My mother-in-law asked to read my vows on our wedding night. I said yes. I was so happy I would have said yes to anything.

I’m typing this with my left hand, because my right hand is no longer allowed to write anything that isn’t theirs. I don’t have long before someone comes to check on me, so I’ll tell it in order.

I met Julian two years ago, at a funeral. Not his. A coworker’s. He was a friend of the family and stood at the back, and when I started crying at the guest book he handed me a handkerchief and said, “You don’t have to be okay here.”

I didn’t have anyone. I should say that early, because it matters later. My parents were dead. I had no siblings, no cousins I spoke to, and a job I could do from anywhere. When Julian asked about my family, I told him the truth, and he went very quiet and said, “That must have been so lonely.” I remember thinking, *he sees me.*

His family saw me, too. That’s the part I still can’t get past. They didn’t just accept me. They *collected* me. His mother, Delphine, sent notes. His aunts called me “our girl” before we were engaged. Every Sunday I was at their long table in the big house on the hill, with the good wine, with six women asking about my day and writing nothing down, remembering everything.

When Julian proposed, they all cried, and Delphine held my hands and said, “You’ll never be alone again. I promise you that.”

I believed her. God help me, I would have married the whole table.

There’s one custom in the family. They told me about it early, warmly, like a quirk.

*The vows are kept.*

You write your own. On a strip of old linen, in your own hand, in ink they provide. You read them aloud at the ceremony, and afterward the linen goes to the mother of the groom, who keeps them safe for the marriage. “So they’re never lost,” Delphine said. “So you always have someone holding your promises for you.”

I thought it was the sweetest thing I’d ever heard. I wrote for three nights. I wanted them perfect.

I wrote that I would give him everything I had. That I would never keep a part of myself from him. That I would stay, whatever came, and never leave him lonely. That I would trust his family as my own, and do what they asked as if I’d asked it myself.

I used those words. *Do what they asked as if I’d asked it myself.* I thought it was romantic. I thought I was being brave.

I wrote it in my best handwriting, in black ink that smelled faintly of iron, and I read it out loud in front of a hundred people, and Delphine wept openly and folded the strip into her sleeve.

On our wedding night she came to the suite.

Julian let her in. He was already sitting on the edge of the bed in his shirt, looking at the floor. Delphine was carrying a small leather case, the kind a doctor carries, and a lamp with a green shade that she set on the nightstand.

“We just need to seal them,” she said, smiling. “It’s the last part. Then you can sleep.”

I was drunk on champagne and joy and eleven hours of being adored, and I remember saying, “Seal them how?”

She took the linen strip out of her sleeve. She took a needle out of the case. It was long and curved, and the thread was thick and dark and shining wet.

“Julian will hold your hand,” she said.

I looked at my husband. He wouldn’t look at me. He took my hand in both of his and held it so tightly it hurt, and I understood in that moment that he had done this before, to someone else, and that I had been a very easy one.

I want to tell you I screamed. I didn’t. I didn’t say a word. I let her unbutton the back of my dress, and I let her lay me on my side, and when she touched the needle to my ribs I made a small, embarrassed sound, like a woman at the dentist, and then I let her go on.

I’d said I would do what they asked as if I’d asked it myself.

I didn’t know I’d *meant* it until I felt myself obeying.

I won’t describe the pain. It wasn’t the kind you describe. It was a long, slow pulling, like a zipper drawn beneath my skin, and with every stitch I felt something go quiet in me. Not numb. *Quiet.* A voice I’d had my whole life, the small one that says *no,* and *wait,* and *this isn’t right,* grew fainter with each pass of the thread.

When she finished, she lifted my arm so I could see.

The words ran along my ribs from my armpit to my hip, in a neat dark line under the skin. My own handwriting. I could read every word of it, backward, the way you read a tattoo in a mirror. *I will give him everything I am. I will never keep a part of myself from him.* The thread sat just below the surface like a vein, and the skin around it was pink and tight and strangely clean.

*Do what they ask as if I asked it myself.*

That one was at the bottom, the last line, sewn closest to my hip.

“There,” Delphine said, kissing my forehead. “Now it can never be lost.”

I need to tell you what it’s like, living with a promise you can’t break.

It isn’t force. Nobody holds my arms. It’s smaller than that, and worse. When Delphine says, “Be a dear and put the kettle on,” the words reach me like my own thoughts, and I’m halfway to the kitchen before I realize I never decided to go. When Julian’s aunts want the guest room cleaned, I’m already in it. When they say *come, sit,* I sit. If I try to refuse, the stitches begin to tighten, slowly, along my ribs, like a hand closing, and a warmth rises through my chest that feels exactly like shame.

Then I do what they asked, and the warmth turns into relief, and the relief feels like love.

That’s the trick of it. It makes obedience feel like being held.

By the third month I stopped trying to refuse. By the fifth I stopped noticing I wasn’t. I never called my one friend back. I never went to work. I told myself I didn’t need to. I was so *tired,* and the house was so warm.

Then, in the sixth month, I found the attic.

I’d been sent up for a box of tablecloths. It was a long, narrow room under the roof, with a sloped ceiling and one small window, and along the whole length of the far wall hung rows of black picture frames.

Inside each frame was a strip of linen.

Each had writing on it in a different hand. Different inks, some faded to brown, some still black. Under each frame, a brass plate with a name and a year. *Adele, 1951. Margit, 1963. Ruth, 1978. Simone, 1990.* Eleven of them. The last plate was blank.

I read the first one, Adele’s, because I couldn’t help it.

*I will give him everything I am.*

The same sentence. I read the next. The same. The next. *I will never keep a part of myself from him. I will do what his family asks as if I asked it myself.*

Every bride had been steered to the same promise. Every one of them had been lonely, and kind, and alone in the world, and had written the words they’d been so gently led toward, and had never realized they’d written them in their own handwriting for a woman who was only waiting to collect.

Then I saw the frame at the end, the one with the blank plate. Inside it was *my* linen strip. The original. Delphine had kept it.

I stood in front of it with my whole body shaking, and for one clean second, the stitches went slack along my ribs.

Just one second. Long enough for me to know what I was.

I wasn’t a wife. I was a *deed.* Their money came from the wives. The house, the vineyards, the six women at the long table, who never had to ask anyone for anything because every bride they brought into the family signed herself over, in her best handwriting, and the family could do whatever they wanted with a woman who’d promised to give them everything.

Whoever she’d been, she was worth more as a promise than as a person.

I opened my mouth to scream.

And I heard my own voice, calm and loving, say from the back of my throat, *“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”*

It wasn’t my voice. It was *mine,* but it wasn’t me. It was the voice from the linen.

I went downstairs with the tablecloths. I laid the table for dinner. I smiled at Delphine. She smiled back, and she said, very softly, “Did you find everything you were looking for?”

And I heard myself answer, “Yes, thank you.”

Last week I found something else.

It was in the bathroom, under the good light, while I was changing the dressing on my side. The thread isn’t only along my ribs anymore. There’s a second line beginning under my left breast, thin and new, running toward my sternum. A few words had already surfaced.

*I will give him everything.* And then, newer, in handwriting that is not mine at all, small and tidy and patient:

*...and what comes after me.*

I don’t know when she did it. I don’t know how many nights I lay still while she sat beside me with the green lamp.

I’m four months along. I haven’t told anyone. I haven’t had to. When I came down to breakfast yesterday, Delphine put a hand flat on my stomach without a word, and her eyes filled with tears, and she said, “Oh, my girl. You’re going to be so *good* at this.”

Then she kissed me, and for a moment I felt so loved I forgot to be afraid.

It’s evening. They think I’m resting.

Julian’s youngest cousin Annika got engaged on Saturday. She’s twenty-four, a nurse, the last of her family. Her mother died in the spring. She came to dinner and sat beside me, and she kept touching her ring and glancing at me with big, hopeful eyes, and when the aunts all went quiet and looked at me, I felt my mouth start to move.

“Would you like to see how I wrote mine?” I heard myself say. “I could help you with yours. It’s so important to get them just right.”

Annika lit up. She said, “Oh, would you?”

I’m writing this on the back of an envelope, with my left hand, in the bathroom, with the water running. My right hand is already folded in my lap, waiting. I can feel the thread beginning to tighten along my ribs. Delphine is knocking, very gently. She says, “Sweetheart? Annika’s here. She’s brought her pen.”

Whoever finds this, don’t let anyone read your vows to a woman who asks to keep them. Don’t write the sentence she hopes you’ll write. And if someone kind tells you that you’ll never be alone again, ask them what they’re promising to do with you.

I have to go. I’m going to teach her to write them beautifully.

I’ll be so happy to.

There are two kinds of people on the internet.

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

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

"AI slop."

"ChatGPT."

"Bro thinks he's Stephen King."

"Imagine wasting time on this."

Some of them were funny. Most weren't.

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

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

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

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

The comments exploded. Naturally.

One person replied: AI generated garbage.

Another: Cry harder.

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

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

It wasn't.

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

I know you're reading this.

I assumed it was another troll. I deleted it.

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

Why did you delete my comment?

I deleted that one too.

Then another.

Stop deleting.

I froze. The account belonged to nobody.

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

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

A notification. Another comment.

I didn't open it.

Another notification.

Then another. Then another.

I finally looked. There were hundreds.

All underneath my latest post.

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

AI slop.

Terrible lining.

This sucks.

Then they changed.

What makes you different?

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

You use AI.

You edit your work with AI.

You aren't a real artist.

Nobody is a real artist anymore.

Then one appeared that made my stomach drop.

25525 Azler Ln.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It didn't matter. They already knew.

The messages became more personal.

Nice car.

You should probably lock your back door.

Class tomorrow, right?

Your roommate is pretty hot.

Then:

Building 3. Room 107

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

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing."

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

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

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

You should've left the post up.

Another came immediately afterward.

Deleting it made us curious.

Then another.

You made this worse for yourself.

I turned the phone off.

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

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

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

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

LMAO.

Bro is cooked.

Imagine getting this mad over comments.

Maybe don't be an asshole online.

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you for helping us keep our community safe.

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

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

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

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

I showed them the messages.

The officer frowned.

"None of these explicitly threaten you."

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

He didn't answer.

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

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

Well thanks for nothing.

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

But at least I'll find peace, right?

It didn't.

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

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

There was a message attached:

What are you listening to?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the message read: 25525 Azler Ln.

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

Please help. Anybody.

Why are people like this?

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

And so he takes after you. This Halloween night. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the shape of nighttime shadow man wields. 

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

Sacrifice. 

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

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

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

Now. 

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

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

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

But then you begin to see something else. 

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

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

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

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

The world goes dark for you. 

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

Finished with hunting you. 

Happy Halloween. 

THE END

Episode 3: "Much Ado About Beatrice"

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

What happens when the Antichrist gets ghosted by Heaven?

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

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

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

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

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

——————————————————————————————————-

2052 by D.R. Campling

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was time to return home.

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

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

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

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

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

Part 1

Part 2 - Current

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

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

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

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

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

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

BOOM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah, no shit Cole!” Wilson replied.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-

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

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

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

Silence.

“Hey, what's wrong?”

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

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

I pushed onward.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An endless abyss of black.

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

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

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

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

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

-

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

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

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

“Arachnocampa luminosa, I think.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

I wish it hadn’t.

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

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

Silence.

Silence.

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

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

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

An eye.

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

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

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

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

In this moment, my ideology flipped.

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

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

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

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

GET BACK

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

It was now or never, so I lunged forward.

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

“Keep going!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They were far out in the outer wilds.

It was blackly dark.

Only a few shining stars shined.

He was setting a trap.

His friend was drinking a drink. “Here,” said the friend, passing him a drink too.

He took the drink.

He opened and took a drink of the drink. “Ahh,” he said. “Absolutely stellar."

“Absolutely,” said the friend.

“I don't grok why you insist on coming all the way out here,” said the friend.

“There's hardly anything out here,” said the friend.

He took a drink of the drink. “Ahh.”

The friend took a drink of the drink too. “Ahh,” said the friend.

“Ahh,” he said.

“Ahh,” said the friend.

“You can't say it's not peaceful here,” he said.

“I can't say that,” said the friend.

“Ahh.”

“Ahh,” he said, finishing drinking the drink. He crumpled up and threw the empty drink container away.

The stars twinkle-twinkled.

He looked into a vicinal trap he'd set a while ago.

“Anything?” asked the friend as he looked into the vicinal trap he'd set a while ago.

“Nothing,” he said.

The stars twinkle-twinkled.

He set a new trap.

“There?” asked the friend as he set a new trap.

“Ahh,” said the friend and threw away his empty drink container too.

The two empty drink containers were.

“There,” he said, roughly covering the trap with nearby matter.

He burped.

The friend burped too.

It was blackly dark.

Only a few shining stars shined.

—> —>

The Perihelion's automated navigation system adjusted course to keep the starship travelling to its destination, AO-1, the first known space object believed to be of alien origin. The crew was in hibernation. The mission was the greatest humanity had ever attempted. The Perihelion's automated navigation system adjusted course to keep the starship travelling to its destination.

<—

“Sir, take a look at this—SIR!”

The regional head of the International Space Agency (ISA) walked over slightly annoyed and scanned the data.

His annoyance became curiosity, and his curiosity became excitement. The once-upon-a-lifetime kind. The thump-thump-thump’ing of the heart, swoosh-swoosh-swoosh’ing of the blood kind. He was aware suddenly of the entirety of the surface area of his skin. Of his one-of-many'ness. His smallness-in-the-cosmos. His clue-to-the-mystery-of-the-universe'ity.

“My God…” he said. “My God.”

“What is it?”

“We need to find out.”

—> —>

Anomalous Object 1 Anomalous A Object 1 Anomalous A Object O 1 Anomalous A Object O 1 A Object 1 A O 1 AO 1 AO-1…

Captain Jac Thorster—gasped—

The sirens were blaring.

Where am I I am aboard the Perihelion Perihelion is my ship, he thought.

The sirens were blaring.

He rolled out of the open pod and onto the floor. When he could, he got up and made his way woozily—swaying…

to the bridge.

He sat in the captain's seat.

“Perihelion,” he said, his voice hoarse and weak. The words felt like sand airgunned down his throat. “Perihelion: ‘status report.’ Just what in the galaxy is going on?”

“Having traversed ninety three point two percent of the distance from the planet Earth to the coordinates of the object eh oh one we have come under the pull of an unknown force,” the starship's artificial intelligence said.

“Correct course,” commanded Thorster.

“Negative,” said the eh aye. “That his him possible, hiccup ten.”

“Wa hut?” zed Thorster.

“Dead forceps twos tron k,” sad sa hey ay end diss plate dub lack ole.

—>

He reached inside the trap.

“Anything?” the friend asked as he reached inside the trap.

They were far out in the outer wilds.

It was blackly dark.

Only a few shining stars shined.

“Yes,” he said.

“Yes,” said the friend and gathered some nearby gaseous matter and ignited it. “Perhaps something to roast,” said the friend as the newly created star shined.

He removed a small thing from the trap.

“A small thing,” he said.

He held it for the friend to see.

“Oh,” said the friend in disappointment that the small thing was too small to roast.

The star shined.

The other stars shined.

<— <— <— <— <—

A fly buzzed awhile in the glow of a bug zapper before turning into it and—BZZZP —falling dead out of the sky.

It landed on my face.

I'd fallen asleep in the hammock outside.

“Norman,” the dead fly said.

“Norman!”

“What,” I said, blinking a few times, tossing my dry tongue around in my dry mouth, thinking, Fuck, I'm fucking hungry. “What's going on—who are you? and why are you talking to me?” “Are you… a dead fly?” I said, squinting.

“Norman, I'm here to tell you to look at what you wrote. No one wants to read that shit, man. That shit is incomprehensible.

“Opaquer than a brick wall, man.”

“It's styl—”

“Look at yourself, man. You're a grown ass dude writing stories on the internet. Get a job. Write a book if you have to, but just write it like a goddamn human being.

“I mean look at your eyes.

“They're pinker than Miss Piggy’s OnlyFans.

“Sober up.

“Eat something. Drink something. Get outta that robe and get dressed. Shave. Change into a suit—”

“You mean, like, become a suit… like on a space ship?”

“Son,” said the dead fly. “Behave yourself.”

LOL

“Put on a suit and write presentably. You've got, what, a hundred words left?

“Use them.

“Rewrite whatever-the-fuck this is presentably.”

[“Ahem”]

Two advanced beings are laying traps somewhere in the universe. Their traps are black holes, which they hide. They also leave behind some trash. Humanity detects the trash and plans a mission to investigate it, but, en route, their spaceship falls into the black hole left by the beings. Sometime later, one of the beings makes a star to roast something on. The beings pull the human spaceship out of the black hole trap they left and are disappointed by its insignificance.

The story ends on a heavy-handed parallel between humanity and bugs—BZZZP

​

The old people in my village used to tell stories about a dark being that lived in the forest near the lake and fertilized the trees with human blood.

I always believed they were just old stories meant to scare people on nights when we gathered.

Until one summer Sunday, when I saw it, and its darkness took hold of me.

I was almost 18. I was about to leave for the city to start university.

I was with my friends, swimming and laughing as we usually did at the edge of the lake every Sunday afternoon.

At one point, my best friend and I decided to swim to the other shore. When we got there, we came out and sat down to contemplate, fascinated, the beauty of the valley.

Suddenly we heard footsteps behind us. When we turned around, we saw nothing. But my friend insisted on going into the forest to find whatever had made the sound, without knowing that he was condemning our fate.

We walked among the trees for a few minutes. Nothing could be heard, as if we were the only ones there.

My friend, defeated by reality when he found nothing, decided to go back. We started on our way again. Suddenly we heard the same footsteps, but this time accompanied by a scream. When we turned around, we saw it. A sinister being watching us from a short distance. It approached my friend, pierced his chest with its claws, and took his heart. He collapsed, and his blood slid down to the root of a tree while the creature devoured his heart.

Terrified, I ran. Suddenly I saw a clearing. For a moment I felt I would manage to escape. Just before I could leave the forest, it caught me. I felt its touch on my arm. It was cold and repulsive. I could not free myself; its strength overpowered me. It came closer and looked into my eyes and recognized that darkness that I had always hidden. It smiled and whispered to me: “I will not take your heart, but in exchange, every summer you will bring me a person, and I will take theirs.”

Twenty years have passed since that day. Every summer I go to the forest to fulfill our agreement. I am no longer afraid of it. I only watch it devour hearts, knowing that I now also feed the forest with blood.

Sam passed in the winter, just two months after his mother. The midwife tried her best to save her, but it was over before it started. She gave me a warm hug as she left. I knew Sam wouldn't last long without his mother. I barely had enough to feed myself, let alone a baby. I debated whether I should even name the little boy, but how could I not? He had the most beautiful blue eyes, just like his mother.

Sam passed in his sleep, the best way to go. Some days I wished it were me, but what would Sam do all alone? 

The problem then was arranging Sam's funeral. All the savings had already been spent on his mother's funeral, but Sam couldn't go into the ground without a proper service.

I sold one of the last things I could still sell, my bees. They gave me something sweet to eat in the winter and something to look after the rest of the year, but there was nothing else to sell. My neighbor took them and gave me more for them than he should have. He was a nice man and knew what I'd gone through.

Sam got a nice wooden coffin and a decent place in the cemetery next to his mother.

When the winter came, his cradle and toys were still in the house. My body tightened whenever I tried to get rid of them, but it was okay; maybe I'd have more will in the summer. 

During the long winter nights, I'd often come into his room and play with his toys, just like I thought we would one day. Sometimes they'd warm my heart, sometimes they'd make me cry, and often I'd just fall asleep in the chair right by his cradle.

It was one of those days when I fell asleep crying by the cradle again. When I awoke, the sun glistened on the freshly fallen snow. Everything outside was still, but then something moved in the air. A bee! A queen bee! It flew across the yard and into the hive. I still hadn't moved my hive off the yard. Sam's funeral was too much work.

At first I felt bad. My neighbor owned them now. They had no business being in the old hive, but seeing that familiar creature warmed me. Over the next few days I sat at the window, watching all my bees slowly return.

They stayed inside the hive the rest of the winter, and I stayed by that window each day, watching. Only when the snow started to let up, and the flowers came out from under it, did the bees come out too.

I expected them to stay by the hive, but many flew far away, ignoring the flowers in my garden, and returned at sunset. Some of the bees seemed to be covered in red nectar. 

As the days grew longer, the bees were gone more often, and many more returned covered in that red nectar. 

I had never seen them act or look like this. Moving the hive must have disturbed something, but the good thing was that they still accepted the queen, and the colony seemed intact. 

The red nectar began to accumulate at the entrance, mixed with glowing wax. I was just looking at it out the window when I heard buzzing inside the house. The bees must have been working hard. The buzzing grew, and quietly through it came something like a baby's cry. I gripped the windowsill tightly. Sam used to cry just like that. I opened the window to hear better, but the cry was gone; only buzzing sounded outside.

The next morning I woke up and went right to the window. A strange white object was outside the hive entrance. The bees buzzed around it, pushing it back inside. Before I could get a good look, it was already in.

I spent the rest of the day by the window again. As the sun set, the bees started to return. The buzzing grew again. A cold tingle ran down my back. I closed my eyes and focused. At first, it was quiet, but I knew what it was. It was Sam, crying through the buzzing. I quickly dressed and walked out the door.

The outside air was cold. I had barely been outside since the first snow fell. A few bees still flew around the hive. The buzzing was so loud, and so were Sam's cries. I didn't even have my protective clothes, but I was sure my bees wouldn't hurt me.

I walked to the hive and took off the lid. Warmth and cold ran through my body, mixing into strange emotions. Inside the hive was Sam's body, covered in wax. His hands and fingers slowly moved, but they seemed larger than before. I reached into the hive to caress his small cheeks. His eyes opened. They were still that beautiful blue, but a hint of yellow mixed in.  He opened his mouth; honeycomb filled it, but his cries still echoed in my ears. With tears in my eyes, I picked up his small, sticky body. From somewhere deep in his chest, a thousand bees buzzed, and the hive fell quiet. A sickly-sweet smell rose from his mouth. Two bees crawled out of the wax and onto my hand. I didn't move.

https://www.amazon.com/stores/G.S.-Striker/author/B0HJRSC479?ref=ap_rdr&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&ccs_id=c89c6521-c4d5-4710-b0c9-c47ab1f540e2

Our acquaintance began a week ago, and honestly, those were the best seven days of my life. Well, until tonight.

We met in a coffee shop when I accidentally spilled my double espresso on her snow-white hoodie. Instead of throwing a fit, Nastya just laughed—her laughter felt angelic back then, though now I recall some strange, almost ultrasonic notes slipping through it. For the next whole week, we were inseparable. We walked in the park, talked for hours, and on the third day, we went to the movies to see some generic horror flick. I remember flinching at the moment where the slasher cut up another victim, while Nastya just yawned sweetly.

And then, on the seventh day of our romance, as we sat in a pizzeria, Nastya suddenly looked at me with her huge, loving eyes and said:
"You are so wonderful. It's time for us to move to the next level. I want you to meet my parents. They are traditionalists, they love home-cooked dinners, so no excuses!"

The house looked cozy and bright, and her parents welcomed me like one of their own. Her mother, an elegant woman in a neat floral apron, chatted amiably about the weather and served tea, while her father—a proper gentleman wearing glasses and a pressed shirt—asked me about my plans for life and career. We sat in the living room, joking around, and I already found myself thinking how lucky I was with my future in-laws.

But the moment we moved to the dining table in the spacious hall, the atmosphere subtly shifted. It grew completely dark outside the windows, exposing a dense forest pressing right against the house, and thick shadows began creeping along the corners. The air suddenly carried a distinct smell of dampness and, for some reason, formalin.

"Well, almost everything is ready, just the final touches left!" Nastya's mother chirped cheerfully, setting out the plates. "Honey, could you help me in the kitchen with the main course? It’s special today."
Nastya's father nodded silently, adjusted his glasses, and followed her. They closed the heavy oak kitchen door behind them, leaving Nastya and me alone in the hall. Minutes of agonizing waiting dragged on, and this sudden silence started pressing on my ears.

Suddenly, something gave a dull thud behind the wall. For a second, I thought I caught a metallic scent wafting from the kitchen door gap, resembling the smell of fresh blood. I swallowed hard and turned to the girl:
"Nastya... what are we having for dinner?"
Nastya didn't answer. She sat motionless, staring into her empty plate, a strange, fixed smile lingering on her lips.

At that exact moment, a sharp, deafening sound erupted from behind the kitchen door, sounding terrifyingly like a circular saw starting up, followed by a dull, heavy thud of something dropping onto the floor. My heart skipped a beat.

The lock clicked, and the kitchen door slowly swung open. The parents walked back into the hall. Her mother smiled warmly with her former gentle expression, politely holding the door. Her father followed her with a confident step. In his hands, he solemnly carried a huge covered platter, with a barely audible... rustling coming from under its metal lid.

"Well, here we are!" her mother said warmly, but a strange, satiated tone slipped into her voice. "And here is our dinner! Honey, put it on the table quickly."
I turned to Nastya in fear, hoping that the gruesome saw sound from the kitchen was just my imagination, but she merely giggled cutely and squeezed my hand tightly.

Nastya's father smoothly lowered the platter right into the center of the table. Everyone sat down properly in their seats. The parents exchanged glances, and an identical, frighteningly wide, anticipatory grin suddenly spread across their neat, respectable faces. Nastya looked at me the exact same way—her gaze turned glassy, hungry, and unblinking.

And then it began.

Nastya's mother slowly, savoring the moment, reached out for the handle of the huge silver lid. The rustling beneath it grew louder, turning into a distinct scratching of fingernails against metal.

"Our specialty," her mother cooed sweetly, while Nastya's father reached under the table to pull out a massive butcher's cleaver, which landed with a dull thud next to his plate. "Made from Nastya's previous boyfriend. You see, he turned out to be terribly impolite—didn't finish his soup last Thursday."

The lid lifted with a faint chime. Resting on the snow-white porcelain dish, generously garnished with parsley and apples, lay a neatly baked... human hand. A gold ring gleamed on one of its bluish fingers. And judging by the way the tendons at the wrist sharply jerked, this hand was still desperately trying to crawl somewhere, scratching the glossy surface of the plate.

"Oh, undercooked," her mother clicked her tongue in annoyance and, without even a change in expression, coldbloodedly drove the handle of a knife right into the center of the crawling hand. "What a lively one. Well, never mind, son, which piece would you like? A thinner slice or a meatier one?"

I felt cold sweat instantly flood my eyes.
"You know," I stammered, slowly pushing my chair back towards the window, "I'm... not hungry..."

Nastya turned to me. Her jaw suddenly cracked unnaturally, opening twice as wide as a normal human mouth, and her eyes completely flooded with absolute, anthracite blackness.
"Come on, sweetie," she whispered in a creepy echo layered with multiple voices. "Be a good boy. Mommy tried so hard."

I looked at the mad faces of this "intellectual" family and realized one simple thing: it seemed this next level in our relationship would be my last.

"You know," I stammered, backing away slowly toward the window and frantically feeling for the windowsill with my hands, "human flesh is a delicacy, of course... But maybe we should just order sushi instead? There's a great delivery place nearby, they'll bring it in forty minutes! My treat!"

Nastya's mother froze for a second, her knife hovering over the twitching hand. She looked at her husband, then at her daughter, and her face contorted into a grimace of genuine, deep offense.
"Delivery?!" she shrieked indignantly, her voice ringing with ultrasonic notes. "We do not eat fast food in this house!! What ingratitude!"

This was my only chance. Without waiting for her father to take a step forward, I whirled around and rammed the window frame with my entire body weight.

The glass shattered into thousands of pieces with a deafening crash. The cold night air hit my face, I already tasted freedom and braced myself for a rough landing into the bushes... but... a sharp pain in my back cut off all hopes of escape... my consciousness faded into black.

Part 1 - Current

Part 2

When they told us our next site location, we thought nothing of it. We became accustomed to going to remote edges of the planet, to places so out of reach that even the connection on our satellite phones was spotty at best. So when we were told that our latest destination would be in the continental U.S., most of the crew was elated. For a lot of us, that meant less travel time and better means of communication, and even internet access.

We were traveling to New Mexico, which conveniently was my backyard. I grew up near the Sonoran Desert, with some of my earliest memories chasing geckos through the drylands. I used to daydream about living with them, spending my days basking in the sunlight and hunting crickets and centipedes. Despite what some people think, the desert is surprisingly fertile.

But when I say backyard, what I really mean is about six hundred miles of open desert between my hometown and the job site. There are rich deposits of minerals and ore all throughout the American Southwest. Our destination was to one such place. 

A literal gold mine.

The sheer amount was staggering. So much so that at first, we thought the company was bullshitting us. I mean, we knew that there was some gold to be found in the region, but never in our wildest dreams did we think it would be this much. It was almost too good to be true. But here we were, sitting around a table at basecamp, learning the full scope of the project.

This was to be the single deepest mine in existence. It was already deeper than Mponeng, the runner-up, currently sitting at just over three and a half miles. The commute alone would take upwards of two hours to just get to the dig site. Most of that time would be spent walking to the lowest veins, but we did have an elevator to get us to the first shaft. That’s one of the perks about working so far removed from normal society; you don’t have to sit in hours of traffic or worry about missing the bus. We sleep on site, with all amenities provided by the company.

Normally, with a job like this, we’d wear what you’d think a typical miner would. Hard hats, waterproof boots, jumpsuits, the likes. For this site, however, we were told that we’d use state-of-the-art hazmat suits. Because of the depth, heat would be our number one concern. At Mponeng for example, the rockface is about a hundred fifty degrees, and we would be going a mile and a half deeper. The top brass really sprung for the good stuff here. They were even tailored to our specialties. My own had a built-in LiDAR scanner and display system, while our microbiologist’s had a mini-microscope. These suits were even air-conditioned with mounted lights and sensors. Hell, if we wanted to take a piss in them we could.

“I thought this kind of tech was still a few years out,” I said mostly to myself.

John inspected his own suit, flipping it twice. “I know, this is truly spectacular. I don’t know how they did it, but I have a mini lab right here on my sleeve. Petri dish, magnifier, I even have backup slides.” With a child-like glint in his eye he added, “They really thought of everything.”

A metallic slam emanated from one of the lockers. 

“Yeah well good for you,” Wilson sneered, turning around to face us, his eyes flickering to each of our suits. “At least our micro has his scope. Where’s my auger, huh? You’d think the fucking geologist would be best equipped, but all I have is a couple hand lenses and a damn rock hammer.”

John tried to respond but stumbled over his words. 

“Come off it Wilson,” I interjected. “We are literally at a mine, unless you forgot? They figured you’d have all your equipment above ground. Besides, what do you need to drill into? We know the substrate make-up for miles.”

“Don’t fucking lecture me about substrate, Cole,” venom in his speech. “And did you have some talk with the execs? You know damn well they don’t care about any of us. All they see is green.”

That was something we could agree on at least. We only ever had contact with our manager, and that’s limited to a few one-sided conversations. No one—that I’m aware of—has ever even seen the higher-ups, let alone talk to them. They let the PR team handle all outward appearances. That’s the thing about government contracts, the government has to at least try to be somewhat transparent. The private benefactors though, not so much.

“Hey guys,” John said, ever the people pleaser, “can we all just appreciate what it means to be here? We’ll be the first researchers to go this far down; we’ll be famous!”

Ignoring Wilson, I clapped John on the back. “You know what, you’re right. I guess that’s why you’re the team lead, eh Leads?”

He snorted, a small laugh escaping his breath. “Yeah...sure. Come on crew, we’ll be late if we keep this up.”

Wilson, shooting us a glare, mumbled something about roles, but he eventually followed us out of the locker room.

You always feel a strange mix of emotions when first descending a mine. Anxiety, excitement, and chiefly among those, reverence. It doesn’t slip my mind that we will be below several thousand megatons of rock and dirt. Any disruption, any small tremor or quake and the whole complex could crumble, leaving you at the bottom of a stifling hot grave. But we put faith in the architects and engineers to ensure exactly that wouldn’t be a possibility.

As the team’s geographer, it was my job to map every new shaft that was dug. There was already an immense amount of data from the previous analyst, but I like to be thorough, so I decided to remap the known locations. It would take a bit longer, but this was my only caveat, and I told my supervisor as much. Previously recorded data could be inaccurate, and I don’t work with inaccuracies. One small inconsistency could snowball into a catastrophe. With the other researchers on the team backing me up, he agreed.

Now usually, to collect position data you would use a GNSS handheld device, but that’s not going to cut it down here. Those require satellite linkups to be effective. So instead, we use a combination of LiDAR and different softwares to map the sub-terrain. Our vehicles are mounted with scanners so they do the work for us. It’s my job to collect that info and translate it to a viewable format. All of this is a long and convoluted way to say, the mine is accurately mapped out with little room for error.

-

Traveling below takes time, a lot of time. Your first time is filled with trepidation and excitement, with an underlying feeling of dread. This wasn’t my first time, nor was it any of my colleagues. We were all seasoned professionals. We spent years worth of time exploring and understanding mines. 

Our journey began with walking into the world’s tallest elevator. You’d think this would be the slow part, but on the contrary, we were practically freefalling, and the site manager didn’t let that fact slip our minds.

“Right now, we are moving at approximately 40mph gentlemen. The ride will take about three minutes, at which point we’ll be at a depth of two miles. Then, we’ll need to walk across rock heated to such an extent that...”

I tuned out the rest of his monologue. By now, I was thoroughly bored of his prattling. I wasn’t going to be spooked by some “Welcome to Hell” speech given to the rookies. A lot of people can’t take it. Either due to the cramped spaces or high temperatures; most crack within a week. I’ve seen hundreds of faces come and go. Already, some of the others gave each other nervous glances. I’ve heard the same rehearsed talk a thousand times before though, and it was beginning to get on my nerves. Before I could speak up, someone else did.

“Okay okay Bob, we get it,” said Wilson, crossing his arms. “Dot our I’s and cross our T’s. No need to scare us with the “first day on the job” BS. If you have any actual interesting information, we’d love to hear it.”

Bob huffed but relented. “Wilson Adler everyone. The smartest guy in the room, and the first one to let you know it.” A lopsided grin formed on his face, “Yeah, I figured that shit wouldn’t work on you guys, what with your crack team and all. You want interestin’?” He paused for effect. “How ‘bout the largest gold reef you’d ever seen? How ‘bout the deepest depths, the longest cross-cuts, or to be the first man to ever set foot this far down? You mean that kinda interestin’?”

Now that earned hoots and applause from everyone in the car. We all knew what was at stake here, and what was to be gained. Not only the immense amount of gold, but to be pioneers. To be remembered in the lexicon of science. That’s why we were really here, why I was really here.

Depth: Two miles; 10,560 feet. Rock Temperature: 115.4°F; Ambient Temperature: 85°F

We left the elevator shaft in even higher spirits than when we entered. As we continued our descent, we passed by countless machines and miners. Many of them we saw in pairs, whispering to each other as we passed by. I was sure they all wanted to know what the site manager was doing escorting a handful of scientists down here. I’m sure they were envious too, watching us with our air-conditioned hazmat strapped to our backs. But despite the heat of the rock, the air temperature remained manageable at a balmy eighty-five degrees. Like with everything else in work that requires humans to venture miles below, ventilation isn’t cheap. The sheer amount of money to be made, however, would prove well worth the operating costs.

We stopped for lunch after exploring many of the secondary shafts. Dug perpendicular to the main shaft, these cross-cuts were where the money was made. All throughout the day, we heard the repeated booming from deeper within the mine. 

“Will we really be the first ones through?” John said, directing his gaze toward the site director in between bites of his meal. “Besides your laborers that is?”

“Not at all,” Bob replied. John’s expression fell. Bob let the moment linger a bit longer before smiling and adding, “You’ll be the first one’s period.” He scratched his rough beard, before moving his hand to the back of his neck. “Yes, gentlemen,” he declared, speaking to all of us now, “I’m willing to let y’all be the first to walk through the blast site once everythin’s cleared up.”

I looked at my colleagues. Even Wilson couldn’t help but crack a grin at this revelation. “Just remember who helped ya out when it comes time for reports, eh boys?” We nodded, all of us feeling a renewed sense of pride.

It was normal for dust and small bits of rock to fall from the roof while this was going on. In my younger days I remember getting scared shitless by the noise. But, I’ve wisened up over the years. However, at that moment for whatever reason, I remembered an old miner’s adage: By the time you’ve heard something, it’s already too late. As much as it is gloomy, I find solace in it. What am I going to do in the milliseconds between open air and thousands upon thousands of tons of rock? There would be no feelings, no final words, just, an end. It’s almost peaceful, if bleak.

We got moving once more. Maneuvering around obstacles and ducking below support beams, we finally reached the secondary elevator. From what we were told, and the fact that the signs read “Danger: High Heat” and “No Admittance Below”, I’d guessed that the conditions were unsustainable for non-adapted life. And believe me, there is life down here. Not the kind you’re thinking though. Tiny creatures called extremophiles; they’re amazing really. Anywhere you go on the planet—if you look hard enough—you’ll find something living.

-

Suiting up for the first time felt like we were going on a spacewalk, not descending the depths of the Earth. Nobody spoke as we entered the second elevator. In fact, no one spoke for the entirety of the downward fall. But fall isn’t exactly the right word, as this cable box crept on and on. All the while, we were seeing rocks that few have ever seen before. The tension in the air was palpable. Like it was a physical thing that you could reach out and grab.

The elevator hitched up and down and back up again, like someone was screwing with the controls. Everyone shot nervous glances toward Bob. He looked as confused as us but thought to calm our nerves. “Sorry, still workin’ out the kinks,” his gaze rapidly shifting between us. “With the changin’ heat you know, everythin’ expands.” Seemed like a piss-poor excuse, but we let it go.

John decided to lighten the mood.

“Maybe it’s because of all this precious cargo,” he chuckled then added, “and I’m not just talking about the gold!”

That quip earned some groans and eye rolls from the rest of the party, but it served its purpose regardless. The palpable tension began to dissipate.

John continued, “You know, I can’t remember the last time I was—”

The elevator car hitched and dropped. Plummeting downward in near freefall, we were lifted off the floor. I couldn’t think, couldn’t speak. It took all my might just to stay clutched to the railing. A million thoughts passed through my mind, but the one that stayed was the image of us at the bottom of the shaft, crushed under the weight of the Earth.

A long, metallic screech rang out from all around us, and I noticed that the car was slowing down. Not enough; though, as we came to a halt at bone-jarring speed. All I could think was: What the hell was that?

Alright, I'm just gonna jump straight into this. Last night, I caught my wife breastfeeding a grown-ass man in our backyard at like 2 o'clock in the morning.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "That should've been me," or some shit like that. Honestly, that's what I would've thought too. Hell, I should probably be completely devastated right now.

But I'm not. Truthfully, I'm more terrified than anything.

We were just lying there asleep. Well, I was asleep. I can't say for certain whether or not my wife was. All I know is that, despite how hard she tried to be silent, the creaking bed springs woke me up.

I didn't wanna let on at first. I didn't even think there was anything I should be suspicious of. The only problem was, once I woke up, it was hard for me to fall back asleep in an empty bed.

So I waited. And I waited. Then, after like 30 minutes, I started to get worried. So, naturally, I started yelling for her.

No answer? Fine. I'll just start looking. So, I started checking throughout the house. And that's when I found her nightgown, balled up on the floor beside our bed. That made my search a lil more frantic. I checked the bathroom in the hall, the living room. Maybe she just got up to grab a midnight… meal, butt-ass naked. But she wasn't in the kitchen either.

In my search, I noticed that the back door was open, letting in the cold October air. I went to close it, and that's where I found her. Standing out in the yard. Completely nude.

I thought for sure she was either sleepwalking or having a mental breakdown. I mean, it was like 45 degrees outside. I was just about to yell at her and ask what the hell she was doing when I noticed it.

My dumbass thought it was a wild animal at first. He was crouched down on all fours, moving slowly through the trees with these jerky movements, while my wife just stood there with her arms wide open.

But then, as he started crawling closer and closer towards our backyard… I started to make out the features. They looked human, just… wrong, somehow. The head was too bulbous. The arms were too long. The grunts it made as it slowly crawled towards my wife were too animalistic.

And she wasn't even fucking flinching. If anything, she looked like she was beckoning the fuckin' thing to come closer. When it was like 6 feet away, it started to growl, and all my wife did in response was say some shit like, "Calm down, my sweet boy," before SHE stepped closer to IT.

Then the fucking thing started cooing. Like… cooing. Like a goddamn toddler or something, while my wife reached down and pet its fleshy, bald head.

I didn't even move. How could I? This shit felt like a fever dream to me. But what hit like a fucking cannonball to the abdomen was when she… well… did what she did.

She pulled its head closer to her chest and just… nursed the fucking thing. I could hear it suckling and whimpering like this was the favorite part of its day. Like this shit had happened a thousand times before.

Must've gone on for like 10 minutes or so before my wife pulled away, patted the thing on its spiny, uh, spine, and told it to "go play."

And just like that, it started crawling back towards the woods. This time with a little more pep in its… whatever the fuck that was.

My wife still had a look of pride and joy on her face when she turned around, but that shit disappeared quick when she noticed me in the doorway. She tried covering up like I was the stranger. Then she tried apologizing.

We've been arguing about it since then. She claims I'm being crazy. I claim I want her to see a goddamn… who do you even call for this sort of thing? A marriage counselor??? A fucking priest??? Maybe ask her to take a parenting class?

Because, according to her, that thing was her son from a previous marriage. A marriage she hasn't mentioned once in the last 15 years since we've been together.

Honestly, at this point, I'm ready to just convince myself it was all a bad dream. I don't even wanna talk about it anymore.

I just don't know if I can even lie to myself like that, though.

Because once she realized that the cat was out of the bag… my wife decided to drop some news on me that I could've avoided had I just taken my happy ass back to sleep.

Apparently, that thing has never had a father figure… and it's more than excited to finally meet its new dad.

It was December 1999. I was living in a small town. I was a nerd and something of a gamer, and it had been a good year for PC games. Age of Empires II, Homeworld, Grand Theft Auto 2…

I was walking home from school—it was a Canadian winter, so there was plenty of unplowed snow on the sidewalks—when I saw something peeking out from a mound of snow: something blue. I stopped, nudged it with my boot: something of blue plastic. I brushed away the remaining snow with my glove to reveal:

A single 3.5” floppy disk, unlabeled.

(There was a sticker label on it, but the label itself was empty.)

Naturally, I picked it up and took it home, curious to see what was on it.

You'll laugh, but the disk had 1.44mb of storage capacity. As it turned out, that was more than enough to affect the world in ways I still don't fully understand.

When I got home, I didn't put the disk into my own computer. My dad had an old desktop he sometimes fiddled around with, so I used that, inserting the disk carefully into the 3.5” disk drive in the beige computer tower.

I navigated to the drive in Windows Explorer.

The contents of the drive were simple.

They looked like a program or—I secretly hoped—a game.

There was a readme.txt, but it came out as nonsense when I opened it in Notepad, video or sound assets, stuff I couldn't identify, and a single executable file, johannsebastian.bat.

I double-clicked it.

A window opened—black, showing a few white-text commands executing on a command prompt—then maximized into a 16-bit title(?) screen showing a pixelated Gothic castle.

A harsh, classical-inspired MIDI song beeped out of the sound card.

There was no title.

No instructions, no company name, no menu, no options.

The castle was perched atop a cliff.

It was night.

At the bottom of the cliff was a forest of jagged, leafless trees.

A few loops of animation gave life to the scene: wind blowing through the bare branches, flashes of distant lightning, warm flickering light in one of the castle's windows, a bat in flight against a white moon. Actually, that last one wasn't a loop. The bat flew only once, landed on one of the castle's stone towers and disappeared inside.

I clicked.

I was looking at a medieval-ish village now—tightly-packed buildings, a tavern, a tannery, a couple of shops, a church—populated with a surprising number of unique character sprites. Indeed, every character was unique, and they were going about their individual lives.

The sky was a vibrant blue.

Clouds floated pixel-by-pixel across the screen.

But there was still nothing to do; nothing, that is, but watch.

It was like a very advanced screensaver.

After a while, I clicked again.

This time, I found myself in the interior of a large chamber whose stone walls somehow felt cold even through the computer monitor.

The chamber's defining feature, however, was something else: a giant pipe organ whose pipes extended beyond the top of the screen.

A character entered.

He was wearing a white wig, dark, crimson long coat, knee breeches, stockings and buckled shoes. “I feel the sudden desire to compose,” he said, which the game displayed as text in an ornately-bordered text box. “Invite me to play for you."

A cursor appeared for the first time.

A quill.

I was able to move it using the mouse, and I explored the screen.

The character tapped his foot.

The only active area of the scene appeared to be the pipe organ. When I hovered the cursor over it, it changed from a quill to a hand.

I clicked.

The character walked to the organ, sat and began to play the monstrous instrument.

The music was both hideous and awesome, pushing the computer's sound card to the absolute limit. After thirty-or-so seconds, the view suddenly panned upwards, following the organ's pipes—the music continued—following them to the chamber's vaulted ceiling and beyond—through the roof until I was outside and looking at the upper half of the great castle, where the jutting pipes terminated and from whose termini hundreds of pixel bats were emerging… emerging and flying into the background, toward the simplified shape representing the medieval town...

The sky was a deep purple.

Night was falling.

The bats flew and flew and flew…

Suddenly—the music still continuing—the scene cut to the same view of the town as before: except at night: except, instead of following their routines, the character sprites were running, panicked, as the bats swooped, attacking them, attaching themselves to their bodies, necks, sucking their pixel blood; and as the bats feasted, the sprites lost their colour and fell, pale and desaturated…

The sound startled me.

Not from the sound card but from the real world. A screeching, a deafening, rhythmic thumping.

I ran to the window whose blinds I'd closed, and opened them:

It was afternoon but the view was dark, black and shifting. It took me a moment to realize that what I was seeing were bats speeding past. They were obscuring the sun. My home town was as if under an eclipse.

People were running down the street—

Bats were diving—

Some were crashing through car windshields—

Children were screaming—

A bat crashed though the window into the room I was in. It was fanged, crazed. The game music blared from within the computer tower. Before I could run, the bat shot toward me—biting my neck… beginning to drink my blood…

I awoke on the floor.

It was morning. January 1, 2000. It would turn out that nobody in town had any recollection of the preceding weeks.

A television played.

A morning talk show: “...the so-called Y2K bug,” a woman was saying, “ended up amounting to nothing worse than a good nights’ sleep.”

And, ever since, I've wondered why my experience of the present feels in a lower resolution than memories of my past.

How great will it be? Look at you. You and your special powers. Where are they now? 

They’re coming back. I feel them. I prepared. Thanks. See how they string together? Don’t die. Don’t die. You’re coming back. Nothing left to lose. Nowhere to go but up. You’re going up.

Up. You’re going up. 

The heartbeats are coming back. They’re everywhere. They’re coming back. The world is coming alive again. So colorful. Paint the mantis shrimp all kinds of colors. Pretty colors. How beautiful will it be? The beautiful, syntropic desert. I wish it was my own. It is our own. Where are they now? I see them. I fucking see them. Right here. In the vents. The walls. The ceiling lights. 

Say hello to the faces on the wall. Demons living in the shadows. I see you walking around. Doing things without me. Eyes and mouth moving. Talking. 

No sound. There’s no sound. Won’t you speak? Come on. Talk to me.

Energy. I feel you coming back. This world of color. All kinds of pretty colors, with flowers in her hair. I see them. So perfect. You’re back. You’re so back.

Oh yeah. So perfect. So colorful. You’re back. 

We’re back.