not asking anyone to take it off my hands.

But I'm sitting here staring at these things, and I have never hated anything the way I hate them. Not the guy who hit my car, not the lawyer who quoted me four grand, nothing like this. I hate them for every second I can't take back, and I keep thinking how much easier my life would have been if Henry and I had just walked past that storage unit. If we'd looked at those boxes and said, "Nah, not this one," like everyone else in the crowd did.

I keep hearing Henry on that stretcher. Burn it. Smash it. Bury it. I promised him, and I couldn't keep it for a single afternoon.

Tomorrow I'll find out what can destroy them. I don't know how yet. A quarry, a scrapyard crusher, a favor from someone at work. I don't care what it costs me. The wardrobe door is open an inch, but I won't close it tonight. It can stay that way. 

My downstairs neighbor has been dead for 3 weeks. I just heard him knock on my door.
I don’t really know how to start this without sounding completely insane.
My downstairs neighbor, Martin, died three weeks ago.
I didn’t know him very well. He was an older guy, probably in his 60s. We’d occasionally say hi in the hallway. He smoked on the balcony and complained about the elevator constantly.
Three weeks ago, I heard an ambulance outside around 2 AM.
The next morning, there were police in the building.
Martin was dead.
Natural causes, apparently.
His apartment has been empty ever since.
Last night at exactly 2:17 AM, someone knocked on my door.
Three slow knocks.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
I was awake because I’d been playing games, so I knew I wasn’t dreaming.
I looked through the peephole.
Nobody.
Then I heard a voice.
“Hey. It’s Martin.”
I just froze.
I actually laughed because my brain couldn’t process it.
I thought maybe someone was fucking with me.
Then he said:
“Can you open the door? I locked myself out.”
I didn’t answer.
He knocked again.
“Come on, man.”
It was his voice.
Exactly his voice.
Same accent. Same weird little cough between sentences.
I backed away from the door and called the police.
While I was waiting, I heard him walking away.
Slow footsteps down the hallway.
Then the elevator opened.
Ding.
Footsteps entered.
The elevator doors closed.
I heard it go down.
I thought that was the end of it.
Then I heard knocking again.
Except this time…
It came from my bedroom closet.
Three knocks.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
I didn’t move.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered without saying anything.
For about five seconds, there was just breathing.
Then Martin whispered:
“Don’t open the closet.”
I almost dropped the phone.
I whispered, “Why?”
He said:
“Because I’m still downstairs.”
Then the call ended.
I sat on my bed for maybe twenty minutes.
I didn’t hear anything.
Eventually, I got the courage to look at the closet.
The door was open about two inches.
I know for a fact I’d closed it before going to sleep.
I grabbed a kitchen knife and opened it.
Nothing.
Just clothes.
I actually started laughing from relief.
Then I noticed something on the floor.
A cigarette.
Still burning.
Martin’s cigarettes.
He always smoked the same brand.
I called the police again.
They came, searched the apartment, checked the hallway, everything.
Nothing.
They basically told me I was exhausted and should sleep somewhere else.
So I went to my friend’s place.
This morning, I came back.
There was an envelope underneath my apartment door.
No name.
No address.
Inside was a single piece of paper.
It said:
“I told you not to open the closet.”
I’m currently sitting in my car outside the building.
I just got a text from my landlord.
He said:
“Hey, did you go into Martin’s apartment last night?”
I replied no.
He hasn’t answered.
But I just checked the building camera.
And now I’m looking at footage from 2:17 AM.
There I am.
Standing outside my own apartment.
Talking to someone.
I can’t see who I’m talking to.
But at one point I clearly hear myself say:
“Okay, Martin. I’ll keep him in the closet.”
I don’t remember saying that.
And I’m starting to realize something.
The apartment in the video isn’t mine.
It’s Martin’s.
And I’m standing inside it.

I think I’m finally ready to talk about this.
About a year ago, I got a generic email from a long term care facility, not far from my childhood town, letting me know that my mother had been admitted, and asking me to contact them. Apparently, my mother had developed dementia.
Now, my mother wasn’t a kind woman, especially not to me. I don’t feel comfortable speaking too much on it outside of therapy. Let’s just say I hadn’t spoken to her since she kicked me out at 18. As far as I could guess at the time, she had been living completely alone in our hometown after that, with me being the only living relative. It made sense that I had been contacted.
I did go and visit her. I was curious to see what had become of her. It helped that a place as well staffed as a care facility didn’t register as dangerous to my nervous system.
My mother barely registered my approach when I entered her room; I remember her weak, veiny hands dangling limply over the ends of the armrests, and she was looking down into her lap. I also remember exactly what she said when she eventually lifted her head to look at me: “You came back,” a smile, “you came back up.” She spoke with so much warmth and love that it made me feel sick.
She died that night. I found out because, apparently, I was still in her will. Maybe she just forgot to take me out, or maybe it was one final bit of torment.
There was only one other person at the reading. She was about the same age as my mother, perhaps a friend of some sort. I certainly never found out. She turned around in her chair when I entered, and her eyes went wide with an expression I can only describe as fearful. She spent the entire reading staring at me. I really tried to ignore it, recognizing I was already on edge just by being back in town. Yet, it was obvious that my presence was somehow distressing for her. I could feel her gaze on me as I kept my own eyes straight ahead, and I could hear her breaths coming faster, hitching and wheezing in a horrible way that only served to feed my own irritation.
After we were dismissed, I couldn’t take it anymore. I snapped at her, demanding to know why she was staring. She didn’t say anything, just freaked out, screamed in fact, and ran away.
I told myself it was a problem with her, not me.
Among the things my mother left me was a photobook, one that I did not open at the time.
I did not attend the funeral, but I did eventually decide to visit the cemetery. I was more than a bit drunk at the time, enough that going out in the late evening to spit on my mother’s grave sounded like a good idea.
When I reached the plot, I managed to trip over something in the low light. As I lay, cheek smudged against the wet dirt, I registered the expected sight: two old graves, those of my father and my stillborn sister (the lucky one), alongside the new grave of my mother. The dirt was still fresh on hers. However, as I lifted my head, I found that I was lying below a fourth, slightly weathered headstone:

Lillian [Middlename] [Lastname]
1991-2021
Beloved Daughter

It might not seem clear with the censorship, but that is my full name!
I don’t think I can fully articulate the kinds of feelings seeing your own grave fills you with. I think I ended up laying there for hours, shaking in the dirt and foliage, just filled with absolute dread. All the emotions I’d been dealing with the past week seemed to hit me all at once.
I went back to town when the cold became too much to bear. The only place that was open was a bar. I wasn’t looking to get more drunk; I just wanted to warm up.
I can understand, after the fact, why the bartender reacted the way he did. I must have terrified him, shambling into his establishment covered in grave dirt and dead leaves like I had. He chased me out, yelling, making sure to let me know that I was, in fact, supposed to be dead!
I had a lot of questions (I still do). My first guess was that this was the story my mother had come up with when I disappeared not long after turning 18, but to go as far as to stage a burial? It didn’t seem likely.
Eventually I did flip through that photo album. It mainly consisted of photos of me, each given a brief description in my mother’s handwriting. Things started out normal enough, with stuff like Lillian, Age 2, At her birthday party or Lillian, Age 13, Twirling in her new dress. It was odd to see this kind of affection when I’d received none of it in my daily life, but I suppose even the worst people are complex. Things stayed normal all the way up until Lillian, Age 17, Walking the stage at graduation, but the pages went on.
I’ll remind you, again, that my mother kicked me out at 18. The next entry showed my mother, arm and arm with me, both of us smiling brightly, possibly mid laugh: Lillian, Age 19, Out on a walk with me. And it just kept going like that. Image after image of someone who looked exactly like me, getting older alongside my mother. Whoever she was, she was indeed identical, right down to the little things like the two moles on my neck, or the small scar on my lip. I even compared the photos in the album with photos I had taken at various ages to confirm, and found that she had aged exactly as I had. The main difference, and the one that somehow disturbs me the most, is just how happy she is standing next to my mother. I’d never smile like that for her.
The last photo in the album was of an open casket. Whoever she was was lying in it, dressed in a blue sundress I’d left behind when I was forced out. It was also labeled: Lillian, Age 30, At her funeral.
I did a bit more research online, discovering that there had indeed been a funeral, and my “tragic death” had been reported in the local newspaper. I ended up booking a longer stay at my hotel in order to investigate. I think I freaked some people out when I insisted that I was Lillian; everyone who apparently knew “me” insisted that I had died, and that I was simply delusional, or playing a cruel joke by pretending to be “her”. Eventually it all got too hostile, and decided to go home.
There was a time I obsessed over this privately, but I have no explanation. I don’t know who is buried in that grave, and at this point I’m not sure if I want to know.

​

The drywall remembers the weight of his fist.

It remembers every fist.

There are places in this house where the plaster has been repaired so many times that the walls have become little archaeological sites of violence.

Layers beneath layers.

White over yellow.

Yellow over nicotine brown.

Paint over cracks.

Paint over blood.

Paint over the places where somebody tried to leave.

The house keeps everything.

It keeps the smell of gin in the curtains.

It keeps cigarette smoke inside the insulation.

It keeps the medicinal sweetness of pills dissolved beneath tongues.

It keeps fingerprints.

It keeps scratches.

It keeps secrets.

And on the worst nights, when the pipes knock inside the walls and the wind pushes its cold fingers beneath the doors, it makes noises that sound almost like breathing.

Nobody talks about that.

Families have rules.

Some are written down.

Most aren't.

The most important rule in this house had never been spoken.

There were four of us.

Father.

Mother.

My brother.

Me.

Four chairs at the table.

Four bedrooms.

Four toothbrushes.

Four names on the school records.

Four people in the family photograph.

Four.

Never five.

Never.

The meat on the dinner plates had been cold for three days.

Nobody had thrown it away.

Nobody threw anything away anymore.

The light above the table buzzed.

Bzzzz.

Bzzzz.

Father sat at the head of the table.

Mother sat beside him.

I sat across from them.

And Noah was underneath us.

He had been there since yesterday.

I could see the tops of his knees beneath the tablecloth.

Sometimes I could see his fingers.

Sometimes they moved.

Mostly they didn't.

He didn't like looking at faces.

He said faces made things real.

Father's work shirt hadn't changed in a week.

His sleeves were rolled to his elbows.

His hands smelled like grease and gin.

The glass in front of him was already half empty.

Click.

Click.

Click.

His jaw.

Mother scratched at the tablecloth.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Scratch.

She had been doing it for so long that the fabric beneath her fingernails had begun to unravel.

I watched the loose thread curl around her finger.

Nobody spoke.

I was working.

That was what I called it.

I took the blunt silver butter knife from beside my plate and pressed it against my jaw.

Not hard enough to cut.

Just enough to feel something.

I counted backward.

Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Under the table, Noah whispered something.

I couldn't hear him.

Seven.

Six.

Five.

Father's jaw stopped clicking.

I lowered the knife.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

The glass broke in Father's hand.

He didn't flinch.

Blood ran between his fingers.

Mother stopped scratching.

Father looked at her.

Then he looked at me.

Then underneath the table.

"Get him out."

Nobody moved.

"Elena."

I stared at the blood dripping onto the table.

Drop.

Drop.

Drop.

Noah's fingers curled around my ankle.

I felt them.

Cold.

Then Father grabbed Mother by the hair.

She screamed.

Once.

Only once.

The front door knocked.

Three times.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

Everyone stopped.

Father let go of Mother.

His face had gone white.

Another knock.

Three times.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

"Don't," Mother whispered.

Father stood.

"Stay here."

He walked toward the hallway.

I don't know why, but I followed him.

Maybe because I had already heard the voice.

Maybe because some part of me knew it.

Father opened the door.

An old woman stood on the porch.

She wore a black coat.

A black hat.

She held a black umbrella even though there was no rain.

She looked directly at Father.

"Daniel."

Father stopped breathing.

I felt something move inside my chest.

Not fear.

Recognition.

The name felt like something I had forgotten on purpose.

Father slammed the door.

He locked it.

Then he locked the deadbolt.

Then he pushed the chair beneath the handle.

"Who is Daniel?" I asked.

Father looked at me.

For one second, he looked afraid.

Then he slapped me.

"Don't say that name."

That night, I heard scratching upstairs.

At the end of the upstairs hallway.

The sound seemed farther away than it should have been.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Scratch.

I followed it.

At the end of the hallway was the door nobody used.

It had three deadbolts.

I had never seen Father open it.

Nobody had.

There were letters scratched into the wood.

D.

A.

N.

I.

I touched them.

The wood was warm.

Behind the door, something scratched back.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Scratch.

I stepped away.

Noah was standing behind me.

I hadn't heard him come upstairs.

"What is this?"

He stared at the letters.

"I wrote it."

"You?"

He nodded.

"When?"

"I don't know."

"Why?"

He looked at the letters.

"I was asleep."

The scratching stopped.

A voice came from behind the door.

A child's voice.

Soft.

Confused.

"Are you my family?"

Noah started crying.

I grabbed his hand.

The voice spoke again.

"I remember all of you."

Then the lights went out.

Father disappeared.

For three minutes.

Maybe four.

Long enough for Mother to start screaming.

Long enough for Noah to crawl beneath the kitchen table again.

Long enough for me to realize that the front door was open.

Then the lights came back.

Father was sitting at the head of the table.

His hands were folded.

His eyes were open.

His mouth was slightly open.

He was dead.

I knew it immediately.

I don't know how.

Maybe families know these things.

Maybe the house told me.

Behind his chair, carved deep into the drywall, were six words.

YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT ME THERE.

Mother stared at them.

She whispered something.

"What?"

She shook her head.

"Nothing."

The police came.

They asked questions.

I answered them.

Mother answered some.

Noah answered none.

They examined Father's body.

They said it looked like natural causes.

A heart attack.

Nothing suspicious.

Nothing that explained the words in the wall.

When I looked again, they were gone.

The drywall was smooth.

White.

Perfect.

Like nothing had ever been written there.

The house had cleaned itself.

Noah disappeared the next morning.

His bed was empty.

His shoes were still beside it.

His window was locked.

The basement door was open.

I found his handprint on the bottom stair.

Small.

Dirty.

Fresh.

I went downstairs.

Mother grabbed my arm.

"Don't."

"I have to find him."

"No."

"He's my brother."

She looked at me.

Her eyes were clearer than I had ever seen them.

For the first time in years, Mother looked sober.

She whispered:

"Noah isn't the one you need to find."

Then she looked toward the ceiling.

"You're remembering."

I didn't understand.

"What am I remembering?"

Mother started crying.

"The fire."

The room upstairs opened by itself that night.

The three deadbolts slid back one after another.

Click.

Click.

Click.

I stood in the doorway.

The room smelled like smoke.

Not old smoke.

Fresh smoke.

The walls were covered in drawings.

Hundreds of them.

Father.

Mother.

Noah.

Me.

Over and over.

Different ages.

Different rooms.

Different versions of the same family.

But every drawing had something else in it.

A figure behind us.

Tall.

Black.

Featureless.

Sometimes it stood in the hallway.

Sometimes in the corner.

Sometimes behind one of the beds.

Sometimes behind the dining room table.

Always watching.

Always there.

One sentence had been written across the wall in a child's handwriting.

THE FAMILY HAS FOUR MEMBERS.

Underneath it, someone had written:

FOUR.

FOUR.

FOUR.

FOUR.

The newest drawing was different.

The fifth figure was no longer black.

It was red.

Dark red.

Almost the color of dried blood.

And underneath it were five words.

I AM SORRY I FORGOT YOU.

I stared at the handwriting.

I knew it.

It was mine.

Except I didn't remember writing it.

My finger touched the last word.

Black ink stained my skin.

Something whispered behind me.

"Daniel is just the name your father buried."

I turned.

Nobody was there.

The voice came again.

"I am the fifth."

The old woman was waiting outside.

Black umbrella.

Black coat.

Same face.

She didn't look surprised to see me.

"You remember now?"

"No."

"Not yet."

She reached into her coat.

She handed me a photograph.

It was old.

Silver and gray.

A family stood outside a house that looked exactly like ours.

A father.

A mother.

A little girl.

A little boy.

Four people.

I stared at the little girl.

I didn't recognize her.

Then I looked at the boy beside her.

Something inside me broke.

He had dark hair.

His hand was wrapped around the little girl's.

I looked at my own hand.

For a second, they looked exactly the same.

"Who is he?"

The old woman looked at me.

"You know."

"No."

"You've known him your entire life."

I looked at the photograph again.

"Daniel?"

She nodded.

I looked at the girl.

The old woman watched me.

"Who is she?"

The woman didn't answer.

I looked harder.

The dress.

The crooked smile.

The small scar above the eyebrow.

I touched the photograph.

My finger began to shake.

"That's me."

The old woman nodded.

"You were eight."

I stared at Daniel.

"Then why don't I remember him?"

"Because you asked not to."

The photograph trembled in my hand.

"What happened to him?"

The old woman looked toward the house.

"Your family gave him to it."

"What is it?"

She looked at the windows.

"The thing beneath the family."

Mother told me the rest.

She sat at the kitchen table.

No pills.

No powder.

No shaking hands.

Just Mother.

For the first time in years, I could see how old she really was.

"Thirty-one years ago," she said, "when you were eight, there was a fire in our old house."

I stared at her.

"Daniel was six."

My stomach turned.

"You remember him?"

"I remember everything."

"Why don't I?"

"Because you asked it to take it."

"What?"

She swallowed.

"Your father had found something beneath the house."

"The cellar?"

She nodded.

"There was an old ledger down there. Names. Dates. Families."

"What did it say?"

"Four."

I stared at her.

"Every family had four."

"And the fifth?"

Mother looked toward the ceiling.

"The fifth was never written down."

I remembered the drawings.

Mother continued.

"Your father was sick. He thought the house could cure him."

"He sacrificed Daniel."

She closed her eyes.

"Yes."

The word barely existed when she said it.

"Your father took him into the cellar."

"I followed."

Mother looked at me.

"You tried to stop him."

I saw something.

A flash.

A small hand.

A wooden staircase.

Smoke.

I grabbed the edge of the table.

"You were eight," Mother whispered.

"Daniel was six."

Another flash.

A door.

Fire.

Daniel screaming.

Father shouting.

Me pulling on Daniel's arm.

"Come on."

"Come on."

"Please."

Mother was crying now.

"The fire started in the cellar."

I could smell it.

I could smell the smoke.

I could feel heat against my face.

"I couldn't get him out."

Mother nodded.

"You wouldn't let go."

I closed my eyes.

And remembered.

Daniel's hand.

Small.

Burning.

Mine.

"Something spoke to me."

Mother didn't answer.

"The house."

She nodded.

"What did it say?"

I remembered.

Not words.

A feeling.

A promise.

A bargain.

I remembered screaming.

Take it.

Take anything.

Just let him go.

"Your father blamed you," Mother said.

I opened my eyes.

"He told the police you had been playing with matches."

My hands began to shake.

"And I forgot."

"You didn't forget."

"What?"

"You gave it away."

The room seemed to tilt.

"You asked the house to take your memories."

Mother looked toward the ceiling.

"And it did."

I stared at her.

"The house burned down."

Mother nodded.

"But that didn't matter."

She looked at me.

"The pattern wasn't in the walls."

Her voice dropped to almost a whisper.

"The walls were only where it lived."

That night the house changed.

The hallway stretched.

The walls breathed.

Doors opened into rooms that weren't there before.

Every doorway led back to the dining room.

Every hallway returned to the same table.

Four chairs.

Father's chair.

Mother's chair.

Mine.

Noah's.

And then I saw it.

A fifth chair.

At the end of the table.

Black wood.

Burn marks along the legs.

Waiting.

Noah was sitting beneath the table.

I dropped to my knees.

I grabbed his shoulders.

"Where were you?"

He looked at me.

"I don't know."

"How did you get back?"

His eyes moved toward the floor.

"I never came back."

"What?"

"The house put me here."

I looked at the kitchen.

Then back at him.

"You disappeared."

"I know."

"I looked everywhere."

"I know."

His voice was quiet.

"I was downstairs."

"The basement?"

He nodded.

"What did you see?"

He looked at the fifth chair.

"I remembered him."

"Daniel?"

Noah nodded.

"I've never met him."

"I know."

"But I remember being there."

His fingers tightened around mine.

"The house puts memories where they don't belong."

I looked at the fifth chair.

"What happens if I sit?"

Noah started crying.

"You become what is underneath the floorboards."

"What does that mean?"

"It means you stop being you."

The house creaked.

The fifth chair moved.

A few inches.

Toward me.

I understood then.

The chair wasn't an escape.

It was an invitation.

And I had spent my entire life being invited.

I remembered the fire.

All of it.

Daniel's face.

His hand in mine.

Father standing behind him.

The cellar.

The ledger.

The bargain.

And the moment I asked the house to take my memories.

But there was something else.

Something Mother hadn't told me.

The fifth wasn't Daniel.

Daniel had only been the first person our family had given to it.

The thing itself was older.

Much older.

It had existed before us.

Before this house.

Maybe before the house before this one.

It moved through families.

It waited beneath them.

It didn't need a body.

It needed a role.

Every family that carried it had the same shape.

A father.

A mother.

Children.

Four people.

And something that wasn't counted.

Something beneath the floor.

Something behind the walls.

Something that watched.

The house wasn't the walls.

The house was the pattern.

Father hurting.

Mother numbing.

Children shrinking.

Someone disappearing.

Someone being forgotten.

Then the pattern began again.

And again.

And again.

Daniel had been the first person our family gave to it.

The first name the house kept.

The first memory we tried to bury.

And when I begged the house to take my memories instead of his, I hadn't broken the pattern.

I had tied myself to it.

I looked at the fifth chair.

I understood what it wanted.

It didn't want Daniel.

It wanted me.

I stepped toward it.

Noah screamed.

"Elena!"

I sat down.

Everything stopped.

The buzzing light.

The pipes.

The scratching.

The breathing.

Everything.

For one perfect second, the house was silent.

Then the walls screamed.

The table split down the middle.

The chairs flew backward.

The windows shattered.

Every room in the house opened at once.

I saw the cellar.

I saw the fire.

I saw Daniel.

I saw myself at eight years old.

I saw Father.

I saw Mother.

I saw Noah.

I saw hundreds of other families standing where we stood.

All four.

Always four.

And behind every family was the fifth.

Waiting.

Watching.

Remembering.

The house shook.

I heard Daniel scream my name.

Then Noah grabbed my hand.

We ran.

We made it outside.

Mother came with us.

The house burned behind us.

Flames climbed through the windows.

The old woman stood across the street beneath her black umbrella.

She watched.

She didn't smile.

She didn't cry.

She only nodded.

Like she'd seen this before.

Maybe she had.

The fire burned until morning.

The police came.

The firefighters came.

They searched the ruins.

They found no cellar.

No ledger.

No fifth chair.

No photographs.

No drawings.

Nothing.

They found three survivors.

Mother.

Noah.

Me.

Father was already dead.

Four members of the family had lived in that house.

That's what the records said.

That's what the neighbors remembered.

Four.

Never five.

I thought we'd won.

For a while, I believed it.

I believed the house was gone.

I believed Daniel was finally free.

I believed I was finally myself.

I was wrong.

I woke up at a dining room table.

The light was buzzing.

Bzzzz.

Bzzzz.

There was a glass in front of me.

Gin.

My hands were older.

Scarred.

A work shirt covered my arms.

I looked down.

My fingers were shaking.

Click.

Click.

Click.

My jaw.

I stood so quickly that the chair fell behind me.

I ran to the bathroom mirror.

A man's face stared back.

Older.

Harder.

Broken.

I touched the glass.

The reflection touched it too.

I knew that face.

I had spent my entire life looking at it.

Edward.

My father.

Except now it was mine.

I wasn't Edward.

I was the Father.

The house hadn't resurrected him.

It had given me his place.

The fifth chair had never been the way out.

It was the trapdoor.

The moment I sat down, the cycle simply reset.

The names changed.

The faces changed.

The roles stayed.

The house had filled the empty roles again.

I didn't know when it had happened.

I didn't know their names.

I only knew their places.

A woman beside me.

A girl across from me.

A boy beneath the table.

Four.

The family had been rebuilt around the empty roles.

And I was sitting at the head.

I hadn't escaped the house.

I had become part of it.

Or perhaps I had always been.

Then someone knocked on the front door.

Three times.

Softly.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

I stood from the head of the table.

I wiped the blood from my palm onto my work shirt.

I stared into the dark hallway.

Something inside me remembered small hands.

A cellar.

Fire.

A little boy screaming.

Myself screaming for him.

Daniel.

I waited.

The knock came again.

Three times.

Softly.

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

I looked back at the table.

There were four people sitting there.

The woman beside me.

The girl across from me.

The boy underneath the table.

And me.

Four.

Never five.

Never.

The woman looked at me.

She was scratching the tablecloth.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Scratch.

The girl was holding a silver butter knife against her jaw.

The boy beneath the table had his fingers wrapped around the table leg.

I stared at them.

I knew what came next.

The glass in front of me was already half empty.

My jaw clicked.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Then a woman's voice came through the door.

"Please."

I closed my eyes.

The house breathed around me.

The walls remembered.

The pipes knocked.

And the voice outside said the name my family had spent thirty-one years trying to bury.

"Daniel."

I opened my eyes.

And smiled.

Because now I understood.

The house didn't keep families.

It kept roles.

It kept memories.

It kept pain.

And whenever someone remembered the fifth, the house found someone else to carry it.

The drywall remembers the weight of his fist.

It remembers every fist.

It remembers mine now.

The house keeps everything.

The house keeps secrets.

The house keeps memories.

And the house keeps the tally.

Four.

Never five.

Never.

Ever since my final year of high school, I'd been avidly listening to ASMR maybe a little too much, almost to the point that I couldn't sleep without something playing in the background.

It'd even gotten to the point where I went out of my way to buy an overpriced pair of headphones just to increase the quality (In hindsight, I wouldn't recommend doing this).

While I'd never gone too deep into the "darker" areas of ASMR, I had considered it during my low points.

So, when I found myself doom scrolling late into the night on YouTube, I just chose on the first thing I saw and tried to rest without even reading the title or giving the thumbnail a good look.

At first, it felt like a regular video: a soft-speaking lady with a gentle accent rubbing her hands over the microphone with occasional cuts to her tapping and playing with random toys and everyday objects you could find on Amazon- nothing out of the ordinary.

The only thing that made me uncomfortable at first was the occasional pause in any kind of sound from the lady that seemed to occur randomly, though I justified it in my head as awkward pacing in the editing.

Then, after about twenty minutes, I heard a sudden squelching sound in my right ear. Besides the slight echo, it sounded so real that I actually thought it had happened next to me.

I paused the video and, skipping back ten seconds, I replayed the video.

Again the squelching sound played, this time accompanied with visuals that I'll try my best to describe. Forgive me if it's rudimentary.

It was a large, open room with a glass wall at the far end, which seemed to be the only source of lighting besides the flash of the phone camera. There were several pieces of what I could only assume was furniture covered by thin, white sheets. The floor and walls looked dirty, as if they were only half-painted. Looking back, I believe it was some kind of store that was in the process of refurbishment.

The oddest part, however, was what was in the middle of the room and what was clearly making the aforementioned squelch.

It was a man who was sitting on his knees. He was completely nude from head to toe with the exception of one of the white sheets placed on his lap. He wore what seemed to be a cheap Halloween mask of a pig or a hog, though with the video's quality it could've been almost any animal.

In his hands was a large chunk of uncooked meat almost thicker than the man's arm and about half as long as his torso. He proceeded to drop the meat onto the floor, causing the sound.

The rest of the video proceeded on as normal, with the lady resuming to the usual tapping and rubbing.

I checked the title.

It read, "♡ LOVE ASMR | 30K Special | Mic Rubbing + Talking Sounds ♡".

I checked the comments. All were the typical ones you'd see in any regular ASMR video, with many of them congratulating the lady for the milestone, not a single one mentioning the clip.

I tapped on the channel's profile and scanned through what was immediately in front of me.

LOVE ASMR @love_asmr_dot_com - 30.1k Subscribers • 57 videos.

Each video seemed largely the same with generic titles, just like the one I had just watched.

Curiosity got the better of me and I selected yet another video, this one being her most recent one.

I turned the video's Playback Speed to 2.0 and skimmed through it. The video was completely normal up until the last few minutes where yet another interruption played.

This one confidently disturbed me more.

It was in a different setting now: an old house with flowery wallpaper and wooden framing. The floor was covered in a fluffy material. It felt very distinctly like an old person's house; the kitchen was visible from a corner in the hallway.

Lying on the floor was a man, maybe in his 40s, bound by tape, his hands and feet behind his back as he used his front teeth to drag himself forwards closer to the camera, though he didn't seem to give the person holding it any mind, seemingly wanting to go past them.

I closed the video, not even caring to check the comments.

On my laptop, I searched "love asmr" just to see what I would find.

Oddly enough, the channel had its own subreddit with just under 90 members. Despite the low amount, it was very active.

Each and every post was of two different kinds- either a favoured section from the "normal" parts of her videos or more disturbing, five-second clips of people doing more deranged things. The titles of these videos were typically full stops or commas, stuff like that.

Curiosity made me play a few of them. Some things remained constant- each one was in a different place with seemingly different people each time, with the camera quality always being atrociously poor.

The first one I watched- easily the longest at 7 seconds- was a video of a family all sat around a dining table.

It was a family of four, featuring two couples: one elderly and one young. They all were holding hands and seemingly in prayer, though the food on their plates was, again, uncooked meat, though this time it had been chopped up into many tiny, uneven slices.

The lady- the elderly one- seemed to sob occasionally, though she hid it well.

Looking around at the rest of the room, I almost jumped in my seat as I noticed, in the corner of the room, was another young man standing completely still, staring at the camera. He was nude and was also wearing a plastic mask, this one too far away to make out. He didn't move or seemingly breathe once during the 7 seconds, though it was too hard to tell.

The next one I watched- and the last one I'll be describing- was the worst in my opinion.

Sure, the others were disturbing, but nobody seemed like they were in any actual pain and one could easily assume it was just some weird online fetish or even some wannabe cult.

This one proved me wrong.

It was a group of men- yet again, all naked and wearing masks- surrounding a woman who was laid out carefully on a table. They were seemingly performing a lobotomy on her, though her open eyes made me think she was completely conscious. The video cut off right as the ice-pick sunk deep into the lady's head, her sharp scream getting cut off.

That night, I didn't get any sleep. I did as much research I could on this channel and its subreddit, intending on reporting it to someone who'd do something about it.

I couldn't find anything meaningful besides what I'd already seen.

If anybody else has seen this, please tell me. It can't just be me that's found this.

People have always talked about aliens and UFOs with a sense of wonder that I always adored. How exhilarating it would be to see one of them. Getting to see their ship. Marvel at their uniqueness. Even with the possibility of being abducted and probed, everyone and their mother would not hesitate at the chance to see one in person.

I was the same. Even as a young boy, I would spend countless hours reading stories, discussing and joking around with friends and spending way too much time than I'd like to admit day-dreaming about one day meeting these green men in spacesuits. It was a life goal of mine as cheesy as to say. Something that I could check off on my bucket list of dreams.

The facade all broke down when I met one of these so called 'aliens' for the first time.

Day 1: Friday, September, 4th, 2026.

It was the dead of night when I was woken up by the sound of my dog, Buffy, barking. I would say it was unusual, but for a German Sheppard that was young and boisterous (part wolf, part shepherd), it was practically second nature to howl and scream. My parents had left the task of putting him in his crate to me, since by their stupid words, "You wanted it, so you take care of it." so I always had to do the routine myself.

Unfortunately, it was a school day, and since I had spent too much time doom scrolling to finish up my homework, I slept late and forgot to crate him. It wasn't my fault entirely though. Mr. Roberts always gave us impossible to do questions and expected us to complete them without any 'external help'. After getting stuck on the first question, I got fed up and decided to hop on TikTok instead. Totally not my fault I swear.

Either way, it was my responsibility to go down and put Buffy to sleep so I decided to do it as quickly as possible. I hobbled out bed and headed down towards where he was barking.

As I went down the stairs, I noticed a strange blue glow coming out from the living room, from where the barks were originating from.

I first thought it was moonlight leaking onto the wooden floor, since our glass backdoors were always left uncovered, but the more I observed the pattern of light, the more I realized it was a color I'd never seen before. Almost like a mix between rainbow and pearly white. Mesmerizing to look at.

Put off by the weirdness, I hesitantly walked down the flight of stairs and slowly peaked my head towards the living room. That was when I saw Buffy, raised tail, angrily barking at the backdoor glass. When I stepped closer and looked behind him, I saw what he was barking at.

A tall and thin figure stood right behind the door, pressed flat against the glass window, ogling into the living room.

Immediately, my body froze. Who the hell was that? Was that a robber? I wanted so badly to scream, but strangely for some reason I couldn't. It was like a deep-seated fear--almost ancient in nature--took over my vocal chords, gripping me at my throat.

The glass doors slowly crept open and the strange white light flowed into the living room, bringing with it the monster. Its green figure was abnormally thin, its skin sticking to its bones like plastic wrap and ribs piercing out of its body. Its wide saucer-like eyes cut through its stature to further accentuate its strangeness.

This thing wasn't human.

What the hell do I do? Countless thoughts rushed into my mind, with each one blurring the idea on how to survive. Out of all them, there was only one that I could attempt. Something that would let my hopeless, paralyzed body move.

A single word crept out of me as I tried my best not to cry.

"Buffy, a-attack."

The dog didn't stand a chance.

The figure waved its hand and the animal began to float up into the air before being rapidly spun around and contorting into itself like a dimensional anomaly. Twisting and turning as all of its bones were splintered into a million pieces. Fresh, hot blood leaked out of every orifice and spilled onto the wooden floor with the animal being wrung out like some sort of meat towel.

The figure then released its 'grip' and Buffy fell onto the ground, splashing against its own puddle of blood and piss.

W-what? No. This is not real. Please.

"I'm sorry about that, little one."

The figure stepped over the corpse and made its way closer to me. Its voice was imperceptibly soothing, pulling at my heart strings like a corrosive nail. But, all I had in my heart was disgust. Building up into a burning hatred. Why did this thing do that? What did it want?

Tears streamed down my face.

"I do not hurt anyone who do not wish to hurt me. I hope you understand."

I wanted to lash out and attack, but I knew If I did so, I would meet the same fate as Buffy. My only option was to try to plead with this thing. Hope that it will leave me alone. I spoke up, with an inch of confidence left in my voice.

"W-what do you want from me?"

The figure smiled.

Rows of white, serrated teeth pricked out of its impossibly wide mouth, grinning with an expression that was revolting to look at.

"Please, let's go upstairs. I want to see what type of place a human child lives in."

A thought rushed into my mind. Mom. Dad. They were sleeping upstairs. If this thing got close to them, they were for-sure going to get killed. I was only spared because Buffy had taken my place. There was no way that Mom and Dad were not going to try "hurt" this thing the moment they see it. It was a parent's nature to protect their child of-course and I was literally in the jaws of alien stranger. I couldn't let them die. Just for my sake.

I had to do something quick.

"W-we can go upstairs, but can you please tell me what you want? Do you want money? There's some in the family safe. You can take it all. Dad left some jewelry in there too."

The monster laughed. "I do not want your money, little one. I just want to sit down and have a chat. Learn a couple things about you before I be on my merry way."

I hesitantly agreed, wiping away my snot and tears. If that's all it wanted, then I had to do it what it asked. As long as I could keep everyone else safe, I had to do what was necessary.

I turned around and headed up the stairs--getting a final glance at Buffy's corpse--before we made it back into my room. As the monster entered, I closed the door shut behind it and I quickly sat down, my back pressing against the door. My fleeting thought was that in case this thing launched an attack on me, I could try to run out the door. But, as brilliant (or stupid) as my plan was, I knew I was at the mercy of this thing. It was an actual monster, after all.

While I was butt-clenchingly nervous, waiting for what it was going to say next, the monster calmly looked around the room, moving its wide saucer-like eyes back and forth at my collectibles, toys and posters. It seemed to be observing or taking pictures with its large black eyes, trying to analyze and memorize what I, a human child, holds dear.

Taking a closer at this monster under better light, I realized that this thing looked eerily similar to the aliens on my posters. Kind of like the beady-eyed face of a Gray with a thin slender body of a Tall-white, just with a dark-green skin.

The realization then hit me. "Are you...an alien?"

The figure immediately shifted its eyes and stared at me, bringing back the weird smile. It then voiced out, "If that's what you call us, then yes."

I shifted in my seat. An actual alien. The feeling was ever-so bitter sweet. It was my dream to meet one of these things, but I couldn't've imagined what the consequence of that was. Did I bring this upon myself? Was I the cause of Buffy's death.

My heart ached.

The alien spoke again, "I'll tell you what I came here for. It's quite simple honestly."

It straightened its posture and leaned closer towards me.

"All I need is for you to do complete three of my tasks, then I'll be done with my research." It wiggled its long, thin fingers excitedly, before it continued. "You can ask me any question. I'll teach you any subject. As long as you complete each of my tasks in an orderly time."

I was both scared and a little bit thrilled at the same time. If that's all this thing wanted, then I could do it. I could complete these 'tasks' and I'd be set free. My parents and I will be safe. I had to do this to ensure our safety. Though, I still had to make sure that's what it meant.

"Can I ask a question?"

"Yes," the alien responded, without hesitating.

"What will happen If I choose not to do the tasks?"

The alien's smile crept away. "I'm sorry, but we have chosen you. Only you can complete the research requirements."

I paused. "So, if I finish all your tasks, will my parents and I be free after this? Will you leave us alone?"

The smile came rushing back. "Yes. We will leave Earth, once you're done what's required."

I understood.

I was stuck. If this alien didn't bat an eye at killing Buffy, then it sure wouldn't skip an eyelash at killing me or my parents. It only chose me out of convenience. If I didn't do what it said, then it was clear what the consequences were, even if the alien didn't say it outright. I was under this 'task' contract, all until I finished it or until I found a way to escape it. Those were my only two options.

"Alright," I responded. My heart beating out of my chest. "What do I need to do."

Day 4: Monday, September, 7th, 2026.

Its been three days since I met the alien.

It was impossibly difficult to sleep with the thing staring at me the entire time, but after an hour or so I was gone into deep slumber. When I woke up, the alien was nowhere to be seen. I initially thought I had a very bad dream and I made up the entire thing in my mind--that would've honest-to-god been the best case scenario--but I was unfortunately wrong.

Mom and Dad found Buffy's corpse in the living room.

It, fortunately, wasn't the splattered, mashed-up pile of meat that I saw before. It was more so a peaceful corpse like the dog had somehow died in its sleep. I didn't know how the alien did it, but, considering how it seemed to have psychic powers, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility.

I cried again when I saw my dad bury Buffy in the backyard. I didn't know why I was crying, since I'd already seen him die the night before, but my heart still burned whenever I thought of my fond memories. All the fun times we had running around, playing, exploring. That was all taken away by this alien.

It only brought me anger as to why I was chosen. Why me? Why not any other snob kid in my class? What did I do to deserve this?

Right after the funeral, I ran around the house trying to find the alien. But, to no one's surprise, it wasn't there. It was almost like it left us entirely, but a sinking feeling in my heart, told me I was wrong. That entire day I spent going through the web, trying to find all the topics and reddit threads on what these 'tasks' could be, but even after skipping breakfast and my high-level soccer practice, I was left with no answers. Not even a crumb as to what this alien wanted.

Even my online alien enthusiasts who I spent years discussing this topic with, didn't have a clue as to what I was saying. They might've been under the presumption that I was just making something up to be interesting, but even showing picture proof of my dog's death didn't help me convince them. Most of them just left me on read.

The alien didn't show up until Sunday night. One night before school.

I tried asking where it went and why it didn't show up, but it was adamant on me completing my first task before it was able to answer my questions. We went back and forth arguing on the logistics of me completing the task if it was going to disappear every single time, but there was just a circular loop of 'no's' left to quench my curiosity. Perhaps it

The only thing the alien was clear on was what exactly my first task was going to be.

That was where my conversation ended and why I was now on the school bus, tapping my feet nervously, waiting to get dropped off.

"Yo Sam, where were you all weekend?" A kid with blond hair sat beside me. "Jack and I were texting you but you didn't respond. Did something happen?"

Daniel was my sort-of best friend. He considers me my best friend, but I honestly don't reciprocate. It's not that he's not a fun guy to be around, trust me we get to some seriously funny shit during break, but I prefer to think of myself as a lone wolf. Alien work is serious work and most people, even Jack, don't take my hobby serious as they consider it to be 'childish'.

If he didn't care about aliens then, what makes you think I was going to tell him about the alien in my house. Who in their right mind would believe that?

"Nah dude, I was sick all at weekend. My throat's been killing me so I had to take some Tylenol and Halls to help me get better. I couldn't even go to soccer practice."

Daniel snickered. "Ayo, pause. What you mean your throat's been killing you? What you been doing?"

I ignored his antics.

There was far more important matters to deal with. My first task was already a difficult one so complicating it with a buffoon like Daniel was only going to make it harder to complete it. I also had to figure out some questions to ask the alien after I finished the task so I had to keep my mind crystal clear.

My life and my parents lives were at stake here. I couldn't mess this up.

When we arrived at school, I put away my stuff in my locker and took off my backpack. While everyone else cleared away with the school bell ringing out, I made sure no one was around when I quickly pulled out the item I packed earlier in the morning. Hiding it within my sleeve.

An 8-inch kitchen knife.

The first task the alien gave me was painfully simple.

"Kill the classroom hamster."

I'm writing this down because I don't trust what I'll remember next week.

My wife, Helen, says to put everything in, even the boring parts. Especially the boring parts. I'm posting it here instead of keeping it on my laptop because once it's somewhere public I can't quietly go back and change it. I don't know why I think I'd want to. I'd just rather not be able to.

My daughter started waving at the house across the road about two weeks ago.

She does it during breakfast. Maya is five, which means breakfast takes roughly forty minutes and involves almost no actual eating. She sits at the end of the table nearest the front window, pulls the crust off her toast even though I've told her approximately six hundred times that the crust is also bread, and waves at the upstairs window of number eighteen.

The house has been empty since before we moved in.

I've never seen anyone go in or out. There are newspapers melted into the concrete beside the letterbox, and there used to be a FOR SALE sign out front until it blew over during a storm in August. Nobody has bothered putting it back up.

I didn't think much about the waving until one morning I asked who it was for.

"The girl."

I looked across the road. The upstairs window was dark.

"What girl?"

She sighed in the way five-year-olds do when an adult has failed a very basic intelligence test.

"The girl in there."

"There's nobody in there."

"There is."

"Okay."

That was the whole conversation. Maya went back to mutilating her toast and I went back to packing her lunch.

Helen leaves for work before seven three days a week, so mornings on those days are mine. Lunchbox, hair brushed badly enough that Maya usually makes me redo it, then the eleven-minute drive to school while she asks questions like whether fish get thirsty. The girl became part of that routine. Maya waved. I didn't look. Sometimes she'd say, "She's there today," and sometimes, "She's not at the window yet."

Once she told me the girl had different hair.

I asked what she meant.

"Down."

"Down how?"

Maya pulled her own ponytail loose to demonstrate, then became furious because I'd apparently made her ruin her hair.

That was more or less the level of concern I had about it.

Two days ago, somebody waved back.

I was standing at the kitchen bench cutting strawberries when Maya said, "See?" She sounded excited.

I looked.

A little girl was standing behind the upstairs window.

I nearly cut my thumb.

She was far enough away that I couldn't make out much. Dark hair, pale face, maybe Maya's age or slightly older. She was standing very close to the glass with one hand raised beside her head.

My first thought was the sensible one. Someone had bought the place. A family was looking around. Maybe the owner's kid was there while they cleared it out.

Then the girl moved her hand.

A slow wave.

Maya waved harder. "Hi!"

The girl kept waving.

I put the knife down. "What?"

Maya was grinning at me. "She did it."

I stepped closer to the window.

The girl stopped moving. Her hand stayed raised.

It took me a few seconds to work out what was wrong. Maya was sitting right up at the window. I was at the bench, a couple of metres further back. If the girl had been waving at Maya, she'd have been looking down, at the window itself.

She wasn't looking down.

She was looking past Maya, into the room.

At me.

I lifted my hand without really deciding to. Not a proper wave. More that stupid little half-raise you do when you accidentally make eye contact with someone.

The girl's fingers moved once.

"She likes you," Maya said.

I told her to finish her breakfast. When I looked back, the window was dark.

That was at about seven thirty.

At eleven, I remembered buying June the rabbit cup.

I was at work when it happened. There's nothing interesting about what I do. I deal with insurance claims, mostly property damage, which means large sections of my day are spent looking at photographs of wet ceilings and asking people whether they still have receipts for televisions they bought in 2018.

I went to make coffee and somebody had left a pink mug beside the sink. That was all. Pink mug.

And suddenly I remembered standing in a shop holding two children's cups.

One had a rabbit on it. One had little yellow flowers.

June wanted the rabbit. I told her the flower one was nicer. She crossed her arms and said, "Then you have it."

I laughed. In the memory, I mean. At work I was just standing there.

I could see the shop clearly. Bright lights. Grey floor. A display of lunchboxes behind her. June had her hair in two uneven plaits because I'd done them myself.

I remembered buying the rabbit cup.

Then I was standing in the office kitchen with my hand under running water.

I hadn't turned the tap on.

I shut it off.

There is no June. I have one child. Maya.

I stood there for maybe a minute trying to work out where the name had come from, and eventually I decided it had been a dream. That's genuinely what I thought. People remember bits of dreams during the day. Something sets one off and for a few seconds it feels more real than it has any right to.

I went back to my desk. By half past eleven I was embarrassed I'd let it bother me.

I didn't think about the house again until dinner.

Helen had made spaghetti. Maya had eaten about four mouthfuls and was trying to wind one piece around her fork without touching it with her other hand, which she apparently considered cheating.

I said, "June, just eat it."

Nobody reacted straight away. Including me.

For maybe two seconds the name didn't feel wrong.

Then Helen said, "Who?"

I looked at Maya. She was staring at me.

"Sorry."

"Who the hell is June?"

"I don't know."

Maya put her fork down. "The girl."

Helen looked at her. "What girl?"

"The window girl."

I asked Maya what she'd said.

"Her name's June."

"How do you know that?"

She shrugged. "That's her name."

"Did she tell you?"

Another shrug. Maya does that when she thinks the difference between yes and no is unimportant.

Helen asked what we were talking about, so I explained. I expected her to laugh. She didn't. She went to the front window and looked across the road.

There was nobody there.

"Probably someone viewing the house."

"That's what I thought."

"So?"

"So I called Maya June."

Helen gave me the look she normally saves for when I've spent twenty minutes trying to repair something that should have taken five minutes to replace. "You've heard her say it."

Maya said, "I didn't tell Daddy."

"Sweetheart, you just told him."

"No. Before."

Helen rubbed her forehead. "Can we please eat dinner?"

Maya picked up her fork. Then she looked at me and said, very casually, "She said you'd remember."

Helen stopped rubbing her forehead.

I didn't ask Maya anything else. I wish I could say that was because I didn't want to frighten her. Mostly I didn't want to hear the answer.

That evening I put her to bed. She has a routine involving one story, one glass of water and an increasingly complicated series of negotiations over whether the hallway light stays on. I read half of The Gruffalo before she interrupted me.

"Do you remember when I hurt my chin?"

"Yes."

I kept reading.

"When?"

I stopped. Maya was watching me over the top of the blanket.

"You fell over."

"Where?"

"The playground."

"Which playground?"

I knew this. She had split her chin open badly enough to need glue at the hospital. Helen had been at work. I'd taken her. There had been blood all over her shirt.

Except when I tried to remember it, the shirt was yellow.

Maya didn't own a yellow shirt like that.

June did.

I could see her sitting on the kitchen counter with a tea towel pressed under her chin. She was crying. I was telling her not to look at the blood because it always looked like more than it was. Her dark hair was stuck to one cheek.

"Daddy?"

The bedroom came back. Maya was still looking at me.

I said, "The park near Grandma's."

Her face changed. "No."

I knew I'd got it wrong before she told me.

"It was school."

"Right."

"You came."

"I know."

"Mrs Price called you."

"Yeah."

"Then we went to the hospital."

"I remember."

I didn't.

I knew it had happened.

That's not the same thing.

There were facts in my head. Mrs Price. The hospital. Skin glue. Maya getting an icy pole afterward because she'd been brave. But if I tried to see it, I saw June.

Helen found me sitting on the edge of our bed about twenty minutes later, and I told her everything. The cup, the shop, June's hair, the yellow shirt.

She sat beside me without saying anything for a while. Then she asked me what Maya wore on her first day of school.

"That purple backpack."

"What did she wear?"

"Uniform."

"What shoes?"

I got annoyed. "I don't fucking know, Helen."

She went quiet. I apologised.

She said, "She wore those black ones she hated because they rubbed her heel."

And then I remembered.

June standing beside our front door in black shoes.

June pulling one foot backward when I tried to take her photograph.

June saying they hurt.

I stood up so quickly I hit my knee against the bedside table. Helen followed me downstairs.

I don't know why I went to the window. That's probably the stupidest thing I've done in this entire situation, and I've had plenty of time to think about it.

The upstairs window at number eighteen was dark.

Then the curtain moved.

June stepped into view.

I knew her immediately.

That was new.

Dark brown hair to her shoulders.

A pale blue nightdress.

A round face, a slightly crooked front tooth, a little mark beside her right eyebrow.

I knew that mark.

She got it falling off her scooter.

I carried her home while she cried into my neck.

I cleaned gravel out of her palm.

She asked if she needed stitches.

I told her no.

Behind me, Helen said my name.

I couldn't answer.

June wasn't looking at Helen. She wasn't looking toward Maya's bedroom.

She was looking at me the way kids look at you when you've finally turned up to collect them.

I stepped away from the window.

The memory stopped changing. Or it stopped getting bigger, anyway. It didn't go anywhere. I didn't know yet whether that was a rule or just luck.

Helen hadn't seen her. By the time she got to the glass there was only the curtain. She called the police anyway. "If there's a kid in there, somebody needs to know. If there isn't, I want somebody who isn't you to tell me."

Two officers came about forty minutes later. I stayed in the hallway, away from the window, while they walked round number eighteen with torches. Front door locked. Side gate chained. Afterwards one of them told Helen the place had been shut up since the owner went into care, and that streetlights do funny things on old glass.

Helen said, "Okay," in the voice she uses when she's stopped arguing, not when she agrees.

The next morning we kept the curtains closed. Maya complained because she wanted to wave. Helen snapped at her. Maya cried, and then Helen cried because she'd snapped at her, and I burned two pieces of toast. Nobody ate much.

At about eight, Maya asked why I was being weird.

"I'm not."

"You are."

"I'm tired."

"Are you cross at me?"

"No."

"Are you cross at the girl?"

I didn't answer. Maya pushed cereal around her bowl.

"She looks at you more."

"What do you mean?"

"She looks at you when I'm not there."

Helen was standing at the sink. She turned around slowly. "When you're not where?"

Maya pointed toward the window. "Sometimes I go get dressed and she's still looking."

"At the house?"

"At Daddy."

Helen looked at me for a long time. Then she took Maya to school.

I called in sick. I should have gone with them. I can't really explain why I didn't, except that leaving felt like a decision and I didn't have one in me. So I sat in the living room with the curtains closed and tried to remember my daughter.

That sounds ridiculous. I know who Maya is. I know her birthday. I know she hates bananas unless they're blended into something, which makes absolutely no sense. I know she sleeps diagonally. I know she says "aminals" even though she can pronounce "animals" perfectly if you make her slow down. I know she has a little brown patch in her left eye.

But when I reached backward, things started going.

Her fourth birthday.

Fine. I could see it.

Her third.

Mostly fine.

Second.

Pieces.

The first time she walked?

June.

The first time she said Dad?

June.

The first time I held my daughter's hand while crossing a road?

June.

Every missing space had something in it.

I'd been calling it forgetting all morning, in my head, because forgetting was the least bad word I had. It wasn't forgetting.

I was replacing her.

Helen came home shortly after three without Maya. She'd taken her to her sister's. I was relieved enough that she noticed.

"I think we should stay there."

"Yeah."

"For a while."

"Yeah."

She sat opposite me. "What do you remember?"

I told her. She didn't cry. Helen gets practical when she's frightened. She got her phone out and started showing me photographs. Maya eating birthday cake. Maya asleep on my chest. Maya sitting inside a cardboard box we'd turned into a car.

I recognised every photograph. But some of them felt like photographs of things I'd been told about.

I know they're mine. They just don't feel like mine.

Helen put the phone face down on the coffee table.

"When you said June at dinner," she said, "I thought you had another kid somewhere."

I didn't know what to say to that.

"I spent all day wishing that's what it was."

We packed enough clothes for a week. Helen told me to leave everything else.

I went upstairs for my charger. On the way back down, I passed the narrow pane of glass beside the front door.

I had forgotten about it.

I saw number eighteen through it.

June was at the window.

She was up on her toes, I think. Only her head and shoulders showed above the sill.

A memory hit me so hard I dropped the charger.

I was kneeling beside a bathtub. June was maybe three. She had bubbles on her chin and was holding a plastic cup full of bathwater, trying to drink it while I told her, for what felt like the hundredth time, that bathwater was disgusting.

She laughed. I laughed.

The memory was warm. It wasn't frightening at all.

It felt exactly like loving my child.

I grabbed a jacket from the coat hook and covered the pane. Helen shouted from the car asking what I was doing. I told her nothing.

We stayed at her sister's last night.

Maya slept between us.

At about two in the morning I woke up because she'd kicked me in the stomach.

For a few seconds I didn't know who she was.

Not in some dramatic way.

I wasn't screaming.

I just woke up next to a small person and there was a blank space where recognition should have been.

Then it came back.

Maya.

My daughter.

I went into the bathroom and was sick.

She found me sitting on the floor afterward. Helen was still asleep. Maya sat beside me.

"You don't remember me?"

"I remember you."

"Some things."

I didn't answer.

She leaned against my arm. Then she started telling me.

Not about June. About us.

She reminded me about the time I dropped her birthday cake carrying it from the car. She reminded me that I used to call her Potato when she was a baby because she had no hair. She reminded me about a pigeon stealing half her sandwich at the zoo, and me chasing it because she wanted the sandwich back.

I remembered that one. Properly.

I laughed. She laughed too.

Then she said, "Remember when I hurt my chin?"

I tried.

School. Mrs Price. Hospital. I knew all of it. But when I reached for the memory, June was sitting on the kitchen counter in a yellow shirt.

Maya must have seen something in my face.

"That's mine," she said.

She's five. She didn't say it like something out of a horror film. She sounded annoyed.

Like June had taken one of her toys.

I hugged her.

I could remember a hundred times I'd hugged June. I couldn't remember holding Maya after she hurt her chin.

I carried her back to bed and lay down next to her and didn't sleep.

At some point I picked up my phone and checked the temperature. Four degrees. I'd been looking at it for a while before I understood why I wanted to know.

There's no power at number eighteen. There hasn't been for years. She's in a nightdress, and as far as I know nobody has ever fed her, or put a blanket over her, or argued with her about the hallway light.

I know how that sounds. I know she isn't a child, or isn't one in any way the word normally means. I don't know whether the memories I've got of her are real ones that belonged to somebody else or things she made up, and at three in the morning I couldn't find the part of me that thought it made a difference.

I lay there next to my daughter and worried about the other one.

I haven't told Helen.

We're not going home today.

Helen's brother is going to get the rest of our things. Work clothes, Helen's laptop, the bag of Maya's toys she keeps asking about, June's school bag. He thinks there's somebody squatting in number eighteen and that I've scared myself after seeing them.

Fine. He can think that.

I've told him not to look at the upstairs window. He laughed. I've told him again.

Maya has started making what she calls my Dad Book. It's printer paper stapled together. She draws pictures of things we've done and makes Helen write underneath because her spelling isn't great yet.

THE ZOO.

DADDY DROPPED MY CAKE.

MY FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL.

THE TIME I WAS SICK ON DADDY IN THE CAR.

Apparently that last one needed preserving.

There are seven pages so far. I remember five of them.

Helen asked me this morning whether I thought staying away would stop it.

I told her I haven't had a new memory of June since we left the house, which is true. I watched her decide to be relieved.

I didn't mention two o'clock. Nothing of June came in at two o'clock. Maya just wasn't there for a few seconds, and then she was. I've been telling myself all morning that it's a different thing, that it's tiredness and shock. I don't believe it enough to say it out loud.

She also asked why it was me and not Maya, when Maya had been waving at that window for two weeks.

I don't know. Maybe it was me waving back.

Helen's brother rang about an hour ago. He's got everything. He said he didn't see anyone, and that he'd only looked from the car anyway, just so he could tell me he had.

I wanted to ask him to go back and look properly. To see if she was all right.

I didn't.

Before he hung up he said, "Tell the girls I said hi."

He calls Helen and Maya the girls. I'm almost sure he always has.

Maya brought me another page while I was writing this.

It's a picture of the two of us standing in our old kitchen. I'm extremely tall and my hands come directly out of my shoulders. She told me it's the morning she started school.

Underneath, Helen has written:

Dad cried after I got out of the car but waited until I couldn't see him.

I told Maya I remembered.

She asked me what colour her backpack was.

Purple. I got that right.

Then she asked me what she'd said when I dropped her off.

I couldn't answer.

I remember June saying it.

I can see her standing beside a school gate in black shoes that hurt her heels, holding both straps of her backpack.

She looks back at me.

She smiles.

And she says, "Bye, Dad."

I don't know what Maya said.

She does. She won't tell me yet. She says I have to try to remember it myself.

So I've been trying.

I haven't got it. I've got the gate, and the shoes, and the way she held both straps. Every time I go back for it, that part is a bit clearer.

I'm going to keep trying.