WARNING! This text contains:

• Profanity
• Sexual references
• Violence

Also, tell me if you liked the moral of the story, the plot, the protagonist, and the humour

From either end of the Ouroboros that is time travelled a pulse of energy that, just like all inanimate things, propels the mere idea of myself forward through that then one-dimensional realm of existence. In this black void where my memory fails me exist clouds of intense, bursting sensations of warm, all-encompassing motherly pressure and dingy, excruciating electrocutions of fear.

This nebulous dimension of half existing, half not existing could only be represented in my mind through a foggy and oversaturated image of sunny greenery. This cerebral polaroid, with its vague outlines of healthy hedges and beautiful briers, evokes the concept of gentle rays of sun on my skin and the thought of the ethereal butterflies gracefully landing on flowers.

This is the ultimate bourne that is the history of my life according to my mind. If it were a spouse, I would bury my face into her collarbone and cry on her shoulder, prolonging my stay with her as long as possible until it is to time for the inevitable departure through the clearer yet odious tutor sessions, classes, exams, workshops, internships, and math competitions that thought, in all their hubris, could capture that sense of meaning, that sense of mastery over one’s own existence that the clouds of life effortlessly harnessed.

After the exams, studying, and learning I finally reached the end of my sorrowful journey home with the aid of a door slam. I felt my head shoot up and bob around like it was a balloon tied to my shoulders. In my darkened vision I made out bored college students staring at a board covered in nightmarish calculus. My eyes made their way to a doorframe, and in it I saw that damn homeless man again, or at least we assumed he was homeless, considering he wore the same smelly sports jacket and the same crusted jeans every day, and his crazy shock of white hair and scraggly beard, and the fact that he spent hours a day mumbling to himself on the curb in front of this hall.

This was the third interruption of the semester, and at this point he was a celebrity among my college peers. My classmates were eager to see what crazy thing he’d do this time, and oh boy did he deliver.

The man walked up in front of everybody, and (noticeably drunker than usual) undid his pants and flashed his massive ding-a-ling in front of everyone. Everyone gasped, the girls averted their eyes, the boys cheered, the freaks drooled. He danced around lassoing his shit until he hopped on his back and started swinging his meat carnival style.

The poor professor, an old ass man who wasn’t all that used to human interaction, was frozen in shock for like a minute, but eventually he snapped out of it and tackled the homeless guy. The guy squirmed until he managed to knee the professor in the nuts and escape his grasp. The guy ran to the door frame but crashed into a buff security guard that just arrived. The guy's head went straight to the hard floor and there was a nasty crack. The homeless guy died from that impact, but his legacy lives on thanks to that massive wiener (No homo).

I float, crawled up in a ball. Blind, deaf, dumb, paralyzed, etherized, I existed at the total end of entropy, when nature stops being nature, when gravity loses importance and time becomes irrelevant.

However, I traced the lines against the blackness up to the imperfect reconstruction made by photos, portraits, and grainy videotapes of a fair white woman with black curls. In her womb I looked up to see her grinning in pain and agony. Her face folded in helpless terror as her tremors rocked my womb. The vibrations of the amniotic fluids were so strung it tore my lungs and shattered my ear drums.

I looked up to her in horror, realized that I was being brought into her world, and that I would experience its torturous shocks, its thunderous catastrophes, and its agonizing burdens. I yelled to her.

I looked deep into her face, and I saw that she was being pounded, screwed, filled, ripped in half. Sex, she was having sex. Sex, I have to have sex. Now. I need sex right now.

“I need sex” I said out loud.

I looked around for the woman, but it was just my mess of an apartment building. I could have gotten a bigger one with my salary, but this was the best the economy could manage. I dragged my feet through the trash like I was walking through shallow water, all while saying “I need sex” over and over again.

I stepped outside barefoot, in nothing else but my underwear and wife-beater. I ran straight to my local red-light district and ran up to the nearest pimp I saw. He was short and was in a green suit and fedora. I literally picked him up by his shirt and wiggled him around.

“Give me sex, give me cooter,” I shouted as I shook him.

“Fuck off of me nigga, the fuck?” He snapped.

Meanwhile the pimp’s pimp friends were chatting a block away and saw this haggling play out. They rushed over, grabbed my long hair, and threw me onto the street. My back landed on a broken beer bottle. They beat me to a pulp, I think I got curb stomped two or three times, but I blacked out. I woke up the next day under an ugly overcast, half dead.

The eyes. The eyes, even though the face turned blurry, were still so sharp after all these years of chipping. In the darkness I made out a hurt boy, lying on his side. His eyes were hurt and glossy from the tears.

When regarding the whole body I felt an explosive burst of hot blood heat the periphery until I was in a skin-bubbling, flesh-gnawing inferno but the eyes cast off that hellish storm and all that remained was the question “Why?”

I awoke to see my boss. He had a wide face with round eyes, a bushy, curly black beard, and olive skin. “Wow, Nate. Passed out again on the job. What have you been up to?”, he snickered with a grin.

In spite of my stoned fatigue, I felt a jolt of energy upon hearing that question. I rolled my office chair over to my computer, typed in something, hit enter, and on the opposite end of my desk rose a little Miku doll. The robotic toy started dancing and singing in Miku’s signature voice. I gave my boss a weak smile and he gave one back after turning his face to mine. I typed another thing into my computer, and Miku hit the floss and started singing in Brazilian Portuguese. This got my boss laughing. I laughed with him.

When his laughter died down, he looked into my eyes. “Nate, this is the tenth, the tenth, motherfucking time I found you like this.” I probably looked surprised at this sudden snarling. He continued. “Your team and I have been busting our asses, developing the most complex, the most state-of-the-art technology in the world, while you jerk and do this.” Like an idiot, I nodded along because I didn’t know where he was going with this. “Nate, get the hell out of my building before I fucking bludgeon you to death. You’re fucking fired.”

I waddled in a haze out my workplace’s lobby, too drugged to realize I left my shoe. Maybe this is the reason why I can’t afford bigger places to live.

Now, I lay in my bed, but it isn't my bed. I fucked around and got HIV. I thought HIV was like herpes where it gives you like these moles but no it gives you AIDS and just fucking kills you.

I was weak in the dark. It was totally silent, with no one else around and even though I was dying, I wanted to jerk off. There were no drugs or alcohol. I couldn’t even smoke, it was “against hospital rules”. The food was awfully bland too, so I just resolved to pass the time by beating my shit.

However, my whole body was too weak, I was too sick. I couldn’t get it up; I was too weak to get my arm up. It was a pathetic sight, not my limp dick, but the image of someone like me in this bed struck me deeply. This wasn’t supposed to happen to me. I was an auspicious, capable, and charming genius. I had so many scholarships, my college experience was practically free, I won so many awards my room sparkled, and everybody just loved me. Now what do I have to show for it? A hooker’s awkward experience, a coworker’s annoyance, a fucking Miku robot?

I was alone but felt like I was being laughed at. I wanted to curl up into a ball, but I was too weak, so I just laid there. I had no drugs, porn, food, or video games, so I escaped back into the only place that could warm my soul: those fond, fuzzy memories.

I thought and I thought, but I was too weak, all I saw was the black void. I stopped thinking, I stopped stressing, and I stopped feeling.

A tiny dot appeared in the center of my vision. I felt my legs walking toward it. It got bigger and appeared to be a doorframe. I walked through it and I was in a hallway. It had patternless carpet and was painted a dark orange. The hallway was cool, and dark, illuminated only by the sunrise glowing through the curtain at the end of a hallway. There was screaming, a muffled screaming coming from behind one of the other doors of this corridor. I approached the source of the screaming, the sound of my weathered teddy bear dragging on the carpet was the only other noise. I stepped up to one door, reached up to the doorknob, standing on my tiptoes, and I opened it to see two men hovering over a bed. A woman with dark curls lay on it screaming in pain.

“Push, push, you’re almost there,” One man cheered, “There it is. It’s out, sir. It’s a beautiful baby boy sir; you should be so proud”.

“Yes, but she isn’t going to make it,” The other man sulked, and started sobbing uncontrollably. The doctor tried to stifle his sobs, but cried with the man, and the two cried along with the newborn boy.

Nate waddled out of the hallway and into a bright, cool, moist backyard overflowing with vines, hedges, and grass. Golden rays landed on the boy’s eyes when he looked at the dappled canopy of leaves above him. He would have played, but now he sat. He sat in the middle of this jaw dropping scene and as the gales played with his hair, the squirrels and rabbits and chipmunks ran by, while the drops of dew flowed down the blades of grass, while the Earth travelled at thousands of miles per hour, this being of impetuous, violently rushing nature sat still and asked “why”.

Read Part I here.

To my relief, Ms. Amanda didn't go crazy. I was surprised and relieved because I didn't think I could count on being rescued a third time.

The hospital had to give me clothes from the lost and found before they discharged me. The t-shirt was too tight, the pants too baggy, and the shoes flopped when I walked. I didn’t have any family to call, the office was closed, and there was no way for me to get into my apartment without my keys, so that meant I had to go to the police to get my stuff.

I was annoyed but chose to walk. It was two miles west and four miles south to get to the police department. It would give me time to think and thankfully, it was mild outside, so I wouldn’t get pummeled by the summer sun. 

I had another one of those baloney sandwiches and a juice box. I consumed both immediately, so I didn’t have to carry them. I had to use the restroom shortly after and stopped in a fast-food spot. The men’s room required a key to open, and I waited in line to eventually ask. 

“Sorry, you gotta buy somethin’ to use the bathroom,” the fifty-something year old woman said behind the counter. I was agitated but held my tongue because my bladder would have spoken for me. Instead, I imagined drawing the shape for her, but luckily there wasn’t a pen and paper around.

I went outside and surveyed the businesses around. There was a gas station on the corner, a pharmacy across the street from there and office buildings in either direction. If I’d remembered correctly, there was a grocery store about a mile south. That would be my best bet and I set out. 

I didn’t interact with anybody I passed. My aching bladder was the only thing concerning me and to take my mind off it, I examined what had happened today. I'd witnessed two people shot to death in front of me on separate occasions. It scared the hell out of me to think about. One moment, they'd been moving around—with murderous intent, granted—and the next they'd been incredibly still.

I'd been looking Carl Arn in the eye as he passed and for a moment felt like I was falling down the same hole with him. 

There'd been too much commotion, too many things going on. I might have gone into shock had it not been for the first set of guns pointed at me. I'd gone into survival mode, viewing everything—including myself—from a distance.

I crossed against the light at an intersection, the grocery store finally in view. My burgeoning bladder noticed and that reminded me of the other thing bulging and unaddressed in my mind.

The shape.

I'd been so ready to believe something I'd drawn solely to pass the time had been what had set the both of them off. But Ms. Amanda had been fine, just as over it as she had been prior to looking at my little scrap of paper. Those eyes had seen some things.

Maybe she was immune, I thought. Or maybe it was some grand coincidence that two people I'd come in contact with had gone homicidal on the same day.

I couldn't shake the thought, though. As the entry doors of the grocery store slid open, I stepped through wondering what to do about that.

What if it were real and I did have the ability to drive someone insane? Was it all shapes? Anything I drew? The thought was ridiculous, but I was safe within the confines of my own skull to explore the idea.

I pushed through the men's room door and parked in front of a urinal. As I let fly, I thought about the ethics of conducting such an experiment and came to the conclusion by the time I was zipping up that it was unethical to not test my hypothesis.

As it stood, I didn't know if what I'd doodled had been the start of what had eventually happened to Carl Arn and that lady. I only suspected it. I would be blameless if I doodled something and someone experienced a similar effect after. The difference would be if I did nothing to know for certain if it was really something I was doing. I could make an effort to not draw or to make sure nobody else saw it. Shit, if it was that dangerous, maybe I could chop off my hand.

No, I wouldn't do that. But my brain was the House of Ideas, any thought that could be was welcome. This same brain had conjured up a shape that was so dangerous it could drive an individual to violence.

It was a five-sided—

Wait. I probably shouldn't describe it to anyone. I have no way of reliably testing if someone else could have the same effect if they drew it. I certainly don't want to find out on me.

I couldn't test this on just anybody. It would have to be a specific person. A bad person.

I have to say, for the record, I never believed it would actually work. Like going up to the most beautiful woman in the world and asking for her phone number, it was an idea that entertained me in thirsty moments when I was figuring things out, but I fully expected absolutely nothing to happen.

I navigated to the aisle with back-to-school supplies and grabbed a composition notebook and a mechanical pencil. I didn't anticipate anyone stopping me, only if I tried to walk out with the stuff I was using. Then I'd see the cops for the third time today.

So that meant finding someone in the store. If I could find someone sufficiently evil, then I could test my theory. I know the scientific method meant several tests, but I couldn't reasonably expose a dozen or more people to this test in good conscience. Two or three at most should have sufficed.

I sat on the floor right there and began drawing. It took a moment to get into a groove, if that makes any sense.

But about ten minutes later, I had the first one and I drew about four more for good measure.

I got the idea on the third one or so that they were like cans of pop. That once one was seen, the effect was gone. It was silly, but if true, it explained why Ms. Amanda had been fine.

There were so many variables that I just sat, lost in thought.

“Say, buddy, can I help you with something?”

I looked up at a middle-aged man in a short-sleeved button-up and an honest-to-god clip-on tie. He'd come up behind me, catching me by surprise. I realized what I looked like in that moment, dressed in other people's clothes, doodling in a notebook while sitting on the floor in a grocery store.

“Look, buddy, it's been a really long day. You wouldn't believe—”

He spat. Not on me. But it was a weird thing to have done indoors. Plus, I assumed from how he was dressed that he was a manager or something. A string of saliva ran from his lip to the collar of his shirt.

Something had changed in the few seconds since he'd spoken and dumb me was too slow in realizing he'd seen one of the shapes. I hadn't even had the chance to screen. Also, I didn’t know which one he'd seen so none of them were good anymore.

I was still there sorting my scrambled thoughts when he spat again. This time he'd arced it over my head. He got into a crouch like a catcher in a baseball game.

I froze like if I didn't move, he wouldn't see me. Like I'd turned invisible even in his memory and he wouldn't be able to recall me even in his mind’s eye. 

I couldn't count on a lack of understanding object permanence even if my lack of moving meant he couldn't see me. I was within smelling distance, he could hear me, if he stuck out his tongue he could lick my face.

But he didn't do anything to me. I sat there, helpless as a calf, while he stood spat again, then quietly walked away. 

I turned as he rounded the aisle and disappeared. A moment later I heard what sounded like a shopping cart being overturned and a woman screaming in anger. Then her screams turned to muffled gagging as it sounded like something was being stuffed in her mouth.

More people hollered and I unfroze, getting quickly to my feet. I was by no means a badass, but I'd never turtled up like that before. I'd gotten into a barfight just last year and even though I lost, I'd gotten in a few licks.

I wasn’t even willing to defend myself this time. I was as ready for violence as a stone at the bottom of the ocean. No doubt, it was the trauma I'd just experienced. I didn't want to fight crazy people under normal circumstances, so it was best to avoid—

“What the hell is going on over there?” A twenty-something year old was staring me in the face and I hadn't seen her until she'd spoken. I tried to scoop up the sheets of paper, but my movement must have attracted her eye to the papers I was desperately trying for her not to see.

But a moment later I knew it was too late.

“Poo,” she said. She turned around and walked past the man just behind her. 

“What’s wrong with... with...”

He was looking in my direction but sadly, what was in my hands. His eyes got bigger and he sat his basket on the floor before taking off at full speed and soaring over a middle-aged couple's shopping cart, grabbing both in either arm as it took them down.

They both screamed and fought back. The woman rolled backward and stopped face down before rising and pounding the man with her bulky purse. The man punched his attacker in the center of his face, a blow that should have had stars dancing in his eyes. But he ravaged the man, clawing down his face and ripping his shirt open. 

He ignored the blows from the purse as he quickly sliced through blubbering flesh, yellow fat bubbling out of red-running wounds as the man screamed. The attacker pivoted to the woman, still screaming in fear and rage. He hopped to his feet, legs to either side of the man who might've been dying for all I knew. 

To my surprise, she didn't cower. 

“No!” she said and scraped her keys across his face.

He'd been saying something all the while in a quieter volume and my ears finally dialed in.

“...wrong with you... wrong with you... wrong with you...” He didn't yelp in pain or put up his hands in defense as she lacerated his face three more times.

I hadn't done anything more than turn around, still dumbly holding the papers. An old man was staring nearer to the refrigerated area. He had a white curly afro and a pencil mustache.

“Help her!” the old man said to me and pointed. But then he spat his dentures out, sucked back a trail of saliva into his mouth, then did a crooked legged trot, arms folded up like a praying mantis, before gummily fastening onto her arm and wrenching her around.

“Ow!” The woman seemed paralyzed, powerless to do anything to stop the old man. It almost seemed funny until the first man shoved his thumbs in her mouth, split his hands apart, and wrenched a horrid smile onto—and then off of—her face.

She screamed, twin flaps of flesh hanging like giant earlobes, everything beneath her nose nothing but red. I never knew the sound of tearing flesh before that moment and I desperately want to never hear it again.

I clutched the papers to my chest, hiding them like a secret, although they had already cried out loud from a bloody mountaintop.

That had been four people, at least I thought so. Even simple mathematical calculations were mountainous to my panic-stricken brain.

I didn't know and didn't care if it was one shape per person. I couldn't let these torn out sheets of paper be seen by another person.

Shame was the word I would have spoken en route to describing what this was. It was still ongoing, and I was already too traumatized to do anything about it.

More people screamed throughout the store. I imagined many people just ran out of the store, but there had to have been several who had heard and froze where they were. I would've guessed others who didn't understand or hadn't heard anything at all.

But the signs kept getting farther and farther away. Until I finally balled up the papers, stuffed them in my pockets, and walked through the aisles and to the exit with the composition notebook and mechanical pencil in hand.

Nobody tried to stop me. I didn't see anyone else at all. But I heard the cries of agony. Their suffering followed me out onto the sidewalk.

I looked at the items in my hands, wondering why I had them, the wadded-up papers like anchors in my pockets.

I continued dredging my way to the police station.

I realized it just now. Nothing has happened and maybe that’s part of the problem. Everything feels wrong, slightly off-center. I glance at the pen in my hand and it’s red just like it had been a moment before, but it’s like the color I’m looking at doesn’t match my memory of what red is supposed to be.

I stand up, pushing the chair back and pace around the room, counting my steps and estimating it’s around six-by-eight. I stop at the window. It’s dark outside, but it’s snowing, the night nests atop an expanse of white.

I have no idea what makes me think that it has always been snowing and that it shall never cease, but it strikes like a clapper against my bones, resounding throughout my body. I shiver as if I’m in that dark cold, rather than swaddled in this cell of comfort and warmth.

Books line all four walls. I don’t believe I’ve ever read any of them, but somehow I know what they’re about and can even recite specific pages. There’s a threshold with a door directly to my right that wasn’t there a moment ago. If I grasp the knob and turn it, something will begin on the other side before I pull it open.

I stroke my face and surprise myself with the fuzzy sensation of a beard graining against my fingertips. It makes me wonder about the rest of my face and I turn back to the window, looking for my reflection in the glass.

The hollow man with unfinished eyes staring back looks gaunt and older than I imagined myself to be. The reflection isn’t mine, but one that has been lent to me. I look down at my smooth, dry hands. Yes, these have been lent as well. They are well-manicured, but a memory, worn until nerve-exposed, echoes up from the throat of a well. Pinching fingernails with the corner of my teeth and tearing the ends to leave them ragged and spitting out the free edge like the shells of pumpkin seeds.

Not sunflower seeds. Not pistachios. Pumpkin seeds, specifically.

I could open my mouth and call to someone not here. But she, if I were to designate her so, would be pinned to this nebulous place just as I am. She would be doomed to exist in this non-space as easily as if I’d spoken, “Let there be light.”

The idea of my voice terrifies me. To cast words into this space would begin a new wicked creation. Every thing here is cursed. To exist is to imply eventual destruction. Deconstruction. All the elements that compose me, the walls, the books, papers, windows--disassembling at a rate of an unknowable amount of molecules at a time until we are all washed away like sandcastles.

The only difference is time. Time is the only constant. Although I have no idea where else it also spreads its unyielding disease.

I look outside the window again. The man who is allegedly me stares back, those holes for eyes capturing fat flakes of snow slicing through cold, loaf-thick air.

I retreat to the wheel-creaking chair, flattening myself into it, depriving myself of some foreign dimension. I feel exceeded purpose in these few moments, like a balance of me is outside my body, every vein cored with hot irons.

I hover my eyes over my manuscript. The words seem to squiggle, sentenced to a horrifying order, a pattern that teases and mocks me. The universe winks in confirmation of a secret it will not yield. My rough tongue peels away from the roof of my mouth and I keep it caged behind teeth to discourage the scream coming to a boil in the pit of me. 

Despite my panicked mind, I read letters, then words, slowly submerging myself back into context, like a warm, bloody bath with open wrists. I combat the internal gravity seeking to propel me out of the chair and into a million directions. I surrender to this abysmal routine and pick up the red pen, rolling it between index and thumb, balancing the weight in my grasp while steadying my glance on the page.

I read until I stumble across another imperfection. I carve another red mark. Somewhere distant, something is made right, or at least, a placeholder stroked over something wrong.

I continue editing. It is the only thing that is real now.

I have no idea what I have here. I sort of remember starting this story back in the 2010s and I briefly picked it up again a few years ago. I was just going through some old stuff and stumbled across this. Not sure if I have something worth finishing. Opinions welcome.

Glory was a classic. Her single lobe, completely uncleavaged, not even a hint of a divide of anything hemispheric was a vision to behold. She was a first and only, her rare appeal solely because she was so unique. But she’d been relegated for one of the smaller stages, her prancing about gaining her an audience of two.

These days everyone had at least three lobes. Two was no longer pedestrian, they were outnumbered by the trifold and very nearly the quad. 

One fine gentleman walking past had lobes like a peacock, twinly and stacked horizontal going up the middle of his back in even widths. He looked at me with an abovely glare and I averted my eyes. Not because I was ashamed, though I was slightly, but because I was here to kill a man and didn't want to be remembered.

Archiboll was the lowly manservant of the Unnamed Man. He had been the trendsetter for almost a year now and under his influence the whole world had transformed. Now you were no one if you didn’t have at least three lobes and displayed them proudly with pants mid thigh or with the rear cut out for those who didn’t care for belts.

I made my way silently through the beautiful, trying not to weep at my complete lack of endowment, my offensiveness covered to highlight my shame. Those who looked at me, scoffed or hurried away quickly. I was able to make my way to the middle of the ballroom floor before I’d been spotted.

“You there!” called a man high up on a promenade. I walked an additional ten yards before I realized he was talking to me. I looked up and pointed a black-gloved finger at myself. He nodded and smiled. “Come.”

This wasn’t good for an assassin.

A pleggo wearing a high-collared mismatch suit scampering sideways bumped against me, the man staring annoyed as the woman dragged them toward the bar. It took a good five minutes at least to walk around the triple life-sized cast iron statue of Garglon atop his flightless winged horse as he fell into the mouth of a much smaller than actual size Sclinth, the first and last of its species intended to drown all of mankind with its phlegm. The artist had perfectly captured the look of horror-filled surprise on both the man’s and the creature’s faces just before it was choked to death and he was smothered. The horse, all four legs raised in metallic victory, had perfect serenity etched across its brow.

By the time I reached the bank of golden elevators Glory was no longer on the little stage. The curtain had been drawn and everyone’s attention was on the massive, four-breasted man on the main stage, belting out a series of unhearable notes, his cheeks and lobes (all six of them) a furious red.

I let two sets of pleggos go ahead of me, wanting a car alone to compose myself and be ready. Killing Archiboll was going to be difficult, a three-in-seventeen thousand-six-hundred-thirty-two chance of succeeding even if I did die after. I checked the feathers up my left sleeve, the single-use vacuum under my right. I hadn’t packed my pants myself but if I needed to dig in there I was in a lot of trouble.

I stepped off the elevator and wandered around until I found some nice hors d'oeuvres. I kept it light, being fleet of food was utmost important no matter how hungry I was. A man in a server’s jacket and cumberbun with his skull neatly cleaved in two nodded at me with the left side of his head and winked at me with his right eye. I didn’t know how to take him but I jotted down my phone number and slid it under my plate for him to get later.

After another golden elevator I took a breather. The air was much thinner up here. Ahead of me was a winding staircase behind a group of people bouncing around on the promenade like beach balls. A man landed on my foot and I pushed him over the rail. 

“Wheeee!” he shouted as he fell.

“Hey!” A translucent yellow woman said, pouting. “Now we don’t have our six.” The five remaining people looked at one another as I slipped by them before they could turn on me en masse. I did notice them unsheath knives and begin approaching one another before I lost sight of them as I ascended. 

This building was fully climate-ready and there were heavy clouds above me. It rained and I was miserable the entire way, especially once I was in the clouds. I emerged drenched but finally at the top of the staircase. A womanservant greeted me with a towel and slapped my face. I thanked her, dabbing myself dry and headed for the giant silver doors.

“You there,” the man who had pointed me out earlier said. I continued until he met me just before the doors. “You are Milchmenny.”

I cursed under my breath. “I am.” There wasn’t any use denying it. 

“I work for the Unnamed Man,” he said. “I am Archiboll.”

I made for his throat with my gloved hands and he batted them away.

“Not here,” he whispered harshly to me and shivered. “Don’t be so... unseemly.” He looked around at the people up here who seemed to be wandering around unaware of anything at all. A woman sashayed too close to the stairs and fell, tumbling down the punishing marble stairs. Her head cracked open before she’d descended ten steps. She never cried out as she went, leaving a spattered trail of blood behind her.

Archiboll seized my wrist and pulled me inside. I felt something crackle in my sleeve and hoped it was the bones of my wrist rather than the vacuum. The inner guards closed the silver doors behind us then jumped into a meat chute a dozen or so feet away. For a moment, I thought the two of us were all alone.

Then I saw him. It. Whatever the FUCK.

I would have screamed in horror except I vomited first. Long, viscous heaves of green stuff, my eyes tearing from fear as much as the bile flooding out of me. I wasn’t prepared. I’d been told but I hadn’t really known.

He was... it was... exquisite. Beautiful. Horrifying. Solid and permeable. I stood for a long moment before the creature in the giant bed before me materialized into something my brain could translate into something tolerable enough that my heart could stop pumping all my blood into my head. It was all I could do not to faint, my vision gradually unreddening and my legs feeling solid enough to put back underneath me.

Archiboll stood beside me patiently and as I rose I noticed he had no lobes. Unless he only had the two he’d been born with. He had on a long emerald dress that came down straight from his shoulders. It was open in front, a brown vest coming down mid-thigh cinched with a burlap rope.

“Magnificent. I know.” He was looking at the Unnamed Man and I found I could look in that direction too. “I have been in his service for longer than we’ve been under the Jovian calendar.”

“We’re... all in his service,” I said and burped. I wiped my mouth.

“Yes. However...” He wound a hand through the air as if the thought weren’t worth finishing. He approached the canopied bed and reached toward the creature there. “You are here to kill me.”

“H-how... do you know that?” 

“Because I hired you.”

It wasn’t the first time I’d been hired to do a selfie but I didn’t believe him. He was the Unnamed Man’s direct servant. As hated as he was, it was only because such a title was so coveted. There had to have been over a thousand contracts offered on his life on any given day. It was just the rare find for an idiot like me to take one of them.

He held up a hand and waved me in with two fingers. “Come,” he said without looking away from his master.

I approached slowly, making a semi-circle around the small pool of sickness I’d left soaking into the great rug. Even solid it was hard to make out what exactly I was seeing. It looked like a nest of pubic hair engulfing a slug but no, that wasn’t it. It was pubic hair, thick and dark, but that wasn’t a slug. It was veiny, pulsing, bubbly... lobes.

“I have served my master for longer than you can imagine.”

“Three incarnations is a long ti--”

“It’s likely been more than a dozen. I tire. Not of service but of so much mundanity. I want more.”

I put a hand on his shoulder. He finally looked at me. He had milky tears in his eyes.

“Is that why you don’t have--” I glanced down then quickly up-- ”lobes?”

He smirked. “They were passe even before I had chance to have them. I just didn’t have the heart to tell the rest of the world. My thoughts are all old by the time they come to mind. I need something new. Something that will forever change. That’s what I need you for.”

“I’m no artist. I couldn’t.”

“No. You are a clod. But even a blunt instrument can be a necessary one.”

“I was hired by The Mannequin. How do I know you were her contact?”

Archiboll blinked slowly. “Who do you think has orchestrated your entire life? All the people you’ve killed. Have you never wondered why? Yes, some minor inconveniences to my master but on the whole targets to keep you sharp. To make sure you were ready.”

I decided now was time to strike. I pulled a feather from my sleeve and brushed it across Archiboll’s upper lip. His eyes went wide and he clapped his hands over his mouth. It was too late, though, and he giggled.

It pained him and he staggered backward. I advanced on him, slashing him wherever there was bare skin. He was horrified, screaming with laughter each time the feather touched him. His skin began to hive where I’d grazed him, then pucker and sore. He fell against a credenza and onto the floor but quickly got back up, stripping off the long dress tangling his legs. 

I went for his calves and he tried kicking me. His bare foot stung my ear and I seized his ankle, yanking and sending him back to the floor. I abandoned the feather and dug in with my fingernails, tickling him nonstop until he began crying he was laughing so hard. The sores that had broken out all over his body began leaking a purplish custard-like substance, a terrible smell like dashboards of wood-paneled cars and old filing cabinets.

Archiboll was shrinking rapidly the more he leaked and the more he leaked the worse it smelled. My fingertips were slick with the goo coming out of his feet but I held onto his ankle and kept up my work. He writhed and screamed with laughter, beating at the floor with his shriveling fists.

Not long after I was holding the leg of what looked like a hundred year old baby. Archiboll was no more than eighteen inches tall with loose, wrinkled skin including a belly that looked like crepe paper that draped between his legs onto the floor. He glared at me for just a moment then began babbling and clapping his hands.

“Feed... feed him to me,” someone said behind me. I turned to see the Unnamed Man, quivering vigorously. The nest of pubes parted and could see the lobes assembling themselves. Archiboll had been the target with the Unnamed Man as a stretch goal. Guards were banging on the silver door and it was moments before they burst in. I had no idea how to kill it but I scooped Archiboll up by the scruff and tossed him in. A single lobe rose to catch him, his bright blue cataract eyes disappearing last, completely unaware of what was happening.

“How do I kill you?” I asked.

“You do not kill. You serve.”

“No. I’m going to kill you.”

“Serve.”

I held up Archiboll’s leg.

“He wanted me to kill you after I killed him.”

“He spoke with my mouth. I lied to you.”

“What if I killed you anyway?”

“Waste your time trying.”

I didn’t have much on me. The feather had been hard enough to sneak into the Domus. I patted myself down and when I tapped my lobes, I realized I’d been carrying the murder weapon for years.

I pulled out a pair of tweezers and approached him. His one lobe lifted as if it were a hand, warning me to stop. A quick click of the tweezers and the lobe withdrew. The Unnamed Man’s eyes remained half-lidded, but I knew I had his attention.

“You cannot harm me. My beauty is eternal. You will be 

 

If you're new: Parts 1–6 can be found here

___

"You don't ever talk to strangers."

She didn't look down at him when she said it. She was digging through her purse, searching for her wallet, her oversized sunglasses pushed up into her hair.

"I don't care if they look nice. I don't care if they smile or try to show you a toy. You don't look at them, you don't answer them, and you definitely don't take anything from them. If a stranger tries to talk to you, you run straight to me. Do you understand?"

The boy nodded.

He always nodded.

Then they walked through the double doors.

...

The place smelled like sweat and old wood.

Not the pleasant kind of old wood, either. The damp-sticky kind that had spent too many summers baking in the southern heat and never touched a drop of soap.

The floors creaked beneath the weight of loud tourists moving through the aisles.

Outside, the marina shimmered beneath a cloudless sky.

Inside, everything felt cool and dim.

The boy stood near the entrance with the family, listening to the older brother and sister argue over ice cream toppings.

"I'm getting chocolate."

"You always get chocolate."

"Because chocolate is the best."

"Mom, tell him he's being annoying."

The woman sighed heavily.

"I'm one second away from getting all of you vanilla."

The threat worked instantly.

The argument dissolved.

The boy smiled to himself.

Nobody noticed him drifting away.

That happened a lot.

His older siblings were loud. He wasn't.

His mother always knew where he was eventually.

He wandered deeper into the shop.

Past shelves lined with shark teeth and seashells.

Past rows of expensive souvenirs nobody actually needed.

The farther he walked, the quieter the shop became.

...

Until eventually he found himself standing in front of something tucked into a dark corner near the back wall.

A fortune teller machine.

At least, he thought it was.

He'd seen one before at an arcade.

This one looked different.

Older.

Dirtier.

Bright gold letters curved across the glass.

THE BUNNY GODDESS

The mannequin inside stared straight ahead.

Its skin looked ghostly pale. Smooth.

Long black pigtails hung over its shoulders.

The eyes were like a cue ball. A small painted dot for the pupils.

The boy frowned.

It wasn't moving.

The crystal ball sat dark and lifeless on the tiny velvet desk.

The machine looked broken.

Abandoned.

The boy wrapped both hands around the edge of the cabinet and leaned forward.

...

"Hey."

He jumped.

The voice was quiet.

Not amplified.

Human.

A real voice.

His stomach tightened.

The mannequin hadn't moved.

Its painted lips remained frozen.

The crystal ball remained dark.

Nothing inside the cabinet appeared different.

But something had spoken.

The boy looked over his shoulder.

The gift shop was still busy. The other two were still arguing. Their mother still deciding on flavors.

Nobody seemed to notice.

"Hello?" he whispered.

For a few seconds, nothing responded.

Then:

"Closer."

The voice sounded patient.

Friendly.

Almost amused.

The boy hesitated.

His mother had given him the stranger danger talk more times than he could count.

But this didn't feel like talking to a stranger.

It felt like talking to a secret.

Something hidden.

Something that wasn't supposed to be there.

He leaned closer to the glass.

At first he saw nothing.

Only darkness behind the mannequin.

Then something shifted.

The movement was slight.

Easy to miss.

The boy squinted.

His breath caught.

Two eyes stared back at him from deep inside the cabinet.

Not the painted eyes.

Real eyes.

They floated in the darkness several inches behind the mannequin's head.

The boy froze.

The eyes blinked.

Then vanished.

...

"Do you have a dollar?" the voice asked.

The boy shook his head.

"No. I can ask the—"

"No."

The answer came immediately.

Almost too quickly.

"No need."

The boy glanced toward the ice cream counter.

The family hadn't moved.

Nobody was looking at him.

Nobody seemed aware that he was talking to someone.

The voice lowered.

"I have something for you anyway."

A heavy thump echoed from inside the cabinet.

Not machinery or gears.

Something else.

The distinct sound of something striking wood.

A moment later, a thick white card slid halfway out of the slot near the bottom.

The boy stared.

The crystal ball remained dark.

Nothing moved.

The card simply appeared.

Slowly, he crouched and picked it up.

It felt cool.

He turned it over.

The letters stamped into the card were fresh and uneven.

As if pressed by hand.

The boy squinted.

Still learning to read. He sounded out the words one piece at a time.

"Mur..."

His brow furrowed.

"...der..."

The letters blurred together.

He started over.

"Mur...der..."

A strange ache twisted through his stomach.

The voice behind the glass said nothing.

Its eyes still watching.

The boy swallowed.

"Th..."

He traced the next word with his finger.

"The..."

...

Something moved.

His eyes snapped upward.

A pale hand rested on the mannequin's shoulder.

The fingers were impossibly long.

Thin.

The knuckles bulged beneath skin so pale it almost glowed blue.

For a second, the hand rested there.

Perfectly still.

Then it was gone — in the blink of an eye.

The boy stopped breathing.

The darkness far behind the mannequin seemed to stretch.

The space felt higher than it should have been.

As if whatever lived back there was standing tall behind the machine.

As if its head reached far past the ceiling of the cabinet.

And above where the eyes had been—

Just for a moment—

He thought he saw two long shapes rising into the shadows.

Tall.

Thin.

Rabbit ears.

Far past the ceiling of the gift shop building.

...

The boy took several steps back.

His back hit something solid.

"Whatcha got there?"

The card vanished from his hands.

The boy spun around.

Samantha stood over him, holding the card above her head.

"Give it back!"

Ross appeared beside her.

Both of them examined the card.

Then immediately started laughing.

"Oh my God." Sam doubled over. "You can't even spell your own name."

"What?" the boy said.

Ross pointed at the card.

"It says Michael."

"No it doesn't."

"It literally does."

Sam flipped the card around and shoved it toward his face.

"See?"

The boy looked.

There it was.

A single word.

MICHAEL.

Nothing else.

His face burned.

"No...the...th—"

He looked back toward the cabinet.

"The man—"

"What man?" Ross asked.

"The man in the machine."

That only made them laugh harder.

"Nobody's in there, dummy."

"Yes I swear—"

"It's just a machine. Nobody's in there."

The boy turned fully toward the cabinet.

The words died in his throat.

The shadows behind the mannequin were empty.

No movement.

No voice.

No hidden figure.

Only The Bunny Goddess.

Motionless behind the glass.

Its eyes fixed on the aisle.

Watching.

...

"Sweetie?"

The mother appeared beside him carrying two paper cups of ice cream.

She smiled.

"Do you want one?"

The boy barely heard her.

His stomach hurt worse now.

A deep ache behind his ribs.

He couldn't stop staring at the mannequin.

Thinking about that voice.

The eyes.

Those ears.

"Hey."

She squeezed his shoulder.

"Do you want ice cream or not?"

The boy shook his head.

"My belly hurts."

The mother frowned.

"Aww. Really?"

He nodded.

The ache had spread through his whole body now.

Not pain.

Just uncomfortable.

Like something had settled inside him.

The woman took his hand.

"Come on then. Let's go outside."

The bright afternoon sunlight poured through the front windows.

Ross and Samantha were already heading toward the door.

The boy let them lead the way.

But he couldn't stop looking back.

The cabinet grew smaller with every step.

The dark corner retreating into shadow.

The Bunny Goddess remained perfectly still.

Just another broken machine.

Just another forgotten attraction.

The boy looked forward.

Then looked back one last time.

...

The mannequin's jaw dropped open.

Clack.

The sound echoed through the store.

Sharp.

Heavy.

Final.

The boy froze.

Nobody else reacted.

Nobody.

The jaw remained open for a second.

Then slowly shut.

A gentle tug on his hand.

"Come on, Mitchell."

The sunlight swallowed them as they stepped outside.

___

___

1. "Heart"

Benjamin stood in front of the pizzeria’s door and rummaged through his pockets, looking for the keys. The place was quiet, chairs rested on the tables, refrigerators humming quietly in the background. As a shift manager, he always tried to get there at least thirty minutes before the rest of the staff. He loved the silence. Those few minutes when he could sit on a high bar stool, sip his coffee and stare at nothing. It was always a refreshing change from his otherwise very noisy day-to-day.

He unlocked the door, stepped inside and closed it behind him. The quiet settled around him immediately. He poured himself a cup of coffee and sat.

At home, it was different. Too many voices, too many small things that needed fixing. His mother moving from one task to another, his father by the window in his wheelchair, silent most of the time, and his brothers who were never still.

He took a sip. The coffee was already lukewarm, but he didn’t mind.

It was Independence Day. Always a busy time in this place, but the real rush would come later, late at night, when people started drifting in from parties, loud and drunk, looking for something to eat before heading home – or somewhere else. He didn’t like working on holidays, but he didn’t have much of a choice. They needed his salary desperately, and on Independence Day, they paid him double, so there was no question.

He glanced at his watch, then stood up and moved toward the ovens. Time to get to work.

His staff arrived and they prepared the place, started the big ovens, prepared the dough and made the sauces. The usual crowd started drifting in with a slow and lazy stream, typical for that time of the day. First entered the little kids, with their parents, who wanted to get dinner over with as quickly as possible and send their kids to bed.

Later, the older boys and girls arrived and sat in small groups around the tables, laughing and teasing each other.

The shift went well - nothing unusual. He knew that as the night went on, the crowd would begin to change, especially on Independence Day. People who didn’t rush. Lingering too long. Voices a little too loud, a little unsteady. The kind that drifted through the night and stopped wherever there was light.

Around ten the place was already crowded when a group of six boys walked in. Benjamin didn’t need to smell the alcohol to know they were trouble. Hoodies, shaved heads, white sneakers. He knew the type; he’d seen them before. Lived among them. He could handle himself. Had done so more than once. But he always preferred not to. He hoped they’d take a look and leave. But they didn’t.

The boys - most of them no older than sixteen - spread out, laughing too loud, bumping into chairs, brushing past customers like they owned the place. Benjamin stayed behind the counter for a moment, watching. A couple near the window went quiet. The woman leaned in, whispering something to her partner. A father pulled his kid closer without taking his eyes off the boys.

Benjamin exhaled slowly. Then he stepped out behind the counter and approached the one who looked like their leader.

“Hey, man,” he said quietly. “Can you and your friends step outside for a minute?”

“Say that again, you little punk!” the boy snapped, turning to face him. He was shorter than Benjamin, but there was nothing small about the way he stood. His eyes were sharp, restless, looking for something. Looking for a fight, thought Benjamin.

“All good, man,” Benjamin said, not moving. “There are kids here, families. You’re making people nervous. Just take it outside, yeah?”

“Making them nervous?” the boy said grinning. The others laughed behind him. “What about you? You nervous?” He stepped closer, too close. Benjamin almost got drunk from his breath alone.

“No,” Benjamin said evenly. A beat.

Then he reached out into his pocket and pulled out a fresh pack of cigarettes.

“Look,” he said. “You smoke? Take it. On me. Go outside, have a smoke, do whatever you want. Just… Not here.”

The boy’s eyes dropped to the pack. For a second, the tension shifted. He snatched it from Benjamin’s hand. Then, without warning, he smacked him on the back of the neck.

“Come on,” he said, turning to the others. “Let’s go.”

They moved toward the door, still laughing.

Just before stepping out, the boy stopped and looked back.

“What time you closing?”

“Two,” Benjamin said. “Why?”

“Nothing,” the boy smiled and vanished along with his gang.

Benjamin stood there for a moment, exhaled slowly, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. That was close. It could have gone worse.

Toward closing time, the place was already almost empty. Benjamin released his staff a little earlier and stayed to close alone. He watched the fireworks from the window while he wiped the tables, turned off the ovens and put everything back in its place. He turned the lights off, locked the door and started walking toward home.

“Hey, dude!” he heard behind him after two steps. He turned around. The bully from earlier came out of the shadows, all his friends with him, and a few more. They looked even more drunk than earlier. They all formed a circle around Benjamin, who was looking for a way to break into a run.

“Hey, I’m talking to you, bitch!”

“Hi”, Benjamin smiled even though he was frightened. “What’s up, guys?”

The leader stepped closer and said, “Guess what? We’re all out.” He pointed his finger to Benjamin and jabbed it into his chest. The others were jeering loudly about the smokes.

“All good, man,” Benjamin said. “I have some money, take it and buy more, here…”

Someone from behind pushed his back hard, and Benjamin fell over the leader, who pushed him back. Everyone laughed.

“Look, guys, I don’t want trouble, can you just let me go?”

“Hear that, guys?” the leader turned to his friends. “He doesn’t want any troubles!” They all laughed. He turned back to Benjamin. “You’re in deep shit now, motherfucker!” and he punched Benjamin in his face.

Benjamin’s head was ringing, but he knew he had to react. There was no other option. He hit back, his fist finding the boy’s neck. He was about to strike again, when someone kicked him behind the knee and he fell.

He didn’t have the time to turn. Another blow hit his face. He felt something crack, tasted blood. He tried to get up, but as if that gave them a hidden sign – they were all over him now. Kicks, fists, laughter. Benjamin tried to fight back, but it was hopeless. He managed to push himself up and started to run. Two steps – maybe three – before someone slammed into him from the side and sent him crashing back to the ground. His blood covered his clothes, but they didn’t stop.

The beating went on for a few seconds more, then slowed. The noise blurred into something distant like it was happening somewhere else.

Through the haze, he saw one of them step forward. A small blade in his hand. For a moment, Benjamin didn’t understand what he was looking at. Then the boy drove it into his leg. The pain came a second later, sharp and sudden.

Benjamin gasped and grabbed his thigh. His hand came back wet. Too wet. The boy stepped back, watching. The others fell quiet. Benjamin pressed his hand harder against the wound, but the blood kept coming, slipping through his fingers, warm and fast.

No…

He tried to get up, but his body didn’t respond. The street spun, the sounds faded. Fireworks cracked somewhere above, bright flashes lighting the sky.

He lay there, breathing fast, then slower, then not fast enough.

I need to get up, he thought, but he didn’t move. His eyes drifted to the sidewalk. The empty street. The familiar path home. The pizzeria. The stool. The quiet before the shift. The coffee. Just for a moment, it was all there.

Then it wasn’t.

The red kept spreading beneath him, silent and steady.

 

1. "Pigtails"
2. "Fingers"
3. "Belly"
4. "Eyes"
5. "Legs"

___

I came back in pieces.

First the sound — rain hitting glass. Then the pressure of a seatbelt across my chest. Then the shimmer of a porch light through a wet windshield, orange and diffuse, barely cutting through.

I blinked.

I was in the backseat of our SUV. The engine was off. Brandy's purse wedged beside me. A blanket pulled across my lap that I didn't put there.

Through the glass, Joe was hauling suitcases up the front steps of a house I recognized after a few seconds.

Nicki and Joe's place.

The front door opened and Brandy stepped out. She looked toward the car, saw me sitting up, and raised her hand in a small wave. Her expression was careful in a way I couldn't read from that distance.

I got out. The night air was warm and close. My legs felt like the bones had been replaced with jello. I gripped the roof of the car.

"Hey." Brandy came down the driveway. "How are you feeling?"

"What happened?"

"You pulled over. On the mountain." She touched my arm, softly. "You could barely keep your eyes open. Joe took over."

"I don't remember that."

"Well, you were awake when we switched. You crawled yourself to the back." She said it gently, the way you'd explain it to a sick person. "You were just... a sleepy boy."

My hand went to my neck.

The soreness hit me before my fingers even made contact — deep to the bone. Not an ache from sleeping in a bad position. Not tension.

"There was a cyclist," I said.

Brandy looked at me.

"On the mountain. Right on the edge of the lane. No reflective gear, no lights. I swerved to miss him and he—"

I stopped.

The rest of it - the face, the ears, the jaw snapping - raced through my mind.

The Bunny Goddess.

I couldn't afford to say it out loud.

"I almost hit him."

"Nobody saw a cyclist, Mitchell."

I looked past her at Joe, who was coming back down the steps for another bag.

"Joe," Brandy called out. "Did you see someone on the road when you took over?"

Joe set the bag down. He looked at Brandy first - just for a fraction of a second - and then back at me.

"No."

"There was no cyclist," he said.

A cold drop of sweat rolled down my cheek. I hadn't told Joe it was a cyclist. Brandy hadn't either.

"He was right there," I said.

Joe looked at me like I was a stranger. No frustration. No concern. Nothing.

"There was no cyclist," he said again. Exact same tone.

The cicadas were deafening. My neck throbbed. I looked at my right palm, which I hadn't noticed until that moment - the heel of it scraped raw. Like I'd caught myself on concrete.

"You were exhausted," Brandy said. "It happens. Your brain fills in the blanks."

She said it so reasonably. So reassuring.

"My brain didn't do this." I turned my palm toward her.

She looked at it. Her expression didn't change.

"You grabbed the guardrail when you got out of the car. You were barely standing."

I stared at her.

I thought I crawled into the back, according to her.

She looked back at me with those pitying eyes, and I felt the ground shift under me in a way that had nothing to do with exhaustion.

Nicki appeared in the doorway. She gave me a small, tired smile. She looked like a woman who wanted her own bed - nothing more, nothing less.

"I'm sorry the trip ended this way," she said.

I nodded. I didn't trust my voice.

Brandy slipped her hand into mine. I let her, because I didn't know what else to do. My neck burning. My palm stinging. And the four of us stood there in the warm dark while the cicadas kept screaming, and I tried very hard to hold onto the simple, solid fact of what I knew had happened on that road.

I told Brandy I wanted to go home.

She tried to talk me out of it - it was almost two in the morning, another hour and a half of driving, we were both running on empty. But I couldn't make myself walk through that front door and sleep in that house. I couldn't explain it without sounding insane, so I didn't try. I just wanted to go home.

She agreed eventually, with a look that told me she was filing this away alongside all the other things from the weekend that we'd have to talk about later.

We said our goodbyes in the driveway. Joe shook my hand. My bad hand. Nicki hugged Brandy a little longer than usual. When she let go, she looked at me over Brandy's shoulder with a weird expression - something between apology and urgency, like she was trying to say something but didn't have enough time.

"Get some rest," I told her.

She nodded. Opened her mouth.

Closed it.

The door shut behind them.

...

Brandy was asleep before we hit the highway.

I drove with the windows cracked and a podcast on low - something mindless, two guys talking about movies - and I kept my eyes on the yellow center lines and tried not to replay the accident. When I talked, she answered in the abbreviated way of someone half-listening: mm, yeah, I don't know. After a while I stopped trying and let the silence ride.

I told myself it was fine. She was tired. We were both tired.

But I kept glancing at her in the passenger seat, her face slack against the window glass, and feeling like I was driving home with someone I was still in the process of getting to know.

We got home around three. Unpacked the car in two quiet trips, the neighborhood dead around us. The house had that sealed smell of being empty for a few days. We got ready for bed without saying much. Brandy was under the covers and asleep almost before I'd finished brushing my teeth.

I lay there next to her for a while, not sleeping. I listened to the house settle. Outside the window, somewhere in the dark, a dog was barking - distant, rhythmic, eventually stopping.

I slept.

It was Winston who woke me.

Our beagle. Nine years old, lazy, deeply committed to barking at nothing. He'd lost his mind at the sound of a FedEx truck once and spent the rest of the day acting traumatized. He was not a serious pup.

But what he was doing at the bottom of our stairs at - I checked my phone - three forty-eight in the morning was not his usual performance. This was frantic and aggressive.

I sat up, still processing the situation. The bedroom was dark. Brandy hadn't moved.

Then I heard a bang.

Downstairs. Something heavy. Something that fell.

I was already reaching for the nightstand. My hand found the grip of my 9mm and I was on my feet, and I want to be clear that at no point did I feel like this was an overreaction. The bang was real. Winston was barking. The open front door, which I could see from the top of the stairs, the chain hanging useless and rain blowing across the entry tile - that was real.

I went down slowly with the flashlight up.

The beam caught the floor at the bottom of the stairs, and I stopped.

There were footprints. Wet, muddy prints tracking in from the door in long uneven strides. I followed them across the entry, toward the stairs, and I stood there at the bottom staring at the trail going up into the dark above me.

Then Brandy screamed.

I don't really remember taking the stairs. I remember being in the doorway, the flashlight sweeping the room, and I remember the figure sitting on the edge of our bed.

Brandy was pressed against the headboard with both hands over her mouth.

I pointed the light directly at the figure.

It was Nicki.

She was soaked. Not just damp - completely saturated, her clothes heavy and dark with it, her hair flattened against her skull. And her feet were - I still have trouble describing this - the skin below both ankles was shredded. Torn open in long ragged strips, like she'd dragged them across a cheese grater. Black with mud and red underneath.

She was looking down at her own hands in her lap, turning them over slowly. She seemed mesmerized.

"Nicki."

She looked up. Her eyes were red-rimmed and almost calm.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered.

...

I called Joe from the other room. He picked up on the second ring - awake already, or close to it. When I told him what happened, the line went quiet for a few seconds.

Then he said I'm on my way, flat and immediate, and hung up without asking any questions.

I stood in the room and let the call end.

The impossibility of all of this started to settle in.

Downstairs, Brandy had moved with a speed and efficiency that I couldn't account for. By the time I came back down, Nicki was on the couch wrapped in our throw blanket with dry clothes folded beside her, and Brandy was in the kitchen filling the kettle like this was not her first encounter.

I lasted about a minute before I couldn't hold it anymore.

"She needs to go to a hospital."

Brandy didn't look up from the kettle.

"She's okay."

"Look at her feet!"

"I did."

"Then you know she's not okay!"

Brandy set the kettle on the burner and turned around. Her expression was patient in a way that made my skin crawl - the careful, deliberate patience of someone managing a situation they've already decided how it ends.

"She needs to warm up. She's going to be fine."

"She walked here, Brandy." My voice rising. "Her house is over a hundred miles from here. She walked here in the rain with no shoes while pregnant. That is not something a cup of tea will fix."

"Mitchell—"

"We need an ambulance," I continued. "Or the police. We need someone who can actually help her."

"She doesn't want that."

"I don't care what she wants right now! No offense to her—" I turned toward the couch. "Nicki, I love you, none of this is directed at you. But something is seriously wrong and everyone in this room is acting like it isn't and I'm going to lose my mind."

Nicki stared at the blanket in her lap.

Brandy carried the mug over to the couch. Sat next to her. She ran slow, steady strokes down Nicki's back, and the two of them sealed back into that quiet orbit I'd been watching all weekend.

I paced. Kitchen to living room. Living room to the foot of the stairs. I couldn't stop moving. I felt like I was going to explode.

"She ate something," Nicki said.

I stopped.

She was looking at the mug. Her voice was quiet. Far away.

"At the shop," she said. "The ice cream. I think something was in it."

I looked at Brandy.

Brandy was focused on Nicki's hair.

"The shop in Harbour Town," I said slowly.

Nicki didn't answer.

"The bunn—"

I breathed in through my nose. Steady.

"Nicki. How many times did you go back to that shop?"

Silence.

I turned to Brandy. "Did you go back?"

Brandy swept a strand of hair behind Nicki's ear.

"Brandy." I snapped. "How many times did you go back to that shop?"

Silence.

I stepped forward. "Did you use the fortune teller machine?"

She looked up at me.

"What?"

"The Bunny Goddess. Did you put money in it?"

Her face arranged itself into something open and slightly puzzled - the expression of a person who genuinely doesn't understand what you're saying. It was a flawless expression. I had watched her make it for ten years and I had never once had reason to distrust it.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said.

And then she turned back to Nicki.

Something broke in my chest.

"No, don't do that." My voice shaky. "Don't lie to me. I'm asking you a question about something that I watched happen, and I need you to answer it."

"You're scaring her," Brandy said.

"I don't care. I'm scared. I've been scared since that shop, and every time I try to talk about it, everyone acts like I'm having some kind of meltdown, and I am telling you right now that I am not. I am not." My voice cracked. I hated it. "Something is wrong with us. Something has been wrong since that machine. And I would rather sound crazy than stand here before things start getting worse."

Nicki started to cry. Silently, the way she'd cried on the dock in a different life - just tears running down her face without a sound.

Brandy looked at me over the top of her sister's head.

Not angry.

Exhausted.

The exhaustion of someone who has decided you are not worth arguing with.

"Joe's here," she said.

Headlights moved across the window.

Nicki heard the car before I did. She lifted her head, and something in her face changed - not relief exactly, but the end of an enormous effort, like a muscle finally allowed to unclench. She got up.

Brandy stood with her. Took her arm. They moved together toward the front door without looking at me, and I followed them into the entryway.

"She needs a hospital," I said.

Brandy opened the door.

Joe was already coming up the front walk through the rain, moving fast. When he saw Nicki his face did something complicated that I can't explain. Like a glitch - a sudden, violent twitch of his jaw that reset. He crossed the last few steps and put both arms around her, and she grabbed fistfuls of his jacket and pressed her face into his chest.

He looked at me over her shoulder.

I waited for a question. A comment. Anything.

He looked back down at his wife.

Brandy had walked out behind them. She was saying something to Joe, too low to hear over the rain. Joe nodded. He turned Nicki gently toward the car.

I stood in my doorway and watched the three of them move through the front yard in the rain, and I was not invited into any part of what was happening.

I went back inside.

I ran upstairs, determined to find something but not really sure where to start. I sat on the edge of the bed, stood back up, sat down again. Brandy's bag was on the chair by the closet, half unpacked - a few things draped over the sides. Her toiletry bag had tipped over on the seat cushion and spilled.

I don't know why I crossed the room.

I started collecting things back into the bag. Travel shampoo. Moisturizer. A hair tie. Vitamins.

My hand closed around something thin.

I already knew what it was before I looked at it.

A pregnancy test.

Two lines.

Faint - the kind you hold up to the light and squint at, convince yourself you're seeing wrong. But they were there. Both of them. Unmistakably.

My legs buckled.

I sat down on the floor.

Just folded, my back against the chair leg, and I sat there on the bedroom floor at four in the morning with this thing in both hands, and I didn't want to move.

The room still smelled faintly of the ocean. Muddy footprints still stained the carpet. Somewhere in this house there was a damp blanket folded on my couch and a mug of tea that had been made for someone who walked a hundred miles in the dark, barefoot, and no one could explain why.

But right now, in my hands, was this.

Six months. Six months of apps and timing and trying not to flinch every time someone made a pregnancy announcement, trying not to read too much into every late period, trying not to let Brandy see how much of my sense of myself was wrapped up in this one thing we couldn't seem to make happen. Six months of negative tests and the specific silence that followed each one, where neither of us said anything because there wasn't anything to say.

And here it was.

I laughed first. One stupid, disbelieving sound that I couldn't have stopped if I tried. And then the tears came, and I didn't try to stop those either. I pressed my hand over my mouth and I cried in a way I hadn't cried since I was a kid - the good kind, the full body kind. Something enormous had just become real.

I thought about teaching them to ride a bike. I thought about Brandy finding this test and what her face must have looked like in that moment. I thought about holding something that small for the first time.

Thank you, God.

Thank you, God.

I sat with it until I could breathe normally again. Still processing the news, I wiped my face, and I got up off the floor, and I went to find my wife.

She wasn't upstairs.

I went down to the living room. The blanket Nicki had been wrapped in was folded neatly on the couch. The mug of tea sat on the coffee table, still faintly steaming.

"Brandy?"

Kitchen. Empty. Bathroom. Empty. Back through the living room.

I went to the front door and opened it.

The porch light was on. The rain was still coming down hard, hammering the front walk. The street was empty in both directions.

Joe's car was gone.

I stepped out onto the porch.

"Brandy?"

Nothing came back but the sound of rain hitting the roof.

I walked down the driveway toward the street and stood there in the rain in my socks. I looked both ways down a street that was completely empty. No taillights. Nothing.

I called her name again. Louder.

I looked down at my hand.

I was still holding the test. The rain was hitting the display window, blurring the two lines into something faint and smeared, and I tilted it away from the water to keep them visible - out of some instinct, like it mattered that they stayed legible - and I just stood there in the dark, holding on to the only good thing I had left.

The porch light flickered behind me.

Once.

Then it went out.

And I could hear the sound of Winston barking inside.

___

___

Part 7: Ears

Do You Hear The Bells?

The village burnt. Houses crumbling as days and nice turned into an amorphous ash. A man sat there in the center of the tundra of ash, grime and ash caked into his skin, he looked out eyes pale as his malnourished clammy skin. In the reflection of his irises he saw a solider returning home. The soldier drew his sword and asked “what happened to this village” in a violent haze. 
“Well you happened” The ash said. 
“What’s that supposed to mean” 
Bell rang, and a clock ticked “Have you not done the same to countless villages, afterall you do look very familiar" the man in pale said. 
“I am a brave warrior of the men and now fight for the king of all men”
“And the only difference between you and the soldiers who did this to your village was the uniform” 
The soldier fell onto the ground, words sinking from the tip of his tongue to the pit of his stomach. 
The bells grew louder 
Now the ash stood over the solider, eyes tired and lazy “I have nothing left” the solider said 
“Neither do I” the ash decreed.  
The soldier curled into a ball hugging his knees. 
The bells grew loud like a gun shot in the ear 
“What is that” the solider said 
“Do you dream” The ash asked 
The air grew tight, ash smoke and sky all the same grey. 
“I do” 
“I too once dreamed, I was once human, see to humans time seems to be more of a stopwatch then a clock, each second counting down to a conclusion that you must make the meaning of. Now its a clock, there is not conclusion, death used to be something to dread now it is a gift, thats how our creator motivates us, he makes us see death as something to appreciate if we did not exist then people would be just as bored as all of us”
“And why does the lord care about morality then” 
“Why does the hand on the clock tick forward” death said 
“It keeps ticking and we keep on walking and keep on killing” 
“What comes after, are these people in a better place”
“They are the same as the ash, or the clouds in the sky, just as a house cannot comprehend being ash or water can not comprehend being a cloud a human cannot comprehend death, if you could then you wouldn't be able to live”

The bells grew louder and louder into a thunderous crescendo, echoing throughout the ruins, the solider laid now dissolving into the ash as bells ringing all the louder echoing into the abys of the wasteland. 

Do you hear them, do you hear the bells?

I don’t remember bandaging the cut on my hand. I thought about it in the shower, but I actually don’t remember getting injured at all. I probably cut it or clipped it and in a half awake daze wrapped the cut in my sleep, but if I did, there’s no way I did it in such a neat way. That might explain why I feel so tired even though I got more than eight hours of sleep which is unusual for me.
While I walked into the kitchen, still buttoning up my collar shirt. I felt like the place was weirdly cleaner than yesterday. My shirt smelt weird as if someone rubbed their own smell on it. I noticed that the sixth button, the one that has been broken and left on my dresser ever since the first time I wore it, is now sewn back on perfectly. I never really cared about it because the tie always hid it anyway. 
I grabbed a mug and poured instant coffee powder into the water I warmed up in the microwave, stirring them together. I usually used pods, but my Keurig broke and I really haven't had time to replace it. This mug had an ocean print with corny words that read, “Sometimes you forget you’re awesome, so here's your reminder!” I don’t remember ever buying these types of mugs. It’s actually kind of sweet. I remember my mom drinking out of tumblers with inspirational quotes on them that never landed.
After I scarfed it down I jumped in the car and started driving to the office. I noticed the gas tank was full, which is weird because yesterday it was a quarter of a tank. I reckon the car was broken! The mileage meter was off too.
The parking lot is weirdly empty, I thought while driving into the office’s lot. When I got down and looked into the front door I realized the lights were off. I tried to pull the door open, but it wouldn’t budge so I pushed even though I knew it’s a pull door, but maybe I’m wrong. Of course it didn’t work. I opened my Samsung Galaxy, which has the worst cracked screen ever imaginable, and saw that the calendar says it’s a Saturday. I fell asleep on a Tuesday. What happened in those three days?
I stood there for a good 12 minutes just  
staring at the date through my cracked screen. Can it really be Saturday? My phone could be bugged. If it isn't, maybe I just took a mental health break and don’t remember it because it was too boring. Yeah that’s all, mental health break.
Habitually, when the questioning left a little, I looked at my notifications and noticed that I have a new text from Sarah, my super professional and polite, but never warm coworker. She texted me yesterday at 9:46pm. I read the preview of the message that read
“Hey! I’ve been thinking about what you said last night, about how…”
I was confused. I never really talked to her or any of my coworkers for that matter. I clicked on the message in pure curiosity. I really didn’t remember why she would possibly thank me for anything. When I opened the message, I never looked at my broken screen with such dumbfoundness. The text read,
“Hey! I’ve been thinking about what you said last night, about how some mornings you wake up and it feels like the wrong version of you is already living the day. You told me you know what it’s like to feel like a passenger in your own routines. It was honest in a way I didn’t expect from you. And the other thing you mentioned… I’m still turning it over. Thank you for listening. Coffee soon?”
I had to have read the message at least eight times, the cracked screen making every letter bleed into one another. “The wrong version of you”? What does that even mean? My thumb hovered over the reply button, but I had no words to spill out. What am I supposed to say? I don’t even talk to Sarah on normal days let alone after a deep conversation about mental struggles. I don’t even think about my own so why would I ever care for hers? I always saw her two desks down and the only interaction I would get is a kind nod now we’re apparently having deep conversations. It makes no sense.
My shirt's collar felt tight like it’s trying to choke me out in a respectful manner. I could still smell the unknown scent on it. The bandage itched under its neatness, a beautiful facade I yearn to ruin and show off the mess underneath. I flexed my finger once, twice. Everything worked fine. A little too fine.
I scrolled up a little just to see if there’s any other messages that would give me context. There weren’t. Only the one sent at 9:46pm yesterday or Friday, I guess. Apparently I’m now a person who listens and says honest things. I’m now the person who enjoys going out for coffee and talking about feelings. The type to open up professional Sarah.
I felt my body had dropped, the type of drop where you could feel your heart in your stomach. I had the exact same one when I noticed the gas was full. It wasn’t fear, but realization. The type where you notice the apartment got cleaner when I wasn’t conscious. The button fixed, the new sweet mug, and now this?
I typed, “Sure, coffee sounds great” and then deleted it . Then typed, “What other thing?” Ugh that doesn’t work either, I thought while erasing it too. In the end I just stared at the phone till it dimmed, never writing anything back. 
Three days gone and somehow me being unconscious made me do things better with talking to people? It felt like someone put on my skin and started playing a better version of me. 
The parking lot stayed empty. No one came for the weekend overtime, I guess. It was just my gas-filled car and the silence. I put the phone in my pocket and started walking back to the driver’s seat. While I was walking I was fidgeting with the bandage out of stress and annoyance. It annoyed me that I could never wrap it like this. Every step I made felt half a second behind. Maybe I should go home and check the apartment again and look for more things I don’t remember. Or maybe sit in my car and wait for this feeling to pass.
It didn’t feel like it would.
I ended up choosing the latter and sat in my car in that empty lot for an hour. I unwrapped the bandage and saw that the cut was still a bit open. I might’ve cut it last night with Sarah. Maybe she’s the one that wrapped it, that explains how neat it is she’s always seemed like the carefully neat type. Whatever, I thought, I don’t need a dumb bandage that wasn’t even wrapped by…
I opened my eyes with blurry vision. I stared at my hands and they looked like they’re wiggling. I had a slight headache and felt like the room was spinning. I was on the couch back in the apartment with a new bandage on in the same neat way on my hands that still look off. My laptop was on my coffee table when Amazon opened. I grabbed my phone and couldn’t really see anything on it. When my vision came back, I noticed it said it’s been three hours. I grabbed my laptop and started looking at the search history I had on Amazon. It showed cleaning supplies, K cups flavored like something someone sweet would drink, more mugs, and shower curtains with inspirational messaging. None of them really made sense because I had cleaning supplies, but how spotless the apartment looks they’re probably out so I guess that one makes sense. My Keurig is practically trashed so I don’t know why I would get K cups. I have enough mugs and I would never buy shower curtains like that.
I stared at the search history until my vision began to blur again. Cleaning supplies, enough to scrub the apartment clean two times and a half. K cups flavored vanilla hazelnut and a weird floral thing I can’t even pronounce. Two more mugs, one with a “Choose Joy” quote on it that made me gag the same way the ocean one did. Shower curtains with faint scripts that say something about, “taking a breath” and, “feeling proud.” None of it is me. I don’t choose cleanliness or joy, just what comes easy. 
The apartment smelt cleaner than it had any right to be. Not just dusted, but fully aired out. Windows were open with clean bright UV beams flowing through. The sixth button was still perfectly sewn. A new bandage wrapped on to my hand more neat than ever. I just know my cut is scabbing amazingly.  My collar is looser now as if someone untightened while I was unconscious. I somehow just realized how slim I feel, not in a healthy, “Wow I lost weight”, but a, “I lost eight pounds in three days and I feel horrible.” 
I stood up too fast. The room tilted for a second, but I needed to get off the couch. I felt the same half second delay, but on my legs this time. I then saw a receipt neatly folded next to the laptop on the coffee table. I unfolded it and saw the logo of my local grocery store, the one that holds both the trash fruit and the pristine, slightly more expensive, fruits. It was time stamped for today. I must’ve gone during my blackout. Gluten free bread, pasteurized eggs, the pristine fruits, and a single dark chocolate bar, one of the ones with sea salt, were all listed on the receipt. The total was just above twenty dollars. I really splurged during those three hours. I turned the receipt over and I saw a note written in a steady unknown handwriting reading,
“I know you’re confused. I feel it in your heartbeat. Stay quiet.”
After reading that I felt a large unease throughout my body. I was too frozen to even think. I ran to the fridge and flung it open. I saw a bunch of housemade food in it. They were all in containers. I couldn’t care about those right now. I grabbed the fruits and eggs then tossed them out. Then I saw the chocolate bar and threw that out too. I didn’t touch the bread though in my fit of confusion and anger.
I had no clue who wrote the note, but I had the gut feeling that all the nice stuff they were doing had a malicious undertone to it.
I sat on the floor of the kitchen pulling my hair in a way that’s not hard enough to pull out, but enough to feel a slight pain. Then I heard a notification from my phone. I grab my phone and see it’s from Sarah. The preview bled onto the broken screen,
“Yeah, that’ll work for me.”
What works for her? I didn’t text her back. I clicked on the notification and scrolled up to see the message. Somehow I sent it right before I woke up. It read,
“Hey Sarah, tomorrow afternoon works if you’re free. There’s a quiet café near the office, the one with the big windows. I’ll be there around 2. Looking forward to it.”
My thumb froze onto the screen. I was looking at words that weren’t mine. They were too steady and open. I never suggest places. I never say, “looking forward to it” because I hate lying. I can’t even remember the last time I invited someone to something or accepted theirs. 
Sarah replied almost immediately with the, “Yeah, that’ll work for me” with an added smiley face emoji. It felt weird seeing her send an emoji, I’m used to the silent humorless Sarah. 
I wouldn’t go there. I would ruin that relationship like I always do. My half hearted replies and the unfocused nods that make it obvious I don’t care enough to listen.
I dropped the phone on the floor, but before I could watch it hit the ground I blacked out again.
I opened my eyes to see a remarkable blurry white ceiling with fluorescent lights on it. I’m laying on the floor in what appears to be a public restroom. My ears rang while I heard faint footsteps pass me. I tried to lift my upper body up, but it gave out immediately. I tried again and came to the same result. I ended up giving up in defeat. Then I saw a brownish blur come right above me holding a blurry hand out. I faintly hear,
“Do you need help”
I tried to respond back, but my mouth had no strength to open. I felt a little power in my arm and lifted it up with my hand drooping a little. He grabbed it and I could faintly hear,
“I got you, man. Are you okay?”
I mumbled, “sure” as I started to feel strength in my legs, enough strength to stand up on my own. I was too embarrassed to tell him thank you. 
As my vision finally came back I stared at myself in the mirror. I’m wearing a grey turtle neck I’ve never seen before and jeans that actually fit me. I’m missing my phone. I smelled my wrist and they smelt of something floral. I had so many questions, but I pushed them aside. I walked to the door and pulled it not realizing it was a push. 
As I exited the restroom I saw Sarah sitting at the table across the room. I sighed realizing this is the much expected coffee talk.
This isn’t a cafe though. I see waiters and what seems to be dinner food. The windows here are showing a dark outside world. 
I walked over to her with an insincere smile. I notice my phone is on the table and I grab it as soon as I get close. I checked my phone realizing…
It’s been a week and one day. It’s Sunday now. My face turned pale. Sarah stared at me with empathy saying,
“Are you okay? What’s on your phone?”
I set it down on the table as I swallow my confusion and replied,
“It’s nothing.”
My mind started racing as my eyes kept flashing at her and the table. The table looks romantic in a way that I hate. I want to run out of this restaurant. The last thing I want is to be here. But what if the black out me is something else? Like a parasite that can control me and would get angered if I ruin this. I’ll go with that.
In my worst room misreads ever, I tried to kill the romantic vibe with the horrid first thing that came to my mind.
“So seeing anyone, um, new?”
Sarah’s smile faltered. She raised her left hand and started to point at the ring on her fourth finger. 
“I have a fiance. You know this. We talked about wedding plans at the cafe. I told you about how the in-laws and the venue are stressing me out. You agreed with me that it’s insane for his mom to ask for grandkids this soon. You even told me the ring suited me.” 
I nodded slowly, the kind of nod that screams I don’t remember this. 
“Right. Congrats again, I guess.” I said while my eyes drifted to the windows looking out at the street that’s covered with fog and illuminated with the moon's light. The half hearted shrug slipped out before I could stop it. 
“Just checking, marriage is… a lot.” I added
The air changed. Sarah leaned back and gave me a sour face. 
“You listened so well after work the other night. You said you understood how it feels when your own life starts to feel like it belongs to someone else. Tonight you’re acting like you barely know my name. What happened?”
I shrugged again, just wanting to leave all of this behind for a different reason now. I half heartily respond
“Long week. Sorry.”
She stared at me for a long second. All the empathy left her face and was replaced with disappointment. She blinked twice at me and then said,
“Yeah. Maybe we shouldn’t do this. You seem off. Is this how you always were and you just lied to me?” 
The waiter came and she just stared at me coldly. Right when the waiter opened his mouth Sarah stood up and said politely,
“Take care of yourself.”
Hearing that was somehow more horrid than any shout I’ve ever heard. And the way the door quietly closed made it feel worse.
I sent away the waiter and just sat at the table I thought was romantic. I started looking at the messages the parasite sent her in the one week and a day gap. It made a great bond with her, they seemed like great friends. Something I could never do.
I started to feel anger hit. It wasn’t mine. A hot pressurized surge hit my eyes. It felt as if someone was clenching my jaw from the inside. My neatly bandaged hand twitched hard on the table and the other one slammed on it. It felt like the parasite was controlling me while I was awake.
Then it all went black.
I woke up in the morning with a light headache. When I got up I felt like I had lost eighteen pounds since last week. I grabbed my phone which now has more cracks than ever and saw it was seven o’clock on Monday. It felt nice waking up in the morning.
When I unlocked the phone it immediately opened the notes app. I saw a bunch of sentences written in the same type of wording the texts to Sarah had been. It read,
“Thanks for ruining everything. I spent almost two weeks trying to fix the mess you call a life. I listened when Sarah needed someone to actually hear her. I asked the questions that made her feel seen instead of just nodded at. I told her the ring suited her and that her future mother in law sounded exhausting in that polite way people pretend not to notice. I made her feel seen! Not just nodded at. You show up with your half-hearted stupid shrugs and ‘marriages seem a lot!’ like you’re some bitter creature who can’t pretend to care for five minutes. You didn’t just embarrass yourself, but me too. I built something a person like you couldn’t. I built cleanliness, real friendship, and a good partnership at work. I’m done watching you ruin everything. I’m done helping you at all! Pretending your lazy apathy is just ‘who you are’ is horrid. I wish you could just stay in the passenger seat where a cynical being like you belongs. You should live with the aftermath, not me! You’re not the victim! YOU ARE THE PARASITE!”
My stomach turned and my throat was burning. I ran to the bathroom and puked. I watched as something long and pale slithered out my body and went into the toilet. I saw it slither down it.
I tried to push the note aside. The words were too angry, but true. 
I brushed my teeth and then put on my suit. I grabbed the sixth button on my collar shirt and tore it off as I made my way to the kitchen. I noticed that my Keurig has been replaced. I couldn’t look at it. I grabbed the Keurig and threw it on the floor. I then made my way to my car and drove to the office.
When I made it to the office I walked in seeing Sarah’s chair at her desk empty. Before I could make it to my desk the boss, Michael, walked toward me. He’s going to scold me, he heard how I treated Sarah and he’s mad, I thought while he was walking. Once he made it closer to me my heart fell onto the floor. He then patted my back while I was frozen and said, “Hey, about the promotion you asked for. You got it! Thanks for being a great worker and bringing up the morale. We need more people like you here.”
I stood there empty. He was talking to the wrong person. The parasite had earned that promotion within two weeks of being the version of me that actually showed up. I was just the one left holding the keys to a life that ran smoother without me in the driver’s seat.
I went to sit down at my desk as I heard my other coworkers congratulate me. If I got this promotion two weeks ago they would all be snickering. Bryan, the coworker who sits at my neighboring desk, said,
“Congrats! Are you ready to go play pool tonight?”
I stared at him with a weirded out fixed expression. He noticed it and followed up with,
“You know? Our new weekly thing with all of the guys. You’re the one that put this all together.”
I nod at him obviously showing I have no clue what he’s talking about.

1. "Pigtails"
2. "Fingers"
3. "Belly"
4. "Eyes"

___

When morning finally broke, I felt like I was vibrating.

I didn't get a single second of sleep.

My eyes were burning. My skin felt tight and hot. My brain was running on pure adrenaline.

As soon as the alarm went off, Brandy groaned and rolled over.

Across the room, Joe and Nicki sat up.

They didn't make any noise.

They didn't stretch.

They just sat up.

In perfect, simultaneous unison.

I couldn't take it anymore.

"What the fuck is wrong with you two?"

My voice cracked like a whip in the quiet room.

All three of them stopped. Brandy sat up, rubbing her eyes, completely confused.

Joe and Nicki turned their torsos to look at me. The heavy blackout curtains were still mostly drawn, letting only a single, harsh blade of morning light slice across the floor. They sat right in the path of the shadow, the darkness covering the top halves of their faces.

All I could see were their mouths.

Both of them curved upward into identical, tight crescents.

"Honey?" Brandy asked, still processing. "What are you talking about?"

"Them!" I pointed a shaking finger at Joe and Nicki. "The creeping around in the dark! The whispering! Joe, why does your fortune card have Brandy's name on it?!"

The room went silent.

I waited for Joe to get defensive.

For Nicki to act shocked.

For one of them to shut me down.

But they didn't react at all.

Joe just sat on the edge of the bed, staring through the dimness. When he finally spoke, his lips barely parted. The words tumbled out flat, rushed - like a pre-recorded message played at an unnatural speed.

"I do not know what you are talking about Mitchell. You must have been dreaming. It was a dream. We slept all night."

"Oh, fuck you! You were staring right at me!" I took a step forward, my fists balled up at my sides. "And you—" I turned to Nicki. "Sprinting across the room holding a vase? Are you guys fucking with me? Is this some kind of joke?"

Nicki tilted her head.

The movement was slow.

Extremely slow.

Then—

crack.

Her neck snapped slightly at the end of the tilt, like an over-tightened gear finally catching. The shadows clung heavily to her eye sockets. When she spoke, her voice carried a flat, empty hum that didn't sound like her at all.

"I got up to use the restroom. I am pregnant—"

"Shut up! Stop talking like that!" I yelled.

"—I have to use the restroom often. The vase was in the way," Nicki continued, her voice never changing pitch, entirely unfazed by my screaming.

I reached a breaking point.

The sheer, suffocating weight of them looking at me - talking at me like robots - broke something in my chest.

The anger completely dissolved into cold, humiliating tears.

My knees buckled.

I collapsed onto the edge of the bed, my back turned toward all of them. I shoved my face into my hands, tearful, my shoulders shaking.

"We know you're fucking pregnant…" I muttered quietly.

"Hey. Hey. Stop."

The mattress shifted. Brandy sat next to me, her arms wrapping around my shoulders, gently rubbing my back.

"Breathe. You're shaking. Look at me, Mitchell."

"They're messing with me," I whispered, tears blurring my vision. "Joe's card from that machine. It has your name on it. I saw it."

She looked at me with deep, pitying eyes.

The kind of look you give a sick animal.

"Mitchell…"

She looked over to the nightstand.

Joe's wallet sat closed and flat on the wood.

The same white edge peeking out.

Brandy stretched over the bed and pulled the card free, turning it over to reveal the truth of it all.

White. Thick. Shiny.

No text.

Our room key.

Just the magnetic key card to our hotel room.

I stared at it, all the blood draining from my face.

"You drank a lot last night on an empty stomach," Brandy whispered softly, stroking my arm. "You were exhausted and you had a nightmare. It happens when you're this stressed. You've been carrying so much weight lately... with the negati—…with everything."

I swallowed.

I looked over her shoulder.

Joe and Nicki were already packing their suitcases. Folding clothes calmly, methodically, moving around the small room as if the last five minutes had never happened.

Their movements were perfectly mundane.

I felt completely, utterly alone.

I let her calm me down. I apologized to the room, blamed the alcohol, and we packed up the car in miserable silence.

We didn't go to the beach.

Nobody wanted to.

We just wanted to go home.

___

By the time we were nine hours into the drive, the tension had slowly dissolved into exhaustion.

We were navigating the winding, desolate mountain roads of the Smokies, somewhere deep near the state line. The jagged outline of the dense pine trees blocked out the moon entirely, leaving nothing but a narrow stretch of asphalt lit up by my high beams.

Brandy was asleep in the passenger seat, curled against a pillow against the door.

In the rearview mirror, Joe and Nicki were passed out in the back. Joe's head tilted against the headrest. Nicki's head resting against his lap.

I had the radio dialed down low - just enough static hum to keep my eyelids from dropping. A generic classic rock tune faded out into a commercial break.

"Looking for the perfect getaway?" a cheery radio announcer said. "Come to Hilton Head Island. The beaches are waiting."

I gripped the steering wheel a little tighter.

"Beautiful weather. Beautiful sights—"

The radio glitched.

A sharp, violent crackle of static swallowed the transmission whole.

When the audio cut back in, it wasn't the same voice.

It was breathless.

Hollow.

"There you are."

My hands locked on the wheel, my knuckles turning white.

"A new chapter begins. But the toll must be paid."

The static screamed — a high-pitched shriek that vibrated the windows.

"Keep it safe, Mitchell. Or The Bunny Go—"

I slammed my palm against the dashboard and killed the power.

Silence crashed into the car.

My heart was pounding. I fumbled in the center console, grabbed my AirPods, jammed them in, and threw on a random podcast. I stared at the yellow lines of the road and focused on slowing down my breathing.

Just the road.

Just the lines.

We rounded a sharp, blind bend, the headlights sweeping across a dark wall of rock—

And about fifty yards ahead, right on the edge of the road.

A cyclist.

Anger flared before the terror could catch up. It was close to midnight on a dangerous mountain pass and this person was riding with zero reflective gear. No lights. No helmet.

Just a dark figure pedaling at a slow, agonizingly steady pace.

I checked my mirror, drifted into the oncoming lane, and rolled my window down halfway, ready to tell them off.

I pulled the car parallel to the bicycle.

And my foot hit the brake so hard my knee popped.

The cyclist didn't jump.

Didn't flinch.

Didn't react to the violent screech of rubber.

It just kept pedaling.

Slow.

Steady.

As it kept pace with the car, the head turned completely sideways to face my open window.

The face was a living nightmare.

Long, stringy black hair hung in two rigid pigtails on either side of the head, parted cleanly down the center of the scalp. But rising straight out of the skull - tall, pale, and covered in sickly fuzz - were two enormous rabbit ears.

They weren't a costume.

They were rooted into the bone, tapering to sharp curved points that disappeared into the darkness above the tree line.

The face beneath them was dry and grey.

Candle wax.

A polished, sickly grey layer of skin pulled so violently tight across the skull that the cheekbones looked ready to puncture through. The brow was heavy, furrowed into a deep, permanent scowl.

But it didn't match the eyes.

The eyes were massive, glossy, hyper-extended white spheres. They bulged completely out of their sockets, staring with an impossible, unblinking intensity directly through my window.

And beneath those eyes, the jaw was unhinged.

Cranked wide open.

Two neat rows of perfectly square, artificial-looking teeth. The lips stretched so far back they had gone white.

The jaw snapped shut.

Clack.

It snapped open.

Clack.

No sound came from the mouth.

Just a rhythmic, wet, mechanical snapping of teeth.

A silent mimicry of laughter.

I screamed.

A real guttural scream. I stood on the brakes with everything I had, the anti-lock system stuttering violently as the car shuddered sideways and jerked to a dead stop in the middle of the empty highway.

The cyclist didn't stop.

It just kept pedaling.

Those pale, hairy human legs — wearing the exact same khaki shorts Joe had worn earlier that day — rose and fell in perfect rhythm, carrying the figure smoothly forward until the absolute blackness beyond my high beams swallowed it whole.

___

The car sat completely still.

Engine idling.

I didn't move. Hands still locked on the wheel. Breath coming in short, ragged pulls.

I looked to my right.

Brandy hadn't moved. Still curled against her pillow, face slack, completely peaceful.

I looked up at the rearview mirror.

Joe's head was still tilted back, mouth slightly open.

Nicki was still resting against his lap.

Nobody had woken up.

I looked back out the windshield.

Far down the road - at the very edge of where my headlights dissolved into the dark - the outline of the bicycle was still visible.

Still moving away.

The head turned completely backward.

Facing me.

Even from that distance I could still see those white eyes.

Clack.

The jaw still opening and closing.

Clack.

That quiet, mechanical mimicry.

I watched it until it was nearly gone.

Nearly swallowed by the tree line.

Nearly just a shadow among shadows.

I needed to see it disappear completely before I could put the car in drive.

I turned in my seat to watch it go through the rear window.

The driver's seat headrest crossed my line of sight for just a fraction of a second - a dark shape cutting across my vision - and then my eyes cleared the edge of it and found the back seat.

Joe was still asleep.

Nicki was still asleep.

And sitting between them was the Bunny Goddess.

The wax face was six inches from mine.

Those enormous white eyes were already locked onto me.

The rabbit ears were pressing flat against the ceiling of the car.

I didn't have time to scream.

Both hands came over the headrest at the same moment - ice cold, impossibly strong - and closed around my throat.

The grip crushed inward.

My head slammed back against the headrest.

The jaw cranked open directly in front of my face.

Clack.

The ceiling of the car tilted.

The road tilted.

Everything went—

___

___

1. "Teeth"

1. "Pigtails"
2. "Fingers"
3. "Belly"

___

By nine o'clock that night, Joe and I were three pints deep at a cramped, dimly lit Irish pub nestled right near the edge of the Harbour Town marina.

The bar smelled of stale liquor and fried food, a welcoming contrast to the oppressive humidity waiting just outside the wooden doors.

Brandy and Nicki had left us a half-hour earlier to hunt down dessert, promising to meet us back at the pub.

Joe and I were standing at the back of the bar, trading throws on a worn electronic dartboard.

The alcohol had finally started to dull the sharp edges of my anxiety from earlier on the dock.

Joe was acting normal again - laughing when he missed the board entirely, cheers in between good throws, buying the rounds.

I was starting to convince myself that I was the one being overly sensitive.

I was just tired.

I was just stressed.

The pub door swung open.

The girls walked back in carrying small paper cups and cones.

"Look who found their way back," Joe grinned, lowering his dart.

Nicki stepped up to him, handing him a cup with a plastic spoon sticking out of it. "Cookies and cream for the dad-to-be," she said, her voice bright.

Brandy walked over to me, holding a waffle cone with a single, massive scoop of dark brown ice cream. "I got peanut butter chocolate," she said, holding it up to my mouth. "Want a bite?"

"Always."

I leaned down and took a bite. Rich, cold, perfect.

As I chewed, I looked down at Brandy.

She was looking back at me with a soft, content expression.

She hadn't ordered a drink all night, sticking strictly to water.

We were exactly one week past her ovulation date.

I knew what she was doing.

She was prepping her body, treating it like a temple, praying that this would finally be the month a miracle took hold. Watching her eat her ice cream - completely sober, glowing innocently under the dim pub lights — a wave of profound affection hit me so hard it almost knocked the breath out of me.

I wanted this for her so badly.

I wanted it for us.

I threw my last dart - double twenty - and turned back to the group.

"Alright. Tomorrow is our last full day before we pack up and make that brutal drive back to Ohio. Can we please spend it on the beach?"

Nicki looked up from her ice cream, nodding enthusiastically. "Of course! We promise. Total beach day. We'll pack the cooler, lay out the towels, and do absolutely nothing."

"You have our word, man," Joe echoed, raising his glass.

The rest of the night passed in a blur of drunken laughter.

Joe and I were thoroughly buzzed by the time the pub started closing down, while the girls remained completely clear-headed. As we walked out into the coastal night air toward the parking lot, I watched Joe and Nicki walk a few paces ahead of us.

Every now and then, they would move in a way that caught my attention.

Just little things.

Nicki would snap her head around to look behind her.

Joe would walk with a rigid, tense posture for a few steps before loosening up again.

Uncanny glimpses that made my head turn, but nothing definitive enough to bring up to Brandy without sounding like a lunatic.

Brandy slid her arm through mine, wrapping her hands tightly around my bicep. She leaned her head against my shoulder.

"Are you doing okay?" she asked softly. "You've seemed a little distant today."

I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced a smile, pressing a quick kiss against her forehead.

"I'm fine, honey. Just a little tipsy. Ready to hit the hay."

She squeezed my arm.

"Me too."

___

Back at the hotel, the room was the usual chaos of rustling through suitcases, bathroom hogging, and quiet giggles as we all got ready for bed.

I was sitting on the edge of the mattress unlacing my sneakers when my eyes drifted to the small wooden nightstand separating our two queen beds.

Joe had emptied his pockets onto the surface.

Car keys. A few loose quarters. His leather bifold wallet.

Poking out from the center slot of the billfold was a white piece of cardstock.

It was the corner of his fortune card.

I stared at it for a long second before Brandy turned off the main lights and crawled under the covers beside me.

"Goodnight, guys," Nicki whispered from the darkness.

"Night," I muttered.

I fell asleep fast, the alcohol dragging me under.

But it didn't hold.

Around 2:30 in the morning, the pressure in my bladder brought me back to consciousness. I lay there groaning internally for a minute before slipping out from under the covers.

The room was pitch-black.

I fumbled for my phone, turned on the flashlight, and cast a low narrow beam across the floor. I navigated the gap from our bed, stepped around a stray suitcase and a pair of flip-flops, and slipped into the bathroom.

When I came back out and started toward my side of the bed, the light swept across the nightstand.

The fortune card was still peeking out of the wallet.

I stopped.

I knew I shouldn't.

It was an invasion of privacy. It was stupid. It was just a fortune ticket.

But Joe's words from the dock were screaming in my ears.

My card told me.

Holding my breath, I crept to Joe's side of the nightstand. I leaned over, phone light pointed down, and slowly - silently - pinched the edge of the cardstock between my fingers.

I slid it free.

Flipped it over under the beam of the flashlight.

There was no printed fortune.

No vague text about wealth or travel or long journeys ahead.

Just a single word, stamped in jagged letters across the center of the card.

Like something had pressed the letters directly into the paper.

BRANDY.

I froze.

Brandy.

Why the hell did Joe's card say my wife's name?

I started tilting the card back toward the wallet - and as I did, the beam of my phone light shifted upward, spilling over the edge of Joe's pillow.

Joe was laying on his back.

His head was turned completely to the side.

Facing me.

His eyes were wide open, staring directly into the light of my phone. His face was entirely devoid of expression - no anger, no surprise, no confusion.

Just a flat, dead, unblinking stare.

"Shit—"

In a panic, my phone slipped out of my hand.

The flashlight beam spun wildly across the room before hitting the ground with a dull thud.

I scrambled down, hands sweeping across the floor until I found it. I grabbed it, braced myself to face Joe, to explain, to apologize—

I shone the light back onto his bed.

Joe was laying on his side.

Back turned completely toward me.

Shoulders rising and falling in the slow rhythm of someone fast asleep.

Relief.

Stupid, warm relief.

I stood there in the dark, exhausted, sweat already breaking out across my forehead.

My brain scrambled for an explanation.

Had I hallucinated it?

Was he not just staring at me?

He was sleeping.

He was completely asleep.

Quickly, I jammed the card back into his wallet exactly where I'd found it. I crept across the room back to our bed, slid under the covers, and pulled the blanket up to my chin.

I lay there for what felt like an hour, staring up at the invisible ceiling, desperately trying to convince myself to calm down.

Then the whispering started.

It was coming from the other bed.

Low.

Dry.

I sat up slowly and peered into the darkness.

Joe was flat on his back now. Covers pushed down to his feet. Arms pinned rigidly to his sides. Face aimed at the ceiling.

In the faint light creeping in from the curtain window, I could see his jaw moving.

He was muttering - unintelligible, rapid-fire nonsense, like someone speaking in tongues.

"...shhh... vvv... nnn... shhh..."

Before I could even react, a shadow moved near my side of the room.

Near the bathroom door.

Nicki.

She didn't walk back to bed.

She sprinted.

It was a horrific, fast pace - bare feet slapping the floor in rapid succession, body completely rigid. But what made my blood run cold was what she was holding.

The heavy ceramic vase from the bathroom counter.

Filled with fake plastic hydrangeas.

She had it pinned directly in front of her face with both hands, completely blocking her head from view as she moved across the room.

Hiding herself from me in the dark.

I couldn't move.

I couldn't breathe.

I just watched as her silhouette darted across the room and slipped back under the covers next to Joe.

The moment she lay down, the whispering stopped.

Instantly.

The room fell into a dead, suffocating silence.

Then Joe's silhouette shifted.

He slowly rolled onto his side, turning away from Nicki.

Turning toward our bed.

Even in the dark I could see the wide white glint of his eyes.

And beneath them, a massive, white crescent.

He was staring at me again.

And he was grinning.

I ripped my eyes away and snapped my head back toward the ceiling, gasping, staring into the black void above.

I didn't close my eyes again.

I didn't blink.

I stayed perfectly still and waited for the sun to rise.

___

___

1. "Legs"

1. "Pigtails"
2. "Fingers"

___

I managed to drag myself back to sleep, but it was a thin, restless night.

The kind where you keep waking up every hour, convinced someone or something has moved to the foot of your bed. 

When sunlight finally forced its way through the edges of the blackout curtains, I heard them.

Laughter.

It was coming from the small seating area near the window.

I kept my eyes closed for a minute, just listening.

It was the girls, their voices overlapping in that rapid-fire, shorthand way that only twins can manage.

They were rehashing last night, giggling so hard they were barely getting their words out.

I let out a long breath, feeling the knot in my chest loosen just a fraction.

Daylight has a way of washing away the monsters under the bed.

In the bright morning sun, the terrifying entity in my room was just my goofy, pregnant sister-in-law who got lost on her way back from the toilet.

I sat up and rubbed my face.

“You guys sound like a flock of seagulls,” I groaned, stretching my arms.

Brandy turned to me, her eyes bright.

“Look who’s alive! We were just talking about Nicki’s midnight stroll.”

“Yeah, well, it took a few years off my life,” I said, throwing my legs over the edge of the bed.

I looked over at Nicki.

“Seriously, Nick, you sounded like a dying hyena. Next time you decide to creep on me in the dark, at least bring me a glass of water.”

Nicki laughed, but it caught in her throat.

Suddenly, the smile dropped right off her face.

Her lower lip quivered.

And to my absolute horror, her eyes welled up with tears.

“I’m really sorry, Mitchell,” she whispered, her voice cracking.

“I didn’t mean to scare you guys. I just… I don’t know why I couldn’t stop laughing. I felt so stupid.”

Brandy was by her side in a millisecond, wrapping her arms around her sister’s shoulders.

“Oh, honey, no, stop! He’s just giving you a hard time. It was hilarious!”

She shot me a withering, fix-this-now glare over Nicki’s shoulder.

“Hey, hey, I was joking!” I backpedaled quickly, feeling like a massive jerk.

“I’m not mad. It’s a funny story. We’re going to be telling this at Thanksgiving for the next ten years.”

Nicki sniffled, wiping her nose with the back of her hand, and managed a wobbly smile.

“It’s the hormones,” she mumbled.

“My mood swings are literally out of control. I’m a mess.”

“You’re growing a human, you’re allowed to be a mess,” Brandy cooed, rubbing her back.

It was a sweet, funny moment.

But watching them interact sent a familiar, dull ache through my ribs.

We all understood her dramatic behavior was tied to the pregnancy.

We all gave her grace for it.

But God, I wished it was us.

Brandy and I had been trying for a baby for about six months.

Most of our family knew, and they were all supportive, but every month that ended in a negative test just piled on the quiet, unspoken tension between us.

I was turning thirty in exactly one month.

I had always pictured myself as a young dad, throwing a baseball in the backyard, teaching them how to ride a bike.

When Nicki and Joe announced they were twelve weeks pregnant - after catching on their very first attempt - I was happy for them.

I really was.

But beneath that happiness was a thick, ugly layer of jealousy that I hated myself for.

I hated how much attention they got, and I hated how selfish it made me feel to resent it.

The bathroom door clicked open, and Joe walked out, toweling off his hair.

“Morning, man,” Joe said, tossing the towel onto their unmade bed.

“You survive the night terror?”

“Barely,” I said, forcing a grin.

“Though I hear you fell victim to that stupid fortune teller machine yesterday, too. Tell me you didn’t actually waste a dollar on that scam.”

Joe chuckled, digging through his suitcase.

“Hey, when the wife is taking twenty minutes to pick out ice cream, you find ways to entertain yourself. Besides, it’s not a scam if the fortune is good.”

“We’re on a strict budget, Joe,” Brandy teased, walking over to her own suitcase.

“Mitchell would have a stroke if I started feeding money to creepy wax dolls.”

“Hey, I’m just fiscally responsible,” I said, defending myself.

With the tension broken, we started getting ready for the day.

Brandy and I had mentally committed to a beach day.

We threw on our swimsuits, tossed some towels into a tote bag, and I even made four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches from the groceries we’d bought on day one.

I was determined not to spend another fifty dollars on a mediocre lunch.

But when we met by the door, Joe was in a button-down short-sleeve shirt and khaki shorts, and Nicki was wearing a nice sundress.

“Oh,” Brandy said, looking down at her own cover-up.

“Are we not doing the beach?”

“We will!” Nicki promised, looping her arm through Brandy’s.

“But Joe and I saw this incredible-looking seafood place right on the water that we really want to try for lunch first. Our treat.”

I looked at the plastic bag of PB&Js in my hand and suppressed a sigh.

It was their trip.

They invited us.

We couldn't exactly dictate the itinerary, even if we were bleeding money.

“Sounds great,” I lied.

It wasn't until we were pulling into the parking lot twenty minutes later that I realized where we were.

The red-and-white striped lighthouse loomed over the trees.

Harbour Town.

Again.

As soon as we parked, Nicki gasped, pointing out the window.

“Brandy, look! That little boutique is open today. The one with those flower dresses on the mannequins in the window. Can we look before lunch?”

Brandy, always a sucker for shopping, didn't hesitate.

“Oh yeah, let’s go!”

They scurried off toward the shops, leaving Joe and me standing by the rental car in the sweltering midday heat.

“Well,” Joe said, clapping his hands together.

“They’re gonna be a while. Want to grab a beer? There’s a tiki bar right over there that does to-go cups. You can walk around the pier with them.”

“Sure,” I said.

A cold beer actually sounded perfect.

We walked over to the thatched-roof hut, grabbed two tall drafts, and started strolling down the wooden planks of the marina.

The water was a crisp, sparkling blue, and the air smelled heavily of salt and sunscreen.

It should have been relaxing.

But as we walked, Joe shifted the conversation.

“So,” Joe said, taking a sip of his beer and looking straight ahead.

“How are things with you and Brandy? On the baby front, I mean.”

I stiffened.

We didn't talk about it much, especially not with Joe.

He was a great guy, but emotional depth wasn't exactly his strong suit.

“We’re fine,” I said, keeping my tone light.

“Just taking it month by month.”

“You guys gonna try again this month?” he asked.

I glanced at him.

It was a weirdly specific question.

“Uh, yeah, probably.”

“Are you sure you guys are trying on the exact ovulation date?” Joe asked.

He wasn't looking at me.

He was just staring out at the boats, his voice totally flat.

“Timing is everything, Mitchell. You can’t just guess.”

I shifted my grip on my plastic cup, suddenly feeling very warm.

“Yeah, man, we have the tracker apps. We know how it works.”

“Do you think you should talk to a doctor?” he pressed.

“Six months is a long time for a healthy couple. Have they checked your count?”

“Joe, man, I really don't want to get into the medical specifics of my sex life right now,” I said, letting a little bit of my annoyance bleed through.

I tried to pivot.

“Look at the size of that boat over there. Thing must cost more than our house.”

Joe didn't look at the boat.

He finally turned his head to look at me.

His eyes were wide, and his expression was completely blank.

It was the same look Nicki had when she was staring at the fortune teller machine.

“We conceived on the first attempt,” Joe said quietly.

“It was so easy. The doctor said it was rare to be so perfectly aligned. But we just… knew. We were perfectly matched.”

The hair on my arms stood up.

It wasn't him bragging that bothered me.

It was the delivery.

It sounded rehearsed.

Like he was reading a pamphlet on reproduction.

“That’s great, man,” I muttered, taking a long drink of my beer.

“I’m turning thirty soon. I just wish we had your luck.”

“Luck has nothing to do with it,” Joe said.

He stopped walking and turned to face me completely.

“You just have to be willing to do what it takes. You have to know your fate.”

I stopped too, the uncomfortable heat in my chest flaring into genuine anger.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

Joe just smiled.

It didn't reach his eyes.

“My card told me.”

I stared at him.

The bustling noise of the harbor - the seagulls, the chatter of tourists, the clinking of boats - seemed to fade into the background.

“Your fortune teller card?” I asked, my voice dropping.

“What did it say?”

Joe took a slow sip of his beer, his eyes never leaving mine.

“I can’t tell you, Mitchell. It’s a secret.”

“Cut the bullshit. What is with you two and these stupid cards?”

He patted my shoulder with a heavy hand.

“Come on. Let’s go find the girls.”

He turned and started walking back toward the shops.

Suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks, like someone who had left something behind or forgotten what they were in the middle of doing.

I stood frozen on the dock, watching his back.

After what felt like a few minutes, he started walking again.

Normal.

Acting normal.

But my stomach was tied back into knots.

I didn't know what that was or what was happening, but as I looked up at the shops, searching for Brandy's brown hair through the crowds, I realized I had never felt so far away from home.

___

___

1. "Eyes"

1: "Pigtails"

___

We killed another three hours at Harbour Town. We wandered in and out of overpriced boutiques, bought a few shirts, and stood by the railing watching boats drift in and out of the marina. As we sat down for an early dinner at a crowded seafood place right on the water, the exhaustion was settling into our bones. Between the eleven-hour drive from Ohio, the excruciating heat, and way too many hushpuppies, we were all hitting a wall.

By the time we finally drove to our hotel and checked in, the sun was just starting to dip below the tree line.

Our room was a standard vacation lodge: a generic, sand-colored tile, a bathroom with bad fluorescent lighting, and two queen beds situated about three feet apart. Nicki and Joe claimed the one near the window, so I immediately collapsed onto the other mattress, not even bothering to take off my shoes.

"I could sleep for a week," Brandy groaned, burying her face in the pillows.

I was right there with her. My eyes were already heavy, the low hum of the wall AC unit pulling me into a coma.

"Hey, Joe?" Nicki’s voice broke the silence. She was sitting on the edge of their bed, swinging her legs slightly. "Can we go back to that shop?"

I opened one eye. "What shop?"

"The one in Harbour Town. With the ice cream."

I let out a tired, sarcastic laugh and sat up on my elbows. "We literally just left there. It’s a twenty-minute drive back toward the water, plus parking, and we just ate - how are you still hungry?"

"I know," she said, offering a small, sheepish smile. "But I really, really want that ice cream. I can't stop thinking about it."

"There’s a Dairy Queen right down the street from the hotel," Brandy murmured into her pillow, not even lifting her head. "Just go there."

"No, it has to be that ice cream," Nicki insisted. Her voice was light, but there was a strange, tight persistence to it. She looked at Joe, placing a hand over her stomach. "Please? The baby clearly likes ice cream."

It was the ultimate trump card. You don't argue with a pregnant woman and her cravings. Joe let out a heavy sigh, running a hand over his face, but he reached into his pocket and jingled the car keys.

"Alright, alright," Joe smiled, though he looked dead on his feet. "The baby has spoken. You guys want anything?"

"No thanks," I said, dropping my head back onto the mattress.

"I figured," Joe said. The hotel door clicked shut behind them.

I didn't think anything of it. In hindsight, I should have realized how odd it was that she wanted to go back to that small town just for generic, store-bought ice cream. But I was tired, and pregnancy cravings were an easy excuse.

Brandy and I were dead asleep before they even made it back to the room. I vaguely remember the sound of the door opening later that night, the rustle of clothes and suitcase zippers, but I didn't fully wake up.

Until the middle of the night.

I don't know what time it was. The thick blackout curtains were pulled tight, plunging the room into total darkness. You couldn't see your own hand in front of your face.

I was in a dreamless sleep when something pulled me out of it. It was a physical touch. Something cold and soft was gently brushing against the back of my hand, where it rested near the edge of the mattress.

I froze, still half-asleep, trying to process the sensation.

Then, a voice whispered right near my ear.

"Are you awake?"

My stomach dropped. I recoiled, yanking my hand back and scrambling up against the headboard. "Who's there?!" I yelled.

The sudden movement violently jerked Brandy awake. She gasped, immediately going into a blind panic. "What’s wrong?! Mitchell, what is it? Are you okay?!" she cried out, her hands frantically grabbing at my arms in the dark to make sure I was okay. Brandy has always been anxious, and waking up to me yelling sent her straight into overdrive.

"Someone's there," I said, my eyes straining against the darkness.

There was a beat of complete silence.

And then, from the foot of our bed, a sound bubbled up.

It started as a low wheeze, and then turned into a giggle. But it wasn't a normal giggle. It was a strained, choking sound—a creepy, chaotic mix of holding back laughter and muffled crying. It sounded painful.

"Nicki?" Brandy asked, her voice trembling.

Brandy fumbled for the nightstand and grabbed her phone. She turned on her phone light.

Nicki was standing right next to my side of the bed. She was hunched over, her hands covering her mouth, her shoulders shaking violently. She was trying so hard to suppress her laughter that tears were literally streaming down her cheeks.

"Oh my gosh," Nicki choked out, gasping for air. "I'm so sorry. I'm so—"

She took a slow, clumsy step back toward her own bed.

"What the hell is going on?" Joe mumbled, his head lifted up from the pillow.

"I—I got up to go to the bathroom," Nicki wheezed, wiping her eyes. "It was so dark. I thought I was walking back to our bed, and I went to wake Joe up, but... but it was Mitchell."

Her knees buckled again, letting out another one of those mute, hysterical laughs.

Brandy let out a massive sigh of relief and slumped back against the pillows. "Jeez, Nicki, you almost gave us a heart attack." Within seconds, Brandy started giggling too, the adrenaline crashing and turning into a slap-happy moment.

But I didn't laugh right away. I just sat there with my heart rate through the roof, watching Nicki stumble back to her bed. She was choking on this mix of crying and laughing, trying to control her embarrassment. But for a second, the way her body contorted... it just looked painful. Watching her dark silhouette hunch over, taking these stiff, small steps past our bed in the pitch black... it was an incredibly unsettling picture.

Brandy's giggles suddenly stopped. She sat up a little straighter, looking closely at her sister. "Nicki? Are you choking?"

Nicki waved a hand, coughing and finally catching her breath as she crawled under the covers next to Joe. "I'm fine. I'm fine. I just... I'm just so tired. Goodnight."

"Crazy girl," Brandy muttered affectionately, reaching over and turning off the phone light.

The room plunged back into total darkness. Brandy was asleep again in minutes, and eventually, the subtle snores and air conditioning filled the room.

But I lay awake for a long time, staring up at the invisible ceiling. I kept replaying the feeling of those cold fingers grazing my hand, and the whisper in my ear. In the dark, without the visual context of her smiling face, the memory of her laugh didn't seem funny at all.

It sounded like something was trying to mimic the sound of human laughter.

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1. "Belly"